As we are gearing up for week full of interviews from Clearly Green Design and the Futuresonic Festival and Conference (a sneak peek photo of the Futuresonic interview above!), this week’s uber-short post is on some valuable and unique tools for business owners looking to refresh their green marketing efforts.
1. Widgetbox allows you to search for widgets and once you find a good match for your busines, it lets you customize the mini-application and add it to your own Web site or blog. Green Printer even has one too.
2. Volusion. Because Barack Obama used it in his campaign and well, look where it took him. No seriously, Volusion’s Gold Plan edition offers new social commerce features and affordable plans for tech-savvy entrepreneurs.
3. Besides Google AdWords, Clickable Pro for Advertisers is an affordable and simple online advertising Web service that helps small to medium sized businesses to create and manage search marketing campaigns from a single location.
That’s it! We told you it would be short. Stay tuned for the blog-blitzrieg next week through our “Design Goes Green” series.
Why not take this time to incubate your business (from a caterpillar into a butterfly metamorphosis, if you will) and re-invest in your brand.
This is likely a slower client year than most businesses may be used to so lack of time is no excuse not to get started. And money? When business is scarce for your retail neighbours down the street, consider that suppliers may be more willing than usual to negotiate high volume orders. Read the rest of this entry »
A special guest post by Aaron Schoenberger forGreen Printer‘s ‘Design Goes Green’ blog.
A common misconception, one that I’ve seen a thousand times, is the idea that simply printing on recycled mediums, with soy ink, will make one’s marketing materials green. In essence, it’s not only the printing that makes a company green, but also the research and time spent identifying target markets, concocting copy that’s both precise and somewhat vague at the same time, limiting the want to send promotional material to everyone on the planet, and a host of other factors that, if not done properly, will result in a slap on the wrist from good ole’ Mother Earth. Read the rest of this entry »
I applaud each and every company and person that makes an effort to “Go Green“. I personally feel that if you contribute in any way, you are helping out! I also believe that there are a lot of companies who don’t realize the little things do help. I have compiled a list of ten ways that almost every company can contribute to, by making these small but significant changes.
1. BE A PART OF THE GREEN COMMUNITY
Support green communities online. It is a great way to market your company as well as getting involved. Join associations or charities. Some of my favourites…
Design Goes Green – The first of a series of articles by Green Printer on the cross-section between the environment, business and the creative communications industry.
You are an award-winning, environmentally friendly design firm. Tell us what your clients come to your company for and what makes Studio 7 Designs different from other ‘green’ design firms.
We started out about five years ago by providing non-profit groups with free consultation and web design. Originally, we focused on helping out local companies ─ it was our way of giving back to the community. After about two years of helping about 50 non-profit organizations, including many universities and UN chapters, we were getting offers for corporate branding through our contacts. At that time, Studio 7 Designs was run by me and some part-time designers, so it was a natural evolution to move towards being a full-time design and development company. Our roots are based in real ethics. Our site doesn’t have a green theme; we wanted to try to capture the beauty of the natural world and use artistic creativity to show who we are as a whole. Read the rest of this entry »
The verdict is in from the top social media honchos: social media isn’t just a fringe benefit to add as a complementary side dish to your regular marketing plan – it is your main marketing plan for 2009.
What is interesting is that Etsy has intentionally avoided big glossy ads in magazines in favour of seller-created street teams and video content to pull off the best, tried-and-true marketing strategy of all: word of mouth (WOM). Read the rest of this entry »
We scoured the web for you, dear readers (okay, we did our due diligence and browsed numerous sites) and here are five resolutions you can take action on the first week back at the office. Or, more realistically, as soon as you recuperate from your New Year and holiday festivities.
1. Automate it… and cut out more green duty to remember in January
In “10 Resolutions to Green Your Technology“, Anna Jaeger from the TechSoup blog suggests setting up an office-wide policy on computer settings. She recommends taking a few minutes to set up a power-management feature (available on a Mac and a PC) that can help save money, reduce impact on the environment and extend the life of the office hardware for years to come. According to Climate Savers Computing Initiative, one of the leading power-management advocacy organizations in the United States, the average desktop PC wastes nearly half the power it pulls from the wall as heat. Read the rest of this entry »
My assumption is that kids are already well ahead of their parents in terms of incorporating green living (with less fuss than adults) into their lives and those of their peers. In fact, kids often pressure parents to recycle, according to a study published in the BBC.
Still, raising children to be good citizens and those that can quickly make the link between paper usage, recycling, deforestation, government action and climate change later in their life (I coin these savvy “Forest Citizens”) is not easy but it is well worth it on many levels. Here is who we are watching to help us raise good Forest Citizens as we embark on the craziness of the school year: Read the rest of this entry »
Myth no. 1: The paper production industry is low on the GHG emitter totem pole.
Not so, actually the paper and pulp industry is the third largest polluter in both Canada and the United States. The Green Press Initiative (GPI) states that one of the biggest benefits of using recycled fiber is that it emits 38 percent less GHGs. Recycled fiber also uses 44 percent less energy to produce, and conserves up to 34 mature trees for every ton replacing virgin fiber. Read the rest of this entry »
According to Patricia Calkins, Xerox vice-president for Environment, Health and Safety, being smarter about paper use is a win for the environment and for the bottom line, so it is no surprise businesses would zero in on improving their performance in that area.
While long an “evangelist” for greener operations, Xerox is, at its core, a global document management company, which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies.
And so, the question that Jeff McIntire-Strasburg asked in April still hovers: “can a company that manufactures copy machines, and sells more paper than any other single brand, really walk the talk on sustainable business practices?” Read the rest of this entry »
