Getting Human with Your ESG Marketing Campaign
08.31.22
By Holly Venable, Creative Director
Part II - Getting Human with Your ESG Marketing Campaign
In Part 1, we looked at the growing stats showing that a brand’s public Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) marketing campaign can positively increase customer loyalty and employee retention (all of which adds to healthy, long-term bottom line).
Effectively communicating your company’s ESG story can be challenging, but you don’t have to boil the ocean. It starts with finding those key personal story nuggets that showcase the “human” experience of your brand as it betters society and the world. Here are a few quick tips:
1. Tap into the motivations and stories of your employees
“The five most influential people in a workforce can reach more than double the amount of people a five-person leadership team can.”
Never underestimate the power of your grassroots employee evangelists and their stories. These “golden” influencers are the ones who naturally resonate with your brand message and are vocally passionate advocates who live, breathe, and believe it. Help them develop their content skills and empower them to highlight their stories, their passions, and their experiences. Use them to contribute to your internal and external social media campaigns.
Allowing employees to share their ‘why’ brings great opportunity for connection, deeply rooted in purpose. In addition, an authentic, personal story can be worth far more than a paid media message, particularly with your internal workforce.
2. Leverage the power of external micro-social media influencers
Do you have people whom you trust implicitly when you are looking for recommendations? Be it a new recipe, a compelling book, or the best places to travel, these people’s choices and comments consistently resonate with what you like.
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell writes about “The Law of the Few” in which a small subset of people is incredibly effective at spreading a compelling idea, product, or behavior amongst a larger group. When we’re talking about micro-influencers, we aren’t looking for the heavy guns of Oprah (but obviously if Oprah is touting your brand, ride that train!). Look for authentic, trusted sources of information. This is someone who influences local audiences and has anywhere from 10K-50K followers.
Finding these micro-influencers to help tell your ESG story may be simpler than you think. Mine your company blog, community boards, and customer chats for people who are positively talking about your brand—these are your micro-influencer potentials. Look for hashtags on social media. You can also use paid tools to help you do much of this legwork.
Once you find these influencers, partner with them. Give them the inside scoop on your ESG efforts. Be real with them. Treat them like the trusted marketing partner that they already are unofficially and let them help your ESG story shine. After all, partnering with the right brand evangelists can drive big business impact - 71% of marketers agree that the quality of customers and traffic is better from influencer marketing compared to other sources, showing that influencers can boost conversion.
3. Meet your audiences where they are at (but don’t try to fake it)
We all know that savvy marketing and building brand loyalty is about meeting your audiences where they are at and engaging them in an authentic way. I don’t walk into Trader Joe’s with the expectation that they are going to have huge LED walls touting the wonderful things they are doing for ESG. It’s authentically woven into the product packaging, the way employees treat each other and their customers, and the cult following of beloved Trader Joe’s products among peer groups and social media.
Don’t try to boil the ocean when it comes to your marketing plan. Think about areas you can impact now. Start where you already have an established audience base (like a community page or blog following). Look for ways to hype your brand’s ESG facts and stats on your Event Expo floor or walk-in keynote loops. Find your C-Suite ESG advocates and ask them to share their stories to help bolster your communications efforts.
Bottom line: You don’t have to hit your audiences over the head with a giant blast of information. Start as small as you need to, but keep the stories human-focused, be assertive, be observant, and watch your little garden expand over time.
4. And don’t forget to: Measure. Measure. Measure.
As innate data geeks, my team and I always want to know the outcome of audience engagement. Because if you don’t know where you started, how can you tell how far you’ve come?
Look for ways to make your measurement tools work smarter, not harder, and focus on the emotional drivers that are moving your audiences closer to your goals.
Much of what you’re looking to “prove” to stakeholders is how your ESG efforts are impacting public perception and then ultimately revenue. Every stakeholder communication touchpoint whether in-person or digital should be evaluated both quantitively and qualitatively for how your ESG message was perceived so that you can keep doing what works well and change what doesn’t. (Remember, even Wall Street is now paying attention to a company’s ESG efforts, so no pressure, right?) The key to a good ESG measurement program is benchmarking, validating by cross-referencing relevant data sources, and going beyond just the data to analyze and provide insights and recommendations based on your findings.
Amid global, political, environmental, and societal chaos, people are increasingly seeking brands to depend on and trust— brands that actively support the environment, climate, diversity and inclusion, and other vital areas that positively impact society.
At the end of the day, sharing your brand’s ESG efforts is not only good for the world—it’s a golden opportunity to invest in your brand’s future, and authentically connect with your stakeholders.
To find out how InVision can support your brand in the telling of your ESG story, reach out to your InVision Account Director, or contact us at info@iv.com.