BUILDING BLOCKS OF SUSTAINABLE

MARKETING STRATEGIES
By
1
S.C. SIVASUNDARAM ANUSHAN, M.B.A, M.Com, M.Phil.,
Dr. R. NEELAMEGAM, M.Com, PhD.,2

Today, smart businesses with long term growth perspectives realise sustainable
marketing means so much more than just appealing to the "green" consumer sector. They
realise sustainable marketing is integral to the success of business growth, and whole
business models are being re-designed to reflect the value of long term relationships with
people and our planet gained through sustainable marketing practices. This paper
provides guidelines for building a sustainable marketing strategy and the ways of
preparing a brand for a sustainable growth.

Keywords
Positioning, training, and People power.

1
Re sea rch scho la r,
S CS V MV Un ive rsit y, KA NCHI P URA M.
& Assist a nt P rof e sso r,
De pa rt me n t o f B u sine ss Ad min ist ra t ion ,
V . H. N.S . N. Co lleg e , VIRUDHUNAGAR- 626001.

2
Advisor, & EMERITUS Professor - AICTE,
Department of Management Studies,
De pa rt me n t o f Ma n ag e men t St ud ie s,
V . H. N.S . N. Co lleg e ,
VIRUDHUNAGAR- 626001.
1.1. SUSTAINABLE MARKETING
Sustainable marketing essentially means getting better results using less
resources. "sustainable marketing means using strategies and tactics to effectively grow
profits, increase business efficiencies, speed up sales cycles, enhance customer loyalty
and improve employee attraction and retention - while using fewer resources. Sustainable
marketing ensures you meet your business objectives and give your customers what they
really need, with lower costs and less environmental impact. "I wish to share the 7 critical
elements for the development of a successful sustainable marketing framework.
1. Think Long Term
"Sustainability is about taking a long-term perspective of your business". "It
means more than the operational footprint of your business. Sustainable marketing is
about meeting your immediate business objectives - like creating a competitive
advantage, increasing revenue, retaining employees, establishing a 'green' corporate
image - while ensuring your efforts have the staying power to sustain long term results."
Long term relationships will build lasting value for your business, too. Sustainable
marketing involves building genuine, enduring relationships with your staff, suppliers,
customers, community and the environment.
2. Create a Sustainable Brand Position
Know your core values and your key strengths; then translate these into a brand
position that delivers real value to your customers. "By doing this," Ms. Anderson
explains, "you'll develop a brand position that exploits your natural competitive
advantages, that will genuinely appeal to your customers and that has the potential to
strengthen and grow. Using your brand position to guide you in your business decisions
will help you make quicker, wiser choices to support sustainable success."
3. Maintain Your Focus
Concentrate your marketing budget on one or two segments, and craft clear,
targeted messages that appeal to those specific customers. Stay focused on the defined
segments, and consistently repeat your marketing messages. You'll build brand
recognition faster, get a greater response with less expense, and make more of a return on
investment. You can then leverage your profits to broaden your marketing messages and
branch out into other customer segments. "Don't spread yourself too thin",Think about it
this way: If you had a Rs.100 marketing budget, would you get better results spreading it
out and spending Rs.10 on 10 different customer segments, or staying focused on 2
segments and spending Rs.50 on each? Chances are you'll make a much bigger impact
and a greater return by concentrating on only 2 segments.
4. Actively Engage With Your Target Customers
Communication with existing and potential customers is a two-way activity in
sustainable marketing. When you build genuine relationships with your customers, you
will truly understand their needs, their motives and their desires. You'll be able to give
them what they want, talk to them in their own 'language', build brand rapport and attract
more business. One of the best ways to engage with your target customers is by 'hanging
out where they hang out'. In this digital age, that often means using the social mediums
they use and participating in their online communities. Sustainable Marketing Services is
currently helping some of their customers build brand equity and grow their customer
bases by building online forums and communities that embed huge value for their
customers' target markets. This is a long term, sustainable marketing strategy that uses
minimal resources to attract a large number of targeted customers.
5. Use Technology
As Sustainable Marketing Services is demonstrating with the development of
online communities for its customers, technology can be an effective tool in sustainable
marketing. Technology can be used to build strong relationships, improve collaboration
with suppliers and staff, get to market faster and reduce costs. Sustainable Marketing
Services is currently using technology to transition into being a paperless office, and it is
already reaping the benefits of easier collaboration, getting on the same page faster,
saving time and saving money!
6. Apply Genuine "Green" Certifications and Logos
"Consumers are looking for easy identification marks to give them confidence and
to help them make quick purchase decisions. Consumers want to make decisions that will
help the environment, but they don't always trust independent claims. If your
sustainability efforts are genuine and can be backed up by certifications or logos, use
them to increase consumer confidence and sales."
7. Include Your Whole Workforce
One of the most effective methods of introducing and maintaining sustainable
marketing is by extending it to include your employees and your suppliers.
Asking your suppliers to complete sustainability checklists, like Walmart has
successfully done, establishes you as a concerned corporate citizen and helps build your
brand credibility. Motivating your employees to become sustainability ambassadors, and
giving them the tools to do so, increases employee satisfaction and retention.
1.2 TOP TIPS - PREPARE YOUR BRAND FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
Having the best name, logo and advertising alongside all of your best efforts won’t
compensate for having a weak brand. But, what is a brand and how can you build a
strong one? The tips presented in this article will offer you answers to these burning
questions and summarise the golden rules of powerful branding to help ensure your brand
is prepared for sustainable growth.
1. A strong brand starts with positioning
Your position is where your brand begins. It’s the unique space in your customer's
mind that only your offering can fill. You need to determine and stake your position
before you develop the brand that will live there. Positioning is the process of finding an
unfulfilled want or need in your customer’s mind and then addressing that need with a
distinctive, unique and ideally suited offering. Rules to remember:
• Your position must be open
• Your position must be based on a unique point of difference, that’s believable
and truly attractive to your customer
• Your point of difference must be delivered with such consistency that every
experience they have with your brand reminds customers why they chose you and
will ensure their ongoing loyalty
2. A brand is a promise well kept
Brands are promises that your customers can believe in. It’s the promise you
make about who you are and the unique benefits your brand will deliver. It needs to be
reinforced every time someone comes in contact with your business – whether as a
customer, prospect, investor, employee, supplier, friend etc.Your promise is the pledge
upon which you stake the reputation of your brand. It’s the expectation you must live up
to every time people experience your brand, whether through advertising, promotions,
buying experiences, service encounters etc. A successful brand strategy results in an
accurate reflection of who you are and what you promise to those that come in contact
with your business.
3. Branding happens from the inside out
Your brand is a reflection of what you stand for. It must align perfectly with the
values and purpose of your business. If it doesn’t, the identity you present to the world
won't synchronise with the identity residing at the heart of your business and your
customers will sense a lack of credibility, tuning out your marketing efforts as a result.
To arrive at a brand that perfectly reflects the essence of your organisation you should
begin the branding process by writing three essential statements:
• Your vision statement
• Your mission statement
• Your brand statement
4. Consistency builds brands
Once you're clear about what you stand for, you're ready to deliver your product,
promise and brand experience with total consistency. Doing so will put the odds strongly
in your favour to take on and win against brands that shift with the wind, no matter how
visually polished their identities or beautiful their marketing materials.
You need to create a consistent brand that consumers can count on by:
• Displaying a consistent look
• Projecting a consistent tone
•Delivering a consistent level of quality, as demonstrated through consistent
communication and consistent products and services
• Be consistently true to the heart of the brand
5. People power brands
Brands are made or broken by human encounters that either advance or erode
your brands promise. Passionate employees and passionate customers –in that order –
power great brands. By developing clear brand understanding, enthusiasm and
commitment within your business be assured that customer understanding, enthusiasm
and commitment will follow. Great brand names, logos, promises and communication
programs are essential ingredients for brand success and to attain future sustainable
growth. However, it doesn’t end there. You need to develop brand champions.
6. Brands live in your customer’s minds
When people see or hear your name; they automatically conjure up impressions
and memories that determine what they believe about your business. Their notion may be
the result of firsthand encounters with your product or service, their notions may be based
on communications they've seen or heard i.e. your brochures, promotional materials,
advertisements, displays, signs, news articles, even your logo. Their notions may have
even been formed by listening to second hand recaps of other customers' experiences,
passed on by word-of-mouth or online. Your brand lives in your customers' mind whether
you intentionally put it there or not. Compelling branding is the way of making sure that
the brand image you have is the brand image you want!
7. Brand names unlock brand images
Your brand is a set of memories that are recalled when people see or hear your
name. Choosing the perfect name establishes your brand from the day it's announced and
it grows with your business and your vision as you reach into new market areas, new
geographic regions, and even new product areas.
8. Brand experiences trump brand messages
When it comes to branding, what you say pales in comparison to what you do.
When customers gravitate to one brand over its competitors their decisions are rarely
based on reactions to marketing messages alone. Instead, customers rely on their own
experiences. As we have discussed earlier, they choose and stay with brands that they
believe will keep their promise to them as customers, based on what they have personally
seen and sensed. To create a brand experience capable of moving markets and instilling
loyalty you should convey, reinforce and amplify your brand promise through every
encounter your customers could possibly have with your business.
‘Being the brand’ isn’t just talk, it’s the key to branding success.
9. Brands need to start and stay relevant
To win and keep a coveted place in your customers’ mind; your brand must begin
and continue to be credible, competitive, current and relevant to customers’ wants, needs
and interests. That means you have to stay tuned to market conditions, consumer
preferences and cultural trends not just when the brand first establishes itself but on a
regular basis as your brand matures. Markets and businesses change, when they do, the
brands that remain stuck in the past pay a high price in terms of credibility and
competitiveness. You must ensure you keep up with your customers no matter what
influences your businesses.
10. Brands are valuable assets
For most successful businesses in the world, brand is often the most valuable
single asset those businesses own. When companies with great brands are sold, the value
of the brand often accounts for as much as half of the sale price. But brand value also
translates into everyday economic benefit to you as a business. For example you can:
• Offer premium pricing structures
• Lower the cost of sales and promotions
• Gain a much larger market share
• Reduce the threat of competition
• Offer greater employee satisfaction
• Significantly increase recognition by customers, industry leaders, media,
investors and analysts
CONCLUSION
We hope that in sharing these 10 top tips we have given you some helpful
suggestions that will move you in the right direction for preparing a brand for sustainable
growth. A brand is a valuable asset that requires serious attention and consideration and
in so many ways can, when dealt with correctly, make a significant contribution to the
sustainability of your business and its growth.
Reference
1. Armstrong, Gary, and Philip Kotler // Principles of Marketing, 8th ed. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
2. Barney, Jay. Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage // Journal of
Management, 1991, No. 17 (1). – pp.99-120.
3. Bharadwaj, Sundar G., P. Rajan Varadarajan, and John Fahy. Sustainable
Competitive Advantage in Service Industries: A Conceptual Model and Research
Propositions // Journal of Marketing, 1993. – No. 57 (October). – pp. 83-99.