GreenAmy

Last week I sat in on the “Greening Your Pitch” webinar from PRWeek. Again, the folks over there had great media participants and provided worthwhile insights into pitching green stories. Seth Bauer from National Geographic’s The Green Guide, Todd Woody, writer of Business 2.0’s Green Wombat blog, Wendy Bounds of the Wall Street Journal and Michael Ekstract, founder and VP of the new Verdant magazine each gave their take on how to pitch a green story and took questions from the audience.

In his opening introduction, Bauer emphasized that in order to set a company apart and successfully pitch a green story, PR professionals should be doing their homework to make sure the story is genuinely green. I think this is a simple, yet all-too-often forgotten point: To sell a green story, have a good green story. In the midst of the green trend, some are trying to fit their companies and products into the green space without making real changes.

All four of the panelists discussed the need for green products and services to be as good or better than the traditional counterparts. Consumers are always going to buy a product first and foremost because they like it, then because it’s eco-friendly. Bounds made the point that efficacy is the most important factor when she’s writing about any company or product. An item needs to work well on its own before anyone cares if it’s good for the environment. Consumers do not want to sacrifice and they have high expectations, especially in luxury markets, so things need to work well, look good and last long.

When asked if they knew of companies that had been taken to task for greenwashing, Woody shared a great story about Salesforce.com to illustrate that green messages and larger company actions should be consistent. Salesforce sent a box of goodies to thank Woody for writing about their announcement to go carbon neutral. The problem, however, which Woody also blogged about, was that the box traveled 40 miles with FedEx to get to his office – which is actually about 300 feet from Salesforce.com headquarters – and was filled with styrofoam. This is a perfect example to illustrate that all departments within an organization need to get on board with green efforts and rethink current practices. Salesforce had good intentions and is thinking green in some areas of the company, but their communications department apparently didn’t get the message.

A few other good takeaways:
• Being green has evolved beyond a political movement. There is a rapidly developing audience of newcomers who want to know how to live green and make more eco-friendly choices without becoming activists or making huge sacrifices in the way they live.
• The B-to-B green space is rapidly growing and there’s a huge market for companies that can help other companies go green.
• Big numbers in pitches and press releases can get a reporters attention, but they must be true and substantive.
• Blogs are a great way to get green news out! As we know, blogs provide an effective way to distribute information and a forum for discussion and feedback that can publicize green products and help fuel the green movement.

You can listen to a webcast of the event here.