Last Friday saw the last Corporate Sustainability Mastermind Group meeting of 2015 – we were discussing green communications. I’ll be posting some of the multitude of learning points here later in the week, but one key point that arose was the need to speak to the right audience.

Most companies try and speak to everybody with the same bland, uninspiring message – and waste their time and money as everybody ignores it. Green jujitsu says you must tailor the message to the audience, so first you need to identify your audience. The ‘right’ audience is the one which will have maximum impact (positive or negative) on your sustainability efforts. It might not be immediately obvious who that target audience should be:

Internally, people with influence over business models and product/service design are the people you need to target.

Externally, it gets more difficult. If you produce an eco-friendly material, then the people you need to speak to are often a couple of levels along the value chain – in the ultimate brand for consumer goods. You want them to instruct their suppliers to buy your material.

It might take a bit of head scratching and trial and error to get it right – but it’s worth the effort!