I blog green. People read the blog and hopefully think green thoughts, if only for a second, after digesting a particular green tidbit. I think that’s a successful form of marketing. One of many successful forms of marketing available. Perhaps, if green bits and bites permeated cranial activity more often, channeling the plethora of many inputs available, green thoughts might germinate into green actions. Right?
The marketer’s biggest concern involves creating the possibility for green mental flashes to go off, exposing as many potential green activists to become/promote/join/involve/act…. right? Inclusion in a blog would be a great bonus for any company’s marketing team, yet another method of getting the word out. Right? Marketing = more people know what’s going on. Knowledge is power. Power is action. Thus, Marketing = action. That’s the point, right?
I’m particularly interested in this particular green company’s marketing team. Before I throw myself at them and ask to join their team, I’d like to know how the team works (in general). I just want to know how they’re doing their marketing. I want to compare this certain company with the other companies I’ve found who do similar things in different parts of the world. I think it’s an interesting study. So I emailed a questions and got a response: she send me letter to the appropriate party and she’ll get back to you. Yes! The wrote me back!
A week goes by, I email again, still hoping to learn about XY and Z from the marketing department, yada yada nada. A week goes by. A phone call. So you have some questions. Yes, I do. Phone call guy, an assistant marketer, asked that I send him an email of my questions so he could answer them.
Curious about the marketing of your company. Your membership growth from opening until now is X in 3 years: What’s your rate of new member acquisition? I’d love to hear about the process, do you go to them? Do they come to you? Do your members refer friends who become new members? Are they rewarded for that? Who were your first members? Did the company have a prior relationship with them before they became members?
The last question might be prying. But I wrote in the letter that that question wasn’t the important one. I’m just curious if the owner set up his membership based organization knowing who the founding members would be before hand. I’ve run a few membership-based businesses, stating in their 6th monthafter opening. I wasn’t there for the very beginning. I’m curious about the first month of operations…
A week later, the evening of labor day, wrote another note mentioning that I was still interested in my questions. I wanted it to be in the top of the email stack the next morning after the long weekend. A week now, still nothing.
The mid-term marks for this campaign and the marketing department gets an F in fulfilling their mandate. A green marketing team, it is not. How is the self-regulated Greenhouse gas emissions market going to develop if information about new members is withheld after such direct questioning? I would think that I was a bonus, an easy sell, a prey to be led down the path right into the jaws of awaiting organization, ready to inculcate me into their ranks and secure my continue membership for life. Or maybe I know someone who wants to join. Maybe my dad runs a giant toy manufacturing plant in China and I might have the connections to potentially break international borders on this idea. How are we supposed to grow if those individuals in charge of growth are not even putting their best efforts into informing the global community of all their possibilities. Maybe that’s thinking too big for some people, but ultimately, isn’t that the point?
Does anyone who markets for a living or is involved with spreading the word, the good word, the new word, the green word, or professional involved in communications, marking, sales etc basically anyone… How of/on base is this? When a question is asked of a membership-based business, or any business based on the new business practices of transparency and accountability (I know it’s funny that those are newish concepts…) isn’t getting an answer an important part of the connection making process? That might eventually lead to a sale/close/new member/ or spread of knowledge at the very least?
