Five Tips to Green Your Marketing

As part of our regular course of business, we at ICON are always conscious about leaving the lightest footprint possible, from the communications activities we conduct for our clients to the operation of our office. We have adopted many green office practices, including reducing consumption of energy and materials, re-using single side printed paper, and recycling as much of our waste as possible.

Following are five tips to green your marketing:

	Whenever possible, use electronic forms of communication, such as publishing brochures as PDF’s or giving customers/clients the option of receiving materials electronically.
	When printing is necessary, try printing on Envirolux paper, which contains 80% recycled fibre content, the highest of any quality white paper, and is produced with a clean chemical process.
	When producing print materials, ask your agency or graphic designer to conserve ink coverage in the design by effectively using white space and only using full colour images where necessary.
	Target distribution of collateral materials so they are reaching a well-defined list of leads that are qualified, rather than taking a shotgun approach.
	If planning a direct mail campaign, test market to a small sample first to ensure the effort is effective before conducting a wide campaign that may be wasteful.