Marketing your business isn’t only about making your products or services look bright and shiny; these days, you need to show that your company is deeply rooted in a sense of values and purpose.
Purpose-driven consumerism is on the rise, and according to Shopify’s 2021 The Future of E-Commerce, Gen Z is leading the way. About 40% of consumers want to buy products and services from companies whose values align with their own.
And many of those consumers are even willing to pay more for it.
Promoting Company Values 👉🏼 Opportunity for E-Commerce
In the last two decades, Millennials and Gen Z have completely transformed the way we work, live, shop and think about the future.
People are abandoning old ambitions of riches and abundance; now, they’re embracing purposeful work and intentional purchases from companies that make a positive impact.
Green living, sustainability, recycling, hunger and poverty are all issues that consumers want to address. E-commerce companies can provide consumers opportunities to make an impact on those issues simply by making a purchase. Well formed company values and strategically designed messaging help attract, engage and retain these consumers.
3 Effective Ways To Promote Company Values
Your e-commerce store might give back to veterans, or source environmentally safe products, or donate a portion of its proceeds to cancer research.
Messaging your company values should be an important and strategic part of your marketing efforts. But, promoting your values doesn’t have to be linear, boring and always informative… i.e., you won’t be sending frequent letters that begin with “Here are the top three things we did to help the environment this month…”
Nope, there are a lot of creative and engaging ways to promote your company values in your strategic marketing plan.
Try these…
1. Email marketing.
Not all emails have to sell something!
Some emails can give your consumers a glimpse behind the scenes of your warehouse or production lines. You can show them that you are true to the values emblazoned on your web site. By and large, purpose-driven consumers love to know what their beloved brands are doing to make a good impact.
Beautycounter, a clean and safe skincare company, does a great job using email marketing to show its consumers how its products are, indeed, clean and safe.
Check out the beginning of this fantastic email, which shows how its products and packaging are kind to the environment.
The list goes on, but you can see that these beautiful photos and nicely organized text effectively show consumers that they’re staying true to their company values. Beautycounter’s sales emails live up to the same standard.The point is, Beautycounter’s emails masterfully weave in their company values and purpose whether they’re sending a message to educate or a message to sell. Way to go Beautycounter! (And no, we’re not getting paid to say this. We honestly just think they do a great job.👏🏼)
2. Humanize Your Brand.
Humanizing your brand to promote your company values might mean that you publish videos, quotes, stories, or interviews that demonstrate the impact of your company on the people it serves. This is a powerful and inexpensive marketing tool.
For example, Spouse-ly, a military-spouse owned online marketplace that promotes the small businesses of service families, humanizes its marketplace in a unique way.
To promote their mission to support “goods from families who give,” they feature pictures and bios of service-connected sellers right on their homepage.
That way, when visitors arrive at their site to make purchases, they not only quickly learn what Spouse-ly does, but they immediately meet the faces — and families — of the service-connected small business owners that the marketplace impacts. Consumers then know that they’re not just buying a product, they’re supporting a service-connected family, too.
3. Storytelling.
Whether you weave this into a blog, an email, or a beautiful video, the power of story can’t be underestimated. Stories capture our emotions, connect us to the big picture and inspire us into action — such as making a purchase and giving back.
Great company stories include origin stories, employee or beneficiary stories, company volunteerism stories and more. These types of stories are excellent opportunities to showcase your company’s commitment to your values.Thrive Market does a great job promoting its commitment to healthy, organic eating, environmentally friendly systems and processes, and expanding health food access to people in need.
Using YouTube, Thrive Market actively shares stories about the ways its products and mission have transformed the lives of its customers.Check out this powerful story, which features Nadia and Derek, who experienced a very serious injury. Thrive Market has played an important role as they’ve coped with life during recovery.
What’s the ultimate opportunity in purpose-driven consumerism? Customer retention. Longterm loyalty. Basically, every business owner’s dream.
Spicy Lemon Marketing offers professional digital marketing services, specially designed to suit your specific needs and to invigorate your small business! Contact us to schedule a free consultation.
