Archive for August, 2008
Social Proof - Better than Green Marketing?
August 29th, 2008 by Bill Baren(This post is based on a case study in Robert Cialdini’s latest book, Yes!)
Imagine you’re in charge of persuading your hotel guests to reuse their towels.
Card # 1:
“Help save the environment by participating in the [towel reuse] program.”
Card #2:
“The majority of guests at the hotel recycled their towels at least once during their stay.”
The surprising (or perhaps not surprising) answer: Card #2! People were more persuaded by the actions of others than by the thought of “saving the environment.”
Following Social Proof
Most people would like to believe that they are not influenced by the “herd.” Yet what they say and what they do often tell a different story.
When people aren’t sure what course of action to take, they often unconsciously rely on what Cialdini calls “social proof” in order to make a decision. The best social proof is the knowledge of what other people do in a similar situation.
Could you improve the results of the “towel experiment” even more - using Social Proof?
Yes! This was done by using a card saying “the majority of the people who stayed in the same room participated in the towel recycling program.” In this case, guest participation increased by 33% over the standard environmentally-driven message of Card #1. The closer the social proof to your personal immediate situation the greater the influence of social proof.
Thoughts on how to utilize Social Proof
So the first thing that comes to my mind is for my coaching business to use more testimonials not of big companies but of companies that are similar to my ideal clients. Also, I am thinking that green businesses reading this blog could let their prospective customers know more about the actions their current customers are taking.
How can you use the influence of social proof to help your business today?
Everyone “Diggs” 1 Block Off The Grid (1BOG.org)
August 26th, 2008 by Patrick DominguezBig news just announced from 1 Block Off The Grid (1BOG.org)
With 1 Block Off The Grid (aka 1BOG.org) San Francisco residents can save up to 48% off the cost of a solar system for their home (total cost for low energy users would be about $3,200 for a system). The deadline for taking advantage of 1BOG’s offer is September 15, 2008 so check out 1BOG’s web site soon for more details.
I just heard this news from Sylvia Ventura, co-founder of 1BOG, and I’m mentioning this to my blog readers because this seems like a particularly unique opportunity for my fellow San Franciscans to receive low-cost solar power - and I’m a supporter of affordable renewable energy.
San Franciscans can currently benefit from the largest government-sponsored rebates that have ever been available, but some of them will soon no longer be unavailable. Between 1BOG’s discounts and the rebates, this is likely the lowest price opportunity for solar available in San Francisco this year. In addition to securing volume pricing, the team at 1BOG helps guide and educate its members through the process, making getting solar power less intimidating than going it alone.
The background on 1BOG
1BOG’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of renewable solar energy in residential homes. Their primary tool for doing this is to make solar power more accessible financially by negotiating deep discounts in the price of solar systems. 1BOG’s unique business model involves bringing together a large group of homeowners in a given city, and then using group purchasing power to negotiate volume pricing so that everyone in the group benefits.
According to Sylvia, 1BOG aims to take the equivalent of a city block off the San Francisco grid by the end of the year. This isn’t an actual city block - it’s more like a “virtual block”, the aggregate of all the participating solar homes in San Francisco. Afterwards, their goal is to reduce San Francisco’s electricity demand by many blocks, and then to repeat this in cities across the country.
Taking a block off the grid, or roughly 50 homes, in San Francisco would be a real achievement, given current numbers. According to 1BOG’s site “The city has set a goal of 10,000 solar roofs by 2010; to date less than 700 residences have solar on their roofs.” This low level of adoption is largely due to cost, but also due to inadequate information (e.g. about government incentives and tax benefits).
You can see a visual image of the demand for 1BOG in San Francisco:
A Bad Time to Take a Vacation
Another story from Sylvia - her family was taking her kids on a 10-day summer vacation in Tahoe last week that they had planned 6 months in advance, including family visiting from out of town. This soon turned into an entrepreneurial working vacation when unexpected promotional pandemonium broke loose…
When 1BOG put an announcement on the news wire on August 19 (during their family vacation) that they had selected Real Goods Solar as their solar power installation partner, a CleanTechnica blog post about the news suddenly became a popular story on Digg. By the next day, there was 100 Diggs, and the story hit the front page on Digg, and became the top story with over 600 Diggs in just a couple of hours!
Within hours, 1BOG.org was flooded with thousands of visitors, and this led to 80 new registrants, bringing their total number of members to 340.
Why did this get so popular on Digg out-of-the-blue? Sylvia isn’t sure, but she suspects that Digg is very much community-oriented, and that 1BOG has an inspiring community-oriented concept.
Where to Next? Going National
Though 1 Block Off the Grid is focused on completing their first round of community solar installations in San Francisco, the word has gotten out nationally. According to Sylvia Ventura, they are now considering the next cities they want to serve. My guess is they will go to the cities with the largest number of registrants at 1BOG’s site, so that should be motivation for people outside of San Francisco.
1BOG has signed up 40 people in Washington DC, 15 in Las Vegas, 6 in Portland, and a number of people in other Bay Area cities such as San Jose and Sacramento.
Interview with Mo Chicarro and Anthony Oram, Founders of Male Organics
August 16th, 2008 by Patrick Dominguez
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“The Cleanest Men in London”
Male Organics is a UK-based internet store that’s a one-stop shop for organic and natural grooming products for men aspiring to be chemical-free and earth-friendly.
The two founders of Male Organics share why they seized upon the idea of starting a store for men - and surprising things they’ve learned along the way.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
- Why Male Organics was told off for being sexist….
- …and a surprising fact: 50% of the customers at Male Organics are women!
- What from the marketing toolbox is working? Offering discounts is working to attract people to their site
- Find out the #1 bestselling natural grooming product purchased for men
LISTEN NOW (press play below)
TRANSCRIPT
PATRICK DOMINGUEZ: This is Patrick Dominguez from Green Business Innovators.com and I am here speaking with two gentlemen from Male Organics. Why don’t you introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about what your company does and its history.
MO CHICARRO: Sure, I’m Mo Chicarro.
ANTHONY ORAM: And I’m Anthony Oram.
MO CHICARRO: We started out Male Organics almost a year ago and the idea was we were looking ourselves for products on the internet - to wash with or brush your teeth with, a toothpaste, shower gel, stuff like that and previously you would only find them on websites that were mainly female orientated and a very small men’s section. So, we spent about a year researching a wide variety of products and then put them all in one place which is now Male Organics. Guys can go there and the whole website is laid out for men’s idea of shopping.
Interview with Chris Bristow and Harvey Jones, Founders of Smartly Green
August 8th, 2008 by Patrick Dominguez
Smartlygreen.com is an innovative shopping portal/loyalty program/social network that allows people to offset their carbon footprint for free while they shop online at 400+ top retail stores. The site serves customers in the US (with stores in the US including the Gap, Apple, Orbitz, Macys, etc), the UK, and Australia. The two founders of Smartly Green, based in the UK, share the story behind the founding of the site and their vision for its growth.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
- The Smartly Green story of two “normal guys” (actually with extensive business experience) making a choice to give back through their business
- How they were able to enroll so many top retail brands in their program
- The thinking behind Smartly Green’s international expansion
- Does Smartly Green encourage people to do more shopping? The founders address this question
LISTEN NOW (press play below)
TRANSCRIPT
PATRICK DOMINGUEZ: Hello, this is Patrick Dominguez from Green Business Innovators and I am here with the two founders of Smartly Green. Why don’t you introduce yourselves and tell us what Smartly Green does.
HARVEY JONES: My name is Harvey Jones.
CHRIS BRISTOW: And my name is Chris Bristow.
HARVEY JONES: First of all, Chris and I thought we needed to do something which was environmentally sustainable and living in that way. Because we had spent the last 25 years working for large corporates in different parts of the world and it was now time to put something back in. We came up with the idea from looking at a series of studies that had been in the UK that indicated that in between 70 and 75% of the population actually did have an environmental conscience, but were doing nothing about it. They were doing nothing about it because (a), they found the information confusing or worse, they were actually finding the information coming downstream contradictory. That was a major issue. That resulted in them doing absolutely nothing. We came up with the idea saying, okay let’s do something for that part of society. Let’s make it easy for them and let’s start them on the journey to a more sustainable lifestyle. And let’s make it in such a way that they don’t even have to think about it. They don’t have to change their lifestyles to begin with and they certainly don’t have to spend any more money.
We came up with a retail portal called Smartly Green and people are encouraged to do their normal shopping through us, not to spend any more money and certainly not to do anymore shopping.
To Be a Liberal (Hilarious)
August 6th, 2008 by Bill BarenI loved this video from Roy Zimmerman. It reminded me not to take myself, the success of my business nor the green movement too seriously. Have fun!