Let's face it; a few years ago most of us thought that a Carbon Footprint was something you left behind as you dashed from a burning building or a battle scar earned from walking on hot-coals at the last team-building event.

Today you can't move for green rhetoric, wafer thin “corporate statements” and what one political commentator brilliantly called “green wash”.

But beyond all the noise, the hyperbole and the green arrow logos, in this cold hard commercial world in which we all operate, is there really an argument for an environmentally friendly marketing plan?

Perhaps a better question is, “Does environmentally friendly marketing make economic sense?”

In truth, most commercial organisations are driven solely by the bottom line. If shareholder and stakeholder interests are served by an environmentally sound approach to their business, then they'll adopt one, if not, then in all honesty they'll probably wait until they become forced to by law.

Ironically however, best practice marketing approaches have always been both “green” and economically sound and new technologies make getting it right easier than it's ever been.

No serious B2B marketing director would advocate the sending of vast swathes of direct mail to a brand new database. And more and more organisations are seeing that large scale corporate events involving hundreds of people travelling huge distances could be more cost effectively and efficiently managed via a Webinar or PodCast.

And with RSS, integrated eNewsletters, Pre-populating Surveys, Blogs, Wikis and eMarketing tools, reams of paper and petabytes of previously inaccessible market intelligence have been replaced by online communication and tracking which is streamlining sales processes, shortening sales cycles and saving vast chunks of marketing budget in just about every industry sector.

That doesn't mean the end of direct mail or indeed any printed collateral or material. On the contrary it makes it more central, more “premium” and potentially more important than it has ever been before.

Today B2B marketeers are seeing the best returns from using direct mail in a much more considered way within their overall Marcoms plan - pre-qualifying prospects using eCommunications allows them to be much more targeted in the their approach and to direct the more expensive printed material only at qualified “suspects”.

And if you support this strategy with an ethical paper choice, your green credentials can go even higher.

Environmentally-conscious companies have for many years insisted on recycled paper as a compromise solution. Today however, those really in the know have moved on from recycled stock and are demanding paper from sustainable sources where every element of the production process from the individual tree through the management of the forest and all the way through to the printer, is an accredited and traceable process. This means that the paper does not have to be re-used to support the environment, it supports it from its very beginning.

Paper holding Forestry Stewardship Council (www.fsc.org) accreditation for example is now readily available in the same quality, volume and price as standard stocks (www.fscpaper.co.uk).

So in answer to the question, yes Marketing can be green. Building a Marcoms plan which uses technology to do the bulk of the work and then using paper from sustainable sources, only when targeting a qualified recipient, not only delivers far better return and saves a fortune on the marketing budget, but also makes a significant contribution to the reduction of our collective Carbon Footprint.

To talk more about using eMarketing to create a more balanced and greener Marcoms plan please call Think Smart Marketing on 01525 288828 or eMail owen.ashby@thinksmartmarketing.co.uk