Industry Discussion

Environmental service businesses report a click-through rate of 9.6 percent. Much of this success in achieving clicks may be attributed to the motivation of environmental service email readers to consume new material.

The environmental service industry encompasses a wide range of varied businesses, all of which overlap with other commercial sectors. Some primary environmental service categories are:


Some environmental service businesses are clearly limited to industries like toxic site cleanup, recycling and waste management and sustainable development, while others - such as agriculture, food and beverage as well as transportation - are industrial sectors in their own right but may have environmental service elements.

Wide variation in products and services offered by environmental service businesses requires vastly differing marketing approaches. Some environmental service businesses benefit from online promotions in different ways than other companies in the same industry. Environmental service businesses focusing on alternative energy solutions, bottled water systems, energy efficiency and lighting, for example, can adopt a more straightforward approach to launching and conducting a comprehensive email marketing newsletter campaign.

If an environmental service business is promoting an energy efficiency survey, service or product, it should be aware of the key demographic statistics of its subscriber base. In some cases, such as home energy, a broad email and social networking strategy is simple to implement because the audience is wide and commercial. When environmental service businesses are dealing in more specialized and narrowly targeted ecological products and services, like clean air, environmental consulting services, government initiatives, toxic site cleanup and toxic waste disposal, marketers do not typically deal with the general public. Clients in these cases are usually highly specialized and rarefied executives, and although they are just as suitable for targeting with a properly conceived and implemented email marketing campaign, the approach is different from a commercial or general strategy.

Environmental service businesses dealing primarily in specialized ecological product and service niches need to concentrate on the specific nature of their customer base more than on environmental generalists. When an environmental service business specializing in toxic site cleanup attempts to increase its sales and draw new clients into the fold, reaching out to the general public is a poor strategy. Individuals or groups best matched to this type of environmental service business include municipal, state, regional and federal authorities, bureaucrats, elected politicians, industrial executives, large scale land developers and conservation agencies.

The underlying structure of the email marketing campaign is mostly the same, whether the target of the environmental service businesses is the general public or a handful of specific administrators. The difference is in the approach and tactics utilized. While social media marketing is tremendously successful when a general audience is targeted, it becomes counterproductive in cases of environmental service businesses reaching administrators, executives and civil servants.

Common currency in online marketing that appeals to both narrow and wide audiences is gathering information relevant to the reader's preferences and requirements. General audience incentives, such as discount coupons, VIP clubs, entry to special events, sneak peeks on new product launches and two-for-one offers are irrelevant when your reader is a government environmental official. Knowing your customer is very important, and custom tailoring your email marketing content specifically to those individuals is of critical importance.