Miraval we volunteered for roadside cleanup— post photos of your team participating on Facebook and Instagram. I’ d recommend sharing any photos posted by your employees of their own green volunteer work, too.

In fact, charity and community partnerships are a great way to market your sustainability efforts. Partnering with other companies to go green can often get your brand valuable exposure on your partners’ websites, be it through press releases, photos or a simple partner list.

Another great way to market your sustainability efforts? Do it indirectly. Position yourself as an educator and a leader by creating green-centric educational content, then marketing it alongside your own initiatives. If your spa has recently reduced its water use by switching to low-flow fixtures, put together a quick blog post featuring five quick tips for customers to reduce water use in their own homes. Then, push that blog post out via Facebook and Instagram. When you provide content that has intrinsic value to a customer, they will value your brand more highly and your sustainability efforts will be seen as more authentic. Furthermore, this type of content marketing will keep your brand front-and-center without giving your customers“ message fatigue,” which sets in quickly with other, more promotional forms of marketing.

Promotions and discounts are another great way that sustainability can boost your marketing exposure. I’ ve worked with several spas that offer discounts on treatments or retail when customers bring in goods to be recycled, or who offer 5 percent off a purchase when a guest brings

In essence, content marketing is promoting your brand by providing useful, non-promotional content to customers, rather than marketing your spa and its services directly. It is also something that many spas know they should be doing, but often struggle to get off the ground. Here are a few ideas for meaningful, sustainability-centric blog and social media content.

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n quick tiPs Share tips with your customers on going green, especially if they are ideas that your business has implemented. Listicles( like those popularized by Buzzfeed) are a great, easy way to start:“ 8 Cheap Ways to Reduce Energy Use” or“ Save Water with These 3 Tricks.”

Hold a coNtEst Hold a photo contest on social media. Ask your customers to submit photos of their own sustainability efforts and offer a discount to the person whose photo has the most likes. Make sure you comply with any rules that the social media platform has for contests, though.

n MakE a PHoto JourNal A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Instagram is an incredible platform for sharing photos of your spa’ s greening practices. Include a tip for going green or a quote from spa leadership on the importance of sustainability with every photo you post.

n docuMENt your story If your spa is beginning a sustainability initiative, blog about your progress. Tell the story candidly and without promoting your own services— if it is promotional it will seem inauthentic. n sPotligHt your EMPloyEEs Do a short question-and-answer with an employee who takes sustainability seriously, documenting what they do at work and at home to help conserve natural resources.

in a reusable bag. This kind of promotion is a win all-around: you get your idea across, your customer is impressed by your commitment, you increase your sales and you’ ve helped the planet.

Ultimately, there’ s no sustainability success that’ s too small to promote. With companies’ environmental philosophies becoming greater and greater influencers of purchasing decisions, failure to promote your greening efforts is a missed opportunity to grow your business. Thankfully, with such a bevy of platforms and multitude of ways to market going green, it’ s never been easier— or more beneficial— to do so. n

carol stratford is a partner at Hutchinson Consulting. Her career in strategic marketing has allowed her to develop a widely-recognized expertise in hospitality and wellness. Known for analyzing trends to develop long-term strategies, she has developed and deployed innovative marketing plans for some of the most successful brands in the industry.

58 PULSE ■ October 2018