What I Learned At American Clean Power 2026

What I Learned At American Clean Power

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:05:34 GMT

Clean Energy Is Caught In The Culture Wars

Once upon a time, renewable energy projects could win public approval based on community benefits, like sponsoring Little League baseball teams, building a playground, or writing monthly checks to affected landowners.

Then the fossil fuel industry ratcheted up the misinformation campaigns online , and Fox News made the Solyndra bankruptcy as famous as the Lehman Brothers’ demise.

A sector of the public that was already feeling marginalized amidst a rapidly changing economic landscape had become radicalized, a trend that social media algorithms were all too eager to exploit for profit.

Public hearings for clean energy projects, which had always been dicey because of NIMBY concerns, became lightning rods for America’s urban-rural cultural divide. When well-meaning local politicians and planning boards became the focal point of small-town ire, they punted.

Welcome to siting and permitting a solar, wind, battery storage, or transmission line project in America in 2026.

Speaker after speaker bore out the statistics: fewer than 10% of the projects on paper ever produce a kilowatt of energy, and the hill gets steeper every year, sometimes for valid reasons like a previous developer didn’t follow through on promises, or because neighbors were concerned about the effect a renewable energy project might have on the value of their nearby home.

More often, though, the reason has more to do with rural communities feeling like they are bearing the burden of an urbanist green agenda .

The First Step In Solving A Problem Is Admitting One Exists

The good news that came out of ACP is that every developer I spoke to understands they need to double down on community outreach if they want to get permits approved for their projects, and some of the development companies are already making strides by showing up early and often in a community, remaining a positive presence after the project is completed, and generating electrons.

The proof is clear when you look at LinkedIn at the number of community outreach, external affairs, and stakeholder relations employees you can find at many of the more prominent energy development companies. More time and money are being spent to assuage community concerns that they are more than just another extractive industry looking to make a quick buck.

If only it were that easy…

Timing Is Everything

One of the panel speakers was asked whether a project developer should remain silent about their project until they had acquired the land and were ready to announce.

The speaker wryly pointed out that in a rural community, as soon as you knock on the first door to inquire about their property, the entire town knows.

That’s how rural communication networks operate.

Had I been asked that question, I would’ve answered, “In the internet age, there is no such thing as ‘under the radar’ anymore.”

That question revealed a disquieting lack of understanding of how quickly opponents can mobilize and define a project even before it gets off the ground. And because we live in such distinct information ecosystems, a developer from outside the community is unlikely to know that opposition is building until it spreads like a cancer.

Your Project Is Either Ahead Or Behind

“Keeping up with the Joneses” is an indictment of America’s consumer culture. In project development, once the opponents are ahead of you in defining the merits, it’s nearly impossible to keep up.

To increase the likelihood that an energy project is completed, you have to be ahead of the Joneses from the outset…and stay ahead.

Several tactics can help:

Public opinion research can capture the pulse of a community, and it’s now more affordable because online surveys don’t require live callers.
Consumer data, combined with digital tools, can target potential supporters and opponents with incredible accuracy, allowing a developer to build trust and educate those who are open to the project BEFORE the public hearings without stirring up a hornet’s nest of anger.
Text and email databases of supporters can give you unfiltered access to real people in the community, not just stakeholders, building trust over time, which is especially critical when fending off fossil fuel front groups that are adept at spreading misinformation.

Project development needs to be treated like a political campaign because, like Election Day, there’s a winner and a loser, and the winner is usually the side that defined the debate.

The Messenger Is As Important As The Message

It’s no secret that rural Americans are less likely to believe outsiders. They love where they live; they like it the way it is; and they want to keep it that way. Trust is acquired in inches over long periods of time . This was a leitmotif throughout the ACP conference.

The obvious conclusion is that a developer or a development company isn’t necessarily the best person to speak on behalf of the project, especially when opposition arises.

In a disaggregated media landscape, there is no such thing as a sole source messenger. Trying to control everything shared about a clean energy project is like being stuck in a rush hour traffic jam when you need to get to the hospital for urgent care.

Allow community supporters to create Facebook pages, moderate the content, and produce their own shareable content. An energy development company’s communications shop that’s a thousand miles away from your project and is overseeing multiple projects at the same time can’t possibly keep up with events on the ground.

And if you’re creating a website for the project, feature the locals prominently on the homepage so it doesn’t appear to be a solely for-profit endeavor.

The words from the stage were clear: if you want to win over rural communities, you need third-party advocates who are willing to vouch for your integrity and commitment to their way of life. And those people can’t just be the stakeholders you check off on a list, like the Chamber CEO, the environmental group, or the elected official. You also need regular people who attend high school football games on a Friday night and church on Sundays. They have credibility with their neighbors you can’t buy.

One of our most successful clean energy campaign s enlisted pastors, whose congregants suffered disproportionately from pollution-related asthma and cardiopulmonary disease, to attend hearings and speak to elected officials about the benefits of low-emission fuels. They offset scare tactics from the oil industry about rising gas prices.

Your messengers are what give your message credibility.

Digital Grassroots and Community Outreach Are Pennies On The Dollar Compared To Failure

If the people on the stage at ACP know what needs to be done, and the developers in the audience agree with them, why are so many projects still failing the urban-rural divide?

It has to do with who wasn’t in attendance at ACP: the C-Suite.

Several attendees from different companies spoke about a common obstacle: the people who make the budget decisions, whether in the U.S., Canada, or Europe, see community outreach as a liability on the spreadsheet in an industry where margins are thin.

Fair enough, but the retort is that even if a CEO sees community relations as a largely wasted cost of doing business, it’s still far cheaper than the sunk costs in time, staff, and budget when the majority of your projects never net a single dollar.

It reminds me of a famous commercial where a grizzled garage mechanic underneath a car speaks about changing your car’s oil filter as a cheap alternative to major engine repair. The ad concludes with the mechanic pulling himself out from under the car, grabbing the four-dollar oil filter, and saying, “You can pay me now…or pay me later."

We all know someone who never changed their engine oil, and then expressed surprise when the inevitable happens, or worse, says they didn’t know you needed to change the oil. The next time your CEO questions your budget request, ask them why they take their car in for a regular service.

Going Forward

Like it or not, if we want more clean energy projects to move forward, we have to accept that clean energy isn’t a bug of America’s culture wars, it’s a feature.

And the places we want to develop projects on large tracts of land require those who’ve been inundated with messages that climate change isn’t real and that green energy is a government-subsidized scam to overcome that cognitive dissonance.

Developers can’t overcome that with the old playbook of showing up when the project is announced, getting a few prominent citizens to endorse the project, writing a few checks for goodwill, and promoting community benefits as the only tools in the toolbox to get permit approvals.

The successful equation is embedding in a community early, taking their pulse before a project submits plans, finding community supporters who can drive your message across their networks with a looser grip from company headquarters, producing shareable digital content regularly to stay ahead of the Joneses (the organized opposition and front groups), build your email list so you can have direct access to your audience both to educate and respond, and keep the focus on how your project helps protect the community they love rather than focuses on the benefits the project provides.

As Goes Denmark...

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 03:10:34 GMT

A funny thing happened on the way to decarbonization.

Renewable energy advocates often point to the Scandinavian countries as a model for how the U.S. could wean itself from fossil fuels, whether that’s Norway’s high rates of EV adoption or Sweden’s carbon taxes that have driven widespread decarbonization.

But a funny thing happened on the way to net zero. Denmark, one of the world's greenest nations, is experiencing a backlash against utility-scale solar energy.

What is Jernmarker?

Jernmarker , or iron fields, was chosen as the Danish word of the year in 2025 after the solar backlash swayed municipal elections and prompted some councils to pull projects.

While solar energy makes up a small percentage of Denmark’s overall 90% renewable power mix, it has tripled its power production over the last four years.

Opponents of Denmark’s “fields of iron” tell a tale that’s eerily familiar to what solar, wind, battery storage, and biogas developers are up against in the U.S.:

• Rural communities are overrun by an industrial sprawl at the behest of urban elites.

• Photovoltaic panels are ugly, destroy nature, and deflate property values in disenfranchised communities.

• Drone shots of encircled farmhouses have become a symbol of the nation’s urban-rural divide.

Unlike some American conspiracy traffickers, the Danish opposition to renewables doesn’t reflexively oppose green energy, but the question remains: if clean energy developers are struggling to win the support of local communities in the most climate-conscious country, how will projects get permitted and built in a nation like ours that still has a sizeable constituency that doesn’t believe climate change is real?

The Urban-Rural Divide Is Alive And Well

Developers would be smart to approach each project with the working assumption that utility-scale solar panels, wind turbines, data centers, and battery energy storage systems have become a symbol of a political elite that wants a green transition and doesn’t care about what happens to the countryside because that’s not where they live.

Urban-rural tensions have been ingrained in Americans’ collective consciousness since the nation’s founding , which is why outside developers, as the main messenger for a clean energy project, face an uphill battle for trust.

A project that wants to overcome those ingrained biases can’t be launched when the press release announces the project to the local media. It requires months of spade work to find allies and trust messengers in a local community that transcends “stakeholder outreach” or a web page containing frequently asked questions that no one will read.

Houston Doesn't Have A Technology Problem

Solar panels and wind turbines rarely fail before end-of-life. This is not a technology or engineering problem.

If we want to deploy gigawatts of clean energy to the grid, developers need a model that uses local, trusted voices who can articulate local benefits for the inconvenience rural communities face in exchange for a greater good.

Case Study: How Dairy Digesters Are Winning Over Rural America

We worked with a dairy digester developer/builder/operator for many years , and that industry is ahead of the renewable curve when it comes to community outreach.

Digester builders face a culturally conservative, rural audience that’s skeptical about climate change. On top of that, developers were asking farmers to sacrifice valuable land in order to build a multi-million-dollar industrial behemoth that they didn’t know how to operate.

So, how have over 300 dairy digesters been built in the U.S. despite some early mishaps? Trust and tangible benefits. Developers will often fly farmers for site visits to running digester projects to “kick the tires” and talk to their farming colleagues.

It also helped the case that capturing methane and turning it into biogas to sell to the local utility guaranteed a steady paycheck in a volatile industry.

And yes, there’s a cultural component that incentivized these projects, too. Farmers who want to pass down the family business to future generations now have a more sustainable financial model.

There's A Playbook For Clean Energy Community Outreach

So what’s the lesson for clean energy developers who don’t want to be tagged with the term “Jernmarker” ?

• Spend as much time getting to know a local community as you do selecting a site.

• Find local voices who are willing to deliver your message BEFORE you announce a project.

• Connect community benefits to a personal aspiration.

• Let the community “touch” the project in a way that facts can’t articulate.

• Make community outreach a consistent component of the development project beyond the required public hearings.

• Use digital tools, including video and social media, which feature local voices explaining the project rather than a forgettable two-dimensional website reciting bland facts.

The Most Common Messaging Mistake Clean Energy Developers Make

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 02:26:21 GMT

Part 1: Coalition Building

Clean energy developers do not lose projects because their technology fails.

They lose projects because they misunderstand how decisions get made in the communities where those projects are proposed.

If you spend enough time around project development, you start to see the same pattern. A site pencils. The resource is there. Interconnection works. Capital is lined up. Then the project enters the public process and something shifts. Opposition forms. Local officials hesitate. The project stalls or disappears.

That outcome is not rare. Roughly one out of every three large clean energy projects in the United States never reaches construction .

At the same time, the environment around these projects is getting harder.

Research from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University tracks hundreds of renewable energy projects across dozens of states facing organized opposition, along with a growing number of local laws restricting development.

Across the country, local resistance is no longer episodic. It is structural.

Most developers respond by trying to improve how they explain their projects.

That is not where the problem sits.

The most common messaging mistake clean energy developers make is this: They treat communication as explanation when it is actually coalition building.

The Illusion Of Stakeholder Engagement

Developers often approach communication by identifying “stakeholders” and building a plan to engage them.

The list is familiar. Elected officials, regulators, adjacent landowners, business groups.

Those people matter, but they are not the community.

Communities are not organized through formal roles. They are organized through trust . Influence sits with people who do not appear on stakeholder maps. A pastor, a co-op manager, a respected farmer, a small business owner. These are the people others listen to when they are deciding what a project means.

When engagement is limited to formal stakeholders, developers miss the informal networks where opinions actually form. That gap is where opposition gains ground.

Developers Try To Be The Messenger

Even when developers engage early, they often assume they should be the ones delivering the message.

They have the data. They understand the project. They can explain the benefits.

That logic makes sense internally. It is less effective externally.

People trust those who share their lived experience . A developer entering from outside the community is asking for trust before it exists. A local voice does not need to make that same ask.

This is not a communications nuance. It is the difference between being heard and being discounted.

Projects that move forward tend to have credible local voices who can explain the project in terms that make sense to their neighbors. Projects that fail often rely on the developer to carry that burden alone.

What is actually at stake

These dynamics are easy to underestimate because they are not reflected in financial models.

A utility-scale wind or solar project in the 50 to 100 megawatt range typically requires $75 million to $200 million in upfront capital, depending on technology, location, and interconnection costs.

Over a 20 to 30 year lifespan, those projects can generate hundreds of millions of dollars in contracted revenue, particularly when backed by long-term power purchase agreements.

When a project fails at the permitting stage, that capital is not redeployed cleanly. Time is lost. Development costs are written off. Market windows close.

This is not a marginal issue. It is a core risk to the business model.

The New Pressure: Data Centers

The stakes are rising because demand is rising.

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing is driving a surge in data center development across the United States. These facilities require enormous and continuous electricity loads.

Recent analysis from Pew Research Center notes that data center electricity consumption in the U.S. is expected to increase significantly as AI adoption expands, placing new pressure on regional grids.

At the same time, research from Columbia Business School highlights a growing race to secure power for these facilities, with developers competing for access to clean and reliable electricity.

Additional analysis from Environmental and Energy Study Institute warns that data center demand is already reshaping grid planning and could complicate climate goals if new supply does not come online fast enough.

This creates a collision.

On one side, data center developers need large volumes of electricity, increasingly from low-carbon sources.

On the other, local opposition is making it harder to build the very projects required to meet that demand.

The result is a tightening constraint on both infrastructure and timelines.

Coalition Building As A Development Function

In this environment, coalition building is not a communications add-on. It is a core development function.

Projects that succeed tend to follow a different sequence.

They identify credible local voices early. They invest time in understanding how the project intersects with local concerns. They allow the community to shape how the project is discussed rather than introducing a fully formed narrative late in the process.

This work often happens before a project is publicly announced. It rarely appears in investor updates. It is difficult to quantify. It is also one of the clearest predictors of whether a project moves forward.

A Different Way To Think About Messaging

If you treat messaging as explanation, your goal is clarity. You want people to understand what the project is and why it matters.

If you treat messaging as coalition building, your goal is different. You are working to ensure that when the project becomes public, there are already trusted voices within the community who understand it, can speak to it, and see a place for it.

That shift changes everything.

It changes who speaks.

It changes when conversations begin.

It changes how opposition is received.

The Broader Implication

The clean energy transition is often framed as a technological and financial challenge.

Those elements matter. Progress on both has been significant.

At the same time, the growing number of local restrictions, the scale of organized opposition, and the surge in electricity demand from data centers point to a different constraint.

The limiting factor is not always whether a project can be built. It is whether a community is prepared to accept it.

Developers who recognize that early and build coalitions accordingly get projects built.

Developers who do not often find themselves trying to explain a project after the decision has already been made.

AI Produces Familiar Marketing. Cleantech Needs Something New.

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 19:28:39 GMT

Claude, Gemini, and Chat GPT walk into a bar.

The bartender asks Claude, “What’ll you have?” Claude says, “Mix me your most popular drink.”

Then he asks Gemini, “What can I get you?” Gemini says, “Open a beer bottle with a steel opener, pour it in a tall glass, and leave exactly a half-inch of foam, exactly how the instructions tell you how a beer should look.”

Finally, he asks Chat GPT what it wants, and Chat GPT answers, “Pour their two drinks together, and call me an ambulance because there’s a 78% chance I’ll contract alcohol poisoning and need to have my stomach pumped. Tell the doctors to gather around and decide what the best course of action will be.”

Flat. Aggregated. Common. That’s what you get when your company outsources its voice to AI.

It’s correct. It’s sensible. But is it as original as the science and engineering behind your cleantech company?

The beauty of AI is that it’s collected all knowledge since the dawn of time, which is why it can defeat a grand master at chess, and retrieve the most arcane facts in the world.

But when it comes to writing copy, it pulls you to the mean, the average. And average won’t cut it in cleantech when funding is tight and policy winds are shifting against us.

It’s possible to train your AI to become your in-house marketing clearinghouse, but first you’d need to know how to train it to spit out something that’s as original as your IP. That’s the equivalent of a first year chemistry student knowing what you know about inorganic chemistry after working in the field for 20 years.

If you asked AI to tell you how to capture CO2 and turn it into cement, you would get diagrams of mineralization, injection, and electrochemical processes, but what it can’t tell you is why a company that’s been making cement the same way for a century is going to throw it out the window to adopt your technology, or pinpoint your buyer profile and why they are going to become your advocate.

Where AI falls down is the buying process because it doesn’t understand emotions and how they drive your go to market strategy. What you get is boilerplate.

Here’s what others have done and what’s worked…so do that. Like our legal system, it’s totally reliant on precedent…at least it is in 2026.

That might work if you’re recreating something, but you’re not. You’re inventing something, and your marketing language should reflect that in your investor decks, websites, videos, sales sheets, and content.

You can ask AI to write your website because funding is tight for early stage companies, and it will spit out properly search engine optimized headlines to attract Google’s algorithm. But will it keep the interest of a potential investor who's seen the exact same verbiage on your competitor’s website?

That’s the crux of the problem of over reliance on AI. Factually accurate, and step by step directions, but also a paint by numbers visual that is unremarkable and identical to the advice its given countless others.

Why One-Third of Clean Energy Projects Fail Before Construction

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 21:33:17 GMT

Across America, clean energy plants are being banned faster than they’re being built.

A few days ago I wrote that roughly �� .

The comments went predictably where these conversations usually go: turbine blades can't be recycled, wind and solar intermittency, transmission lines and eminent domain, and whether wind and solar “work.”

That’s not the interesting part. What’s interesting is what the reaction reveals about how these projects actually fail.

By the time a project shows up at a county commission, the debate is usually already over. Not formally. But functionally.

�� 775 �� —�� 25% �� —�� .

That didn’t happen at public hearings. That happened months or years earlier as local narratives took shape.

And it’s accelerating.

Why Local Opposition Is Growing

�� 500 �� 49 �� , some by organically concerned citizens and some manufactured by fossil fuel front groups.

Regardless, local restrictions on wind, solar, and storage have grown double digits year-over-year. In some analyses, �� 15% �� .��. �� -�� .

This is not a technology problem. It’s not even primarily a policy problem. Politics being politics, however, this is a sequencing problem.

What Happens Before the Permit Hearing

Developers enter the conversation at the permit stage and assume they are there to explain the project.

In reality, they are walking into a conversation that has already been framed by:

• Local concerns about land use and identity

• Organized advocacy groups with prepared narratives

• Neighbors talking to neighbors in small communities long before the first public meeting

By the time of the public hearings, facts don’t land the way developers expect them to because people aren’t deciding what to think. They’ve already decided, and the hearing just makes it visible.

Lessons from the Clean Fuel Standard Fight

We changed that dynamic during the fight to pass the Clean Fuel Standard in Washington State.

The debate wasn’t won on technical merits alone. Yes, research showed clean fuels made from used cooking oil, food, farm, and forest waste reduced transportation emissions significantly without raising gas prices. It turned when the credibility of the voices in the room became clear—who was speaking, and who they were speaking for.

• Small restaurant owners (largely African-American) who could count on a steady payment for their grease.

• Black church leaders who understood their parishioners were disproportionately affected by air pollution

• Dairy farmers suffering from low milk prices could benefit from capturing methane from cows and turning it into biogas.

• Timber communities could put people back to work turning forest slash into sustainable aviation fuel.

Those were the people we educated about the policy months before the bill was introduced at the state legislature, and those constituents had more sway over their elected officials than well-heeled fossil fuel lobbyists who were testifying at the state capitol that the clean fuel standard would raise gas prices and hurt the poor.

That’s how these decisions move.

Clean Energy Developers Need More Than Engineering To Succeed

The clean energy transition isn’t just an engineering challenge (although my hat is off to those folks). It’s a local, political, narrative-driven process that starts long before a project is announced.

Developers who recognize that reality early get projects built. Developers who don’t are often surprised when the permit is denied, or can't even get on the docket.

Why Clean Energy Projects Are Losing Rural America — and How Developers Can Change the Story

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:52:55 GMT

Engineering solves technical problems. Community trust determines whether projects get built.

The Quiet Crisis in Clean Energy Development

The United States is experiencing a permitting crisis for renewable energy projects.

Between 2018 and 2023, roughly 30% of utility-scale wind and solar projects were canceled during the siting process, often because of local opposition or zoning restrictions.

At the same time, opposition is spreading rapidly across the country.

Researchers tracking renewable project conflicts have documented:

• 498 contested renewable projects across 49 states

• 459 counties and municipalities with severe restrictions on renewable development

In other words, the challenge facing clean energy deployment is not primarily technological.

It is political and social.

When a Wind Project Dies

Last week, a county commission in Washington State placed a moratorium on new wind energy development. That decision effectively halted the Harvest Hills Wind Project, a project proposed by Vestas, one of the most experienced wind companies in the world.

The turbines themselves were not controversial from an engineering standpoint. Wind power is now one of the most mature energy technologies in the global power system. Yet the project still collapsed.

The reason lies in the way public opinion forms around infrastructure projects.

The New Reality of Local Politics

Developers now operate in a communications environment where information spreads instantly and credibility is fragmented.

Anyone with a social media account can claim expertise.

Algorithms amplify outrage.

And misinformation circulates faster than technical explanations.

Even claims that wind turbines cause cancer — a theory repeatedly debunked by medical researchers — continue to appear in local debates.

Once that narrative spreads within a community, the formal permitting process often becomes the stage for a conflict that has already been decided informally.

Why the Old Engagement Model Fails

The traditional developer playbook looks transparent on paper:

1. Announce the project

2. Launch a website with a project overview and FAQ

3. Invite residents to public meetings

But when residents encounter the project for the first time through zoning notices or political social media posts, the project feels imposed rather than understood.

By the time formal stakeholder engagement begins, the conversation often starts from mistrust.

Farmers Understand the Problem

Most wind and solar projects are located in rural areas. Farmers in those communities know something developers sometimes overlook:

You prepare the soil before planting the seed.

A farmer who plants before the soil is ready wastes the crop.

Community engagement works the same way.

If developers wait until a project is announced to begin outreach, the ground is already hardened.

Grassroots Outreach Is Cheap Insurance

Large energy projects often cost hundreds of millions of dollars, yet communications budgets for those projects are frequently minimal.

True grassroots outreach typically costs less than one percent of project value, yet it can determine whether the project survives local politics.

That outreach must reach residents where they already gather online:

• Pre-roll ads on YouTube

• Facebook and Instagram

• Twitter/X (yes, even Twitter, because it's still a home for political junkies)

• Streaming audio like Spotify and Pandora

These platforms allow developers to communicate long before the permitting process begins.

Projects Are About People

Most renewable project websites emphasize infrastructure.

Turbine height.

Generation capacity.

Interconnection details.

Tax base.

Those facts matter, but they rarely build trust.

Communities want to know something simpler:

How does this benefit me?
Who in our community supports this?

In rural areas, credibility travels through relationships. Residents trust farmers, business owners, and local leaders far more than corporate statements.

A project website dominated by technical diagrams tells one story. A project website featuring community voices tells another.

A Model That Worked

Washington State’s Clean Fuel Standard faced intense opposition from the oil industry, but the policy ultimately passed because our team built a broad coalition before the final legislative fight began.

That coalition included communities environmental campaigns often overlook: timber workers, minority businesses, and farmers, who were often the target of oil industry hysterics about gas prices.

We spent months educating those communities before asking them to take action.

When the opposition campaign intensified, the coalition already existed.

The Future of Project Development

Clean energy developers have historically thought of themselves as engineering organizations.

In today’s political environment, they must also think like community organizers.

That means:

• Beginning outreach before project announcements

• Engaging entire communities, not just formal stakeholders

• Communicating through digital channels where residents already gather

• Elevating trusted local voices

The energy transition depends on infrastructure.

But infrastructure ultimately depends on trust.

Is Your Website A Virtual Scavenger Hunt?

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 19:06:44 GMT

Most cleantech websites aren’t broken. They’re just confusing.

While some companies opt for space-age design with bells and whistles, others take the minimalist route. Pre-seed stage companies sometimes have just a homepage placeholder, while other companies further along the technology track pack their websites with subpages for every market, technology, and use case the company serves.

And yet, both of these design types share a common flaw. Their audience leaves without understanding one simple thing:

Is this company for me?

If your website forces visitors to hunt for relevance, you’re not educating them. You’re exhausting them. And in cleantech, where your company is competing for attention with hundreds of other worthwhile ideas and credentialed teams, that friction quietly kills momentum.

You Have 60–90 Seconds. That’s It.

The average website visitor does not explore your site. They scan it.

Research from Nielsen Norman Group on user behavior and web scanning (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/) shows that users typically spend less than 90 seconds deciding whether a website is relevant to them. Most never scroll past the first screen.

Fewer still click into subpages.

That means your homepage isn’t an introduction. It’s a filter.

Visitors arrive with one question in mind:

“Is this for someone like me?”

If the answer isn’t obvious immediately, they leave.

Chasing Markets With Website Subpages

Does your website have dropdown menus with:

• Solutions for Utilities

• Solutions for Municipalities

• Solutions for Agriculture

• Solutions for Industrial Users

• Solutions for Developers

• Solutions for Partners

On paper, this looks thorough. In practice, it creates a problem.

Visitors don’t want to navigate. They want to recognize themselves immediately.

When relevance is buried behind multiple clicks, you’ve turned your website into a scavenger hunt. And most people won’t play.

According to Google’s research on decision-making and cognitive load , every additional choice or step increases friction and dramatically reduces engagement.

In other words:

The more your website asks visitors to figure things out, the less likely they are to stay.

People Don’t Browse Websites .

Here’s the core misunderstanding:

Your website is not a product catalog.

It’s not a technical library.

It’s not an internal org chart translated into web pages.

It’s a recognition tool, and the best ones only try to answer a single question before you ask them to take the next step—engage with you.

You want them to feel seen immediately and share their contact information to start building trust.

If someone can’t tell within seconds:

Who you help
What problem do you solve?
Whether you understand their world

They won’t click further.

This aligns with findings from the Nielsen Norman Group’s research on first impressions and credibility , which shows users form an opinion about relevance and trust almost instantly—and rarely revise it later.

Productizing Your Website Creates Distance

Another common mistake seen on cleantech websites is focusing on products and technology.

Technology diagrams
Product names
Platform descriptions
System architectures
Feature lists

That might be appropriate after relevance is established. But when it comes first, it creates distance.

People don’t connect with products. They connect with problems.

When a homepage opens with “Our proprietary platform leverages advanced systems to optimize…” the visitor has no anchor. They don’t yet know why they should care.

This is especially risky in cleantech, where buyers may not fully understand the technology.

Your Homepage Should Clarify the Problem You Solve—and for Whom

The most effective cleantech homepages make it immediately obvious who the company is for.

Not what it does.

Not how it works.

But who does it serve?

For example:

“We help dairy operators turn waste into predictable revenue.”
“We help utilities manage grid instability without costly infrastructure upgrades.”
“We help industrial facilities reduce emissions while maintaining uptime.”

These statements create instant recognition. Once the visitor sees themselves, then they’re willing to learn how the solution works.

Recognition Comes Before Education

Many founders want their website to educate the market. That’s a good goal—but it’s the second step, not the first.

Recognition comes first.

Then comes education.

Then comes conversion.

Trying to educate before recognition is like explaining the solution before confirming the problem.

According to Microsoft’s research on attention and information processing (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/attention-spans/), modern digital users make rapid relevance judgments before committing attention. If the content doesn’t immediately align with their needs, they disengage.

Your homepage must earn the right to explain.

What Happens When Visitors Have to Hunt

When your site is structured like a scavenger hunt:

Visitors don’t click deeper.
They miss relevant subpages.
They misunderstand your focus.
They assume you’re not for them.
They leave quietly

You don’t get feedback.

You don’t get objections.

You don’t get a chance to clarify.

You just lose attention.

And in cleantech, attention is expensive to earn and easy to lose.

The Homepage Is Not the Place to Be Everything to Everyone

Many cleantech founders resist narrowing their messaging because their technology has multiple applications, and they don’t want to limit their reach . The fear is that focusing on one audience will exclude others.

In reality, the opposite happens.

Clear messaging attracts more people because it signals confidence and understanding. Vague messaging repels everyone.

Your Website Is Not a Sales Deck

Another reason websites become scavenger hunts is that they are treated like sales decks.

Sales decks are designed to be presented.

Websites are designed to be scanned.

What works in a pitch meeting often fails online.

A successful website does three things:

Addresses the problem the target market faces
Answers why you understand their problem
Secures the viewer’s contact information

Once the website has accomplished those priorities, there are secondary goals:

Demonstrate a team that can execute the brand promise (solve the problem)
Build confidence by showing traction with accelerators, investors, and early customers.
Answer obvious questions quickly.

To be clear, anything that requires explanation in person doesn’t belong on a website because a website isn’t designed to answer every question. It’s a teaser to interest your audience in your solution.

How Clear Websites Actually Convert

Clear websites don’t convert because of clever copy. They convert because they remove doubt.

Visitors should leave your homepage knowing:

“This company understands my problem.”
“This feels credible.”
“I know what to do next.”

That’s it.

According to Google’s UX research on high-performing landing pages , clarity and simplicity consistently outperform complexity in engagement and conversion metrics.

Clarity wins. Every time.

This Is Where Most Cleantech Websites Need a Story Refresh

If your website:

Has dozens of subpages, but low engagement
Looks professionally designed, but doesn’t convert
Gets traffic but few inquiries.
Confuses people about who you serve
Leads with products instead of problems

You don’t need a redesign.

You need a story refresh.

A Website Story Refresh doesn’t change everything.

It changes the right things:

Homepage narrative that can be grasped in seconds
Visual and written problem-solution framing
A professionalized team page to show that the solution can be executed.
Third-party validation
Prominent call to action

It ensures that visitors recognize themselves immediately.

What a Website Story Refresh Actually Does

Clarifies who you serve, up front
Reframes messaging around problems, not products
Aligns language with buyer reality
Guides visitors naturally with story framing
Improves conversion so you can build a relationship during long sales cycles

Turn your website from a maze of uncertainty into a clear value proposition for your audience.

Final Thoughts

Your website isn’t failing because your company isn’t impressive. It’s failing because it’s asking too much of the visitor.

People don’t want to explore. They want to recognize.

If your homepage doesn’t clearly answer “Is this for me?” within seconds, you’re losing the very people you’re trying to attract.

Give your audience a Eureka! moment—right on the homepage.

Why Cleantech Founders Need a Content Plan — Not Random Posts

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 23:57:46 GMT

Why consistent communication on LinkedIn and email builds credibility with investors, partners, and customers long before your technology reaches scale.

Most cleantech founders treat content as something that happens when time allows. Between fundraising, technology development, pilot deployments, and hiring, writing a LinkedIn post rarely feels urgent. When it does happen, it is usually squeezed into a spare moment at the end of the week.

Saturday night. Five minutes before bed. A quick conference announcement.

Post. Done.

The problem is that every public communication sends a signal about the maturity of your company. When content appears rushed, inconsistent, or absent entirely, investors and potential partners notice. Cleantech markets operate on credibility, and credibility is built through repeated signals over time rather than occasional bursts of activity.

If your company is asking investors for millions of dollars or asking conservative industries to adopt a new technology, the communication around that technology has to reflect the same discipline you bring to engineering or product development.

That level of trust rarely begins with a single post. It develops through consistent communication that reinforces who you serve, what problem you solve, and why your solution matters now.

Your Business Has a Strategy. Your Content Should Too.

No cleantech founder launches a company without a strategy. You study the market opportunity, define the customers who feel the pain most acutely, and establish milestones that move the company from prototype to commercial adoption.

Yet content is often treated very differently. Instead of being guided by the same strategic thinking, communication becomes reactive. A new hire posts occasionally on LinkedIn. An intern experiments with social media. Updates appear whenever the team remembers to share something.

The purpose of content is not activity. It is clarity.

A structured content plan aligns communication with real business priorities, including:

• Fundraising milestones

• Pilot partnerships and deployments

• Regulatory developments shaping your market

• Industry insights that demonstrate your expertise

When content is connected to these events, it reinforces the strategic direction of the company. When it is improvised, it becomes background noise.

Your Audience Is Already Overloaded

Every executive, investor, and technical leader in your industry is navigating a constant stream of information. Email inboxes fill faster than they can be cleared, and professional feeds update by the minute.

Research from the Radicati Group estimates that the average professional receives more than 120 emails per day , a number that continues to grow as digital communication expands.

LinkedIn has also become a central hub for professional communication, now surpassing 1 billion members worldwide , many of them decision makers in technology, infrastructure, and finance.

Against that backdrop, a single post rarely changes how people understand your company. Recognition develops through repeated exposure to the same core message presented in different contexts. Over time those signals accumulate and form a clear picture of what your company does and why it matters.

Without repetition, even strong messaging disappears into the noise.

LinkedIn Is Where Your Industry Lives

For early-stage cleantech companies, LinkedIn remains the most important public platform. Investors track emerging technologies there, corporate innovation teams monitor new vendors, and founders exchange insights about markets that are still developing.

LinkedIn reports that four out of five members influence business decisions within their organizations , which explains why the platform has become such an important channel for B2B industries.

In practical terms, that means a thoughtful weekly presence on LinkedIn does more than generate engagement. It gradually builds authority inside the professional networks that shape partnerships, investments, and procurement decisions.

Founders who publish useful industry commentary consistently begin to occupy a recognizable position in their market. Founders who appear only when they attend conferences rarely achieve that level of visibility.

Consistency signals seriousness.

Email Is the Channel You Control

LinkedIn is powerful, but it is still a rented platform. Algorithms change, feeds evolve, and even the most thoughtful posts may reach only a portion of your audience.

Email operates differently. When someone subscribes to your updates, they are giving your company direct access to their inbox. That relationship does not depend on platform algorithms or shifting visibility rules.

Email also remains one of the most reliable communication channels in digital marketing. Benchmark data from Campaign Monitor shows average open rates in the 20–25 percent range across industries , which is often higher than the effective reach of many social media posts.

For cleantech companies with long sales cycles, email becomes especially valuable because it maintains relationships between major milestones. Product breakthroughs and project deployments may happen only a few times each year, but thoughtful updates keep investors and potential partners engaged in the months between those events.

Content Without a Calendar Signals Chaos

Timing communicates intent.

When a company sends an email at 11:00 p.m. on a Saturday night, it signals that the message was written quickly and without much consideration. The audience may not consciously analyze that signal, but they feel it.

A structured content calendar solves that problem by establishing cadence and predictability. Weekly LinkedIn commentary paired with monthly long-form insights creates a rhythm that audiences learn to expect. Email updates can then reinforce those themes while nurturing relationships that develop over months or even years.

The objective is not constant activity. The objective is disciplined communication that reinforces your expertise at regular intervals.

Silence Has Real Business Costs

When early-stage companies neglect content, the consequences show up in subtle but meaningful ways. Investors researching the company find little evidence of recent progress. Potential partners struggle to understand the technology or the market you serve. Industry discussions move forward without your perspective shaping the narrative.

Meanwhile competitors fill that space.

Thought leadership rarely belongs to the company with the best technology alone. It belongs to the company that shows up consistently with useful insight about the market.

In emerging cleantech sectors, that visibility can influence how buyers understand the problem itself. Companies that publish thoughtful perspectives often shape the language and assumptions that define the market.

The Goal Is Credibility, Not Volume

A well-designed content strategy does not turn founders into influencers. Instead, it creates a simple system that ensures expertise appears in the places where your audience already spends time.

That system typically includes a few core elements:

• Messaging themes tied to your value proposition

• A publishing calendar aligned with business milestones

• Formats appropriate to the skills available on your team

• Distribution through LinkedIn and email

Some companies also experiment with video or podcasting. Those formats can be powerful, but they require production skills that many early-stage teams do not yet have. Written commentary on LinkedIn and thoughtful email updates remain the most practical starting point for most cleantech founders.

Clarity and consistency matter more than production value.

Start With Structure

The hardest part of content creation is not writing. It is creating the structure that makes writing easier. Without a plan, every post begins from scratch and the message drifts over time.

That is why we built the Content Kickstart Kit , a framework designed to give cleantech companies a practical foundation for consistent communication.

The system includes:

• LinkedIn company page optimization and professional branding

• A three-month posting calendar with weekly posts and monthly long-form insights

• Email marketing templates and automation sequences

• Initial content aligned with your expertise and business goals

The goal is not constant activity. The goal is a repeatable system that keeps your company visible while your team focuses on building the technology that will ultimately move the market forward.

You can review the full framework here: https://www.cleanupmarketing.com/content-kickstart-kit

Content Kick Start Kit

Because the cleantech companies that command attention rarely do so by accident. They communicate clearly, show up consistently, and reinforce their message long before the rest of the market realizes how important their solution will become.

Branding Is More Than A Logo or Tagline

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 15:34:55 GMT

A brand is not your logo.

It’s not your color palette.

It’s not your typography.

It’s not your tagline.

A brand is your voice and your story.

The most beautifully designed logo in the world is irrelevant if there isn’t a narrative beneath it—one that carries meaning across platforms, resonates with a specific audience, and communicates why your company exists.

In cleantech, this distinction matters more than founders often realize.

Because when your product is complex, technical, and capital-intensive, your brand becomes the bridge between your science and your market.

A Logo Without Meaning Is Just a Shape

Many early-stage companies invest in visual identity before investing in narrative clarity, as if you aren’t a real company until you have a logo, debating colors, symbols, and typography without answering the fundamental questions:

• Who do we serve?

• What problem do we solve?

• Why does it matter now?

• Why are we uniquely positioned to win?

Creating a logo without answering the above questions first reminds me of the famous line from Alice in Wonderland: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Research supports this distinction.

According to the Nielsen Norman Group – Brand Credibility and User Perception , users form judgments about credibility based on the clarity of the message and its relevance—not purely on visual design. Visual polish without substance may attract attention, but it does not sustain trust.

In other words, aesthetics are secondary to meaning. A logo is a symbol. Symbols only matter when they represent something meaningful.

Nike: A Logo That Carries a Story

Consider Nike.

The swoosh is one of the most recognizable logos in the world. It is minimal. Clean. Uncomplicated.

But the swoosh alone does not create emotional impact.

Nike has spent decades pairing that logo with a consistent narrative: you can be the best version of yourself.

The logo tells athletes—and non-athletes alike—that they can fly.

Nike does not lead with rubber compounds or stitching technology. They lead with aspiration. Their campaigns reinforce belief. The logo has remained stable, but the company has invested billions in associating it with performance, resilience, identity, and ambition.

Brand equity research confirms why this works.

According to McKinsey & Company – The Value of Getting Brand Building Right , companies that consistently reinforce a clear, emotionally resonant brand story outperform peers in long-term growth and pricing power.

The swoosh works because the story works.

Cleantech Is Technical—But It’s Also Aspirational

Cleantech founders sometimes resist branding comparisons to consumer companies.

“We’re not selling shoes.”

“We’re selling grid storage.”

“We’re building carbon capture systems.”

That’s true. But you are still selling transformation. You are selling:

• Energy resilience

• Regulatory compliance

• Cost stability

• Operational continuity

• Emissions reduction

• Long-term viability

These outcomes are aspirational.

Cleantech may be technical, but the impact it delivers is planet-altering. That emotional weight is powerful—if you communicate it clearly.

Research from Edelman Trust Barometer 2024 shows that trust in companies is driven heavily by clarity of purpose and perceived long-term commitment—not product features alone.

Your brand must communicate belief, not just capability.

Generic Taglines Signal Generic Positioning

Now consider the tagline problem.

Cleantech websites are full of statements like:

• “Powering a Sustainable Future.”

• “Driving the Transition to Net Zero.”

• “Innovating for a Greener Tomorrow.”

Each one sounds polished. Mission-driven. Serious.

Each one is also interchangeable.

If five companies can use the same tagline without modification, it is not a strategic differentiator. It is a category filler.

Strong brands communicate specificity.

According to Harvard Business Review – Competing on Customer Experience , companies that articulate clearly how they solve a defined customer problem outperform those relying on vague mission-driven messaging.

A tagline should drive the audience to an obvious conclusion:

This company is one of one.

If your tagline does not signal:

• Who you serve

• What you solve

• Why it matters

• Why you are uniquely positioned

Then it is not strengthening your brand.

It is simply occupying space.

Branding Is Strategic Positioning

Branding is not decoration. It is positioning.

Positioning answers:

• Who this is for

• Who this is NOT for

• What problem do you solve?

• Why can't competitors replicate you?

• What belief anchors your work?

Without that clarity, your brand defaults to comparison. And comparison often defaults to price.

Research from Boston Consulting Group – The Power of Brand in B2B confirms that even in technical B2B industries, strong brands command pricing premiums and reduce perceived risk.

Cleantech is no exception.

If your brand doesn’t signal differentiation, the market will evaluate you on cost.

That is a race you do not want to run.

Voice Is the Core of Brand Consistency

If branding is more than a logo, what defines it? Voice!

Voice shows up in:

• Website copy

• Investor decks

• Sales sheets

• LinkedIn posts

• White papers

• Conference presentations

If your voice changes across platforms, your brand fractures.

If your executive team describes the company differently from your sales team, your brand weakens.

Branding is a narrative discipline.

Nike’s swoosh works because the story is reinforced everywhere.

Your cleantech company does not need a billion-dollar ad budget. But it does need message consistency across platforms.

Consistency builds familiarity.

Familiarity builds trust.

Trust accelerates decisions.

Your Brand Should Make the Audience the Hero

One of the most common branding mistakes in cleantech is positioning the company as the hero.

“We are saving the planet.”

“We are transforming energy.”

“We are redefining sustainability.”

That sounds ambitious. But it centers the company, not the audience.

A stronger brand narrative positions the customer as the hero and your company as the guide.

Instead of: “We power a sustainable future.” Consider: “We help industrial operators reduce compliance risk without sacrificing uptime.”

Now the buyer sees themselves.

Branding must create recognition before admiration.

If Your Logo Disappeared Tomorrow, Would Your Story Survive?

A useful test:

If your logo disappeared tomorrow, would your audience still understand who you serve and why you matter?

If the answer is no, your branding is surface-level.

A strong brand survives without a visual identity because the story carries it.

Nike’s swoosh matters because of decades of narrative reinforcement.

Your cleantech brand must stand on narrative clarity first—and design second.

Final Thoughts

Branding is more than a logo.

It is more than a tagline.

It is the story that undergirds your visual identity and carries it across every platform.

A logo is a symbol.

A tagline is a signal.

But your brand is the belief that ties them together.

Cleantech solves technical problems with planetary implications. That is not small work. Your brand should reflect that scale—not through vague mission language, but through clear positioning and meaningful narrative.

The strongest brands do not win because they are the prettiest. They win because they mean something.

If your tagline could belong to anyone, it belongs to no one. And if your logo does not represent a defined belief shared with your audience, it is just a shape.

Build the story first.

Then let the symbol carry it.

Why Your Cleantech Company Must Produce Video Content

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:58:54 GMT

Cleantech companies love white papers. They love technical briefs. They love dense PDFs packed with charts, tables, and footnotes.

Unfortunately, your audience doesn’t consume information that way anymore.

If your marketing strategy still treats video as optional—or something you’ll “get to later”—you’re actively choosing to be invisible in the places that matter most.

This isn’t a creative preference. It’s a distribution reality.

And the data is unambiguous.

Your Audience Is on YouTube—Whether You Like It or Not

Every year, Pew Research Center releases its survey on how Americans use social media. And every year, the results reinforce the same conclusion: YouTube dominates.

According to Pew Research Center – Americans’ Social Media Use 2025 , YouTube is the most widely used platform across every major demographic category:

• Age

• Gender

• Education level

• Household income

• Political affiliation

• Urban vs. rural

Nearly half of all YouTube users report visiting the platform daily.

No other platform comes close to that level of reach and consistency.

So when cleantech founders ask whether they should be producing video, the better question is:

Why would you avoid the one platform your audience already uses?

“Because That’s Where the Money Is”

There’s an old story about the bank robber Willie Sutton. When asked why he robbed banks, he famously replied:

“Because that’s where the money is.”

The same logic applies here.

YouTube isn’t just another social platform. It’s where your buyers, investors, partners, regulators, and future hires already spend time. They go there to learn, to research, and to understand complex topics—exactly the kind of topics cleantech companies work on.

If you’re not there, someone else is explaining your category for you.

And you may not like how they’re doing it.

Cleantech Is Complex—

Video Reduces Friction

Cleantech products are rarely simple. They involve infrastructure, policy, science, operations, and long-term outcomes. Asking someone to understand that through text alone is a heavy lift.

Video lowers the barrier.

A two-minute explainer video can do what ten pages of copy often can’t:

• Define the problem

• Show empathy

• Differentiate your solution

• Demonstrate scale

• Establish credibility

• Humanize your team

• Reduce perceived risk

This matters because buying cleantech solutions isn’t about impulse—it’s about confidence.

Video builds confidence faster than any other format.

YouTube Is Not Social Media—It’s the Second Largest Search Engine

One of the most misunderstood aspects of YouTube is that it’s not primarily a “social” platform. It’s a discovery engine.

Google has confirmed repeatedly that YouTube functions as the world’s second-largest search engine. People don’t just scroll—they search.

According to Google – How People Use Video to Make Decisions , users increasingly rely on video to evaluate products, understand services, and validate purchasing decisions—especially for high-consideration industries.

That describes cleantech perfectly.

When someone searches:

• “How anaerobic digesters work”

• “Is RNG profitable”

• “Utility-scale battery storage risks”

• “How to reduce methane emissions”

They’re not looking for marketing copy. They’re looking for explanation.

If your company isn’t providing that explanation, someone else will.

Video Builds Trust Faster Than Text

Trust is the limiting factor in cleantech adoption.

Buyers aren’t just evaluating performance—they’re evaluating you. They want to know:

• Do you understand their problem?

• Can you explain it clearly?

• Do you seem credible?

• Will you still be here in five or ten years?

Video answers these questions instantly.

Seeing your engineers, leadership team, or operators speak confidently about the work creates familiarity. Familiarity reduces risk. Reduced risk accelerates decisions.

Research from Edelman – Trust and Technology Special Report shows that audiences are significantly more likely to trust companies that communicate transparently and visibly, especially in emerging technology sectors.

Video is the fastest way to do that.

Nearly All Internet Traffic Is Becoming Video

This trend isn’t slowing down—it’s accelerating.

According to Cisco – Annual Internet Report , video accounts for the majority of global internet traffic and continues to grow year over year.

That means:

• More people are consuming video

• Platforms are prioritizing video

• Text-only content is losing distribution power

If your cleantech marketing strategy is still built around written content alone, you’re swimming against the current.

________________________________________

Video Doesn’t Replace Written Content—It Multiplies It

This is where many founders misunderstand the role of video.

Producing video doesn’t mean abandoning blogs, reports, or white papers. It means creating a content engine.

One video can be:

• A YouTube upload

• A LinkedIn clip

• A website explainer

• A sales enablement asset

• A conference follow-up

• A blog transcript

• A press resource

Video gives you leverage.

Instead of writing ten separate pieces of content, you produce one strong video and distribute it everywhere your audience already is.

That’s efficiency—not extra work.

What Types of Video Actually Work for Cleantech

This is not about flashy production or viral trends.

The most effective cleantech video content is:

• Empathetic

• Educational

• Solutions-Based

• Clear

• Credible

Examples that work consistently:

• Benefits that address pain points

• Short technical breakdowns

• Founder or expert commentary

• Project walk-throughs

• Pilot results explanations

• Market or policy context videos

Clever videos are nice. Clear videos are better. The goal is reducing uncertainty.

Video Supports Long Sales Cycles

Cleantech sales cycles are long by nature. Video helps in ways text cannot:

• Prospects can rewatch explanations

• Internal champions can share videos upward

• Investors can evaluate without meetings

• Regulators can understand context faster

Video becomes a silent sales partner—working when you’re not in the room.

It also filters leads. People who take the time to watch your content are self-selecting as serious.

That improves sales efficiency and reduces wasted conversations.

The Real Risk Is Not Producing Video

The biggest mistake cleantech companies make isn’t producing bad video.

It’s producing none at all.

When you avoid video:

• Your competitors define the narrative

• Your category is explained by outsiders

• Your credibility is assumed instead of demonstrated

• Your expertise stays hidden

• Your brand feels distant and abstract

Meanwhile, the competing companies that do produce video capture the visibility high ground for those seeking solutions in your niche.

This Isn’t About Being Trendy—It’s About Being Visible

Producing video content isn’t a marketing fad. It’s a response to how people now consume information.

Your audience has already made the shift.

The Pew data makes that clear. The internet traffic data confirms it. The trust research supports it.

YouTube is where your audience is.

As Willie Sutton might say—

that’s where the opportunity is.

Final Thoughts

Cleantech companies don’t lose attention because their work isn’t important. They lose attention because they fail to communicate in the formats people actually use.

Video is no longer optional.

It’s no longer experimental.

It’s no longer “nice to have.”

It’s infrastructure.

If you want your cleantech company to be understood, trusted, and taken seriously at scale, you must produce video content.

Not because everyone else is doing it.

But because that’s where your audience already is.

Affordability Isn’t a Value Proposition

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:29:15 GMT

You’ve spent years in the lab perfecting your technology to make it something that humanity can’t live without, and now you want to send a value signal that it’s just another commodity?

That’s exactly what happens in the minds of your customers when you compete on price.

No one is denying that it’s hard or painstakingly slow to break into a market against incumben ts in notoriously risk-averse industries like utilities, petrochemicals, or heavy manufacturing. Glaciers form and melt in less time. But trying to short-circuit that system by offering a lower price is both a short and long term mistake.

Affordability is not a value proposition. It’s not a differentiator. And in many cases, it’s a red flag.

If the strongest message you can send to the market is “we cost less,” then you’ve signaled that price is the only thing you have going for you. In emerging industries like clean energy, bio-based systems, advanced materials, or climate tech, that’s the fastest way to position yourself as a commodity instead of a category leader.

Here’s why affordability is a losing strategy — and how to build a value proposition that actually increases demand, strengthens your pricing power, and makes your brand irreplaceable.

Why “Affordability” Backfires in Cleantech

At first glance, affordability feels customer-friendly. You assume you're helping buyers by reducing barriers. But this mindset ignores how real purchasing decisions happen.

Buyers in cleantech — utilities, municipalities, corporates, farmers, industrial operators, and investors — are not choosing based on sticker price. They choose based on risk, reliability, credibility, long-term value, and trust.

This is especially true in infrastructure-heavy markets. According to the International Energy Agency’s Clean Energy Investment report , organizations make clean energy purchasing decisions based on reliability, operational benefit, and expected return — not lowest upfront cost. Affordability barely registers as a primary factor.

When your brand leads with price, the message buyers actually hear is:

• “We don’t have meaningful differentiation from what you’re already using.”

• “We may not be durable enough to trust.”

• “We may not be financially stable (read: desperate).”

• “We are trying to make up for missing value by being cheaper.”

Not exactly the impression you want to make.

1. Competing on Price Makes You Replaceable

If affordability is the reason someone buys from you, affordability will also be the reason they leave.

Price-sensitive customers are loyal to price, not to you.

The moment a competitor drops their cost by 5%, your customer is gone — not because they wanted to switch, but because switching costs them nothing. You were never irreplaceable. You were simply the cheapest temporary option.

Research supports this. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s procurement and vendor retention data shows that contracts awarded on price-only criteria have the lowest multi-year retention rates across all industries. When buyers choose the cheapest option, churn is inevitable.

If you’re replaceable, you’re not a brand. You’re a commodity.

2. Affordability Attracts the Wrong Customers

Low-price messaging pulls in bargain-driven customers — the ones who:

• need the most support,

• negotiate endlessly,

• delay payments,

• demand exceptions,

• churn quickly, and

• rarely become advocates.

Meanwhile, your ideal customers — ones who care about reliability, expertise, impact, and long-term value — won’t see themselves in a message built around affordability.

They’re not buying the cheapest solution. They’re buying the solution that solves their problem.

Buyers in cleantech care about total lifetime value, not initial cost. According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions , procurement teams in clean energy evaluate solutions based on lifetime operational benefits, scalability, and performance — far above cost savings.

The cheapest product rarely delivers on those dimensions.

3. Competing on Price Triggers a Race to the Bottom

Once you anchor your brand to affordability, you’ve locked yourself into a dangerous game:

To stay “the affordable option,” you must keep lowering your prices every time a competitor lowers theirs.

Margins shrink. Teams shrink. Quality slips. Innovation slows.

Your brand becomes weaker — not stronger.

This dynamic is well-understood in pricing research. McKinsey’s global pricing study found that companies competing primarily on price see disproportionately lower margins and significantly higher volatility during market shifts.

A shrinking margin is not a business strategy. It’s an early warning sign.

4. Real Buyers Don’t Want Cheap — They Want Confidence

Even the most budget-conscious buyers don’t want the cheapest option. They want the safest option.

In cleantech, choosing wrong can mean:

• regulatory fines

• operational downtime

• environmental risk

• safety issues

• failed pilots

• lost production

• investor pressure

• community pushback

Cheap sounds risky.

Buyers invest in confidence — not discounts.

Confidence that your solution will work.

Confidence that your company will still exist in five years.

Confidence that you will support them when something breaks.

This is why Edelman’s 2024 Trust Barometer shows that trust — not price — is the strongest predictor of organizational decision-making, especially in high-stakes industries.

Affordability can’t build trust.

Clarity, reliability, expertise, and proof do.

5. Affordability Isn’t a Value Proposition — Value Is

A value proposition must communicate:

1. What outcome you deliver

2. Why that outcome matters

3. Why it’s worth paying for

4. Why you’re the best or only choice

Affordability answers none of these questions.

A real value proposition might focus on:

• reduced downtime

• faster permitting

• higher yields

• operational savings

• reliability and predictability

• integration with existing systems

• regulatory alignment

• measurable environmental impact

• lower lifetime cost of ownership

• safety

• expert support

These are durable differentiators.

Buyers don’t buy the cheapest solution.

They buy the one that reduces the most risk.

They buy the one that delivers the clearest benefit.

They buy the one they trust most to work.

6. What “Worth It” Looks Like in Cleantech Messaging

Here’s how strong companies shift away from affordability and toward true value:

Instead of: “We’re more affordable than other filtration systems.”

Say: “We eliminate 95% of contaminants while reducing annual maintenance time by 40% — improving operator safety and compliance.”

—

Instead of: “Our monitoring system costs less.”

Say: “Our sensors cut methane escape events by 60%, preventing costly downtime and improving reporting accuracy.”

—

Instead of: “We’re the low-cost option for digesters.”

Say: “Our digesters run at higher uptime, maintain more consistent gas yields, and come with fully integrated nutrient recovery — delivering predictable revenue and fewer operational surprises.”

See the difference?

One sells affordability.

The other sells value, reliability, and outcomes.

Only one of those is a real value proposition.

7. Affordability Doesn’t Create Category Leadership

No major cleantech leader became dominant by being the cheapest — not Tesla, not Ørsted, not NextEra, not Sunrun, not First Solar.

Leaders win by:

• being clearer

• being more reliable

• delivering superior outcomes

• offering unique integration or expertise

• creating a stronger customer experience

• proving traction through results

As the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) notes in its 2023 market analysis, category leaders in energy transition sectors succeed by demonstrating long-term value, durability, and scalability — not affordability ().

Price follows brand strength.

Brand strength does not follow price.

8. The Real Question Every Founder Must Answer

Instead of asking: “How do we make our product more affordable?”

Ask: “What makes our brand irreplaceable?”

Because irreplaceable brands:

• command higher margins

• retain customers longer

• attract better partners

• close deals faster

• build trust easier

• require less aggressive selling

• scale without racing to the bottom

Affordability is the story companies tell when they haven’t figured out their real story yet.

The moment you articulate a value proposition based on outcomes — not discounts — your entire market perception shifts.

Final Thoughts

Affordability isn’t a value proposition.

It’s a warning sign: a signal that a company hasn’t yet clarified why it matters.

Buyers don’t want the cheapest option. They want the option they can defend to their board, their regulator, their investors, and their operators.

The strongest brands don’t win by being affordable.

They win by being worth it.

If your messaging right now leans on price, it’s time to rewrite it.

Your margins — and your market position — depend on it.

The 10-Second Rule: How to Win (or Lose) Your Cleantech Audience Before They Click Away

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 17:58:55 GMT

The Call to Adventure: Your Website Has 10 Seconds to Prove Itself

You’ve poured years into your clean technology breakthrough—only to have your website squander the first impression. The truth? The average visitor gives your homepage about ten seconds before deciding whether to stay or move on to the next tab (or, let’s be honest… to watch cats doing something hilarious).

In that blink of an eye, investors, partners, and customers decide if your company is worth their attention. And most cleantech startups fail this test—not because their tech isn’t brilliant, but because their message isn’t.

Instead of clarity, visitors find jargon. Instead of urgency, they find buzzwords. Instead of a clear next step, they find confusion.

This is where your hero’s journey begins: realizing that a powerful story—not just a powerful product—is what transforms browsers into believers.

Crossing the Threshold: Why the Right Marketing Partner Matters

Not every web developer can tell a cleantech story. You can hire a B2C web designer or someone who builds e-commerce sites for yoga pants and energy drinks—but they won’t know how to position a startup developing bioresins, green hydrogen, or thermal storage systems.

Your audience is different. They’re scientists, investors, engineers, policymakers, and sustainability directors. They don’t need gimmicks; they need credibility and clarity.

At Clean Up Marketing, we speak both languages: the language of technology and the language of traction. That’s what makes our Website Story Refresh so effective—it’s not just design; it’s narrative architecture tailored for the cleantech buyer’s mindset.

The Road of Trials: What Every Cleantech Website Must Get Right

Passing the 10-second test doesn’t mean building a 30-page corporate site or dazzling visitors with space-age graphics. What matters most is communicating the right story, fast.

Every great cleantech website needs five essential ingredients:

1️⃣ A clear problem statement — Who specifically are you helping, and what pain point are you solving?

2️⃣ A reason to care — Why should your target audience—investors, partners, or customers—see your solution as essential?

3️⃣ A unique value proposition — How is your technology or approach distinct from every other “revolutionary solution” out there?

4️⃣ Third-party validation — Awards, grants, partnerships, or pilot results prove that your solution is credible and not vaporware.

5️⃣ A bold call-to-action — Don’t make visitors guess what to do next. Invite them to schedule a demo, download a deck, or contact you directly.

You don’t need 30 subpages or animated particle effects. You need focus. You need a homepage that communicates like an investor pitch—clear, confident, and concise.

The Reward: Turning Confusion Into Connection

When your website tells a clear, credible story, everything changes:

�� Investors understand your market opportunity.

⚡ Partners see exactly how you fit into their value chain.

�� Customers grasp how your technology solves their specific pain point.

The result? More engagement, more qualified leads, and more credibility in a sector where trust is everything.

For cleantech founders, this isn’t just marketing—it’s mission-critical storytelling. You’re not just selling a product; you’re selling belief in a better future.

The Return Home: Your Front Door That Opens Doors

The journey ends where it began—on your homepage. Except this time, it’s transformed. It now passes the 10-second test with flying colors:

• A headline that hooks your audience.

• A story that connects your mission to their problem.

• A call-to-action that drives real engagement.

That’s exactly what our Website Story Refresh delivers. In just two weeks, we redesign your homepage and About page to clarify your message, elevate your credibility, and bring your digital “front door” in line with your market ambitions.

Because your website shouldn’t just sit there—it should open doors.

�� Ready to pass the 10-second test? Book your Website Story Refresh today and turn your homepage into your most powerful marketing asset.

How Does Your Email Newsletter Measure Up?

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:39:51 GMT

Most cleantech startups treat their email newsletter like an afterthought. They send updates only when “something big happens,” or they use the newsletter as a dumping ground for technical summaries, grant announcements, and overly dense progress reports.

The problem? Email newsletters are one of the most powerful tools you have for shaping investor perception, staying visible between fundraising rounds, educating slow-moving customers, and building long-term credibility.

If your newsletter isn’t performing, it’s not because email “doesn’t work.” It’s because your message, structure, consistency, or strategy is off.

Let’s break down what makes a cleantech newsletter effective — and how yours measures up.

Why Email Still Matters (Especially in Cleantech)

Cleantech doesn’t run on impulse buys. The people you’re communicating with — investors, utilities, municipalities, corporate sustainability teams, regulators — operate on long decision cycles.

Email is the only channel that:

• Reaches them directly

• Allows nuanced storytelling

• Builds credibility over time

• Creates a consistent narrative about your company

• Doesn’t depend on algorithms

According to the Data & Marketing Association’s 2023 Email Benchmark Report , email continues to deliver the highest ROI of any marketing channel — outperforming social, paid search, and direct outreach.

In cleantech, where decisions can take 6–36 months, consistent email is not optional. It’s infrastructure.

1. Does Your Newsletter Have a Clear Purpose?

Most newsletters fail because they’re not designed with a specific purpose.

A strong cleantech email newsletter should focus on one of these goals:

• Educating investors and partners

• Demonstrating traction

• Nurturing long-cycle prospects

• Updating stakeholders on milestones

• Positioning your brand as an expert

If your newsletter tries to do everything, it ends up doing nothing.

Start with a single sentence:

“Our newsletter exists to __________.”

That focus should shape every issue you send.

Clarity is strategy.

2. Segmenting

It’s OK if the content of every email doesn’t appeal to everyone on your contact list, and the way to ensure you’re targeting the right people with your email is through segmenting.

Every commercial email platform has a segmenting tool that allows you to classify every contact, whether they are a potential investor, customer, or a more general audience. This is extremely valuable, and you should take the time to create tags and sub-lists.

When you send a targeted message to a specific audience, your overall audience will be smaller, but your open rates will rise significantly.

3. Is Your Message Written for Humans or Engineers?

Email is not a grant application or a technical brief.

It needs to read quickly, clearly, and conversationally — with a narrative flow, not a dense explanation.

If your newsletter includes:

• Walls of text

• Overly technical descriptions

• Insider jargon (jargon monoxide)

• 10 different project updates

• Long paragraphs with no breaks

…it’s not being read. It’s being archived.

The Nielsen Norman Group’s research on digital readability shows that readers scan email far more aggressively than any other medium — meaning clarity and structure matter even more.

Think of your own email inbox and how many emails you receive every day. No one has the kind of time to read a tome, no matter how well written.

Two good rules of thumb to use when writing emails:

• Try to maintain a 200-word ceiling for any single email. Rather than cram all of the content into one email, break it up into a series

• Print your email copy and read it out loud before you send it. If it takes you longer than 30 seconds to finish it or if you are struggling to read a sentence without taking a breath, it’s too long and too dense.

4. Are You Sending It Consistently (Not Constantly)?

A good newsletter is consistent, not frequent.

Most cleantech startups fall into one of two traps:

• They send one newsletter every six months.

• They send one every time something small happens.

Both approaches weaken your message.

Instead, pick a sustainable rhythm. For most cleantech companies, that’s:

• Once per month, or

• Once per quarter

What matters most is predictability — because predictability builds trust.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) notes in its SBIR/STTR engagement guidance that startups maintaining consistent outreach (including newsletters) have significantly higher follow-up and partner engagement rates.

When you send your email also matters. Sending it out late at night or on weekends or holidays sends a tacit message that you didn’t make time to communicate with your audience, so you’re sending it at a time when they aren’t in the office and likely won’t read it because that’s when you found 15 minutes to squeeze them in. Your newsletter is part of proving you’re an organized company capable of executing.

5. What Do You Call Your Newsletter?

A subject line that says “November Newsletter” is a subject line that says “Batch Delete.” You should spend at least as much time crafting a subject line of no more than 60 characters (6-8 words) as you do creating the content in your newsletter.

Studies show that using action verbs or asking questions in the subject line yields far higher email open rates than using a bland statement or the word “newsletter.”

You don’t have to be a clever copywriter to craft an interesting subject line, but show your audience you care about them by not boring them to death.

6. Is Your Newsletter Focused on Outcomes, Not Activity?

Founders often fill newsletters with internal updates:

• “We hired a new engineer.”

• “We attended a conference.”

• “We submitted a grant.”

These updates matter internally — not externally.

Readers care about outcomes:

• What changed?

• What improved?

• What progress is measurable?

• What value did you create?

• What signals de-risk the company?

If your newsletter feels like a diary, rewrite it as a progress brief.

This doesn’t mean ignoring the small wins — it means reframing them as forward movement.

7. Does Your Newsletter Reinforce Your Positioning?

A good newsletter isn’t just a list of updates — it’s part of your positioning strategy.

Every issue should reinforce:

• What you stand for

• What makes you unique

• How you’re moving the industry forward

• Why your technology is credible

• Why your team is the right team

The newsletter isn’t separate from your brand — it’s a direct extension of it.

The Harvard Business Review emphasizes that repeated, consistent messaging across channels accelerates investor trust and brand recognition, even more than paid media.

If your newsletter doesn’t reflect your positioning, it’s leaking credibility.

8. Are You Telling a Story or Listing Information?

Email that reads like a bulletin board…gets treated like a bulletin board.

Every newsletter needs a narrative thread — not just bullet points.

Here’s a simple structure that works:

1. Open with a hook: Something happening in the market or at your company.

2. Explain why it matters: Context, timing, or relevance.

3. Show your role: What your team has done to advance the mission.

4. Close with confidence: What comes next and why the reader should care.

This structure turns a newsletter into a story of progress — not noise.

9. Are Your Metrics Telling the Truth?

Metrics aren’t the goal. They’re diagnostic tools to help you improve the quality of your content.

Look at:

• Open rate

• Click-through rate

• Scroll depth

• Reply rate

• Unsubscribes

Most people can tell you what their open rate is, but it’s the engagement quality that really matters. Is your audience clicking on links to watch a video or learn more? Are they replying to you? It’s better to have an engaged list of 1,000 email subscribers than 10,000 subscribers who rarely open anything you send.

According to Campaign Monitor’s 2024 Email Marketing Benchmark Data , B2B emails with clear structure and focused messaging see engagement rates up to 40% higher than broad “company update” newsletters.

If your audience is opening every issue but never clicking, your storytelling is strong but your calls to action are weak.

If your unsubscribe rate is high, your content is mismatched to your audience.

If your open rate is low, your subject lines or send cadence need work.

The metrics don’t just measure performance — they tell you what to fix.

10. Does It Look Like Your Brand?

Consistency isn’t just about words — it’s visual.

Your newsletter should:

• Use your brand colors

• Use your typography

• Use images that reflect your industry

• Use spacing that’s readable

• Match the tone of your website and materials

If your newsletter looks like a generic template, it weakens your perceived credibility.

In cleantech, where trust is fragile and competition is growing, brand coherence is not optional.

11. Is There a Clear, Singular Call to Action?

Every newsletter should have one dominant CTA. Not five. Not zero.

Examples:

• “Download the latest case study.”

• “Watch the pilot demo recap.”

• “Request a technical briefing.”

• “Schedule a meeting before Q4 closes.”

• “Register for the webinar.”

The CTA shouldn’t feel like a push — it should feel like the next logical step.

If your CTA is buried at the bottom in a tiny button, you’ve wasted the send.

Final Thoughts

Your email newsletter is not a task — it’s an asset.

It’s one of the only channels where you control the message, the timing, and the audience without interference from algorithms or trends.

When done right, it:

• Builds investor confidence

• Shows traction over time

• Reinforces your positioning

• Educates your market

• Reduces friction in long decision cycles

• Creates a consistent narrative about your company

The cleantech founders who treat newsletters as strategic communication — not afterthought updates — are the ones who stay top-of-mind when funding, partnerships, and pilot opportunities open up.

So the real question is:

How does your email newsletter measure up?

Clean Fuel Washington Case Study

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:29:09 GMT

Not many people know that a variety of organic and recycled materials can be turned into fuel for cars, trucks, ships, and airplanes because we’ve all been pulling up to the pump for 100 years without much thought as to what we put in our gas tanks.

But what if consumers had the choice to use fuel that didn’t have to be pumped from beneath the ground or imported from foreign countries while reducing the pollute in their commute by up to 80%?

While you might be familiar with corn-based ethanol for passenger cars, diesel can be made from a variety of sources like used cooking oil from restaurants and forest waste, while fleets powered by natural gas can also be powered from methane captured from animal manure.

The reason greener gas and diesel isn’t widely available is because its expensive, and it’s expensive because it isn’t mass produced in anywhere near the quantities of petroleum-based gas and diesel. To unlock this market, drive down prices, and give consumers a more sustainable choice, government needed to level playing field with large oil companies that have been receiving public subsidies since 1916.

Meet the clean fuel standard: a private market-based policy that created a credit market in Washington State similar to California’s groundbreaking Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).

Passage of the clean fuel standard (CFS) gave gas and diesel producers a choice. They could either make gas and diesel from a variety of chemically identical food, farm, and forest waste that produced fuel anywhere from 30-80 percent cleaner than petroleum, or they could pay into a credit market that would be used to underwrite the production of these less polluting fuels, thereby building a large enough market to drive down prices.

As you might imagine, oil companies and their army of lobbyists were less than thrilled. Legislation of this sort had never been passed by a state legislature, and despite its green reputation, Washington is one of the largest oil refining states in the nation. They were not about to let anyone infringe upon their monopoly.

Research Is Key

Just prior to the COVID shutdown, our coalition had hired a pollster to gauge opinions of Washingtonians on issues ranging from the environment to gas prices. What it found was (in part due to the worst wildfire season in recent memory), voters worried about climate change, but they were even more concerned about air pollution and greenhouse gas pollution, showing that language matters.

And while they were concerned about gas prices, they were even more concerned about the lack of good paying jobs, especially outside of metro-Seattle that had benefitted from the tech boom.

Another key finding was that even after persuasive information was presented, voters were still skeptical that a wider availability of greener gas and diesel would lower gas prices. Green means expensive, even in the minds of people who want to reduce their carbon footprint, which is also why the CFS polled better with Anglo voters with higher incomes than it did with Hispanics and African Americans who were more concerned with kitchen table issues.

What did win over middle and lower income voters was the CFS’s potential to create an entirely new sector of jobs like truck drivers collecting restaurant grease and foresters, new income streams for restaurant owners and dairy farmers, and the billions of dollars injected into the economy to retrofit oil refineries so they could produce a wider variety of fuels.

This latter point was vital, given that the key legislators who needed persuading to get to Yes represented either city districts with large minority populations or rural districts where forestry and farming were key components of the local economy.

Rebranding The Policy

When California state agencies enacted a similar law in 2011, it was known as the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which had become the common argot for the policy. Since our audience for the Washington campaign wasn’t state regulators with post-graduate degrees, we branded the campaign as something more easily understood.

“Clean” is a concept that everyone across the educational spectrum understands, and clean fuel vs. dirty fuel is a much clearer way of creating the distinction between petroleum and recycled fuels. Everyone wants to be clean, and no one wants to be dirty. Ergo, the campaign was called “Clean Fuel Washington,” and “low carbon” became “clean.”

Framing The Issue

While climate change loomed large in the background, to win over key legislators who represented less wealthy districts, the campaign needed to talk about more tangible concerns.

It’s no secret that the legacy of environmental racism and redlining meant that poor (largely minority) communities suffered the ill effects of bad air quality: higher asthma rates, more cardiopulmonary diseases, and lower life expectancy. While cleaner gas and diesel wouldn’t solve the problem alone, it meant significantly less pollution for communities who live near highways, airports, and industry. The campaign produced reams of visual data showing these legislators what they instinctively knew, but needed to see to connect the policy goals to the well-being of their constituents.

We knew that the targeted communities weren’t buying the argument that greener gas and diesel would lower prices at the pump, but we could pre-empt Big Oil’s usual playbook of ghoulish gas price increases with the slogan, “A penny at the pump” because research showed gas prices rose about one cent per year when the policy had been previously enacted, and that it was an acceptable tradeoff to a majority of voters for cleaner air, less intense forest fires, and protection of the Pacific Northwest’s teeming sea life.

Finally, we framed the debate as a jobs and economic development strategy for people who would never be hired by Facebook or Google as opposed to a financial windfall for dictators around the world who continued to benefit from America’s addiction to foreign oil.

The Tools For Success

Like many advocacy campaigns, our digital outreach began with a branded website that hammered home the key messages, but unlike so many environmentally based campaigns that focus on the planet, ours focused on real people.

Policy details are dry and boring for most people, so we produced an animated explainer video about why the clean fuel standard was important, and well sourced timeline charts showing the impact of California’s legislation on its economy, gas prices, and the billions of gallons of fossil fuels that weren’t extracted from the earth because of renewable fuels.

To drive enthusiasm and awareness, we built social media campaigns on Twitter (because it’s a home for political junkies), Facebook, and Instagram.

Both the credible data we produced and social media campaigns had two objectives:

• Build a base of grassroots supporters

• Take on Big Oil’s industry front group that for years had successfully defeated environmental legislation in Washington by scaring legislators with skewed data showing huge gas price increases.

The concept of clean fuel doesn’t inspire many Google searches, but our research discovered that we could successfully target a slew of keywords and terms like “gas prices in Washington” and “greener gas and diesel,” so we ran search ads and display ads to drive traffic to the Clean Fuel Washington website.

Likewise, we ran targeted ad campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram with a heavy emphasis on zip codes represented by wavering legislators to ensure our data base of supporters would be constituents from their districts. Our ads didn’t look like the typical advocacy campaign because we know that’s a turnoff to most voters. Instead, we playfully engaged them.

Unlike many advocacy campaigns, we were very thoughtful and methodical about nurturing our list of supporters. Instead of just unleashing a horde of angry voters upon their representatives, our email drip campaigns educated our audience about the policy and its benefits before ever asking them to take action.

And while the campaign couldn’t afford television ads in the expensive Seattle media market, we were able to target our voters successfully through ads on streaming audio services like Pandora and Spotify.

The Results

In 2021, Washington State became the first state in America to approve a clean fuel standard via the legislative process.

While the confluence of forest fires, COVID, and Donald Trump’s climate antagonism were timely in a very blue state, tracking polls also showed that our campaign moved voters 12 percentage points towards supporting the arcane policy, and our list of 1,200 subscribers made their voices heard at the state capitol in a factual and credible way.

Today, Washington State is well on its way towards meeting its goal to reduce the pollution in transportation fuels, and the success of this campaign has led to the introduction of similar bills in six other states.

Learn more: https://cleanupmarketing.com/washington-clean-fuel

The Clean Up Marketing Playbook: How a Strategic Rebrand Built a National Biogas Leader

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 16:06:55 GMT

Most cleantech companies don’t fail because the technology is weak. They fail because the story is. The market doesn’t reward the best-kept secret — it rewards the cleantech brand that communicates clearly, builds trust with the right audience, and positions itself as the only credible choice in its niche.

Regenis is the perfect example.

Before becoming one of the most respected names in American biogas, they were the digester division of a much larger HVAC and food processing company in Washington State. The technology was solid. The team was top-notch. The opportunity was real. But the brand wasn’t built to scale.

That changed when Clean Up Marketing stepped in and rebuilt the company from the ground up — name, message, positioning, identity, digital presence, and lead generation.

The result: a complete transformation from a hidden division into a national biogas leader with a 10x increase in qualified traffic, a first-page presence on Google, and a brand trusted by dairy operators across the country.

Here’s the playbook we used.

1. Start With Market Reality, Not Internal Assumptions

When we first met the digester division leaders on a Seattle–Boise flight, they were part of a company that built everything from HVAC systems to food processing equipment to commercial exteriors — plus two anaerobic digesters.

It didn’t take long to see the problem: These services had different buyers, different problems, and different values.

Homeowners wanting more efficient HVAC systems had nothing in common with dairy farmers struggling with manure, permitting, and regulatory compliance. Yet everything lived under the same brand.

After research interviews with executives and customers, we told the founders what they already sensed. Like the famous song from Sesame Street:

“One of these things is not like the other.”

The digester division needed its own identity — one aligned with the culture, needs, and risks of dairy producers.

That insight set the entire rebrand in motion.

2. Build a Brand That Speaks the Language of the Buyer

Regenis wasn’t born from a naming exercise. It was born from understanding the people we needed to earn trust from.

Dairy farmers — especially in conservative rural communities — were not motivated by climate messaging. Many didn’t believe climate change was man-made, and they certainly didn’t adopt digesters because of it.

They cared about:

• Reducing pathogens in their waste stream

• Protecting local waterways

• Avoiding environmental fines

• Creating predictable income streams amidst unstable milk prices

• Practicing stewardship over their land

The brand had to reflect them, not abstract climate narratives.

We chose Regenis because it worked on multiple levels:

• “Re” symbolized turning waste into value.

• “Genis” referenced the Book of Genesis — aligning with the biblical stewardship that many farmers cited as their motivation.

• Combined, the name represented creation, renewal, and responsibility.

This wasn’t superficial. It built cultural alignment — the foundation of trust.

And trust is the currency of every long sales cycle industry, especially biogas.

3. Design an Identity That Tells the Story Visually

A great cleantech brand identity isn’t art — it’s strategy expressed visually.

For Regenis, we created a mark that blended:

• The methane molecule (the core of every biogas system)

• A swoosh indicating transformation

• A warm green that signaled environmental service, not tech abstraction

This identity told a complete story in a single glance: Regenis transforms waste into something new — with environmental stewardship at its core.

That’s exactly what dairy operators needed to understand before signing off on a system that would sit on their land for decades.

4. Build a Digital Platform That Attracts, Educates, and Converts

Branding is only as strong as the platform that carries it. Once Regenis had a new identity, we needed a digital ecosystem capable of:

• Explaining digesters to people who had never managed one

• Addressing pain points of investors, utilities, and farmers

• Ranking on Google for terms notoriously difficult to capture

• Turning curious visitors into educated prospects

• Supporting a long, complex B2B sales cycle

Anaerobic digestion is a niche topic. Most online searches lead to universities, government publications, or research institutions — not private companies.

So the content strategy had to be smarter.

We created:

• SEO-optimized copy for high-intent terms like “anaerobic digester,” but also for “biogas credit markets,” “nutrient recovery,” and “how to sell biogas.”

• Prominent calls to action that invited visitors into long-term education rather than short-term sales outreach.

• A multi-episode video course taught by the Director of Research — one of the industry’s leading experts. This filtered out unqualified leads who needed education, not sales conversations.

• A paid Google Ads campaign to dominate first-page visibility for every relevant search term.

• Visual social assets to demonstrate expertise across social media and industry platforms.

• Quarterly newsletters that nurtured relationships across long decision timelines.

This wasn’t about volume. It was about precision.

The digital strategy allowed Regenis to meet people exactly where they were — and move them forward with clarity.

5. Tell a Story That Makes the Company the Only Logical Choice

Branding is not about being “the best.”

It’s about being the only brand mentally associated with a specific category.

For Regenis, that positioning was clear:

“The company that simplifies biogas production from design, permitting, and engineering to day-to-day operations and post digestion nutrient recovery so you (the farmer) can maximize revenue. In essence, their expertise addressed one of the top concerns of dairy owners: how to install and operate complex industrial machinery that was outside their area of expertise, but which was key to their financial stability. And because Regenis was technologically neutral, they built trust by using the digester design that best fit the footprint and needs of the dairy owner rather than a one-size fits all model.”

No one else in the sector offered that level of integration. But the market didn’t know that until the messaging system made it unmistakable.

We created a narrative arc built on:

• Origin and stewardship

• Engineering credibility

• Integrated capabilities

• Turning regulatory problems into profits

• Experience with real operational systems

This differentiated Regenis not only from regional competitors but from every biogas developer in the country.

6. Drive Measurable Growth With a Unified System

Once the identity, messaging, and digital platforms were aligned, the results came quickly:

• Regenis’ website traffic increased 10x in the first year.

• The company reached first-page Google results for more than a dozen industry terms.

• Unqualified sales calls plummeted thanks to the educational content funnel.

• Lead quality increased because prospects self-educated before outreach.

• The brand became known not just regionally, but nationally.

Today, Regenis is one of the most respected names in American biogas:

• Over a dozen digesters built

• Industry leadership in converting biogas to RNG

• A workforce of more than 100 digester operators across the country

The transformation didn’t happen because of advertising dollars. It happened because the brand strategy made the company unforgettable.

The Playbook Any Cleantech Company Can Apply

Regenis succeeded because the strategy matched the market. Any cleantech company can follow the same model:

1. Understand Your Audience Before You Brand

Your buyers’ values matter more than your features.

2. Build a Name and Narrative They Can Believe In

Branding is trust architecture.

3. Design an Identity That Tells the Story Fast

Visual shorthand matters.

4. Create Digital Systems That Educate, Not Chase

Especially in long sales cycles.

5. Position Yourself as the Only Logical Provider

Not the best — the only.

6. Use Marketing to Reduce Friction Across the Sales Cycle

Because clarity accelerates adoption.

Final Thoughts

Biogas is the commodity Regenis makes, but that alone didn’t make Regenis a national leader.

A focus on solving dairy farmer’s problems with integrity, clear positioning, aligned messaging, and a strategic brand system did.

When cleantech companies combine technical excellence with strategic storytelling, they stop being another vendor and start becoming the brand people trust.

That’s the Clean Up Marketing Playbook — and Regenis is proof that it works.

B2C Case Study: Andgar HVAC

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 15:04:04 GMT

Background

Most homeowners only think about HVAC when something goes wrong, like a furnace stops working in the middle of winter. Then it’s a mad scramble that marries turnaround time and price. They do a quick Google search, and pick three names out of a hat. If you’re lucky, your company is one of the incoming calls, and hopefully, you have a technician that can conduct a site visit ASAP.

How do you change that dynamic? By building a brand based on trust and loyalty.

In marketing-speak, Andgar was a diamond in the rough. It was started by Andy and Gary (Andgar), two of the most decent, reverent, and down to earth tradesmen turned business owners you’d ever encounter. The two of them started the company 40 years earlier doing everything from answering the phones to servicing the calls, and their honesty and earnestness were keys to the culture and growth of the company over the subsequent decades.

As the two of them neared retirement, they sold the company to three of their most trusted lieutenants, who wanted to keep the name but modernize the marketing.

That’s where we came in.

Our market research discovered that (not surprisingly) their customers loved them and had hired them more than once. The research also discovered they had low brand recognition outside of their loyal base and they weren’t using any digital marketing tools to broaden their reach in an exurban community that was booming with new residents escaping the overheated Seattle housing market.

First, we rebuilt the Andgar website, which previously had no inbound lead functionality: no chatbots, no intake forms, no prominent email—just a phone number.

We gave the brand a face—a video of Andy and Gary—to talk about the values of the company, which both introduced new residents to the company and also spoke to long time residents who identified as evangelicals.

The new, search engine optimized website, broke out services by the way customers searched for them rather than the terms used within the industry.

We also rebranded their regular HVAC service maintenance plan, redubbing it the Peak Performance Plan, referencing Mount Adams, which loomed large over the landscape, and was much easier to remember.

We positioned the company as the experts in their field by letting customers know that every Andgar technician was certified and produced several free, downloadable ebooks that educated current and potential customers about low or no cost ways to keep their home warmer in winter.

Homeowners are disproportionately over the age of 40, so we leaned into Facebook, building an organic following and producing lead generating ads.

They allowed us to create a Google pay-per-click ad campaign for the first time in company history, and it paid dividends, creating a steady stream of inbound leads every month.

New homeowners to the area received a series of mailed postcards from the company to build a relationship with an audience that (studies show) are more likely to invest in home improvements soon after their purchase.

Most people didn’t know what a heat pump was or how it could heat and cool their home far more efficiently than traditional furnaces and air conditioners, so we produced a cheeky explainer video that helped define the category in one of the largest growth sectors in the HVAC industry.

And when COVID shut down the nation and drove awareness of indoor air quality, we quickly pivoted with video and targeted streaming audio ads promoting air purifiers.

Results

Over the time we worked together, Andgar’s revenue increased by 50% thanks to smart branding, positioning and tactical marketing that included:

• A four-fold increase in website traffic

• 300% increase in inbound leads

• First page Google rankings for 26 different keywords and commonly used terms

• Robust reviews on Facebook, Yelp, Angi, and Google

The Most Common Messaging Mistake Cleantech Startups Make (and How to Fix It)

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 16:37:46 GMT

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5 Marketing Priorities Every Cleantech Startup Should Tackle Before Fundraising

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:55:30 GMT

Why Marketing Should Start Before the Pitch

Most cleantech founders start thinking about marketing after they’ve started raising money. That’s a mistake.

Marketing isn’t what happens after the money comes in—it’s what helps attract it in the first place. Investors fund stories that make sense: a clear market, a credible team, and a solution that connects with both customers and policy trends. If you can’t communicate that story before your first pitch meeting, you’re leaving money—and confidence—on the table.

Here are five marketing priorities every cleantech startup should tackle before fundraising begins. These aren’t optional. They’re the groundwork that separates founders who struggle to raise from those who attract interest before they even ask.

1. Clarify Your Value Proposition—For Humans, Not Engineers

Before you write a single slide or outreach email, you need to explain what you do in plain English. That’s your value proposition.

Too many cleantech startups lead with how their technology works instead of what it delivers. Investors aren’t funding science—they’re funding outcomes.

Ask yourself:

• What specific problem do we solve?

• For whom?

• What measurable result do we create?

If your answer starts with “We’ve developed a proprietary…” you’re already losing them.

Your goal is to write one line that any investor, policymaker, or partner could repeat accurately the next day. That’s not marketing fluff—it’s clarity.

According to Harvard Business Review , startups that communicate their differentiation in outcome terms rather than product features are 47% more likely to receive initial investor interest.

Example:

• Weak: “We’ve developed a novel lithium-sulfur chemistry for EV batteries.”

• Strong: “We cut EV battery costs by 30% while doubling lifespan through a new chemistry.”

Clarity builds credibility. Investors don’t need to know your algorithm—they need to understand your advantage.

2. Define Your Position in the Market Ecosystem

Every founder believes they’re unique. The problem is, investors hear that from everyone.

Your job is to make uniqueness provable. That starts with positioning—how your solution fits in the broader cleantech ecosystem.

Ask:

• What market are you entering?

• Who else serves it?

• Where do you sit on the cost, performance, or scalability curve compared to them?

• What’s your superpower that no one else can encroach upon? (Hint: it’s not better, faster, cheaper)

Effective positioning doesn’t mean declaring that you have “no competition.” It means showing investors that you understand your competitive landscape better than anyone else.

Use language that maps your company to known categories, while highlighting your distinction. Think of it as mental shorthand for investors:

• “We’re the Stripe for grid integration.”

• “We’re building the Salesforce of decarbonization data.”

This kind of framing works because it gives context fast.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions notes that clean energy startups that articulate clear market positioning in their commercialization plans “are significantly more likely to progress to funding and pilot deployment.”

If you can’t answer “where do we fit?” clearly, your story sounds like a science project—not a business opportunity.

3. Build Credibility Through Early Proof Points

Before investors put in money, they need proof you can deliver. That doesn’t mean full-scale revenue. It means evidence that your solution works and that there’s demand for it.

Your marketing should highlight traction metrics—anything that signals credibility:

• Pilot results or prototypes tested.

• Letters of intent or partnerships.

• Policy alignment or grants received.

• Data that validates performance.

These don’t have to be perfect numbers. They just need to show progress and potential.

As PitchBook’s 2024 Venture Monitor reported, investors are increasingly prioritizing “demonstrated market validation and credible customer interest” over early-stage hype in cleantech and climate sectors.

Once you have proof, make it visible. Create a one-page summary that uses data and plain language: “Reduced industrial water usage by 40% in pilot deployment.”

Even if your pilot is small, clarity in results tells a larger story: you can execute.

4. Build a Consistent Narrative Across All Channels

Your pitch deck, website, and LinkedIn page should all tell the same story.

If your deck says one thing, your website another, and your team members describe it differently in meetings, you create friction. Investors will notice.

Consistency isn’t branding—it’s risk reduction. Inconsistent messaging signals internal confusion. Consistent messaging signals readiness.

A 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report found that startups with unified messages across multiple touchpoints were 3.5× more likely to be perceived as trustworthy by institutional investors.

To build consistency, start with a short message hierarchy document that includes:

1. One-line value proposition

2. Long-term vision statement

3. Three supporting proof points (validators)

Use it everywhere: your investor materials, your website, your pitch intro, even your email signature.

This kind of discipline makes your company look bigger, more coordinated, and more investable—without spending more money.

5. Create a Minimum Viable Marketing Stack

Before you raise, you don’t need 20 tools. You need five that keep your outreach organized and your messaging visible.

Start with a bare minimum stack that includes:

• A CRM (HubSpot Starter or Pipedrive) to track conversations and follow-ups.

• A website with your core message and call to action.

• A simple email marketing tool (Mailchimp or ConvertKit) to send updates.

• Google Analytics or LinkedIn analytics to measure engagement.

• Canva or Figma for clean visuals that look professional.

That’s it.

You can automate and expand later, but this setup ensures you can build relationships, communicate consistently, and measure interest from the start.

The Gartner 2024 Marketing Technology Survey found that startups using a simplified tech stack (five tools or fewer) achieved a 22% higher marketing ROI and reduced lead management time by 35%.

Keep it lean, track everything, and make sure every tool serves one purpose: clarity.

What Happens When You Skip These Steps

Here’s what founders get wrong when they go into fundraising without this foundation:

• Their pitch decks are reactive, not strategic. They build them around investor questions instead of investor confidence.

• Their messaging drifts. Different team members say different things, creating confusion about what’s actually being built.

• Their website tells an incomplete story. It might describe technology well, but not the opportunity.

• Their proof points are buried. Strong data sits in a grant proposal instead of the first slide.

These mistakes aren’t cosmetic—they cost you meetings, momentum, and credibility.

Investors want to fund clarity. The earlier you show you can communicate your value simply and consistently, the faster you move from interest to term sheet.

What a 30-Day Pre-Fundraising Sprint Looks Like

If you’re planning to raise soon, use the next 30 days to tighten your marketing foundation.

Week 1: Define your value proposition and messaging hierarchy. Test it with non-technical friends. If they don’t get it, rewrite it.

Week 2: Map your competitive landscape and update your website to reflect your positioning and proof points.

Week 3: Clean up your visuals and centralize leads in one CRM. Send your first update to investors or partners.

Week 4: Align your deck, one-pager, and online presence so every touchpoint tells the same story.

You’ll know you’re ready when every line of communication—from your homepage to your opening slide—answers three questions clearly:

• What do we do?

• Why does it matter?

• Why are we the team to solve it?

Final Thoughts

Fundraising isn’t just a financial exercise—it’s a communication test.

Investors want confidence that you understand your market, can articulate your value, and have the operational discipline to execute.

Marketing gives you that discipline.

By clarifying your message, proving your position, and tightening your systems before you raise, you make it easier for investors to believe in what you’re building.

That’s how you shift from chasing capital to attracting it.

Why Grant Applications Fail: Weak Messaging and How to Strengthen Yours

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 15:04:49 GMT

Most cleantech founders don’t lose grants because of bad technology. They lose them because of bad messaging.

It’s not that reviewers don’t care about innovation—they do. But grant readers are busy, juggling dozens of applications with overlapping claims about decarbonization, efficiency, or scalability. When your story reads like an engineering report instead of a clear business case, it disappears into the pile.

Winning funding isn’t just about qualifying—it’s about clarity. Here’s why weak messaging kills otherwise strong applications—and how to fix yours before the next deadline.

The Real Reason Reviewers Tune Out

Every founder believes their idea is unique. But most grant reviewers see the same structure again and again: long technical descriptions, vague impact statements, and no clear thread tying them together.

They’re not rejecting your science. They’re rejecting your communication.

Grant evaluators, whether from DOE, ARPA-E, or private foundations, look for three things above all else:

1. A clearly defined problem.

2. A measurable solution.

3. A credible team to deliver results.

When your messaging buries those elements under buzzwords, you’ve already lost.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations , top-ranked proposals “communicate measurable outcomes and replicable impact” — not just technical novelty.

That means your grant narrative needs to sound less like a lab summary and more like a business plan that speaks the language of scale, policy alignment, and market transformation.

The “Too Technical” Trap

Cleantech founders often mistake complexity for credibility. They assume reviewers—especially those with PhDs—want maximum technical depth.

They don’t. They want understanding.

If a reviewer has to stop mid-sentence to decode your acronyms or remember what “catalytic reduction pathways” means, they’ve mentally checked out.

The best applications use what communication experts call “layered messaging”—starting with clarity, then backing it up with data. According to the National Science Foundation’s 2023 Grant Writing Guide , the most competitive proposals use structured storytelling that introduces the concept simply, builds credibility with evidence, and closes with measurable outcomes .

That’s not dumbing it down. It’s respecting the reader’s cognitive load.

Your Value Proposition Isn’t Obvious

Every grant application should open with a statement that could double as your company’s elevator pitch. Yet most don’t.

A weak opening might read:

“Our technology utilizes proprietary photocatalytic processes to reduce emissions from agricultural runoff.”

A strong one would say:

“We prevent harmful agricultural runoff from polluting local waterways—cutting nutrient emissions by 70% at half the cost of existing systems.”

The first describes what you do. The second describes why it matters.

That’s what reviewers—and investors—want to see. They need to know how your technology changes the real world, not just how it functions.

As the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) notes in its SBIR/STTR best practices, reviewers “prioritize commercial potential and customer validation as key differentiators” between fundable and unfundable proposals.

Your value proposition should be written so a non-engineer can repeat it accurately after one read.

Weak Messaging Makes You Sound Unprepared

You can have a brilliant product and still sound unready.

That’s because weak messaging doesn’t just confuse—it erodes confidence. When reviewers see inconsistent phrasing or disorganized structure, they subconsciously assume your operations are the same.

A strong application signals maturity. It demonstrates that you understand your audience, market, and metrics.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that most rejected clean energy proposals lacked clear alignment between technical goals and societal outcomes—an indicator reviewers interpret as “low readiness for implementation.”

In short: unclear writing equals perceived risk.

If your grant messaging feels like a patchwork of technical notes, stop and rebuild the structure before resubmitting.

Strong Messaging Isn’t Spin—It’s Structure

Founders often resist “marketing language” in grant applications. But this isn’t about spin—it’s about storytelling structure.

Every winning application answers three unspoken questions reviewers have:

1. Why this problem? Frame it in terms of urgency and scale.

2. Why your solution? Show clear differentiation and validation.

3. Why now? Connect to current policy, funding, or market momentum.

You’re not trying to impress with adjectives—you’re building a logical argument.

For example, if your technology reduces water consumption in industrial cooling systems, show how it aligns with current drought adaptation policies. Reference public data, not general promises.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) , water-related innovation in clean manufacturing is projected to see the fastest policy-linked funding growth through 2030. Position your project inside that context.

How to Strengthen Your Messaging Before You Submit

1. Start With a Plain-English Summary

Write your executive summary as if you were explaining your project to a mayor, not a materials scientist. Make the problem urgent, the solution measurable, and the benefit tangible.

2. Map Every Section to Reviewer Criteria

If a grant specifies evaluation categories—like “innovation,” “impact,” or “feasibility”—literally label those sections in your draft. Reviewers shouldn’t have to hunt for relevance.

3. Replace Tech-Speak With Measurable Outcomes

Instead of saying: “Our modular microgrid integrates distributed assets using an AI-driven controller.”

Say: “Our system reduces outage recovery time by 60% and cuts energy waste by 15%.”

Quantify wherever possible.

4. Build a Consistent Message Hierarchy

Create a short internal document with:

• Your one-line pitch

• Three proof points (data, pilot results, or partnerships)

• One long-term vision statement

Use the same structure across your proposal, website, and pitch deck. It shows professionalism and cohesion.

5. Get a Non-Expert Review

Before submission, give your proposal to someone outside your field. If they can’t summarize your idea after five minutes, rewrite for clarity.

The Role of Visuals and Formatting

Messaging isn’t just language—it’s structure and layout.

Dense text blocks signal “hard to read.” Reviewers skim. Use subheads, short paragraphs, and clear visuals.

Charts should illustrate results, not process. A graph showing cost reduction or emissions avoided is more persuasive than a diagram of internal architecture.

Consistent formatting signals control. Inconsistent formatting signals chaos.

The NSF’s own data show that proposals with clear formatting and concise executive summaries are 1.8× more likely to advance past the first review round.

Turning Marketing Discipline Into Grant Discipline

A good grant application reads like a good investor pitch—tight, data-backed, and easy to follow. The best founders use their grant process to sharpen their overall messaging.

Here’s how:

• Take your executive summary and turn it into your next one-pager.

• Use your metrics section as the foundation for your case studies.

• Turn your “project impact” section into a website paragraph investors will understand.

Messaging isn’t a one-time effort. It’s a system you use across audiences.

Once you build that discipline, every outreach—from grants to partnerships—starts from a place of clarity.

Final Thoughts

Most grant failures have nothing to do with the science. They fail because the story is unclear, inconsistent, or incomplete.

A strong message doesn’t guarantee funding, but it guarantees understanding—and that’s where funding begins.

If your cleantech company can explain what you do in a way anyone can repeat, your odds of winning rise dramatically. Because in a competitive funding environment, clarity is strategy.

The Bare Minimum Marketing Stack Every Cleantech Founder Needs

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 15:38:13 GMT

If you’re running a cleantech startup, your resources are limited. You don’t need every tool. You just need the right ones—the few that make your messaging clear, your pipeline visible, and your credibility grow.

Marketing tech stacks can get complicated fast. Founders often think they need a CRM, a content scheduler, an analytics suite, an SEO platform, and half a dozen AI writing tools just to start outreach.

But early-stage cleantech doesn’t work that way. You don’t need 20 platforms. You need five that help you do five things well:

1. Show up where investors and customers are.

2. Explain the problem you solve for a specific customer

3. Show why your solution is uniquely situated to solve it

4. Prove credibility with third-party validation

5. Stay consistent to stay top-of-mind

Here’s the bare minimum marketing stack every cleantech founder actually needs—and how to use it without turning into a full-time marketer.

1. A CRM That Doesn’t Slow You Down

Your CRM is the foundation of your marketing stack. It’s how you track investor conversations, sales leads, and early partnerships. But you don’t need Salesforce or HubSpot’s enterprise plan to do it.

Most cleantech companies have a small audience (100-1,000) in their earliest iteration, so start simple. Choose a system that stores contacts, notes, and communication history in one place—and that you’ll actually use.

Recommended options for early-stage teams:

• HubSpot Starter: Free and integrates with Gmail and LinkedIn.

• Pipedrive: Clean, visual pipeline management for under $25/month.

• Airtable or Notion: Great for small teams needing flexibility over automation.

The goal isn’t complexity—it’s clarity. If you can’t tell who you last spoke to, what stage they’re in, or when to follow up, you’re flying blind.

As Forrester Research points out, companies that centralize lead tracking early see conversion rates increase by 27% once outreach begins.

That matters when your “sales” cycle involves investors, regulators, and technical buyers all at once.

2. A Messaging Framework You Can Plug Into Everything

Tools are worthless without strategy. Every founder needs a simple, written messaging framework—one that your whole team can use across decks, websites, and emails.

Your framework should include:

• One-line value proposition: The problem you solve, who it’s for, and the benefit your customer will see.

• Three message pillars: Why your company is the only one that can solve the problem; how you make money for your investors & customers, and who thinks you have a credible solution.

• Tone and terminology: What words to use, what to avoid, and how to sound credible.

This document becomes your internal source of truth. AI tools, designers, and freelancers can’t stay consistent unless you feed them the same core language.

The Harvard Business Review found that startups with a clear message hierarchy and tone guide build brand trust 60% faster than those without one.

Once you build it, use it everywhere: on your site, in your pitch deck, in every LinkedIn post. It’s the cheapest, most powerful part of your marketing stack—and the one most founders skip.

3. A Website That Works Like a Business Card (Not a Billboard)

Initially, you don’t need a 20-page site with animation or drone footage. You need a site that clearly communicates to investors and partners why your solution addresses their problem, why it matters, and how to reach you.

Your minimum viable site should include:

• A simple homepage with your one-line value proposition.

• Demonstrating how you understand your audience’s problem and how it’s negatively impacting them.

• The benefit of adopting your solution

• A “Contact” button that goes somewhere real.

That’s it. Don’t bury your call to action in a menu. Don’t write paragraphs about climate change. Investors and partners already care about that. They want to know why you are a credible part of the solution.

According to Nielsen Norman Group , 74% of users decide in the first 10 seconds whether a website feels credible ().

That means clarity and speed matter more than design trends. Make your value proposition visible above the fold—and cut anything that doesn’t support it.

4. A Reliable Email Marketing Tool

Cleantech deals take months or years. Your prospects—whether investors, utilities, industries, or municipalities—need reminders that you exist. That’s where email comes in.

You don’t need full marketing automation yet. Just a reliable system that:

• Stores your contacts cleanly (not in a spreadsheet).

• Sends updates, newsletters, or event invitations.

• Tracks opens and clicks to show what’s resonating.

Recommended tools:

• Mailchimp Essentials: Simple, cost-effective, integrates with CRMs.

• ConvertKit: Built for storytelling and subscriber segmentation.

• Brevo (formerly Sendinblue): GDPR-compliant and affordable for European startups.

Consistency beats frequency. If your audience is conditioned to expect an update on the first Thursday of every month, make it a priority to hit the send button on that date. It’s a subtle but important reminder of reliability and professionalism, even if you don’t have a large team.

The Data & Marketing Association found that consistent, relevant email engagement increases investor response rates by 34%—even for startups still pre-revenue.

Email isn’t just about nurture. It’s about proving you’re active, credible, and communicating like a company that plans to scale.

5. A Metrics Dashboard That Tells You What’s Working

You don’t need enterprise analytics. You need a simple dashboard that answers three questions:

1. Are people finding us?

2. Are they engaging with us?

3. Are they converting or reaching out?

You can do this with free tools:

• Google Analytics 4: Tracks traffic and conversions.

• Google Search Console: Monitors what search terms people use to find you.

• LinkedIn Analytics: Measures which posts drive profile views or clicks.

The key isn’t the number of charts—it’s the story behind them.

If you see traffic rising but no new contacts, your site’s call to action may be weak. If posts perform but don’t lead anywhere, your message might not match your offer.

According to Gartner’s 2024 Marketing Technology Survey , companies that measure fewer—but more meaningful—metrics see a 22% improvement in marketing ROI compared to those tracking dozens of vanity KPIs ().

Less data, better direction.

Bonus Tools (If You Have the Bandwidth)

If you’ve nailed the basics and have time for one or two more tools, consider these:

• Canva Pro: For quick social and pitch visuals that stay on brand.

• Loom: For recording short investor updates or explainer videos.

• ChatGPT or Claude: For summarizing reports or generating ideas, not writing final content.

Use AI to save time, not replace thinking. It’s a great brainstorming partner but a poor brand steward if left unsupervised.

The 30-Minute Audit

If you already have tools, here’s how to audit your stack:

Question If “No,” Here’s Your Fix

Can you pull up all active investors and leads in one place? Add a basic CRM like HubSpot Starter or Pipedrive.

Can everyone on your team describe what you do in one sentence? Write your messaging framework.

Can a visitor understand your website in 10 seconds? Simplify copy and elevate your call to action.

Can you email 100 people tomorrow with confidence? Set up an email tool and import your CRM contacts.

Can you tell what’s working in marketing this month? Set up GA4 and check weekly.

You’ll know you’re done when you can answer “yes” to all five—and when every tool supports a clear goal: building trust faster.

What This Stack Won’t Do

This stack won’t automate your growth or replace storytelling. It won’t make your brand magically recognizable.

But it will help you:

• Build credibility with fewer mistakes.

• See what’s working before you scale.

• Keep your message and brand consistent as you grow.

In early-stage cleantech, those wins matter more than any automation sequence or ad budget.

You’re not building a “tech stack.” You’re building the foundation of trust.

Final Thoughts

Marketing isn’t a side project. It’s how investors, regulators, and partners decide whether to take you seriously.

You don’t need to act like a global brand to look credible—you just need to be consistent, professional, and visible where it counts.

Start with five tools. Build your message once. Measure what matters.

That’s the entire job. Everything else is noise.

How Early-Stage Cleantech Startups Can Build Investor-Ready Messaging in 30 Days

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 16:03:30 GMT

You don’t need a yearlong branding exercise to speak the language investors want to hear.

You need 30 days of focused work that builds clarity, confidence, and consistency.

Because when you’re an early-stage cleantech startup, your biggest risk isn’t the technology—it’s confusion.

If investors can’t quickly grasp what problem you solve, who needs it, and why you’re uniquely positioned to deliver it, they’ll move on. They don’t have time to interpret half-finished messaging or jargon-filled decks.

Here’s how to turn that around in one month—and build messaging that attracts investors, not just attention.

Week 1: Define Your Core Value Proposition

Before you talk about market size or policy tailwinds, you need to explain—in one line—what you do and why it matters.

An effective value proposition answers three questions:

1. What problem do you solve?

2. How do you solve it better than others?

3. What’s the measurable outcome?

Think like an investor, not an engineer. Investors are evaluating risk and return. They don’t buy the technology—they buy the potential to scale.

According to PitchBook’s 2024 Venture Monitor , cleantech investors increasingly favor startups that lead with commercial clarity, not technical novelty.

If your first sentence sounds like it belongs in a patent filing, rewrite it for business impact.

Example:

• Weak: “We use advanced plasma gasification to convert waste into hydrogen.”

• Strong: “We help waste companies meet city mandates to reduce their truck emissions by turning landfill waste into clean hydrogen.”

The difference is clarity—and clarity builds trust.

Also, never assume investors will connect the dots. Spell out what your innovation does in market terms—emissions avoided, revenue potential, efficiency gains, or policy alignment.

Every word in your pitch should translate technical achievement into investor relevance.

________________________________________

Week 2: Tighten Your Market Positioning

Once your core message is clear, define where you fit. Positioning isn’t just who your audience is—it’s how you want to be perceived.

Early-stage founders often make two mistakes:

• Trying to appeal to everyone (investors, multiple verticals, policymakers).

• Leading with what the technology is instead of what it does.

Effective positioning tells investors:

• Who your ideal customer is.

• What category you compete in.

• Why your solution is different—and defensible.

The Harvard Business Review emphasizes that investors are drawn to startups that frame their category and differentiation early, creating mental shortcuts that make the opportunity easy to remember.

For example:

• “We’re the Salesforce of renewable permitting that reduces development costs and timelines critical for meeting federal tax incentive deadlines.”

• “We’re building the FedEx of carbon removal logistics to make CCU cost-competitive.”

These analogies work because they borrow mental real estate investors already trust.

A strong market position doesn’t just explain what you do—it shows investors why now. Tie your message to timing: regulatory windows, cost parity, consumer trends, or geopolitical shifts. Momentum matters.

Week 3: Build a Message Hierarchy That Scales

Once you have positioning, it’s time to turn it into a repeatable system.

An investor-ready message hierarchy looks like this:

1. Core Statement: What your company does in one sentence.

2. Supporting Proof: Metrics, milestones, or data that validate your claim.

3. Vision Statement: Why this matters in the context of a larger market shift.

This hierarchy ensures that your brand sounds consistent across every channel—your website, deck, media coverage, and team interviews.

A 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Repor t found that companies with consistent messages across multiple touchpoints are 3.5× more likely to be trusted by institutional investors.

Consistency doesn’t just make your brand sound polished—it reduces perceived risk.

Every time an investor hears your team speak, reviews your deck, or visits your website, the story should feel identical. When it does, it signals maturity and reliability—two qualities early-stage companies struggle to prove.

Week 4: Align Your Brand Identity and Go-to-Market Story

You can’t separate your visual identity from your verbal one.

Your pitch deck, website, and outreach materials must feel like they’re part of one company, one story. That’s what investors mean when they talk about “signal.”

Inconsistent messaging is noise.

Here’s how to unify it:

• Use visuals that reinforce your category. Energy, infrastructure, and agriculture investors expect professional design—no stock photos of wind turbines.

• Match tone to audience. If you’re pre-revenue, avoid hype. If you’re scaling, emphasize traction.

• Build a simple narrative arc: problem → proof → path to scale.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) emphasizes that early-stage clean energy ventures with cohesive storytelling and visual branding raise funding 40% faster in pilot-to-commercial transitions ().

That’s because investors respond to coherence. They don’t just invest in a product—they invest in the people and story behind it.

Think of your brand identity as visual shorthand for credibility. The cleaner your materials look, the more serious your company appears.

Avoid the “Tech-First” Messaging Trap

Cleantech founders often fall into a common trap: leading with the technology instead of the transformation.

The truth is, your audience isn’t investing in your chemistry—they’re investing in your market opportunity.

Instead of saying, “We’ve developed a next-generation electrolyte membrane,” say, “We cut battery costs by 30% using a new material that performs in extreme temperatures.”

Investors don’t fund complexity. They fund clarity wrapped in ambition.

Your goal is to make it easy for them to repeat your story to someone else. If they can’t explain it, they can’t sell it internally—and you won’t get funded.

Bring AI Into the Process—But Keep Strategy in Control

AI can speed up parts of this 30-day process, but it can’t replace strategic thinking.

You can use AI to:

• Draft outlines for your pitch narrative.

• Summarize market data for investor one-pagers.

• Generate design variations for your slide deck.

But you can’t rely on it to define your unique story. Generic input equals generic output.

AI can help you scale your messaging, but only if your strategic foundation is already in place. Without that, it amplifies confusion, not clarity.

Think of AI as a power tool—it can cut production time, but it still needs a blueprint.

Build the System, Not Just the Deck

The best investor messaging isn’t a one-time presentation—it’s a system your team can keep using.

Here’s a 30-day checklist you can follow:

Week 1: Define Your Core Message

• Write one-line and one-paragraph descriptions.

• Test them on non-technical people. If they don’t understand, revise.

Week 2: Position Your Brand

• Map competitors and categories.

• Identify the white space—what no one else is saying that you can own.

Week 3: Build Message Hierarchy

• Develop consistent talking points for the team.

• Align your website, deck, and one-pager.

Week 4: Unify Visuals and Voice

• Refresh branding to match tone.

• Record a 2-minute pitch using your new framework.

When you’re done, every line you say or publish will ladder back to the same story.

That’s the difference between sounding like a startup—and sounding like a company investors want to back.

Bonus: What to Do on Day 31

Once your foundation is in place, test it.

Reach out to five friendly investors, advisors, or partners and ask one simple question after your pitch:

“What part of our story stuck with you?”

If their answer matches your intended message, you’re on track. If not, go back and tighten your hierarchy.

Investor-ready messaging isn’t a one-time sprint—it’s a living system. But after 30 days of discipline, you’ll have something 90% of startups don’t: a story that sounds like it belongs in the boardroom, not the lab.

Final Thoughts

Cleantech investors hear hundreds of pitches. They’re not looking for the cleverest slide or the biggest TAM projection. They’re looking for clarity, conviction, and a team that can communicate complex technology in simple terms.

You don’t need an agency or a six-figure budget to build that foundation. You just need 30 days of focus, a clear structure, and the discipline to stick to your story.

Because at the end of the day, investor-ready messaging isn’t about hype. It’s about trust. And trust is built through consistency, not volume.

Why Random Acts of AI Can’t Replace Strategy

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 20:32:36 GMT

AI is the latest shiny object in every marketer’s toolkit. It can crank out blog posts, design mockups, summarize research, and even “write” ad copy in seconds. It feels like a miracle—until you realize most of it sounds the same, looks the same, and says nothing unique about your brand.

That’s because random acts of AI don’t build strategy. They just create noise faster.

For cleantech founders and CEOs, this distinction matters. You’re not selling sneakers or soda. You’re selling credibility, capital efficiency, and a technology that solves a global problem. That requires a clear value proposition, strong market positioning, and a consistent brand voice—none of which can be automated by a chatbot.

The Allure—and the Trap—of AI in Marketing

AI makes marketing look deceptively easy. A few prompts and you’ve got headlines, posts, and pitch decks ready to go. The problem is, without a strategy behind it, you’re just pouring words into the void.

• AI can create content, but it can’t create clarity.

• AI can mirror your tone, but it can’t define your voice.

• AI can generate ideas, but it can’t decide what matters to your market.

That’s the role of strategy.

What Happens When There’s No Strategy

Here’s what “random acts of AI” look like in marketing:

• A founder uses ChatGPT to “refresh” their pitch deck, and the value proposition gets watered down.

• The content team publishes AI-written blogs that use industry buzzwords, but none of the posts rank or resonate.

• The website gets a facelift from an AI design tool—but it now looks identical to ten other startups in the same space.

These are common mistakes, and they all stem from skipping the fundamentals: who you are, who you’re for, and why you matter.

AI can fill the page. Only strategy can fill the gap between what you do and what your buyers believe.

Why Cleantech Messaging Is Especially Vulnerable

Cleantech brands face a unique challenge. Most audiences—including investors, regulators, and customers—don’t yet fully understand your technology. If your messaging sounds generic or inconsistent, you lose credibility fast.

In other words, your marketing has to do double duty: educate and persuade.

AI, left unchecked, tends to over-simplify complex ideas or overcomplicate simple ones. It misses the nuance of your market—the local permitting barriers, the investor skepticism, the policy tailwinds. It can’t capture the tension between innovation and reliability that defines cleantech.

That’s why strategy must always come first.

Start With Positioning, Not Prompts

Before you ever ask AI to write a single sentence, you need a framework for what that sentence is supposed to say. That means defining:

1. Your market position. Why is your company uniquely situated to solve a specific problem that no one else can imitate?

2. Your audience. Who’s buying, who’s influencing, and who’s paying?

3. Your message hierarchy. What’s their pain point, and how does your technology help them overcome it?

Without these answers, AI becomes a random idea generator, not a marketing assistant.

As Harvard Business Review notes, companies that use AI successfully in marketing start with clarity about their customer segments and value propositions—AI simply amplifies that foundation, it doesn’t replace it.

AI Is a Tool, Not a Voice

Brand voice isn’t a prompt—it’s a promise. It reflects your company’s identity, credibility, and confidence.

When you hand that over to AI without guidelines, you risk flattening everything that makes your brand human. The result? Content that sounds competent but forgettable.

According to Gartner’s 2024 Future of Marketing Report , 63% of CMOs worry that overuse of generative AI will dilute their brand identity within two years.

AI can help maintain consistency once you’ve defined your tone—but it can’t define it for you. That has to come from the top.

The Real Role of AI in Marketing Strategy

Used correctly, AI can streamline parts of your marketing system without diluting your brand. Here’s how it fits:

1. Content Creation: AI drafts rough outlines, not final assets. Human editors ensure technical accuracy, brand tone, and regulatory alignment.

2. Audience Research: AI can analyze what your competitors are saying—but strategy decides whether to differentiate or double down.

3. Message Testing: AI can generate variations for A/B tests—but the test goals must tie back to your positioning, not vanity metrics.

4. Creative Efficiency: AI tools can help repurpose long-form reports into bite-sized visuals or summaries—but your brand still controls what story gets told.

As Deloitte’s 2024 Global Marketing Trends report emphasizes, the key to AI success in marketing is “using automation to scale human insight, not replace it” ().

The Danger of Fragmented Brand Identity

When AI outputs aren’t guided by a unified marketing strategy, your brand starts to drift. Your website says one thing, your LinkedIn another, and your investor deck something entirely different.

That inconsistency erodes trust—especially in high-stakes markets like cleantech, where buyers and investors already face risk fatigue.

The Edelman Trust Barometer (2024) found that consistency across channels is the single strongest predictor of brand trust in emerging tech sectors.

AI can help you produce more content. But if it’s not consistent, it doesn’t build trust—it just multiplies confusion.

A Smarter Way to Integrate AI into Marketing

You don’t need to ban AI from your marketing. You just need to stop using it randomly. Here’s how:

1. Define Your Core Message First

Clarify your brand’s position before you ever touch a prompt. What’s the one thing you want your audience to believe after every interaction with your brand?

2. Build Guardrails

Create brand voice guides, approved message pillars, and visual standards. These act as filters for every AI-generated output.

3. Use AI for Scale, Not Substance

Let AI handle repurposing—turning white papers into summaries, transcripts into posts, webinars into blog outlines. Humans still handle the narrative.

4. Keep the Feedback Loop Human

AI can generate options, but only humans can decide what’s true to your brand and what’s not.

When AI Works—Because Strategy Comes First

Imagine two cleantech startups:

• Company A tells AI: “Write 10 LinkedIn posts about our solar permitting software.” It gets generic copy full of buzzwords about sustainability and innovation.

• Company B starts with strategy: “Our differentiator is all-in-one permitting software for community solar developers that identifies rooftops best situated to take advantage of solar energy, and pulls together all necessary local permits and regulations to take the guesswork out of project development and make it more profitable.” Then they use AI to scale that message consistently.

The difference isn’t the technology—it’s the thinking behind it.

The CEO’s Role

As a founder or CEO, your job isn’t to master AI tools. It’s to protect the integrity of your brand. That means making sure every marketing effort—AI-driven or not—aligns with your core positioning.

Ask your team:

• Is this tool helping us say our message more clearly—or just more often?

• Is the content strengthening our position—or blending us into the noise?

• Does the technology amplify our voice—or replace it?

If you can’t answer “yes” to the first part of each question, pause.

Final Thoughts

AI is changing marketing, but not the fundamentals.

The companies that win with AI won’t be the ones generating the most content. They’ll be the ones using it to reinforce a strategy that already works—one built on clarity, focus, and trust.

In cleantech, where every pitch, report, and post is a chance to prove credibility, strategy isn’t optional. It’s your competitive edge.

Use AI to amplify that edge—not erase it.

What Colors Are Most Effective For Your Cleantech Brand?

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 16:10:42 GMT

You flagged something important: we’ve written a lot about messaging, funnels, and decks—but not about color. Let’s fix that. In cleantech, color isn’t just aesthetic. It signals credibility to enterprise buyers, communicates environmental intent without overpromising, and drives conversion in interfaces where clarity matters. The right palette strengthens every asset you ship—from pitch slides and your website to dashboards, packaging, and safety labels. The wrong one makes everything feel vague, dated, or untrustworthy.

Below is a practical, no-fluff guide to choosing colors that work in the real world, without leaning on clichés or drowning your brand in a single shade of green.

Start with the job, not the hue

Before picking swatches, write down what your palette needs to do:

1. Signal competence and stability to investors, procurement teams, and operators.

2. Convey environmental purpose without implying claims you can’t support.

3. Drive action (buttons, links, sign-ups) with obvious, high-visibility accents.

4. Scale across mediums —web, mobile, print, signage, and data-heavy UIs.

5. Hold up under constraints like factory lighting, dark mode, and color-vision differences.

Clarity on the job prevents you from chasing trends and helps every stakeholder (marketing, product, sales, design, engineering) make consistent choices.

Don’t let color overclaim: align visuals with proof

Green can instantly suggest “sustainable,” but the context matters. If your visuals imply environmental benefits, make sure your copy and evidence back that up. Over-reliance on “eco green” without substantiation creates legal and trust risk. Read the guidance and tighten your claims accordingly: FTC – Environmental Claims: Summary of the Green Guides .

Practical takeaways:

• Treat green as an accent for verified impact moments (emissions avoided, kWh saved, acres restored), not a wall-to-wall paint job.

• Pair impact-colored elements with specific, measurable statements.

• Avoid visual metaphors that could be read as unqualified environmental superiority unless the product truly warrants it.

Design for real human vision

A nontrivial share of your audience won’t perceive certain color differences the same way you do. Instead of memorizing standards, use common sense:

• Don’t make red vs. green the only way to distinguish states (error/success). Add icons, labels, and distinct shapes.

• Ensure text and icons are readable on their backgrounds in bright rooms, dim rooms, and on projector screens.

• Prototype on both light and dark themes; colors shift dramatically between them.

If you want a plain-English primer on why this matters (and who’s affected), see National Eye Institute – Causes of Color Vision Deficiency .

A modern palette that works for cleantech

There isn’t one “correct” set of swatches—there is a structure that consistently works.

1) Build on trustworthy neutrals and blues

Blues (from slate to navy) communicate systems thinking, reliability, and technical depth. They pair naturally with charts, maps, and schematics, and they’re familiar to enterprise buyers. Use a deep ink/navy for headlines and critical text; use a soft, neutral background (off-white, fog, or cool gray) to reduce glare on screens and slides.

2) Use green precisely

Green is powerful—but easy to overuse. Deploy it as a highlight for verified environmental outcomes, not as your default background. A restrained, slightly desaturated green tends to feel more credible than neon leaf tones. When you do use bold green, give it a job: callouts on impact dashboards, milestone badges, or annual sustainability summary slides.

3) Avoid black

One of the most common mistakes I see on cleantech websites is scrolling copy against a black background. Black is cool if you’re a fashion designer, but for a cleantech company it has a very different connotation. A clean technology company should avoid using black as the primary color for its website because it visually conflicts with the values the industry represents—transparency, sustainability, renewal, and openness. Black as a dominant design choice can feel heavy, opaque, and even polluting, which subconsciously contradicts the clean, fresh, and forward-looking qualities that cleantech companies need to project. Instead of evoking nature, innovation, or trust, an all-black palette risks alienating environmentally conscious audiences who expect brighter, more natural tones that suggest clarity, health, and a sustainable future. You might see your technology as space age, but your investors are afraid of the unknown. They want certainty, and they don’t want their money to disappear into the dark void of the universe. You can’t explain what you can’t see, and you can’t see well in the dark.

4) Choose one CTA accent that pops everywhere

Your call-to-action color should stand out against both your brand blue and your backgrounds. Warm ambers, oranges, or a vivid teal/cyan often perform better than “safety green” for buttons because they separate clearly from the rest of the palette. Test the button text on the button fill and the button against the page—on mobile, desktop, and projector.

5) Define semantic roles first, swatches second

Color chaos happens when teams pick hex codes ad hoc. Instead, define roles (primary, secondary, surface, on-surface, CTA, info, success, warning, error) and then map hues to those roles. It keeps marketing, product, and engineering aligned and makes large systems coherent. For a proven approach to roles and tonal scales, study Material Design 3 – Color System .

6) Plan for platforms, not just PDFs

Your brand needs to travel: iOS, Android, web, and print each render color differently. Build with platform guidance in mind—semantic colors, contrasts that adapt, and safe ranges that won’t bloom or clip. A concise reference for native app behavior is Apple Human Interface Guidelines – Color .

A practical palette blueprint (you can apply this week)

1. Write 3–5 brand attributes (e.g., “rigorous, transparent, optimistic, industrial-grade”). Let these drive hue and saturation choices.

2. Pick one primary hue (often a blue/blue-green) with a full tonal range (very light → very dark) for backgrounds, strokes, text, and charts.

3. Select one accent for CTAs that clearly contrasts with your primary hue and with your typical backgrounds.

4. Add a limited neutral scale (about 6 steps) to cover surfaces, dividers, and data grid lines without visual noise.

5. Define semantic roles (primary, surface, on-surface, CTA, success, warning, error, info) and assign hues and tones to each—document with swatches, use cases, and do/don’t examples.

6. Make a one-page spec with hex/RGB/CMYK values, role assignments, legibility notes, and examples (web hero, mobile card, dashboard tile, chart).

7. Pressure-test in context:

o One dense dashboard (tables + alerts)

o One marketing landing page (hero + sign-up)

o One slide deck (charts on a projector)

o One printed leave-behind (to catch dulling or shifts)

Tune the palette where it breaks: if a color looks great on a MacBook but turns murky on a projector, adjust the tone or saturation.

Scenario guidance (so you don’t design in a vacuum)

1) Industrial B2B (utilities, heavy equipment, grid tech):

Bias toward deeper blues and charcoal neutrals. Use green sparingly (impact callouts, compliance stamps). Choose a CTA accent with enough warmth to stand out in a serious UI—amber and burnt orange often outperform bright red, which can read as “error.”

2) B2C or prosumer (home solar, EV accessories, smart devices):

You can push toward fresher, brighter hues—but still avoid “all green, all the time.” Consider a cleaner cyan/teal family with crisp whites and soft grays. Warm accents (saffron, coral) bring energy to sign-ups and offers without shouting.

3) Policy, nonprofit, or consortium:

Softer tones, more editorial neutrals. Let charts carry most color. Keep the brand hue dignified and use green only when backing a claim (grant outcomes, measurable reductions). Maintain a high-visibility CTA accent for petitions, reports, and event registrations.

Make charts and dashboards readable

Data is the heartbeat of cleantech. A palette that fails in charts fails your brand.

• Limit the number of simultaneous series colors; rely on line styles, markers, and annotations to differentiate beyond color.

• Reserve vivid colors for highlights —the newest series, the target, the anomaly—not for everything on the screen.

• Calibrate status colors so “error” and “warning” are clearly distinct from brand accents and each other; pair with icons and labels so meaning survives in grayscale or color-vision differences.

Common mistakes (and easy fixes)

• Everything green. Result: you look like everyone else and invite skepticism. Fix: elevate blues and neutrals; save green for verified impact and sparing accents.

• Low-contrast type on colored panels. Beautiful in Figma, unreadable on stage. Fix: either lighten the panel or darken the text—then test on a projector.

• CTA color too close to the brand hue. Buttons disappear. Fix: pick a complementary or warm accent that separates cleanly from the primary family.

• Random colors creeping in. Every campaign adds a new shade. Fix: lock your spec and route new requests through roles (is it info, warning, or decorative?).

• Ignoring platform behavior. Colors that look great on web feel off in native apps. Fix: align with platform guidance and test on actual devices.

Rollout plan (four steps to keep everyone aligned)

1. One palette, one spec. Publish in your brand hub with a short intro on why choices were made, not just the hex codes.

2. Tokenize in code. Work with engineering to define semantic tokens (e.g., color.surface, color.cta) so you can evolve the palette without refactoring the whole app.

3. Create a “starter kit” for slides and charts (templates, swatches, sample graphs) so PMs and sales don’t improvise.

4. Schedule a 60-minute training for design, marketing, sales, and product on using the palette—especially when to use (and not use) green.

Final thoughts

The most effective cleantech palettes are disciplined, not loud. They earn trust with stable blues and clean neutrals, use green as a signal backed by proof, and reserve a single, high-visibility accent to drive action. They’re built on roles so your brand stays coherent as you scale from landing pages to line charts to mobile apps.

If you choose color with that mindset—evidence first, utility second, style third—your brand will feel modern, credible, and unmistakably yours across every touchpoint.

Follow The ABP Rule To Get Online Traction

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 14:40:37 GMT

When I was a political ad maker for candidates in the pre-Instagram/TikTok world, audience attention was gained primarily through TV ads, direct mail, and driving traffic to a website.

The money that drove key messages was spent wall-to-wall in a several-week pre-election sprint when voters were paying attention. Before that larger communication window, candidates vied for attention from a much smaller audience of donors, activists, and the local political press to shape the narrative of the campaign.

It was all very scripted and risk-averse. And it no longer applies in today’s attention economy.

Today, cleantech founders aren’t just fighting for attention against the equivalent of an opposing candidate. They’re competing with every candidate on the ballot, from the President down to the local school board. This is multiplied by two billion people getting their information from videos, newsletters, social media posts, podcasts, and niche media.

To compete in this landscape, cleantech companies need to follow the A.B.P. rules: Always Be Posting.

Too often, companies that don’t prioritize telling their story only pop their heads above the ground when they have an announcement, win an award, or attend a conference--the marketing equivalent of spitting in the ocean.

Algorithms don’t care about your award or who from your company attended a conference, so unless you’re promoting that social media post with a paid ad, it will only appear in the feeds of a limited number of people. That’s not a successful strategy for staying top-of-mind with potential funders, partners, accelerators, or trade media.

Algorithms, Like Humans, Like Attention

In our attention-driven economy, algorithms are like the bloodthirsty plant from the musical Little Shop of Horrors—you need to constantly feed it more if you want your following to grow.

Successful content creators will tell you that to compete in the digital attention world, there’s no penalty for quantity. To be clear, that’s not the same as posting slapdash on every medium. “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” may have swept the Academy Awards, but it doesn’t apply very well to cleantech content.

It’s better to dominate one or two platforms than blanket every digital channel. For B2B cleantech companies, YouTube and LinkedIn are your best bets. We recommend Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram if you’re building a clean energy project in a community or if you’re trying to generate grassroots support for legislation.

Video Content Wins

It’s not a secret that algorithms prioritize video content above all else, because video keeps people engaged on these platforms longer than written content, which, in turn, increases the stock price for their owners.

Written content is a necessary component of a cleantech company’s content strategy to build credibility, but it’s very time-consuming. Video can be more spontaneous and doesn’t need to be as polished. With a smartphone, even a novice can add some background music to set the mood or cancel out ambient noise.

There is little downside risk in creating unrefined video as part of your content strategy, especially if the alternative is not being seen at all. If you’re queasy about looking unprofessional, YouTube, a crowd-sourced platform, now commands more TV viewing time than Netflix and Disney+ combined.

Keys To A Successful Content Posting Strategy

Your company should be as methodical in creating an editorial calendar for posting content as it is in creating a business plan or a product launch.

Here are some best practices to follow to expand your audience reach:

• Schedule your posts for specific days of the week. Like Must See TV in the days of broadcast television, if your audience sees a regular post from you on a specific day of the week, they will come to associate that day with your content.

• The shorter the better. Instagram recently sent a memo to creators that the average time viewers spent looking at a video before continuing to scroll was down to seven seconds. Give your audience video content in bite-sized pieces rather than trying to cram your science into a single video.

• Bark like a seal. Yes, it’s demeaning to ask for applause, but the more likes you get on a post, the greater the chance the algorithms will show it to more viewers.

• Create value. Your company is not about your invention; it’s about the problem you solve for your audience. Try to see the value of your written and video posts through their lens.

• Be human. Show “behind the scenes” videos and a range of emotions. After the Theranos debacle, funders are wary of the “always on” founder who never has a doubt or a fear. Vulnerability isn’t a liability.

The hard part of content creation is deciding to make it a part of your routine. But, like exercising, the strength of your brand will improve when you make it a habit.

Where Does Podcasting Fit Into Your Marketing Plan?

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 14:22:22 GMT

Short answer: usually, it doesn’t—at least not as an owned, weekly show you produce in-house. If your team is already stretched, launching and sustaining a high-quality podcast will siphon time from channels that reliably move pipeline. In B2B and cleantech especially, you’re better off doing a few things exceptionally well—content your buyers actually read, LinkedIn where they already are, and a steady drumbeat of proof—than doing everything halfway.

That doesn’t mean podcasting has no place. It means you should treat podcasting as a strategic guest-appearance tactic, not a new content factory you need to run forever. Below is the data, the trade-offs, and a playbook to squeeze the most from podcasts without letting them take over your calendar.

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The Audience Is Real—but Relevance Matters

Podcast listening is mainstream. Edison Research’s The Infinite Dial 2025 reports that 70% of Americans age 12+ have listened to a podcast and 55% are monthly podcast consumers (Edison Research — The Infinite Dial 2025 (https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2025/)). Those are huge numbers, and they prove the medium has reach. Edison Research

But reach ≠ relevance. Your buyers may not be subscribed to your niche, and discovery remains a challenge unless you invest in distribution. For context, Pew Research finds that podcasts are a meaningful but not dominant source for news; many adults listen at least occasionally, but podcasts compete with feeds, newsletters, and video for attention (Pew Research Center — Audio and Podcasting Fact Sheet (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/audio-and-podcasting/)). In short: the audience exists—but your segment may be fragmented across dozens of shows. Pew Research Center+1

If you’re tempted to start your own weekly podcast, ask a harder question: do my buyers want another new show from me, or would they rather hear me on the shows they already trust?

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Producing a Show Is a Heavy Lift (And It Must Be Consistent)

A professional podcast isn’t just “hit record.” Weekly or bi-weekly publishing means:

• Editorial planning (topics, outlines, guest booking)

• High-quality recording (host prep, equipment, studio time)

• Post-production (editing, mixing, show notes, transcripts)

• Packaging (titles, art, episode descriptions, thumbnails)

• Distribution (RSS, platforms, scheduling)

• Promotion (clips, social, email, paid boosts)

That is a content operation, not a side project. Missing weeks erodes momentum. Rushing production degrades brand quality. If you don’t have a dedicated owner—or a budget for an external producer—the show will crowd out the two or three channels that already work for you. And in B2B, those channels (website content, SEO, email, LinkedIn) typically offer clearer attribution and faster sales alignment.

A more defensible plan: guest first (lower lift, faster reach), then consider a limited, seasonal show once you’ve proven there’s demand.

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Why Guesting Punches Above Its Weight

Guesting borrows trust. Someone else has already done the work to build an audience. When you appear, you tap into a pre-qualified community and inherit the host’s credibility—without owning the ongoing production.

It also multiplies content. One well-placed interview can become:

• 3–5 video clips for LinkedIn

• Quote graphics, pull-quotes for a blog post

• A summary email to prospects

• A short “FAQ” your sales team can send as proof

And the format’s attention profile helps. Nielsen’s “Podcasting Today” highlights that listeners perceive podcasts as less ad-cluttered than visual media, which correlates with deeper engagement windows compared to feed scrolling (Nielsen — Podcasting Today (Aug 2024) (https://www.nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Nielsen-Podcasting-Today-Aug-2024.pdf)). That doesn’t guarantee leads, but it does mean your long-form ideas can actually land. Nielsen

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The ROI Reality Check

If you do run a show, you’re playing a longer game. Ad revenue isn’t the point for most B2B brands; influence and pipeline are. Industry data shows the money in podcasting is real at a market level—IAB/PwC’s U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study puts 2023 revenue at ~$1.9B with projections to approach $2.6B by 2026 (IAB/PwC — U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study (2024) (https://www.iab.com/insights/us-podcast-advertising-revenue-study-2024/)). But that’s the market’s revenue, not necessarily yours. For individual brands, ROI hinges on fit, messaging, consistency, and measurement. IAB+1

Translation: unless your show is a flagship content product—with real resources—expect slower, softer returns. Guesting, by contrast, can move awareness and credibility this quarter if you pick the right rooms.

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When Podcasting Does Fit as an Owned Channel

There are exceptions. Consider producing your own podcast if:

• You already dominate a niche and your audience wants deeper, regular conversations from you.

• You have a team (internal or agency) that can guarantee consistent quality.

• You can commit to seasons, not infinity—e.g., 8–10 episode runs around a tight theme you can repurpose across channels.

• You have internal SMEs who speak well on mic and can carry a show without heavy editing.

• You build distribution in from day one (newsletter, LinkedIn, partner cross-promotions, guest swaps).

Even then, treat the show like a product: define ICP, positioning, and success metrics; validate with guesting first; and sunset quickly if the data doesn’t justify the lift.

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The Guesting Playbook (Step-by-Step)

If you follow one section, make it this one.

1) Define your angle (and make it non-generic)

Hosts say “yes” to specificity. Instead of “We do climate tech,” pitch: “How municipal utilities can pilot distributed storage in under 120 days—without a full RFP.” Your angle should be problem-led, contrarian where honest, and loaded with practical steps listeners can apply.

2) Build a tight target list

Identify 20–40 shows your buyers already consume: sector (energy, climate finance, sustainability ops), role (facilities, policy, OEMs), or problem (grid integration, decarb of industrial heat). Prioritize recent publishing cadence and guests similar to you.

Support the argument for audience viability with data when you have it. Market-level listening is there: Edison Research — The Infinite Dial 2025 shows majority awareness and record monthly consumption (Edison Research — The Infinite Dial 2025 (https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2025/)). Pew’s fact sheets underscore that a meaningful share of adults listen, especially for learning while multitasking (Pew Research Center — Audio and Podcasting Fact Sheet (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/audio-and-podcasting/)). Use that to reassure internal stakeholders you’re fishing where ears exist. Edison Research+1

3) Pitch to the host’s audience, not your resume

Keep outreach under 150 words. Lead with the benefit to their listeners, then add 2–3 concrete talking points (case, metric, decision framework). Offer a short bio, headshot, and your recording setup so you look turnkey.

4) Show up like a pro

Decent mic, quiet room, notes but not a script. Bring names and numbers (e.g., pilot results, cost deltas, timelines). Good audio + specificity earns invitations back—and referrals to adjacent shows.

5) Multiply the asset

Before recording, request permission to clip. After release, post 2–4 short clips across LinkedIn over two weeks; add the full episode to a “media” page; send a summary email that ties the episode to a current problem in your pipeline. This is where guesting outperforms: the same 45 minutes produces weeks of content—and it’s content with borrowed trust. Engagement windows are strong for audio: Nielsen points to less perceived ad clutter versus TV, contributing to better attention spans for longer content blocks (Nielsen — Podcasting Today (Aug 2024) (https://www.nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Nielsen-Podcasting-Today-Aug-2024.pdf)). Nielsen

6) Attribute the impact

Create a simple UTM for the episode page you plug on air; use a short vanity URL you can say out loud. Track: net-new contacts in CRM tagged to the episode, meetings booked within 30 days, influenced opportunities. Remember: market revenue is growing (IAB/PwC), but your ROI will come from pipeline influenced, not impressions (IAB/PwC — U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study (2024) (https://www.iab.com/insights/us-podcast-advertising-revenue-study-2024/)). IAB

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When to Say “No” (Even if It’s Flattering)

Decline invites when:

• The show hasn’t published in months (dead audience).

• The audience is misaligned (hobbyist vibes when you need enterprise buyers).

• Production is sloppy (hurts your brand).

• The host charges for placement without transparent reach (pay-to-play rarely pencils out).

Your time is finite; protect it for the rooms that map to your ICP.

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A Minimal-Effort Plan That Works

If you want podcast impact without the sinkhole:

1. Six quality guest spots over the next 9–12 months—two per quarter at most.

2. One internal “media kit” (bio, headshot, topics, links, booking calendar).

3. Clip each interview into 3–5 posts for LinkedIn and one email recap.

4. Attribute with UTM links and a single “podcasts” campaign in your CRM.

5. Reassess after six appearances: did you influence pipeline or just create noise?

This rhythm respects your core content and sales ops while pulling in the benefits of podcast reach and authority.

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Final Thoughts

Podcasting is powerful, but owning a show is a commitment most teams shouldn’t make until they’ve exhausted simpler, higher-leverage moves. For many cleantech companies, the right sequence is: sharpen your narrative, publish proof where your buyers read it, and guest on the shows they already trust. Only then, if you’ve proven demand and have the resources, consider a focused, seasonal podcast of your own.

Do a few things exceptionally well. Let podcasting amplify that work—not replace it.

How Many Slides Should A Cleantech Founder Create For A Pitch?

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 14:12:23 GMT

There’s a delicate rhythm to crafting an investor pitch deck—especially in cleantech, where technology is complex and scrutiny runs deep. Too few slides, and you may seem unprepared. Too many, and you risk losing attention. The key is creating a deck tight enough to hold attention, yet thorough enough to build credibility.

Here’s how cleantech founders can strike that balance.

1. The “10/20/30 Rule” Still Holds

Legendary investor evangelist Guy Kawasaki established one of the clearest guidelines for effective decks—known as the 10/20/30 Rule:

• Ten slides maximum

• Twenty-minute presentation

• Font no smaller than 30 points

Why this matters: it forces clarity and keeps investors engaged. Even in technical fields like cleantech, simplicity resonates.

2. Stick to 10–12 Slides—but Tailor for Clarity

Most effective pitch decks fall within the 10–12 slide range . Shorter decks with clear storytelling often outperform bloated presentations.

Cleantech founders should aim for precision: answer important questions without redundancy. If you can tell your full story in eight slides, do it—just make sure it’s polished.

3. Pre Seed and Seed Stage Founders: One Slide Could Be Enough

Early-stage companies often don’t need 15–20 slides. Instead, investors respond better to mission- driven simplicity —presenting what’s achieved and what’s next.

In cleantech, where prototypes may not exist yet, focusing on key traction, mission milestones, and capital usage is more persuasive than overloading a deck with projections or jargon.

4. What Vision-Raising Cleantech Examples Teach Us

Templates from top cleantech pitch decks—like Tesla or Dandelion Energy—typically hover around 1 0–16 slides , offering balance between depth and focus.

These decks include essential narrative flow—from problem to solution, traction, team, and ask—without getting bloated. For complex technologies, they offer visuals or mission steps rather than technical deep dives.

5. Slide-by-Slide Strategy for Cleantech Founders

Here’s a refined blueprint that balances storytelling and due diligence:

1. Cover Slide – Company name, tagline, and presenter.

(1 slide)

2. Problem + Audience – Frame the environmental, regulatory, financial, feedstock, or energy challenge and market that’s experiencing a pain point

(1 slide)

3. Solution – Present your solution to a previously unsolvable problem.

4. Impact – Explain your technology’s unique value: emissions avoided, cost savings, site efficiency.

5. Mission Roadmap – Early milestones and growth missions (“Funding → R&D → Pilot → Scale”).

(1 slide)

6. How It Works / IP – Simple diagram of technology flow and unique IP coverage.

(1 slide)

7. Business Model – Addressable market, channels, revenue model.

(1 slide)

8. Traction & Pilot Data – Early partners, deployments, key metrics.

(1 slide)

9. Team + Advisors – Founders, roles, and aligned expertise.

(1 slide)

10. Financials & Use of Funds – Projections, runway, and funding ask.

(1 slide)

11. Closing / Call to Action – What you want from investors next, plus contact info.

(1 slide)

Total target range: 9–12 slides.

6. Why Brevity Wins in Cleantech

Investors in cleantech see a dozen or more pitch decks every week, and each one is from a mission-driven company trying to positively impact society. Your deck is designed to pique their interest, not answer every single one of their questions. Your deck is the warm handshake that starts the relationship. Due diligence comes much later in the process. Here's why fewer slides help:

• They force you to distill complexity into compelling clarity.

• They prevent overwhelming audiences with technical overload.

• They focus on mission and impact, not just product doodles.

7. Practical Tips for Crafting Less, but Better

• Shape your narrative first—slide count follows story, not vice versa.

• Use visuals, not text—even technical content can be diagrammed or simplified.

• Prioritize audience needs—impact-first angel vs institutional VC need different context.

• Be modular—include backup slides in an appendix for deeper conversations later.

• Practice tight delivery—if you have 20 minutes, make every one count.

Final Thoughts

There’s no magic number—but for most cleantech founder pitches, 9–12 slides hits the sweet spot:

• Short enough to stay focused.

• Comprehensive enough to cover the problem, your impact, and the ask.

• Flexible enough to adapt to seed or Series A conversations.

As you prepare your deck, think less about hitting a slide target—and more about crafting a compelling, mission-aligned story investors can follow in 10 minutes flat.

Steps To Create A Successful B2B Sales Funnel

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 14:04:37 GMT

A great B2B sales funnel doesn’t just capture leads—it builds trust, nurtures interest, and drives consistent revenue. In clean tech, SaaS, manufacturing, or any complex B2B vertical, a clear funnel turns scattered outreach into predictable deal flow.

But too many organizations treat funnels as static diagrams. In reality, they’re dynamic systems—where buyers explore, compare, stall, and convert in different ways.

Here’s a full blueprint to build and refine a sales funnel that performs in today’s market.

1. Map the Funnel to Real-World Behavior

Start by defining each stage based on what your ideal customer is doing—not just what you want them to do.

A proven model includes the following stages: Awareness → Interest → Consideration → Evaluation → Conversion → Loyalty

B2B buyers don’t move linearly. They Google competitors, read analyst reviews, talk to peers, join webinars, revisit your site weeks later—and then ask for a demo.

Why this matters: Your funnel content, nurture strategies, and hand-offs should reflect that journey. If you're only optimizing for the conversion point, you're ignoring where most deals are lost.

2. Fill the Funnel: Awareness Stage

At the top of the funnel (TOFU), you're not selling—you’re sparking recognition. Your job is to make prospects realize they have a problem worth solving.

According to RollWorks , 89% of B2B researchers use the internet during their buying process, and they typically perform 12 searches before ever landing on a specific vendor's website.

Effective TOFU tactics:

• SEO-focused blog content answering niche questions

• Thought-leadership LinkedIn posts

• YouTube explainers or animations

• Social ads promoting industry stats, not your product

Key metrics: Pageviews, ad impressions, social engagement, branded search lift

3. Educate and Qualify: Interest + Consideration

Once prospects are aware of the problem and you’re on their radar, it’s time to earn their trust.

This is where your messaging needs to shift from problems to solution positioning. You need to show:

• Why your product or technology is uniquely situated to solve their problem

• The value that it brings (What’s in it for me—WIFM)

• Who else is using it or funding it (Third-party validation)

DealFront emphasizes that buyers at this stage actively compare solutions, run side-by-side checklists, and dig into case studies.

Tactics for mid-funnel success:

• Email drip sequences targeting pain points

• Downloadable whitepapers or solution options

• Webinar invites with industry analysts or power users

• Test results, experienced additions to the team

• Project milestone updates

Important note: Don’t gate everything—some prospects prefer ungated content to build familiarity first.

Metrics to track: Time on site, gated content conversions, email open/click-through rates, webinar RSVPs

4. Signal Intent: Evaluation Stage

Prospects here are not just curious—they’re shopping. Your job is to make it easy for them to choose you.

Arrows.to identifies “Evaluation” as a crucial bridge between consideration and conversion. This is where product tours, demos, or direct pricing conversations happen.

To convert intent into action:

• Offer 1-on-1 demos with a solution engineer

• Show ROI calculators or business cases tied to the buyer’s role

• Share comparison sheets vs. other tools

• Include testimonials from companies with similar use cases

What to measure: Demo bookings, meeting attendance rate, free trial activation, RFP submission

5. Convert with Clarity and Confidence

Once you're in late-stage talks, your sales process needs to be fast, focused, and frictionless.

Zendesk reports that high-performing reps address 3–4 specific buyer concerns in the first conversation, leading to 81–85% higher closing performance.

Best practices at conversion stage:

• Customize your proposal to the buyer’s vertical, not just the size

• Offer rapid response time on pricing and legal reviews

• Integrate sales and customer success for smoother handoffs

Don’t forget—multiple decision-makers are often involved. Tailor separate materials for:

• Finance (ROI, total cost)

• Technical team (integration, compliance)

• Business leader (value creation)

Metrics: Close rate, average deal size, decision cycle time, win/loss reason tracking

6. Build Loyalty That Drives New Leads

Your job doesn’t stop at “closed-won.” In B2B, renewal and expansion revenue is often more profitable than the first deal.

Arrows.to includes Loyalty as a final funnel stage, focused on retention, referrals, and upsells.

Post-sale funnel tactics:

• Automated onboarding emails with success milestones

• Quarterly business reviews (QBRs)

• NPS and CSAT surveys to spot churn risk

• Referral or affiliate programs

Use this stage to collect case studies, reviews, or even customer videos to reinforce TOFU and MOFU stages with new leads.

Loyalty metrics: Customer lifetime value (CLV), net revenue retention (NRR), expansion pipeline, referral deals

7. Align Sales + Marketing Across the Funnel

Even the best funnel will leak if sales and marketing aren’t aligned.

RollWorks identifies “funnel hand-off” and lead qualification as two of the most common points of failure in B2B demand gen.

How to fix it:

• Agree on lead scoring rules and definitions (e.g., what qualifies as an MQL vs SQL)

• Use shared dashboards to track funnel progression

• Review lead feedback weekly between teams

• Enable marketing to learn from sales calls—and vice versa

8. Optimize with Data—Not Just Gut

A funnel is never static. Buyer behavior evolves. Messaging fatigue sets in. Competitors undercut you. That’s why optimization is critical.

Zendesk research shows that teams who consistently nurture and iterate on their funnel generate 50% more sales-ready leads and hit quotas at a 9.3% higher rate than those who don’t.

Use data to:

• Spot high-performing channels and assets

• Detect bottlenecks (e.g., high TOFU volume but no demos)

• A/B test subject lines, CTAs, and layouts

• Adjust nurture sequences based on persona behavior

Funnel Examples for Inspiration

1. HubSpot (SaaS)

TOFU: Blog and templates → MOFU: Product comparison pages and case studies → BOFU: Free trial + demo

2. Bloom Energy (Cleantech)

TOFU: Thought leadership videos → MOFU: Policy whitepapers → BOFU: Facility case studies, ROI tools

3. ServiceTitan (Trades SaaS)

TOFU: YouTube content → MOFU: On-demand demos → BOFU: Peer testimonials, pricing transparency

You don’t need to copy them—but note how each brand uses trust-building assets at every stage.

Funnel Success Summary

The funnel begins with awareness, where blogs, SEO, and social media drive traffic and engagement by educating and attracting prospects. Interest is nurtured through webinars and emails, measured by opens and click-throughs. As leads move into consideration, whitepapers and ROI tools build intent, with success shown in demo requests and deeper page views. Evaluation is signaled by consultations and case studies, tracked by SQLs and free trials. Conversion follows with proposals and prompt follow-ups, measured by win rate and cycle time. Finally, loyalty is built through onboarding and referral programs, ensuring retention, referrals, and stronger customer lifetime value.

Final Thoughts

Your sales funnel is not a slide deck. It’s a living system that should evolve with every insight, every buyer conversation, and every missed deal.

To make it successful:

• Be relevant at each stage—not just persuasive

• Shorten cycles with intent signals

• Use existing customers to close new ones

In B2B, trust earns attention—and attention earns revenue. The right sales funnel turns interest into action, and action into sustainable growth.

Why Your Lab Results Need Social Proof to Scale

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 15:10:51 GMT

In cleantech, a successful pilot is only half the equation. The other half? Convincing stakeholders—investors, policymakers, grant reviewers, and commercial buyers—that your solution is trustworthy and scalable. Unfortunately, facts alone rarely close that gap. For that, you need a different kind of evidence.

You need social proof.

Social proof is what makes people comfortable saying “yes” in uncertain situations. It’s why Amazon reviews influence buying behavior , why political endorsements shape public opinion , and why a Yelp rating can make or break a restaurant .

The same principle applies to clean technology and energy innovation. In a world where buyers are overwhelmed by complexity and investors face asymmetric risk, social proof acts as a shortcut to trust.

What Is Social Proof, Really?

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people follow the actions of others in an attempt to reflect “correct” behavior in a given situation. It was first formalized in the 1980s by psychologist Robert Cialdini and has since become a cornerstone of behavioral science.

In practice, it can look like:

• A recognizable institution using your technology

• A respected investor backing your Series A

• Testimonials from municipal or industrial partners

• User counts (“500+ installs across 18 states”)

• Third-party certifications

These are more than marketing lines. They are trust signals. In cleantech, where purchase decisions often involve complex risk assessments and high capital commitments, social proof can push hesitant buyers or funders toward action.

Your Lab Results Are Proof—But Only to You

You may have solid field data and elegant results. But if those results are unknown or untrusted, they won’t move people.

Investors are especially wary. Early-stage cleantech funding gaps often come down to information asymmetry, where investors can’t verify your claims or assess technical risk. According to a 2022 report on environmental performance indicators, early-stage investors want credible signals of value, especially when public capital or grants are involved.

It’s not enough to have the data—you need others to vouch for it.

Why Early Backers Have Outsized Influence

Trust builds momentum, and momentum often begins with a few early believers.

This dynamic is evident in platforms like Dealmaker, which enable early investors to signal confidence publicly. When clean energy startup EnergyX raised funding through retail investment tools, they were able to tout 7,000+ individual backers, turning ordinary investors into brand validators.

That’s not a gimmick—it’s psychology at work. If 7,000 people said “yes,” others feel safer doing the same.

What Doesn’t Work (and Why)

You can’t just tack on a quote and expect to convert hesitant stakeholders.

A 2023 field experiment tested two types of social proof messaging—personal testimonials vs. anonymous “many people have used this service” prompts—on consumers evaluating home energy services. Neither significantly increased conversion rates.

The lesson? Social proof must be:

• Relevant (from a peer or respected expert)

• Specific (real numbers or names, not vague claims)

• Contextualized (aligned with audience concerns)

Telling a utility buyer that 4,000 homeowners adopted your technology isn’t persuasive. Telling them that another utility in a similar market did is.

When Social Proof Works Best

Social proof succeeds when it reflects credible action by a relatable entity. That’s why endorsements from professional associations, peer organizations, or adjacent cities matter so much.

A recent study from Yale on residential energy savings campaigns found that participants were more likely to take action when the message came from a local, familiar entity (e.g., “Join others in [your town] who’ve switched to energy-efficient appliances”) rather than a generic or distant group.

This shows the value of “localized” or “networked” social proof. People don't just want to know others have acted—they want to know people like them have acted.

________________________________________

Government Endorsements as Strategic Proof

In cleantech, government involvement—whether through funding, pilots, or public-private partnerships—can serve as a strong validator. Many public procurement processes are cautious by design, so any inclusion in public programming reflects diligence and vetting.

Consider programs like the U.S. Department of Energy’s LPO (Loan Programs Office), which has supported cleantech startups like Tesla, Plug Power, and Monolith with billions in loans. These loan approvals signal credibility that private investors can follow.

Being part of a DOE program doesn’t just give you capital. It gives you a stamp of legitimacy others can trust.

________________________________________

Third-Party Metrics: The Foundation of Scalable Proof

If you're scaling tech, people want more than a story. They want auditable metrics—like impact per deployment, savings over time, or emissions avoided.

Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) serve this function. When defined clearly and verified independently, EPIs allow institutional and commercial buyers to see how your lab results translate to field impact. Without EPIs, your tech is just a theory. With them, it's measurable progress.

Transparency adds another layer. By making your EPIs publicly visible and updated regularly, you enable others to cite them—amplifying their reach and increasing downstream trust.

________________________________________

Social Trust Enables Social Proof

There’s another layer here: regional or institutional trust plays a huge role in how social proof is received.

A 2021 study on green innovation found that regions with higher levels of interpersonal and institutional trust also had more cleantech development. When people expect fair play and shared norms, they’re more likely to collaborate, co-invest, and promote peer technologies.

Social proof isn’t magic—it rests on a foundation of trust. If you’re entering a new market or sector, it’s worth building local credibility before you ask for big bets.

Five Ways to Turn Lab Results into Scalable Proof

Here’s how you can leverage social proof to move from technical promise to market momentum:

1. Secure a recognizable anchor partner – A pilot with a city or energy utility means more than one with an anonymous user group.

2. Publish and standardize your EPIs – Share impact metrics in a way others can easily cite and validate.

3. Stack endorsements – Highlight testimonials from government officials, industry engineers, and peer organizations.

4. Show user behavior at scale – Share metrics like “X thousand hours of runtime” or “Y MW installed” to demonstrate traction.

5. Use investor participation as a signal – Especially if they’re repeat investors or respected names.

Final Thoughts: Don’t Sell in Isolation

Your technology might be great. Your science might be sound. But in a crowded, cautious market, no one wants to be first—they want to know someone else already said yes.

Social proof provides the confidence that your lab data cannot. It adds credibility without complexity. It shortcuts long due diligence cycles and gets you from promising to proven.

In cleantech, facts matter—but trust scales.

Make sure your lab results don’t stand alone.

Should Cleantech Remain At Arm’s Length From Instagram?

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 14:44:13 GMT

Cleantech companies are in the business of solving real problems—energy access, emissions, grid resilience. So when it comes to social media, it’s fair to ask: do platforms built for likes and trends really help you reach the people who matter?

Take Instagram. It’s fast-moving, eye-catching, and massively popular. But popularity doesn’t always equal effectiveness. For cleantech, the question isn’t just “Should we be on Instagram?” The real question is: Does Instagram reach the audience you need to influence?

Let’s unpack that.

1. Who’s on Instagram—and Is It Your Audience?

Understanding Instagram’s demographics is step one. You need to know who you’re talking to before deciding if it’s worth talking there at all.

As of January 2024, 62.4% of Instagram users are aged 18 to 34 . Of those, the largest cohort is 18 to 24, making up over 30% of the platform’s global user base. If your sustainable product is consumer-facing—e-bikes, reusable containers, EVs, energy-efficient electronics, or thrifted apparel—this is a receptive audience.

But for deep tech firms, that’s a red flag. If your targets are city energy planners, commercial real estate developers, or utilities, they likely aren’t scrolling Reels between meetings.

LinkedIn, by contrast, is the platform of choice for professionals and executives, especially in industries like energy, engineering, and infrastructure. According to LinkedIn’s own marketing solutions data , 4 out of 5 members drive business decisions, and over 58 million companies are represented.

Instagram might help shape brand awareness—but it’s LinkedIn that wins when you're selling to decision-makers.

2. Instagram Is Visual. That’s Not Always an Advantage.

There’s no doubt: Instagram is a visual-first platform. But being visual doesn’t automatically mean it’s a good fit for cleantech.

To succeed on Instagram, your content needs to stop the scroll. That means clear, engaging visuals, preferably video. And right now, the most effective format by far is Reels , which generate over 200 billion plays per day.

But Reels favor:

• Personal stories

• Fast cuts

• Relatable or entertaining content

That makes them ideal for a solar company with choreographed installers set to music. But not so ideal for a grid-tech startup explaining load balancing or smart inverters.

Even the average time users spend watching Reels supports this. According to a Q1 2025 Meta report, the average watch time on Reels dropped to 5.2 seconds per clip. There are goldfish with longer attention spans than Gen Z. If you can’t boil down your bite-sized how to’s tips or “Did You Know?” message into 15 to 30 seconds of visuals—without losing technical accuracy—Instagram will not carry your message effectively.

3. B2B Buyers Want Aesthetics + Depth

Most cleantech businesses sell to sophisticated buyers: developers, facility managers, compliance officers, procurement professionals, municipalities.

As we’ve written repeatedly, B2B buyers are also persuaded by dopamine hits to the limbic brain that light up with visuals and stories. However, that’s just the beginning of the buyer’s journey.

Once they enter your sales funnel, they need:

• Technical specs

• Case studies

• Regulatory alignment

• Cost-benefit breakdowns

That doesn’t fit on a Reel.

According to Demand Gen Report’s 2024 Content Preferences Study , 71% of B2B buyers read between three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. And those pieces are overwhelmingly whitepapers, in-depth articles, and product comparison guides.

Instagram doesn’t support that kind of content—not in structure, not in length, and not in mindset.

Use Instagram to humanize your brand, but don’t expect it to build a buying case.

4. YouTube and LinkedIn Deliver More Value Per Dollar

If your content is visual and educational, YouTube is far more valuable than Instagram.

YouTube reaches more U.S. adults each day than any other social platform , and it’s the second most-used search engine after Google itself. Cleantech companies that invest in high-quality explainer videos, site walkthroughs, or animated tech breakdowns see returns not just in views—but in actual conversions from engaged prospects.

LinkedIn, meanwhile, lets you connect with:

• Policy stakeholders

• Investors

• Industry associations

• Fortune 1000 buyers

And their lead conversion rates are 3X higher than other platforms , per LinkedIn Marketing Solutions.

Your Instagram post may get 500 likes. But your LinkedIn whitepaper might land you a 7-figure pilot deal.

5. Instagram Is Not Pointless—But It’s Not Primary

All that said, Instagram isn’t useless. It plays a role in your brand stack—just not the lead role.

Use it to:

• Showcase your team and company culture

• Recruit younger talent

• Celebrate funding milestones or awards

• Promote sustainability stories that are emotional and human

This kind of content builds trust and familiarity, which can influence how your brand is perceived elsewhere.

But if your internal team is spending hours trying to squeeze an inverter spec sheet into a swipe carousel? You’re wasting time.

6. Use This Framework to Decide

Use Instagram if:

• Your product is visual, simple, and emotionally resonant

• Your buyer is under 35 and likely to discover you via mobile

• You have the in-house design or video chops to post high-quality content 2–3x a week

• You can afford for it to be top-of-funnel only (awareness, not lead gen)

Avoid Instagram if:

• Your product is complex or regulatory-heavy

• You sell primarily to other businesses or government

• You’re trying to push thought leadership or in-depth content

• Your team doesn’t have the bandwidth to regularly post original content

This isn’t about shunning a platform—it’s about being selective.

7. The Real Cost of Chasing the Wrong Channel

Every hour your team spends filming a time-lapse or tweaking a caption is time not spent writing a technical blog, creating an RFP response, or following up with a lead.

Instagram is seductive. It’s fast and makes you feel busy. But likes don’t pay the bills.

What does? Being where your buyer is. And more often than not in cleantech, that’s LinkedIn, Google Search, conferences, or directly in their inbox.

Final Thoughts

Instagram may be one of the biggest platforms on the planet, but that doesn’t make it right for everyone—especially in cleantech.

If your audience is young, visual, and looking to be inspired, Instagram can build brand equity and tell powerful stories.

But if your goal is to move complex, infrastructure-grade technology into the hands of cities, businesses, and builders, you need to go where attention is deeper, not just faster.

The smartest brands don’t chase platforms. They chase attention. And the right kind of attention lives in the right kind of place.

Why Benefits Trump the Features of Your Clean Technology

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 15:35:47 GMT

When promoting a clean technology product or service, it’s tempting to lead with the impressive technical specs. Efficiency ratings, proprietary materials, patent-pending algorithms—these features might be what make your solution cutting-edge. But if you're trying to win over customers, investors, or partners, you need to understand one truth: benefits are what sell.

While features describe what your product is, benefits explain why someone should care. And when it comes to messaging in cleantech, where many companies still default to jargon-heavy technical descriptions, the brands that prioritize benefits are the ones that break through.

This blog explains why benefits should be the core of your marketing and sales communications, and how they can help translate your innovative technology into clear, compelling value.

Features vs. Benefits: What’s the Difference?

Before we go any further, let’s define the terms:

• Features are characteristics or technical specifications of a product or service. These might include solar panel efficiency percentages, battery storage capacity, or the use of carbon-negative materials.

• Benefits are the positive outcomes those features create for the customer. These might include lower utility bills, reduced carbon footprint, or improved compliance with new environmental regulations.

As Indeed explains in their breakdown of this concept, “ Features highlight what a product can do. Benefits show what it does for the user .”

When you shift your messaging from features to benefits, you’re shifting the focus from you to your customer. And that makes all the difference.

Why Features Don’t Motivate Clean Technology Buyers

Most clean technology buyers—whether homeowners, businesses, or governments—aren’t engineers. They don’t care about the technical nuances of how your product works. They care about outcomes.

1. Features assume technical fluency

Let’s say you lead with a statement like “Our turbines operate at 92% thermal efficiency.” That might be a big deal to your engineers or your R&D team. But to a non-technical buyer, this statement is meaningless unless you also explain what that efficiency does for them.

Does it reduce their operating costs? Help them meet state clean energy goals? Allow them to outpace their competitors? If you don’t connect the dots, they won’t.

2. Features lack emotional relevance

Emotion drives most buying decisions. A benefit like “You’ll cut your energy costs by 30% in the first year” connects far more than “This unit uses a high-performance inverter with MPPT tracking.” One of these makes people feel excited about the result. The other makes them feel like they’re reading a spec sheet.

As OnRampFunds explains: “Features build credibility, but it’s benefits that inspire action.”

Benefits Help You Stand Out in a Crowded Market

In cleantech, differentiation is key. More companies are entering the space every day, and many of them are offering similar tools and services. If your messaging is focused only on specs, you’re just another technical solution in a sea of technical solutions.

Benefits, on the other hand, are where your unique customer value becomes visible.

1. Benefits highlight relevance

By focusing on how your clean technology improves lives or business outcomes, you become more relatable. Instead of saying, “We offer data-rich environmental sensors,” say, “We help cities detect and reduce air pollution before it affects public health.”

Both may be true—but only one puts the focus where it belongs: on the buyer’s world.

2. Benefits drive your brand story

Marketing isn’t just about stating facts; it’s about storytelling. Benefits help tell a story of transformation—whether that’s a company reducing emissions, a building cutting energy costs, or a municipality meeting federal clean air standards.

As Competitive Intelligence Alliance puts it: “Features are about the product. Benefits are about the customer experience.”

Why Benefits Are Especially Powerful in the Cleantech Sector

Clean technology is often mission-driven. But mission alone doesn’t close sales. Buyers still need to justify the cost, assess the risk, and see how your product will make their lives easier or better. That’s where benefits come in.

1. Clean tech often comes with higher upfront costs

Many clean technologies offer long-term savings but require more investment up front. To justify that cost, buyers need to clearly understand what they’re getting—not in technical terms, but in tangible outcomes.

By focusing on benefits like lifetime energy savings, tax incentives, or simplified maintenance, you help buyers see the return on investment more clearly.

2. Environmental impact is a benefit—not a feature

Some cleantech companies treat sustainability as a feature. But for many buyers, especially municipalities and enterprises, reduced emissions or ESG compliance are core benefits. They solve a business problem, meet legal requirements, or appeal to values-driven customers.

Frame it that way. Don't just say “Our process is low-emission.” Say, “Our process helps your company meet net-zero goals without disrupting operations.”

How to Translate Features Into Benefits

Turning a feature into a benefit isn’t hard—but it does require practice. The trick is to ask yourself: “So what?”

Here are some examples tailored to the cleantech space:

Feature: Solar panel with 21.5% efficiency. So What?: That’s higher than the industry average. Benefit: Generates more power in less space—ideal for rooftops with limited square footage

Feature: Air filtration system removes 99.8% of particles. So What?: That’s a high-performance filter. Benefit: Helps schools and offices protect occupants from pollution and allergens

Feature: Smart grid software with AI-powered load balancing. So What?: Sounds complex. Benefit: Reduces blackout risk and improves grid reliability during peak usage

Feature: Carbon capture unit uses proprietary sorbent. So What?: Nice technical detail. Benefit: Cuts your emissions profile and helps meet regulatory benchmarks faster

When in doubt, use the phrase “which means…” to bridge features and benefits. For example:

“Our battery has a 12-year lifespan, which means you’ll avoid expensive replacements and keep maintenance costs low.”

This technique keeps your messaging grounded in results that matter.

Benefits Also Work Better in Sales Conversations

Your marketing isn’t the only place where benefits matter. Sales conversations—especially in high-consideration B2B clean tech—rely on the same principles.

If your reps are talking about volts, algorithms, and feed-in tariffs without translating those into value, they’re leaving deals on the table. Benefits help create urgency, solve problems, and overcome objections.

And as Vunela explains using the classic analogy: “People don’t buy a drill. They buy the hole.”

Final Thoughts

Clean technology is vital to the future—but that doesn’t mean people will buy it just because it’s innovative or sustainable. To break through, your message needs to focus on what your product does for the people who buy it.

Features validate. Benefits persuade.

Leading with benefits helps your company:

• Connect with customers emotionally and practically

• Translate technical innovation into real-world value

• Differentiate in a crowded marketplace

• Build a story that people actually want to hear

Whether you’re writing a web page, preparing a sales deck, or pitching to an investor, make sure benefits are front and center. Then support those benefits with features—not the other way around.

Surprise! Your Mission Isn’t Solving Climate Change

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 15:16:54 GMT

Your clean technology startup may have entered the arena to combat climate change—and that’s noble. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: your company’s mission isn’t solving climate change. Not directly. Not today.

That’s not a criticism. It’s a strategy.

When your startup declares “solving climate change” as its mission, you risk sounding indistinct. A mission should be a clear, specific promise to a defined audience . Vague idealism doesn’t win grants, convert customers, or help you raise your next round. What does? A focused value proposition tied to a real-world problem and the people who need it solved.

1. BHAGs Sound Great. But Missions Should Be Actionable.

There’s a difference between a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) and a mission. A BHAG is visionary—it's meant to be provocative, bold, and inspiring. But a mission is your compass—it’s what guides day-to-day decisions .

For instance, saying, “We’re on a mission to decarbonize the planet” is noble but unclear. Compare that to:

“We help data centers reduce cooling-related energy use by 40%.”

Now you’re talking.

Your BHAG might be decarbonization. But your mission must explain how, for whom, and when. That’s the actionable promise.

2. Specificity Signals Maturity to Investors and Partners

Clean energy is full of ambitious claims. What cuts through the noise are specifics. A clearly defined mission tells investors you’ve identified your beachhead market and understand their pain .

Let’s say you’re working on a solar efficiency breakthrough. “Solving climate change” doesn’t help an investor understand who your customer is. “Increasing solar panel ROI for commercial property managers” does.

Funders aren’t looking for a savior. They’re looking for a company with a real, measurable plan to improve something specific—profitably.

3. You Can’t Market to “The Planet”

Startups often fall into the trap of framing their solution for “everyone.” But marketing to everyone is marketing to no one . The truth is, the only people who will buy your product, fund your startup, or advocate for your technology are those whose lives are directly improved by it.

If your mission doesn’t name that audience, your message will never connect.

Forget trying to save the planet in every pitch deck. Focus on solving your customer’s problem. That’s what earns trust and traction.

4. Grounding Your Mission Builds Organizational Clarity

A mission isn’t just external—it’s internal. It’s what aligns your product team, your marketing team, and your fundraisers. Without a grounded mission, your messaging becomes inconsistent and your priorities scatter .

When everyone in your company can say, “We help [target customer] solve [specific problem],” it becomes easier to prioritize features, develop outreach strategies, and identify partners. It becomes easier to grow.

5. You’re Not In This Alone

You’re not the only company fighting climate change. You don’t have to be. That’s what makes collaboration, investment, and public-private partnerships possible.

Trying to own the entire fight against climate change is not only inaccurate—it’s alienating . But showing where your clean technology fits into the broader solution? That’s smart positioning.

It communicates humility, partnership, and practicality—qualities that matter more than rhetoric.

6. Climate Impact Is the Result—Not the Mission

Let’s reframe the entire conversation: Your mission is the action. Climate impact is the consequence.

You’re helping someone reduce waste. Increase efficiency. Replace a polluting input. That’s the job. The climate wins because your technology succeeds in a real-world application.

If you do that at scale, you’ll create massive climate impact. But you can’t scale if no one knows what problem you’re solving.

Start with clarity. Scale with purpose.

Final Thoughts

Ambition is the lifeblood of cleantech. We need it. But ambition without focus can undermine your ability to make the very impact you care about.

Instead of promising to solve climate change, promise to solve the problem your customer faces today.

Instead of trying to save the planet, save someone’s budget, time, compliance burden, or operational headache.

Because that’s how you scale. That’s how you earn investment. And that’s how you actually contribute to solving climate change—by doing your part, with precision.

When your mission is grounded, your growth becomes inevitable. And your BHAG? It’s not just inspiring—it’s achievable.

Get Out of the Lab to Tell Your Cleantech Story

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 14:28:19 GMT

Your technology is perfected in a laboratory environment, but your impact is created outside of it. You can have the most rigorously engineered solution in your field, but if your audience only sees numbers, they’ll tune out. Data alone won’t attract investment, talent, or first customers .

To break through, you need to show what your innovation actually does in the real world. The stories are what breathe life into the charts and validation into the data.

1. People Connect with Stories, Not Specs

Your technical breakthrough are impressive—but your audience first needs to know why it matters. Investors, media, and customers see your solution through a meta story lens that eminates from the limbic brain. That’s the grabber. The technical specs that require due diligence come later.

Instead of sharing capture rates or efficiency thresholds, tell how your oil spill adsorbent saved a local fishing industry that goes back generations and sustains a local economy while protecting endangered sealife and birds.

2. Storytelling Builds Trust and Action

Numbers can inform—but stories inspire. According to Mindy Grossman at WEF, storytelling isn’t just a marketing tactic—it’s a leadership strategy that triggers trust and motivates action. Stories release oxytocin and spark neural coupling—your brain syncing with your audience’s brain .

That means a well told story makes people feel part of your mission—not just observers of it.

3. Translate Complexity into Emotional Clarity

Your breakthrough might depend on advanced algorithms, rare earth chemistry, or nano scale engineering—but you don’t need to lead with that.

Storytelling in cleantech means translating technical breakthroughs into relatable outcomes that explain what it does for them .

Compare these:

• Technical: “Our system optimizes load shifting across distributed DER assets using predictive analytics.”

• Story-based: “Local ratepayers already suffering from high inflation were spared a spike in their utility bills because the utility could meet electricity demand instead of spending billions on a new power plant.

One feels like a white paper. The other feels like a hero’s journey—with your tech as the hero.

4. Share Stories Where They Happen

Great storytelling isn’t confined to scripted videos or PDFs—it lives in blogs, podcasts, speaking panels, media interviews, or even your company newsletter.

As noted by Crunchbase News, storytelling can be the chain reaction that catapults investment, team growth, media attention, and community support .

The outcomes of your clean technology matter more to your audience than your inputs, impressive as they may be. Capture those real narratives. That’s the raw material investors, customers, and your team love.

Final Thoughts

Your company wasn’t founded to collect data. It was founded to create change. And change is felt—not measured.

If your story stays on a spreadsheet, your message stays behind closed doors. But when you bring that innovation into real-world context—how it impacts people, communities, and industries—it stops being just technology. It becomes a catalyst.

Get out of the lab. Go tell your story. Because impact is only as good as the audience it reaches.

Should Your Mission Chase The Money?

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 14:31:51 GMT

Cleantech founders don’t start companies just to follow trends—they start them to solve problems. You’re on a mission to decarbonize, electrify, conserve, or revolutionize. But when capital gets scarce, even the most principled team can’t avoid the hard question:

Should you pivot your mission to follow the money—or hold the line until the money finds you?

We’re living through a moment of retrenchment.

Private cleantech investment dropped 40% year-over-year as of Q1 2024 .

Public support is increasingly politicized and inconsistent .

And venture investors are demanding faster paths to profitability across all sectors .

So how should founders respond? Should you chase whatever gets funded—AI, hydrogen, grid software—even if that means moving away from your original value proposition?

Let’s break this down with three practical steps.

1. Get Real About Market Fit

In a capital-constrained environment, clarity is your best weapon.

Investors aren’t backing broad climate impact—they’re backing specific, fundable use cases .

That means you don’t need to throw out your mission—but you do need to tighten your positioning.

Start by asking:

• Are you solving an urgent problem?

• Is that problem clearly felt by a well-defined customer segment?

• Can you show near-term traction or revenue within that segment?

If the answer to any of these is “not yet,” consider shifting your messaging and GTM strategy before you consider shifting the mission. You may not need to change what you build—just how you package and deliver it.

Example: A company building grid-resilience technology for utilities may struggle to close early contracts. But that same product reframed for large corporate campuses, municipalities, or commercial developers might find faster traction with buyers who don’t have multi-year procurement cycles.

2. Translate Impact Into ROI

Mission-driven founders often default to language about “carbon,” “sustainability,” and “climate impact.”

But funders are under pressure to produce returns—not just results (). Your pitch needs to connect your impact to economic value—because your audience still operates on a spreadsheet.

That means making your ROI case early and clearly:

• How does your tech save money?

• What regulatory pressure does it solve?

• How does it reduce risk, time, labor, or compliance overhead?

If you can’t connect your mission to measurable business outcomes, no pivot will help. But when you can tie your climate value prop to real-world economics, you’ll unlock strategic investors—even in a tight funding climate.

Pro tip: Replace “we reduce emissions” with “we reduce energy costs by 22% and avoid $5M in annual downtime.” Same mission, better funding odds.

3. Stop Pitching—Start Partnering

In today’s climate market, relationships matter more than ever . Cold pitch decks are yielding diminishing returns. But warm introductions, pilot partnerships, and local engagement are proving critical to early-stage survival.

Here’s how to lean in:

• Politicians: Position your project as a win they can run on—clean jobs, energy independence, or local investment.

• Anchor Customers: Land a lighthouse deployment with a recognizable buyer—even at cost—to signal traction.

• Economic Development Offices: They have local incentives, tax credits, and federal ties that can support you when venture capital won’t.

This kind of ecosystem building isn’t chasing the money—it’s laying the foundation so money has a reason to chase you.

4. Know When to Pivot—and When Not To

Sometimes, changing your messaging, customer segment, or value prop isn’t enough. You might realize that your current business model just isn’t fundable right now—even if the mission is sound.

In that case, you’re not selling out by adapting. You’re ensuring your tech gets to market where it can actually make a difference.

But know this: chasing trends without conviction will show.

If you’re not an AI company, don’t slap “AI” on your deck. If your tech doesn’t solve a hydrogen production problem, don’t pitch into that space. Funders can tell when you’re bluffing.

Instead, find the adjacent markets where your tech already has a right to win—and bring your mission with you.

5. Stair Step

Cleantech companies have big dreams and long timelines, but it may not be possible to achieve your end goal before your funding runs out. In that case, prove your technology in smaller markets that won’t have global impact in the short term, but generate revenue to keep the doors open.

For example, companies creating anodes, cathodes, cells, and materials for EV batteries are extremely capital intensive. Rather than jump into the deep end of the battery pool, it might make more sense to start by selling those advances to companies that make wearables as a way to generate revenue while keeping the larger goal in mind.

Final Thoughts

It’s tempting to shift focus when funding gets tight. But the best cleantech companies don’t abandon their mission—they reframe it, refocus it, and repackage it to meet the moment.

Don’t follow the funding headlines—follow the customers, use cases, and relationships that create momentum .

The money will follow.

Because at the end of the day, your mission doesn’t have to chase the money—as long as it’s grounded in outcomes that markets (and funders) value.

Why No One Opens Your Newsletter

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 14:06:08 GMT

Why No One Opens Your Newsletter

So, your open rates are tanking, and your click-throughs are even worse. You’ve tested sending at different times of day and days of the week, A/B tested call to action buttons, and still—crickets.

The issue might not be your content or timing. Your entire approach to email may be outdated.

The word “newsletter” has become digital clutter. It evokes something impersonal, infrequent, and ultimately irrelevant. In a world where decision-makers are flooded with content, your email has to feel like a one-to-one conversation, not a corporate announcement.

Let’s unpack the three biggest reasons your email isn’t getting read—and how to fix it.

1. Stop Calling It a Newsletter

The word “newsletter” sets you up for failure. It sounds long, slow, and not immediately valuable.

Instead, treat every email like a headline. The most important real estate is your subject line—not the CTA, not the header image. Subject lines determine whether your email even gets opened. Subject lines are your introduction—it needs to catch the recipient's attention immediately .

If you wouldn’t click on it, your audience won’t either. Avoid corporate speak, vague intros like “Company Update,” and overused clickbait. Instead, focus on clarity + value + urgency. Example:

• Bad: June Newsletter from GreenTech Solutions

• Good: The $5,000 Mistake You’re Making with Energy Credits

Also, personalize when appropriate—open rates increase when readers feel like the message was written for them, not blasted to everyone.

2. It’s Too Long. Cut It Down.

Overly long emails are less likely to be read in their entirety . And the data backs it up.

The ideal length of an email? Around 200 words or fewer. Emails longer than that experience significantly lower click-through and engagement rates. Best newsletter length = 200 words or ~20 lines for optimal click-through rates .

That means it should take no more than 30 seconds to read aloud. If it takes longer, you’ve already lost them.

People scan. They don’t read. Especially in industries like cleantech where your audience might be investors, engineers, or regulators juggling dozens of priorities.

If they see a wall of text, they skip it. If they see one bold point and a clear action to take, they might click.

Want proof? In a study on digital communication, shorter messages showed a measurable lift in response rate , and the most effective communications were trimmed by 10–20% from the original length.

Make your message visually scannable:

• Use bold subheadings

• Break up text into bullets

• Include one clear call-to-action (not five)

And yes—don’t bury the CTA in paragraph five. Put it right after the reader understands what’s in it for them.

3. You’re Talking About the “What,” Not the “Why”

A long list of updates won’t move the needle.

Too many cleantech companies treat their emails like a press release:

• “We got funding.”

• “We launched our pilot program.”

• “We’re speaking at a conference.”

So what?

The average reader—whether a potential investor, partner, or policymaker—doesn’t care what you did. They care what it means for them. Why should they be excited, alarmed, or intrigued?

Emails should answer WIFM (What’s in it for me?), why it matters, and why now. If you do mention the “what,” it must be paired with a reason to care.

Instead of:

“We received a $1.2M grant from ARPA-E.”

Say:

“ARPA-E just backed our carbon capture tech—and here's how it could reduce 70% of industrial emissions.”

Relevance drives action. Not accomplishments.

Readers respond best to emails built around a clear benefit and purpose (~200 words in length). Stop writing to prove you’re busy. Start writing to show them why your work matters.

Final Thoughts

The death of the newsletter isn’t about format—it’s about mindset.

If your audience isn’t opening your email, it’s not because email doesn’t work. It’s because your email doesn’t respect their time or attention.

Here’s your checklist:

• Don’t call it a newsletter.

• Treat your subject line like a headline.

• Get to the point—fast.

• Make it about the why, not just the what.

• Give one action they can take right now.

Remember, your cleantech company isn’t trying to fill inboxes. You’re trying to change behavior, raise money, and move markets.

That starts with writing emails people want to open.

3 Keys For Building Community Support For Your Clean Energy Project

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 13:58:32 GMT

Clean energy companies tend to think in terms of site permits, interconnection queues, and megawatts delivered. But there’s another dimension just as critical: the community’s willingness to host your project. Without it, even the most technically sound projects face delays, lawsuits, and public backlash.

This is especially true for projects in rural areas or small towns, where changes to the landscape—wind farms, battery storage, transmission—are deeply personal. If residents feel ignored, misled, or excluded from the process, they’ll fight back.

Studies show that 775 counties in the contiguous United States have restrictions in place targeting renewable energy. That’s 25% of all counties! These restrictions cut across the political continuum. That’s why early and genuine community engagement is not just good practice. It’s risk mitigation.

Here are three ways to build the kind of trust that moves projects forward.

1. Do Outreach Before You Announce the Project

Outreach is often treated as a final checkbox—something to do after site control and funding are secured. But if your first public communication is a glossy press release or a mailed notice of construction, you’ve already missed the opportunity to shape perception.

Early engagement helps community members feel seen, heard, and included. You should begin outreach well before a project is finalized—ideally before your location is even selected .

This might mean informal meetings with community stakeholders, farmers, and local business owners. It can also mean hosting town hall-style listening sessions or being present at civic events—not to pitch your idea, but to listen and learn.

People are more likely to support a project they helped shape. They’re also less likely to trust one that was dropped on them overnight.

2. Use Focus Groups and Quantitative Surveys Together

Not all opposition is about the technology itself. Sometimes it’s rooted in past experiences, economic fears, or a general distrust of outside developers.

To uncover these nuanced concerns, you need both qualitative and quantitative data.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory emphasizes that a mix of focus groups and structured surveys gives you a 360-degree view of local priorities and potential roadblocks .

• Focus groups allow for deep, open-ended discussion. You’ll learn not only what people think but why they think it. This helps surface emotional and cultural drivers.

• Surveys, on the other hand, validate whether those themes are widespread. They quantify how many people share those concerns—and which ones matter most.

For example, your focus group might reveal that residents are anxious about noise from wind turbines. A follow-up survey might show that while this is a top concern for 15% of the community, 65% are actually more worried about economic displacement.

Without both methods, you risk acting on a skewed view—or worse, ignoring deeply held concerns.

As the Resources for the Future (RFF) study notes, relying on top-down data or generalized assumptions often overlooks key equity and trust-building factors .

3. Bring Local Politicians In Early—and Give Them a Win

Community support doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In nearly every project, elected officials—mayors, commissioners, state legislators—can be champions or roadblocks.

Engaging them early not only smooths the permitting process, it builds credibility. As research from Americans for a Clean Energy Grid (ACEG) and DNV shows, projects with early political involvement are more likely to gain local trust and move forward without delay .

But it’s not enough to ask for their signature. Make them part of the solution. Give them something to tout to their constituents—something tangible, like:

• “We brought 20 new local jobs through this solar array.”

• “This project will cut the town’s energy bill by 40%.”

• “This battery installation will reduce storm outages by 60%.”

If you give a politician a win they can mention on a debate stage or campaign flier, they’re more likely to fight for you when public sentiment waivers.

Bonus: How to Maintain Support Over Time

Securing support is only the beginning. You’ll also need to maintain it over the life of the project. Here are a few practices that help:

• Create an open-door policy. Make it easy for residents to share concerns and ask questions—through a hotline, website, or regular office hours.

• Invest locally. Sponsor events, fund scholarships, or create community benefit agreements (CBAs) that give back directly.

• Report transparently. Share progress, setbacks, and outcomes regularly. Keep promises and document impact.

• Hire local where possible. Contractors, security, maintenance—all of it matters.

Trust erodes quickly if people feel forgotten once ground breaks.

Final Thoughts

In the cleantech world, we often focus on engineering, policy, and capital—but community trust may be the most underappreciated form of infrastructure.

By listening before you speak, using data to understand, and inviting local leaders into your process, you build a coalition that not only allows your project to move forward—but wants it to.

Because at the end of the day, no amount of megawatts can power a community that doesn’t want to be part of your future.

Why a Fractional CMO Might Be a Good Fit for Your Cleantech Company

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 13:37:46 GMT

In cleantech, breakthrough innovations often come with a catch: they’re hard to explain, expensive to scale, and slow to bring to market. Most early-stage companies know they need marketing help but can’t justify spending $200,000+ per year on a full-time Chief Marketing Officer—let alone a team to execute their vision.

Enter the fractional CMO: a senior-level strategist who works part-time but delivers full-strength direction. For cleantech startups navigating long sales cycles, niche markets, and technical storytelling challenges, it may be the smartest move they can make.

1. You Need Strategy, Not Just Tactics

Most cleantech startups begin by outsourcing marketing tasks—social media management, pitch decks, website copy. But if no one is steering the ship, these efforts don’t align with business goals.

Fractional CMOs provide strategic leadership, helping cleantech founders align their vision, message, and go-to-market plans . They understand how to position technology in a competitive marketplace, define customer segments, and build a revenue-generating funnel. And they do it without the price tag of a full-time executive.

2. Execution Requires a Cohesive Team

Hiring an internal CMO often means you still need to budget for a designer, copywriter, marketing analyst, ad buyer, and video producer. The result: a fragmented team, inconsistent messaging, and slow progress.

When paired with a nimble agency or contractor team, a fractional CMO brings a plug-and-play model where strategy and execution are seamlessly integrated . The same person crafting the plan is overseeing its delivery—ensuring that every landing page, email campaign, and explainer video supports your business goals and speaks to the right audience.

3. The Financial Math Just Works

A full-time CMO costs anywhere from $180,000–$300,000 per year, plus equity and benefits. For many cleantech startups, that’s simply not feasible.

Fractional CMOs typically cost a fraction of the salary without the additional employer payroll taxes, health care premiums, and retirement benefits—often between $5,000–$15,000 per month—making them ideal for scaling teams that need senior leadership without draining runway . That extra capital can then be redirected into paid ads, tradeshows, or prototype development—where it may deliver more ROI in the short term.

4. Cleantech Marketing Requires Specialization

Selling cleantech is not like selling software or consumer products. Buyers often include policymakers, investors, engineers, utilities, and procurement departments—each with different concerns and timelines. Marketing clean technology means balancing technical credibility with emotional storytelling, all while educating the market.

A fractional CMO with climate or energy sector experience can tailor messaging to each stakeholder and help founders avoid common traps—like using jargon or focusing only on the tech . They can also help define which marketing channels (like paid search, webinars, or earned media) are best suited for long sales cycles.

5. Fractional CMOs Are Built for Flexibility

As your company grows, your needs will change. Maybe you need a brand overhaul this quarter but a fundraising deck next quarter. Or you’re shifting from grants to enterprise sales.

Unlike traditional hires, fractional CMOs scale with you—ramping up during launches and scaling back during quieter periods . That flexibility can be a lifesaver when managing burn rates or adjusting to shifting investor expectations.

Final Thoughts

The cleantech space doesn’t just need better marketing—it needs smarter marketing. And that starts with strategic leadership that understands both the science and the story.

A fractional CMO gives you access to that leadership at a sustainable cost, without sacrificing speed or coherence. Paired with the right team, they become more than just a marketer—they become a growth architect who helps your company scale in a world that needs your solution.

In an industry defined by long timelines and short resources, that might be the most renewable asset you have.

Jargon Monoxide Is Suffocating Your Climate Saving Idea

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 13:39:42 GMT

Your cleantech innovation might be ready to revolutionize the planet—but if your pitch is drowning in technical language, you're sabotaging your own momentum. Engineers love discussing what's inside the black box . but your audience wants to know what problem you're solving and why they should care.

In short: clarity isn't a courtesy—it's a competitive advantage .

People Don’t Think in Acronyms

Most of the public doesn't speak fluent ESG, GHG, or LCOE. Only 12% of people could correctly define “mitigation” in a climate context . When your audience doesn't understand your headline, they're already tuned out of the story.

You may be building world-saving tech, but if you can’t explain it in simple language, it won’t leave the lab.

It’s Not Dumbing Down. It’s Smartening Up.

Many engineers and scientists worry that plain language reduces the seriousness or complexity of their work. But the opposite is true. Using clear, accessible terms like “pollution” instead of “carbon emissions” increases public understanding and support .

You're not simplifying your tech—you’re amplifying its relevance.

Jargon Kills Trust—And Your Conversions

In climate communication, terms like “tipping point” and “carbon dioxide removal” are often misunderstood—or completely unknown. Using unfamiliar terms makes audiences feel alienated and skeptical . And when trust breaks, so does engagement.

Translation: your complicated copy isn’t impressing anyone. It’s pushing them away.

Jargon Is Expensive

It’s not just annoying—it’s expensive. Jargon costs you leads, investors, press, and momentum. The Land Trust Alliance recommends dropping technical terms and instead focusing on plain-spoken impact .

If you can’t explain it clearly on your homepage or pitch deck, don’t expect your audience to chase clarity. They won’t.

5 Ways to Clear the Air

1. Swap buzzwords for benefits.

Say “makes buildings cheaper to cool,” not “reduces CO₂ intensity.”

2. Use metaphors and analogies.

Try “a Brita filter for smokestacks” instead of “direct air capture.”

3. Assume no prior knowledge.

Write like your reader is smart but new to the topic.

4. Test your language on outsiders.

If your non-technical friend doesn’t get it, your prospect won’t either.

5. Lead with impact, not innovation.

Start with what your tech does, not how it works.

Final Thoughts

If your message is buried under layers of jargon, it won’t matter how brilliant your solution is. You’re not just pitching your tech—you’re building a bridge to understanding, investment, and action. Clear, human language is how you get across.

Let your competitors keep talking in code. You’ve got a planet to save—and an audience ready to listen.

7 Steps For A Successful Cleantech Investor Pitch

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:17:34 GMT

This isn’t just another pitch deck—it’s the bridge between your lab and real-world impact. In cleantech, where development timelines are long and capital needs are high, your pitch must do more than explain—it must convince. Use this seven-step playbook to craft a persuasive, polished, and credible narrative that speaks to both the heart and the balance sheet.

1. Choose the Right Investors

Cleantech isn’t for everyone. Your startup's capital intensity, timelines, and complexity demand investors who understand climate impact, policy cycles, and physical infrastructure risks. Use time wisely—research funds that have already backed carbon capture, energy storage, or sustainable agriculture. Targeting investors with a proven cleantech thesis improves the odds of landing a call .

2. Open with a High-Stakes Problem

You have only seconds to grab attention. Start your pitch with a real-world problem that feels urgent and your target audience can relate to. For example:

• “Grid operators lose $XM annually to load imbalances.”

• “Industrial emitters face fines of $X per ton for non-compliance in 2025.”

According to Jordan Schwartz, your first slide should clearly define the compelling problem your technology is solving —because without relevance, no one will listen.

3. Introduce Your Solution With Clarity

After the problem, present your solution. Keep it concise:

• What is it?

• Who is it for?

• How does it solve the problem?

• What makes it unique?

This isn’t the place for deep technical details—that’s what the appendix is for. VC experts from SVB advise treating your solution slide like a compact elevator pitch to maintain flow and focus.

4. Quantify Environmental & Economic Impact

Cleantech isn’t just about tech—it’s about measurable change. Investors want clear metrics:

• CO₂ reduction per installation

• Cost savings over time

• ROI or payback periods

Clean Growth Fund urges founders to quantify GHG savings, cost efficiency, and revenue potential early in the deck —numbers drive credibility.

5. Demonstrate Market Traction & Policy Tailwinds

Show that you're not just promising—you’re delivering. Highlight:

• LOIs, pilots, or contracts under negotiation

• Any customer testimonials or advisor endorsements

• Government grants or policy mandates that validate your solution's need

MaRS recommends weaving together policy momentum, grant support, and demo traction to showcase your market readiness .

6. Highlight Your Team & Execution Plan

Cleantech investors bet on people as much as products. Answer these:

• Do you have experienced engineers and sector experts?

• Have core team members successfully built or exited startups?

• What’s your roadmap for scaling—from pilot to commercial deployment?

SVB emphasizes that a credible go-to-market plan, timeline, and team summary increases trust and follows a professional standard .

7. Close with a Clear, Credible Ask

Your final slide should be a call to action—clear, concise, and compelling. Include:

• The amount you’re raising

• How you’ll use funds (R&D, manufacturing, team, sales)

• What milestones you’ll hit and when

• The benefits to investors (equity position, valuation upside, strategic value)

SVB advises aligning your ask with runway—showing that your raise creates real value, not just extended burn .

Bonus Tips to Strengthen Every Slide

• Tell a story: Investors consume hundreds of pitches; narratives make yours memorable.

• Design matters: Clean, visual decks are perceived as more professional.

• Anticipate questions: Use an appendix with detailed tech specs or financial models.

• Practice delivery: Confidence in talking through each slide makes a big difference.

Final Takeaway

A successful cleantech investor pitch is built on impact and execution. When you:

• Partner with aligned investors,

• Start with an urgent problem,

• Clearly explain your solution,

• Quantify its impact,

• Show traction and macro support,

• Introduce a capable team,

• And close with a realistic ask—

you’re not just pitching technology. You’re pitching a vision—and the roadmap to get there.

This is how you go from "nice presentation" to "let's make this happen." Let your pitch be the difference between potential and progress.

What You MUST Have on Your Cleantech Website

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 15:02:07 GMT

Your cleantech website isn’t a brochure—it’s a workhorse. And yet, too many startups treat it like a placeholder until the next funding round or PR push. In reality, it’s often your first and only shot at making an impression on potential investors, partners, and customers.

It’s not enough to be informative. It must be persuasive, relevant, fast, and frictionless. A well-crafted cleantech website doesn’t just present your solution—it connects the dots between your audience’s pain and the impact your innovation can deliver. Let’s break down the core elements every cleantech company needs online, and why they matter so much.

1. Identify Your Audience (And Speak Directly to Them)

Not every visitor is your customer—and that’s a good thing. Your goal is to immediately signal who your solution is for. Are you solving a pain point for industrial manufacturers? Are you offering AI tools to optimize energy grids? Are you addressing agriculture or national defense?

Companies that clearly articulate who they serve and how within the first few lines of homepage copy see significantly better conversion rates .

Think: “We help large-scale farmers cut water waste by 30% using remote sensor tech.” Not: “We are a platform leveraging advanced environmental monitoring technologies.”

Be clear. Be direct. Be relevant.

2. Identify Their Pain—Not Your Product

You might be proud of your tech stack, IP, or engineering breakthroughs—but your visitor likely doesn’t care (yet). What they do care about is their problem. The pain they’re experiencing. The inefficiencies, the regulatory pressure, the cost overruns.

Your website needs to meet them where they are—stuck—and offer a path forward . That means less talk about your solution’s specs and more clarity about how it solves something they feel every day.

• Replace: “Powered by our patented D4-carbon capture module...”

• With: “Helping oil & gas companies meet 2030 net-zero targets without costly retrofits.”

________________________________________

3. Show How You Make Their Life Better

Once you’ve established relevance, it’s time to offer a compelling vision of the future—with your solution at the center. This isn’t the place for vague aspirational phrases. Show specific, tangible outcomes:

• “Reduced methane leaks by 42%.”

• “Improved grid balancing in 3 rural regions.”

• “Earned EPA approval in under 90 days.”

Websites that integrate real-world proof points, case studies, and testimonials consistently outperform those that rely on features alone (https://www.ericaeller.com/blog/cleantech-marketing).

If you don’t yet have case studies, use simulations, pilot data, or testimonials from advisors and early adopters. The goal is trust, not perfection.

4. Capture Their Information—But Give Them a Reason

Many cleantech websites offer a newsletter sign-up… and that’s it. No value, no context, no follow-up. But in B2B cleantech, email is gold. These are long sales cycles. Most visitors won’t be ready to buy—but they might be willing to stay connected.

Smart cleantech marketers offer lead magnets like industry briefings, checklists, or early-access updates in exchange for email addresses . Pair this with a streamlined contact form (just name, email, and one qualifier question) to maximize opt-ins.

You can’t build a sales funnel without contact points. And you can’t get contact points without offering value upfront.

5. Optimize for Mobile, Speed, and Simplicity

Your site must load quickly, look good on every device, and guide visitors to one clear CTA. This is basic, but often missed. In cleantech, first impressions are hard to reset.

• Don’t bury your CTA below the fold.

• Don’t hide your contact button in a hamburger menu.

• Don’t make people scroll through six case studies to find a PDF.

Sites that emphasize user experience and mobile responsiveness reduce bounce rates and improve lead quality .

Investors and industry leaders are checking your site between meetings or on the road. Don’t give them a reason to close the tab.

6. Say Less, But Say It Better

This isn’t a pitch deck. Your website doesn’t need to detail every technical nuance or explore every use case. Your job is to spark curiosity. Clarity beats comprehensiveness.

Use clear headlines, simple visuals, and a narrative that leads your visitor toward an action.

• “Want to hit your 2030 sustainability target?” → Book a demo.

• “Wondering how we help military bases reduce energy risk?” → Download the white paper.

Pages built around a clear conversion pathway significantly increase user engagement and time on site .

Final Thoughts: Your Website Is a Deal Maker (or Breaker)

You can’t pitch every investor in person. You can’t get every customer on a call. Your website is the version of you that shows up when you’re not in the room.

If it’s too vague, too slow, too technical, or too generic—it’s costing you leads.

To recap, every cleantech website must:

• Identify the audience

• Address their pain

• Show the benefit

• Offer clear actions

• Deliver a smooth, mobile-first experience

• Say less, with more clarity

A website isn’t a sunk cost. It’s an investment in your credibility, your conversions, and your brand. Build it like it matters—because it does.

Why Greek Mythology Doesn’t Translate Into a Good Cleantech Company Name

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 13:51:17 GMT

Naming your cleantech startup can feel like naming a child. It needs to feel significant, timeless, and imbued with meaning. For many founders—especially those with academic or engineering backgrounds—Greek mythology offers an easy source of gravitas. Prometheus, Apollo, Athena, and Atlas have all been recycled endlessly in cleantech branding . But while these names may sound mighty, they’re more likely to sink your visibility, confuse your audience, and muddy your brand story.

Greek Gods Don’t Rank on Google

Naming your startup after a Greek god might feel legendary—but Google doesn’t reward mythology, it rewards relevance . Try Googling “Apollo Energy” or “Prometheus Power.” You’ll find dozens of unrelated companies, academic articles, and mythological references. Good luck getting your brand to show up in the top 10 search results—let alone the first page.

Cleantech companies already have a communication problem. The technologies are complex, the timelines are long, and the stakeholders are often technical experts or investors juggling dozens of pitches. Your name needs to simplify, not mystify.

Ambiguity Kills Clarity—and Credibility

In a sector built on solving climate problems, your name should do more than sound smart—it should say something specific . Think about how much clearer “CarbonCure” is than “Helios.” One instantly signals its function and impact. The other? It could be a skincare brand or a cryptocurrency.

Your brand name is your first value proposition, and in cleantech, the stakes are too high to get cute with mythology. If a potential investor or partner has to ask, “What does your company do again?”—your name isn’t pulling its weight.

Greek Mythology Is Already Overcrowded

The mythological naming pool is beyond saturated . A simple search shows multiple solar companies named “Helios,” several energy companies called “Atlas,” and at least one “Athena” in nearly every tech vertical. Even worse, some of those companies may no longer exist—or may have flamed out in spectacular fashion.

You don’t want your clean hydrogen startup to be confused with a defunct blockchain platform or a biomedical lab that went under. You want to carve out space in the market, not compete for name recognition with the gods and every startup founder who came before you.

Some Myths Send the Wrong Message

Let’s talk about Icarus. He’s an inspiring figure, sure—daring, ambitious, unafraid to fly. But he also crashed and burned due to hubris. Probably not the story you want to channel when pitching your carbon capture system to a skeptical investor.

Even when mythology is used intentionally, the message often gets lost on your audience. The Hero’s Journey is powerful—but not everyone remembers the details of Theseus or Hercules. If your brand name needs a PowerPoint slide to explain it, it’s probably too obscure.

What Should You Do Instead?

You don’t need to abandon meaning altogether. Instead, root your name in clarity and context. Here’s what that looks like:

• Be descriptive: Use words that hint at your technology or impact. Think “SolarEdge,” “Charm Industrial,” or “Climeworks.”

• Be memorable but simple: Coined names can work—if they’re easy to say, spell, and search.

• Be unique in your category: Do a competitive audit. Make sure you’re not one of six companies with a similar name.

• Be findable: Check domain availability and SEO potential. Your name should help people find you—not bury you under ancient texts and Wikipedia pages.

• Be scalable: Can the name grow with your company if your offering expands? Will it still make sense if you pivot?

In Cleantech, Clarity Wins

At the end of the day, your name needs to work as hard as your technology. It’s the front door to your pitch, your product, and your potential. Founders in the fusion, carbon capture, agtech, and energy storage spaces already face enormous communication challenges. Don't make your name one more thing people have to decode.

Bottom line: Save the Greek gods for your favorite podcast or tattoo. Your cleantech name should work for you in the real world—not just in mythology. Because in climate innovation, there’s no time for branding that needs translation.

Let your technology solve hard problems. Let your name help people find you, believe you, and remember you.

Why Two Minutes Is Too Long for Your Cleantech Video

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 14:47:30 GMT

If your cleantech company is investing in video marketing to attract investors, partners, or customers, here’s a reality check: two minutes is already too long.

In an industry driven by innovation, your biggest competitor isn’t just another startup—it’s the shrinking attention span of your audience. Whether you're speaking to decision-makers on LinkedIn, pitching venture capitalists, or educating end users, the format and length of your content matters more than ever. And the data is clear: short videos get watched, shared, and acted on. Long videos? They get skipped.

This blog explains why shorter is smarter—and how to reframe your cleantech video strategy to maximize visibility, engagement, and impact.

1. Attention Spans Have Collapsed

Let’s start with the most sobering stat: the average attention span of an American adult is now just 8.25 seconds —shorter than a goldfish’s.

Your target audience—whether they’re energy executives, grant reviewers, or sustainability officers—are overwhelmed by information. If your video doesn’t hook them immediately, they’ll scroll past, delete the email, or click into another tab. And the longer the video, the higher the dropout rate.

This doesn’t mean you can’t tell complex stories. It means you must lead with what matters. Your first few seconds need to make people care, and your entire video needs to earn every additional second of attention.

2. Engagement Plummets After 60 Seconds

According to Vidyard, which analyzed thousands of B2B marketing videos, the most successful marketing videos are under 60 seconds . For outreach and first-touch content—where you’re introducing your company or product—shorter videos consistently outperform longer ones in both completion rate and engagement.

Even for mid-funnel content like explainer videos or case studies, the recommendation is to stay under two minutes. Beyond that, you’re talking to a shrinking audience.

This is particularly relevant in cleantech, where it’s common to want to “explain everything.” But in reality, your audience doesn’t need to understand your full innovation stack to believe in your impact. They just need to see what problem you solve and why it matters to them.

3. Data Shows Viewers Drop Off Fast

Wistia’s video analytics make the case crystal clear: videos between 30 seconds and two minutes retain attention far better than videos over five minutes, which average just 38% engagement .

That means for every ten people who click “play” on your five-minute demo, only three or four will watch it to the end. And those three? They were probably already sold on your idea.

The lesson: use short videos to pull people in. Then, once they’re engaged, send them longer-form content—like webinars, case studies, or product tours—when they’re more invested.

4. The Decline in Video Attention Spans Is Real and Measurable

According to Infosys BPM, the average attention span for video content has dropped from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to just 47 seconds today .

This isn’t just a marketing trend—it’s a behavioral shift across industries, platforms, and audiences. Cleantech leaders often assume their audience is different: “Our buyers are technical.” “We sell to governments.” “Our customers are researchers.”

That may be true, but those same professionals still scroll Instagram, click through YouTube Shorts, and scan headlines just like everyone else. If your message isn’t clear, visual, and fast, it won’t land—even with the people you think are patient.

How to Make Shorter Videos That Work

So what should your cleantech company do with this information? Rethink your entire video approach:

A. Lead with the Problem, Not the Product

The most common mistake is starting your video with who you are and how your technology works. But your audience doesn’t care—yet. Instead, start with the pain:

• “Grid instability is costing $16B in lost energy.”

• “Regulators are demanding Scope 3 emissions tracking—and 80% of companies aren’t ready.”

Once you’ve made the viewer care, then you can show how you help.

B. Script for 45 Seconds, Not Two Minutes

If you’re writing your video scripts to fill two minutes, you’re already over-explaining. Try scripting 100–150 words max—that’s about 45–60 seconds of voiceover. Strip out jargon. Focus on outcomes.

C. Use Vertical Formats for Social

Most cleantech companies still produce horizontal videos—even though 80%+ of content is now consumed on mobile. Use vertical video (9:16 ratio) for LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok to reach audiences where they scroll.

D. Save Longform for Later Stages

There’s a place for longer content—but it’s not in your first pitch. Use short videos to earn the click, then offer follow-up material like:

• 5-minute explainer videos (hosted on YouTube or your site)

• 10-minute investor briefs (shared privately or at events)

• Recorded webinars for those in the evaluation stage

Final Thought: Precision Beats Volume

In cleantech, your message matters. But how you deliver it is what determines whether it gets heard. With shrinking attention spans, a two-minute video isn’t an asset—it’s a liability.

By keeping your message sharp, visual, and under 60 seconds, you’re not “dumbing down” your work—you’re respecting your audience’s time and giving your company a real shot at getting seen.

Because if you can’t tell someone in 30 seconds why your solution matters, they won’t give you 30 more.

3 Tips to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 14:09:10 GMT

For cleantech companies, visibility isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential for attracting investors, educating customers, and proving legitimacy in a crowded, rapidly evolving market. If you’ve ever felt like your message is being lost online, you’re not alone.

With more than 80% of all search traffic still flowing through Google, everything from your website to your white papers showing up in relevant search results can significantly affect everything from inbound leads to brand authority.

B2B cleantech companies have a harder time gaining traction on Google because in this highly technical, specialized milieu, Google’s algorithms give greater domain authority to government agencies and research institutions than private companies.

Thankfully, you don’t need to be an SEO expert to make major improvements. Below are three strategic, actionable tips—backed by trusted industry sources—that will help you move up the rankings and stay there.

1. Optimize Your On-Page Content for Search Intent

The days of keyword stuffing are long gone. Today, Google rewards clarity, structure, and content that aligns with what people are actually trying to find. This means writing content that directly answers questions, solves problems, or fulfills a searcher's goal.

Start with the essentials. According to Google’s own SEO Starter Guide, basic SEO best practices like using descriptive page titles, writing concise and helpful meta descriptions, organizing content with proper header tags, and using simple, clean URLs are foundational to search visibility.

You should also be optimizing each page for a specific search intent:

• Informational (e.g., “how carbon capture works”)

• Navigational (e.g., “[Your Company] case studies”)

• Transactional (e.g., “buy solar monitoring software”)

If your page title says one thing, your headers say another, and the content goes off-topic, Google won’t understand it—and your audience will bounce.

�� Action Step: Audit your top landing pages. Are they targeting a clear search query? Are headers organized (H1, H2, H3), and does your meta description summarize the value of the content?

2. Use Blog SEO Best Practices to Build Authority

Blogs are more than just a content marketing tool—they’re one of the most effective ways to consistently signal to Google what your site is about. But that’s only true if you approach them strategically.

As outlined by Backlinko, blog SEO success comes from targeting one keyword per post, optimizing titles and headers, structuring content for readability, and offering clear takeaways for the reader (https://backlinko.com/hub/content/blog-seo).

In the cleantech space, this might mean creating blog posts like:

• “How Geothermal Heating Works in Commercial Buildings”

• “5 Benefits of Battery Storage for Utility Providers”

• “What the Inflation Reduction Act Means for Green Infrastructure Startups”

These are search-friendly titles that also answer pressing questions.

Also, the structure of your blog matters as much as the content:

• Break up text into short, skimmable paragraphs

• Use bullet points and subheadings

• Link to relevant internal and external sources

�� Action Step: Use an SEO plugin (like Yoast or RankMath) to optimize new blog posts and review older content for SEO opportunities. Update your best-performing blogs with new stats and clearer formatting to extend their shelf life.

3. Create Content That Delivers Real Value—and Optimize It Technically

You can’t fake quality anymore. Google’s algorithm updates (including the Helpful Content Update) prioritize content that is truly useful to readers. HubSpot stresses that conducting keyword research, adding internal and external links, optimizing images with descriptive alt text, and ensuring your site is mobile-friendly are now standard for ranking well.

Additionally, Invoca highlights the importance of technical improvements: structured data like FAQ schema, fast page load speed, and user experience on mobile devices all contribute to higher rankings .

Most cleantech websites still lag behind here. They publish PDFs instead of blog posts, or they bury the benefits of their solution under technical jargon. Google isn’t going to rank a spec sheet—but it will rank an article that clearly explains what problem your innovation solves and how.

�� Action Step: Test your site on Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool and Mobile-Friendly Test. Then review content pages to ensure each has internal links, engaging visuals, and a clear CTA.

Bonus: Be Consistent, Not Perfect

You don’t have to overhaul your entire website in a week to rank. Consistency wins. Commit to improving one landing page per month. Post a blog every two weeks. Link between your pages. Update your metadata quarterly.

Search rankings reflect momentum. The more you do—even slowly—the stronger your foundation becomes.

Final Thought: SEO Is a Strategy, Not a Shortcut

There’s no hack that will make your cleantech brand appear on page one overnight. But if you:

• Structure your content with clarity and intent,

• Use blogs to target search questions and build trust,

• And create genuinely helpful, technically optimized pages,

…then your site will start to rise—and so will your brand visibility.

Remember, your competitors are likely not doing any of this. That means with just a little effort, you can stand out—not just in your industry, but across the entire search landscape.

And in a space as critical as climate tech, that visibility could mean the difference between getting funded or getting forgotten.

Does Google Matter for Cleantech Companies?

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 13:38:57 GMT

For cleantech companies navigating everything from early-stage funding to policy hurdles, it’s tempting to think that visibility online can take a back seat to more “serious” priorities. But here’s a truth you can’t ignore: over 80% of all search traffic still goes through Google. If you’re building a cleantech company and you aren’t thinking about how Google fits into your strategy—from search to visibility to partnerships—you’re leaving opportunity on the table.

In fact, Google isn’t just a gatekeeper of web traffic. It’s an investor, a technology enabler, a storytelling platform, and a backer of the climate tech ecosystem.

Let’s break down the ways Google matters—and how cleantech companies can take advantage.

1. Google Search Is Still the Front Door

Whether an investor hears about you at a pitch event or a policymaker sees you mentioned in a report, they’re likely to do the same thing next: Google you.

Google remains the dominant search engine, with over 80% market share globally. If you don’t show up in relevant search results—if your company doesn’t have visibility for your category, your solution, or even your founder’s name—you’re adding friction to every interaction.

Your website, media coverage, case studies, and content marketing need to be discoverable. And that means building with Google in mind, whether it’s through SEO, structured data, or simply updating your Google Business profile.

2. Google Is Actively Investing in Clean Energy Infrastructure

Google isn’t just helping others go green—it’s putting billions into building data centers that co-locate with renewable energy projects.

According to Canary Media, Google is developing industrial campuses powered by clean energy and backed by $20 billion in investment by 2030 . These campuses will pair hyperscale data infrastructure with utility-scale renewables—effectively baking cleantech into the future of digital services.

For startups focused on grid stability, storage, or renewable generation, this means a huge potential partner—not just in mission, but in infrastructure. If you’ve got a scalable clean energy solution, Google might be your next biggest customer.

3. Google for Startups Accelerator: Climate Change

If you’re an early-stage cleantech company, Google offers more than visibility—it offers hands-on help. Their Startups Accelerator : Climate Change program pairs selected startups with technical and business mentors from across Google to tackle their biggest obstacles.

What’s unique is the program’s flexibility. Founders aren’t required to use Google Cloud, and there’s no financial investment or equity exchange. Instead, companies gain access to product teams, UX experts, and cloud infrastructure support.

In a space where capital is hard to come by and technical support is scarce, that’s a big deal.

4. Google Is Building the Cleantech Ecosystem

Through initiatives like Startups for Sustainable Development, Google is actively partnering with founders who are working on impact-focused solutions. This includes clean energy, food systems, circular economy models, and water conservation.

These programs offer more than mentorship—they also include access to funding opportunities, product teams, and global exposure.

It’s not just about visibility. It’s about alignment. Google wants to see companies succeed that can help accelerate sustainability goals at a global scale—and they’re putting their weight behind it.

5. Sustainability Is Core to Google’s Own Mission

Google isn’t new to this space. Its own climate commitments include achieving net-zero emissions across its operations and value chain by 2030 . It also aims to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy in every grid where it operates.

That kind of commitment has ripple effects. If your solution helps achieve decarbonization in buildings, energy, or supply chains, you’re aligned with one of the largest and most influential companies on Earth.

So What Should Cleantech Companies Do With Google?

Here’s how to think about Google—beyond just search:

• Optimize for visibility: Your SEO, content, and press strategy should help you show up where it matters.

• Engage in ecosystem programs: Apply to accelerators like Google for Startups: Climate Change.

• Monitor Google’s clean energy strategy: Their infrastructure decisions may create new markets for your technology.

• Collaborate on data and AI: As Google builds AI tools to support sustainability, companies solving climate problems with data have new ways to plug in.

• Think like a storyteller: Google platforms like YouTube are still the dominant spaces for video storytelling. If you’re not using them, your competitors probably are.

Final Thought: Google Isn’t Just a Platform, It’s a Partner

For cleantech companies, Google isn’t just the search engine where people find you. It’s the investor, partner, and amplifier that can put your work in front of the right audience—and plug you into the global effort to decarbonize.

So yes—Google matters. In fact, it might matter more than most cleantech founders realize. Because if your goal is to change the world, it helps to show up where the world is looking.

What I Learned At The California Hydrogen Leadership Summit

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 15:00:04 GMT

Is There Any Oxygen For America’s Hydrogen Industry?

The saying, “As goes California, so goes the nation,” is an apt description of our nation’s hydrogen future. Listening to the leaders, legislators, regulators, utilities, car and truck manufacturers and project developers doing the spade work for the industry over the last two days at the California Hydrogen Leadership Summit in Sacramento, there was a mix of hope and hype amidst the unstable air turbulence created by the administration in Washington, DC.

Chicken And The Egg

Hydrogen’s paradox is that consumers and shipping companies aren’t buying hydrogen-powered cars and trucks because the infrastructure doesn’t exist yet to support them, and projects to create infrastructure and fueling aren’t getting funded because few people are buying hydrogen-powered vehicles.

This is why the industry is so nervous about Congress repealing the Inflation Reduction Act’s 45V tax credits. Like with electric vehicles and solar panels, only the government is large enough to create an industry with societal benefits. No hedge fund or cluster of venture capital firms is large enough to fill this gap, and tax credits under 45V signal to private investors that investing in hydrogen carries less risk.

The counterargument is that these nascent industries should be able to stand on their own without government support, which conveniently ignores that the government funds the roads we drive on, the internet was created by the Department of Defense during the Vietnam War, and the oil industry still benefits from a 25% production tax credit that Congress passed in 1916, which is one of the reasons gas doesn’t cost $8/gallon.

I don’t think any of those arguments hold sway with an administration that seems hellbent on reclaiming a revisionist history of a glorious 20th-century energy past. There was a general resignation that hydrogen development tax credits will be on hold for at least the next four years.

The project developers I spoke with were universally more optimistic about the ability to prove their technology concepts in Europe, where there’s a greater appetite for cleaner fuels.

Those Swinging For The Fences Are Striking Out

Fifteen years ago, there was tremendous hype around converting algae into a negative carbon-emitting transportation fuel. Oil majors invested millions into research, and while some of that was PR window dressing, there were high hopes that within a decade, hundreds of millions of gallons of algae fuel would replace fossil-based gas and diesel. The dream never panned out, and today, algae’s best use cases--wastewater treatment and cosmetics—— are far less grandiose.

I mention this because some of the conference attendees shared the overexuberant belief that a full-on hydrogen-fueled economy was just around the corner, even though there’s no large-scale pipeline distribution system in the United States and very few fueling stations (and little to no federal money to support either).

The most promising projects were much smaller in scale. HyWatts, for instance, demonstrated a small hydrogen system that could be used as a backup energy source for industries that need 24/7 uptime, like data centers that are currently reliant on diesel generators in emergencies.

While it may be an overused baseball metaphor, the industry needs to hit a bunch of singles and doubles to prove its use cases and cost competitiveness before it tries to hit home runs.

Strong Value Propositions Are More Important Than Ever

As anyone who reads my posts knows, it drives the marketer in me mad when a clean technology company claims its value proposition is solving climate change.

Repeat after me: unless you have a solution for a specific audience's pain point, you don’t have a business; you have a cool science project.

The good news was that I encountered several companies whose missions were aspirational but who could also identify a customer who would benefit from their solution.

We’ve helped build the brands of waste to energy companies, like the dairy digester builder/operator Regenis, who captures methane from cow poop and turns it into clean burning biogas. Similarly, I met the CEO’s of two companies, H Cycle and Raven SR, who are in the early stages of capturing methane from decaying municipal solid waste like construction materials and using it to make hydrogen. I single out the value propositions of these two companies not just because they are creating a negative carbon energy source, but because they solve the problem of waste haulers and landfill operators who need to meet more stringent regulations on air pollutants, and because the business model is based on tipping fees, not tax credits.

Get On The Bus

While most of the focus of hydrogen transport is on passenger vehicles and long-haul trucks, the beachhead may very well be buses, specifically transit agency buses in rural areas. Electric buses aren’t a good fit for agencies that have to cover a wide geography, both because of their short range and the length of time it takes to recharge them. Hydrogen’s advantage has always been that a single tank can travel further and be fueled quickly, which is key because the entire bus fleet has to be powered in a small overnight window.

The immediate hurdle for these small transit agencies is how to pay for a fleet of hydrogen buses and the ever-present problem of making hydrogen at a price competitive with diesel. Still, hydrogen seems like a much smarter bet for transit agencies trying to meet air quality and reliability goals than electric buses.

Final Thoughts

The headwinds out of Washington aren’t the only problem the hydrogen industry is facing at the moment. The goal of price-competitive $2/kg hydrogen necessary to displace natural gas, CNG, LNG, and diesel is nowhere in sight, and even if it were, the infrastructure to deliver it through pipelines and fueling stations doesn’t exist.

The good news is that there was a ballroom full of smart, committed people in Sacramento who aren’t deterred by the last paragraph.

Air quality agencies understand the social benefits of replacing diesel trucks with hydrogen, especially for low-income and minority communities who suffer disproportionately from fossil fuel pollution because they are more likely to live near highways, airports, and industry.

Utilities are scoping out hydrogen pipeline routes and regulators are creating safety regulations about how to transport it.

Toyota and Honda are committed to making more zero-emission fuel cell vehicles.

And California’s hydrogen hub is providing funding (at least for the moment) to scale projects across a spectrum of industries.

This World Environment Day You Aren’t Giving Up, And Neither Are We

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 12:00:01 GMT

Setbacks Don’t Determine Your Destination

There’s a gloom hanging over the community of people working tirelessly for a more habitable planet right now. Clean energy loans are being suspended or terminated. High interest rates and political uncertainty are keeping cleantech investor wallets shut. University research grants are being defunded.

And yet—on World Environment Day—we’re reminded why your work matters more than ever.

I’ve got news for you: it’s not the first time the cleantech landscape has looked like a Mad Max movie, and it won’t be the last. When the housing market crashed the U.S. economy in 2007-2008, private cleantech funding tumbled too. After Fox News turned solar startup Solyndra into a dirty word in 2010, politicians ran for cover.

Since then, trillions of public and private dollars have been invested in technologies to clean up our planet, and more will be forthcoming because the only thing sure about markets and elections is that they will ebb and flow.

What’s steadfast, though, is your commitment to

a mission to leave behind a healthier planet than the one you inherited.

That’s what World Environment Day is all about—remembering that this mission transcends politics, funding cycles, and quarterly reports

Why Storytelling Matters Now More Than Ever

Humanity’s need for cleaner energy, cleaner water, cleaner chemicals, and sustainable materials will continue to increase, which is why your science needs to scale no matter who controls the levers of power on Wall Street or in Washington, D.C.

Your technology has the power to alter the destiny of our planet, but to break through the myriad of obstacles you face, you need a story as compelling as your science.

Investors want to know whether your IP lives up to its promise, but they also need to know whose problem you solve and why your company is uniquely situated to solve it.

That's where we come in.

We’re the sherpas that guide your sustainable story to a place where it can be seen above the clouds of climate change.

Let’s shape your story together.

Marketing That Moves the Needle

Helping clean technology companies and building digital coalitions to support climate-friendly legislation isn’t just a part of our business—it’s our entire business. Like you, our success goes hand-in-hand with the commercialization of clean technologies.

We have a deep understanding of the industries and investment culture in cleantech, which saves your company precious capital you don’t have to spend getting a marketing team up to speed.

Our strategy and tactics appeal to both altruistic and capitalistic neural pathways, which are essential for securing investment, talent, and community support.

Our experience encompasses energy and water technologies, spanning a geography from New Jersey to Hawaii. Two past clients were included this year in Time Magazine’s 250 Most Impactful Greentech companies.

Overcoming the 90% Failure Rate in Cleantech

If you confuse, you lose, which is why our cleantech brand-building process runs from competitive analysis to customer profiles compiled in a storybook, featuring simple messages that are repeatable from the CEO to the newest employee, and across pitch decks, websites, social media, videos, written content, and trade show materials.

You wouldn’t pitch investors without a business plan, and part of that plan is taking your technology to market. Our marketing plans plot how to navigate a competitive landscape, helping you identify your unique value proposition that sets your science apart from the dozens of other pitch decks VCs review every week.

We can help your internal marketing team develop a strategy by identifying the target audiences and communication tools to reach them, or we can serve as your external marketing team, utilizing algorithmic science to optimize your marketing spend.

Make your message investor-ready—and impossible to ignore.

World Environment Day Is a Call to Action

You’re not giving up.

And neither are we.

Turn chaos into coherence, and let’s move our planet in a more sustainable trajectory. You can schedule an introductory call by clicking the button below, which will direct you to our calendar where you can select a convenient time to discuss your marketing challenges.

Let’s not let temporary gloom doom our vision for a healthier existence for humanity. Position your science as a savior that investors can’t ignore.

Not ready to talk yet, but want to understand how to tell a more effective story? Download our free ebook, “5 Powerful Tools For Telling A Cleantech Story.”

What Is A Story Arc And Why It Matters

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 13:07:28 GMT

If you’re building a cleantech company, you might think your most important job is to perfect your technology. But if you want to attract investors, customers, and partners, there’s something just as crucial: your story.

Stories are how humans make sense of the world, and your brand’s story needs structure. It needs a story arc. Without it, your marketing will feel random, disconnected, and forgettable. With it, you can guide your audience on an emotional journey that makes them believe not just in your product but also in your mission.

Here’s why understanding the story arc—and particularly, the Hero’s Journey—is critical for any cleantech company trying to stand out.

What Is a Story Arc?

A story arc, sometimes called a narrative arc, is the blueprint that structures a story from beginning to end. The classic arc has five main parts:

1. Exposition – Introduce the setting, characters, and conflict.

2. Rising Action – Build tension as obstacles emerge.

3. Climax – Reach the most intense point of the conflict.

4. Falling Action – Begin to resolve the conflict.

5. Resolution – End the story with clear outcomes.

This structure is fundamental because it mirrors how humans experience challenges in real life, making your story relatable and engaging.

The Hero’s Journey: A Timeless Framework

Perhaps the most famous story arc is The Hero’s Journey, outlined by Joseph Campbell. Across mythology, literature, and cinema, stories follow a familiar path:

• A hero ventures into the unknown.

• They face trials and temptations.

• They receive help, suffer setbacks, and ultimately transform.

• They return, changed, and capable of improving their world.

The Hero’s Journey taps into universal human emotions—hope, fear, perseverance—which is why it remains so powerful across cultures.

For cleantech companies, you are not the hero—your customer is. Your technology is the tool that helps them overcome a pressing problem, whether it’s reducing emissions, saving energy, or improving resilience.

Why Story Arcs Matter in Cleantech Marketing

The technical complexity of cleantech solutions can create a communication barrier. Engineers want to explain how their technology works. But customers and investors care about what your technology helps them achieve.

As Techtarget notes in their marketing analysis, using a story arc helps you build a cohesive narrative that resonates emotionally rather than just logically.

• Instead of “We developed a 98% efficient thermal battery”,

• Tell a story: “For communities struggling with unreliable energy access, we offer a solution that stores renewable power through the night—so children can study after sunset and hospitals can operate without interruption.”

Your technology becomes the sword the hero (your customer) uses to win the battle.

Emotional Engagement Is Essential

Data alone won’t win hearts or wallets. A good story moves people. The Courtside Group emphasizes that emotionally engaging narratives help audiences see themselves in the journey you’re describing.

When your audience feels something—whether it's hope, urgency, or excitement—they are far more likely to act: invest, purchase, share, or champion your cause.

How to Use the Story Arc for Your Cleantech Brand

Here’s a simple framework to incorporate the Hero’s Journey into your cleantech marketing:

• Exposition: Your target audience’s big challenge (e.g., increased costs, government regulation, pollution control, water quality standards, environmental toxins harmful to human health, etc.)

• Rising Action: Highlight the obstacles (cost, old infrastructure, policy gaps, bad PR, supply chain problems, outdated data, foreign competition, etc.).

• Climax: Introduce your customer’s moment of decision—they must change or suffer the consequences.

• Falling Action: Show how your solution helps them overcome barriers.

• Resolution: Paint a vision of the better world they create by adopting your technology.

When you align your brand with your customer's quest for a better future, you transform your pitch from a technical explanation into an irresistible story of progress and possibility.

Final Thoughts

In a crowded cleantech marketplace, it’s not enough to have great science—you need a great story.

Understanding the story arc, and framing your customer as the hero of their journey, helps your audience see that your innovation is not just another piece of technology, but the key to solving the problems they care most about.

Because at the end of the day, people don’t remember specs. They remember the story you told—and how it made them feel.

Is Your Cleantech Pitch Too Left-Brained?

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 28 May 2025 13:21:09 GMT

If you’re a cleantech founder or engineer preparing to pitch, there’s a good chance your deck is heavy on data, dense on technical detail—and light on story. You’re not alone. Most startups in this space are led by deeply technical teams who are passionate about what’s inside the black box.

But here’s the truth: investors and customers don’t buy the inner workings of your technology—they buy the problem you solve. And if your pitch leads with specs instead of stakes, you risk losing your audience before you ever get to the impact.

So how do you know if your cleantech pitch is too left-brained? And what should you be saying instead?

Left-Brained Thinking Loves the Build. Right-Brained Thinking Sells the Story.

As a founder or engineer, you’re conditioned to describe how your innovation works—novel chemistry, improved efficiencies, optimized designs. But the person across the table? They want to know why it matters.

Startups often bury the lead by focusing on technical features rather than clearly articulating the problem they solve. That’s a critical mistake. Your audience isn’t sold on performance—they’re sold on purpose.

Start With the Problem, Not the Process

Investor and cleantech pitch expert Jonathan Tudor advises founders to lead with the pain point. What’s broken? What’s at stake if it doesn’t get fixed? Why now?

In his article Pitching Tips from an Expert Clean Tech Investor , Tudor reminds us that “investors are bombarded with technologies—what stands out is a clear, urgent problem that your solution addresses.” That means your first few slides shouldn’t explain what your company is, but what the world looks like without it.

If your company builds low-temperature geothermal systems for commercial real estate, don’t start with the heat pump specs. Start with this:

“70% of commercial HVAC systems are outdated, leaky, and inefficient, costing the average building owner $1.3 million annually. In California alone, that wasted energy increases CO2 emissions by 7%.”

That’s a pitch anyone—investor or customer—can understand and care about.

Good Pitch Decks Tell a Clear, Human Story

Your pitch isn’t just a technical briefing. It’s a narrative with a protagonist (your customer), a problem (the inefficiency, cost, or climate threat), and a solution (your technology).

In Building a Cleantech Pitch Deck , experts recommend spending the first third of your deck on the problem and why it matters. That’s the emotional hook. That’s what opens wallets.

A compelling story doesn’t just say “we have a 20% efficiency gain.” It says:

“Utility-scale solar developers lose millions annually to storage bottlenecks. We’re helping them recover that revenue.”

It’s not about simplifying your science—it’s about contextualizing it for people who don’t live in your lab.

Investors Invest in People—Not Just Products

In How to Approach Pitching to Climate-Tech Investors , the message is clear: investors aren’t just betting on your tech—they’re betting on you. Your story, your motivation, and your ability to understand the customer’s world matter more than your patent count.

Share why you are tackling this specific problem. What did you see that others missed? What drew you to this work? That emotional clarity is what will differentiate you from other technically competent teams.

How to Rebalance Your Pitch

If your current pitch is feeling too analytical, here’s how to bring balance:

• Start with a strong problem statement. Focus on what’s broken, not what you’ve built.

• Use plain language. Avoid acronyms, chemistry terms, and excessive metrics in the first five minutes.

• Explain impact in the real world. Who wins if you succeed? Who loses if you don’t?

• Tell your “why.” Share your motivation, not just your method.

• Save the deep tech for later. Technical validation can come in due diligence or appendix slides—not the opening.

Final Thought: The Best Pitch Speaks Both Languages

No one is asking you to dumb down your innovation. What we’re asking—and what investors want—is to lead with clarity, context, and consequence. Once people understand the problem and buy into your story, then they’ll care about how your technology works.

So before your next pitch, ask yourself:

“Am I describing a product… or am I solving a problem?”

Because when you show your audience that you understand their world, they’ll be more eager to fund what you’ve built in yours.

How To Build A Sales Funnel To Hook Investors & Customers

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 21 May 2025 12:50:32 GMT

Building an effective sales funnel is essential for cleantech companies looking to attract investors and customers. Unlike traditional consumer products, cleantech solutions take longer to scale and bring to market, requiring a sales funnel that prioritizes long-term relationships over quick conversions.

For investors, the goal is to build trust and demonstrate a compelling growth trajectory. For customers, it's about education, engagement, and positioning your company as a go-to solution. A well-structured sales funnel ensures that both groups stay informed, engaged, and motivated to take action at the right time.

Below, we’ll explore how to structure a sales funnel tailored to cleantech businesses using best practices and insights from industry experts.

Understanding the Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is the structured path prospects take from initial awareness to commitment—an investment, a contract, or a product purchase. According to Salesforce , an effective funnel moves leads

through four key stages:

1. Awareness – Introduce your company and its value.

2. Interest – Engage with prospects through personalized content.

3. Decision – Provide compelling reasons to invest or buy.

4. Action – Seal the deal through direct outreach or offers.

The funnel must focus on relationship-building for cleantech companies, as investors and customers often need extensive time to evaluate and commit.

Step 1: Get on Their Radar

Before you can nurture leads, you need to capture attention. Cleantech companies should create high-value content that attracts both investors and customers. Video is eye candy, but not everything should be a song and dance number suitable for TikTok. And today, it’s perfectly acceptable not to have high production values as long as your viewers can understand you. If you want to dig into the power of video in our decision-making, there's no end to neuroscience studies on the subject.

There are a myriad of other ways to drive interest. For instance, graphics and images can be as powerful as video. The key is making it interesting, informative (and dare I say) entertaining for your audience because that’s how you get them to follow you on social media or visit your website, where they can share their email address.

Early-stage cleantech companies often forget that the most crucial goal of a website is getting the viewer to take action. When CEOs ask me how to tell whether they have a good website, my response is usually, “How many leads did it generate?” Don’t get me wrong, copy, design, and user experience are near the top of the list of ‘must haves’ when a cleantech company hires a firm to build a website, but if the viewer scrolls your homepage and then leaves, it’s a wasted opportunity.

Getting on an investor's or potential customer's radar is only the beginning. Staying on it is more difficult in a media-saturated world. The term "content marketing" gets waved around like a magician's wand, but the trick is repeatability. You can pull a rabbit out of a hat, but no one will pay to watch the same trick twice. That's why cleantech companies must find creative ways to capture eyeballs continually. One video or picture from a conference is equivalent to casting one fishing line in the ocean. You might catch a fish, but you increase your chances exponentially when you cast hundreds of digital lines in the infinity of the internet.

Pro tip: Rather than just sending updates about your company, position yourself as a thought leader by providing industry insights and market trends.

Step 2: Engage and Build Credibility

Once prospects are aware of your company, engaging them in meaningful ways is the next step. Philip VanDusen emphasizes the importance of relationship-building through consistent, value-driven engagement.

• Get their opinions and insights with surveys – Investors and customers want to be heard. Regular surveys can provide insights while making prospects feel involved in your journey.

• Schedule insider briefings with key stakeholders to provide tailored updates and answer questions directly instead of large, impersonal webinars.

• Celebrate their successes – Investors and customers want to be aligned with successful ventures. Highlight their achievements in newsletters, blogs, and social media. As the saying goes, "Kindness costs nothing." Investing in your company is more than a transaction; it's a partnership. The same applies to your first customers taking a chance on your technology. Make your audience feel like you care about them.

Cleantech companies are mission-driven, not technology-driven. That means you need buy-in from your audience. They have to want you to succeed, and that transcends widgets.

Step 3: Content Is More Than Information

One of the biggest mistakes cleantech companies make is relying on reciting facts, events, and awards to engage prospects. While credibility is essential, investors and customers need compelling stories, not just technical specs.

According to Harel Asaf , content must:

• Highlight real-world impact – Investors and customers want tangible results, not just theoretical benefits. Case studies, testimonials, and real-world data make a stronger case.

• Use compelling visuals – Well-designed infographics, videos, and interactive tools can explain complex concepts more effectively than text-heavy reports.

• Create curiosity – Instead of overwhelming prospects with information, give them just enough to want more, leading them deeper into your funnel.

Step 4: Guide Prospects Toward Action

Think of your content as a funnel, and that funnel should naturally lead investors and customers toward making a decision. Your audience's first decisions should have a low barrier to entry. Asking for their email address is ideal because it gets them on the road to saying "Yes" to bigger asks down the road, and it gives you control over what types of content they will see and when they will see it, unlike social media algorithms that can be capricious and parsimonious.

Every piece of content, whether a Substack article or social media post, should have a call to action. Typically, this will lead to a landing page where you can capture email addresses. Your CTA should match the level of trust and commitment already established in earlier stages.

When asking for an email address, provide something of value in exchange. For investors, offer them a glimpse into your technology behind a hidden online wall: a downloadable PDF or a short explainer video. You can even let them schedule a one-on-one Zoom meeting.

Prominently display a call to action on the homepage of your website, and by prominently, I don't mean at the bottom of the page. We read in a "Z" pattern, so make sure your invitation is on the top horizontal line.

If you give away a free report, course, or ebook, send the viewer to a landing page rather than having pop-up offers interrupt their experience. Repeated pop-up invitations on websites are cringy, slow down your website's load time, and annoy viewers, so use them sparingly.

Sometimes, you need to reach out to your audience personally and ask if you can add them to your email list, which shows respect for their time and is an early indicator of whether they might turn into an investor or customer.

Additionally, subscribe to newsletters from potential investors and customers to stay informed on their needs and interests, allowing for strategic, timely follow-ups and deeper relationship-building.

Final Thoughts

Building a cleantech sales funnel requires time, strategy, and consistent relationship-building. Unlike traditional sales funnels, cleantech companies must focus on educating, engaging, and maintaining long-term trust with investors and customers.

By structuring your funnel with high-value content, personalized engagement, and compelling storytelling, you can guide prospects from awareness to action.

Why Bringing Hardtech to Market Is Hard

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 14 May 2025 14:16:25 GMT

Hardtech—the world of atoms, not just bits—is what makes electrified transportation move, buildings stand stronger, and grids stay stable. But getting it to market? That’s another story.

While software startups can pivot quickly, scale cheaply, and often launch in a matter of weeks, hardtech development takes years, large teams of experts, and enormous financial backing. The journey is high-stakes, capital intensive, and incredibly fragile. Still, for innovators solving climate, infrastructure, or energy problems, hardtech is where the biggest impacts happen.

If you’re building something tangible—like energy storage systems, robotics, advanced materials, or next-gen fusion reactors—here’s why the road to commercialization is so challenging… and what you can do to improve your odds.

Why It’s So Difficult

Research Takes Years—Not Months

Unlike consumer apps or SaaS tools, hardtech products often involve years of laboratory R&D, field testing, and engineering design before they’re even close to deployment. According to mHUB Chicago, these companies face long cycles due to risks that fall into three main buckets: technical, market, and financial.

The Failure Rate Is Brutal

Most people don’t realize that more than 90% of hardtech concepts fail before reaching commercialization . As noted by Forbes, many promising ideas never make it past prototyping due to scalability issues, lack of infrastructure, or cost barriers (https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2025/02/18/scaling-hard-tech-bridging-the-gap-between-ideas-and-impact/?utm_source=chatgpt.com).

The Price Tag Can Hit Nine Figures

Hardware is expensive. There are no shortcuts around custom tooling, materials, compliance testing, and production runs . According to Cycle Momentum, raising capital for climate-related hardtech can require multiple rounds and funding in the tens—or even hundreds—of millions.

Specialized Talent Is Non-Negotiable

These aren’t solo-founder garage projects. Bringing hardtech to life takes physicists, engineers, materials scientists, regulatory consultants, and manufacturing experts. And they don’t come cheap. Recruiting and retaining this kind of talent can delay development and increase burn rate.

Not Everyone Wants In

Hardtech is not for the faint of heart—or the purely profit-motivated. As Peaka highlights , many investors shy away due to long timelines and high risk . There has to be an element of altruism involved—especially in climate and infrastructure innovation.

The Political Wind Is Shifting

In the U.S., public funding for climate and infrastructure may shrink under a less supportive administration. Many hardtech ventures rely on federal grants from ARPA-E, the Department of Energy, and the NSF. If that well dries up, entrepreneurs must get even more strategic about where and how they raise funds.

How to Improve Your Odds

Despite the challenges, hardtech startups can succeed—if they build with strategy, humility, and patience. Here’s how to tilt the odds in your favor:

Integrate, Don’t Reinvent

Your technology should fit into existing supply chains and production methods whenever possible. Companies that require entire ecosystems to shift just to make their product work are asking for too much change too soon.

Define a Clear Value Proposition

Make it obvious who benefits and why you’re the only one who can solve their problem. “We reduce substation congestion in heatwaves by 38%” is an example of a benefit, but it’s not a market position because in our world of rapid technology improvements, 38% could be eclipsed by next year. A real value proposition transcends time.

Go Beyond “Better, Faster, Cheaper”

You must differentiate in a way that resonates with your customers and investors. Everyone is going to say their technology is a ‘game changer’ because it’s better, faster, or cheaper than the current incumbent. Solving a specific, mission-critical problem with a solution that can’t be duplicated is the key to longevity.

Seek Third-Party Validation

Back up your claims with support from experienced technical institutions. A stamp of approval—or even a grant—from the NSF, DOE, ARPA-E, or a national lab adds immediate credibility. They have the scientists and engineers to vet what’s real and what’s vaporware.

Don’t Pretend You’ll Be Profitable in 24 Months

Investors don’t expect you to scale overnight—but they do expect a realistic, capital-efficient roadmap. Show your understanding of scale-up timelines, manufacturing costs, and customer adoption cycles.

Relationships Matter More Than Revenue (At First)

The best founders don’t just pitch—they build relationships. Meet with stakeholders early and often. Share updates. Ask questions. Use surveys, briefings, and conversations—not just webinars and press releases.

Celebrate their wins, highlight shared values, and keep them looped into your progress. Hardtech commercialization isn’t transactional—it’s collaborative.

Final Thoughts

Hardtech is hard—for good reason. It’s slow, risky, and wildly expensive. But it’s also the engine behind the world’s most important innovations—from grid resilience to carbon-free aviation.

Success isn’t about brute-forcing your way to market. It’s about thoughtful integration, strategic fundraising, and consistent relationship building. With a clear plan, a defensible value proposition, and a little help from your friends in science, your hardtech startup can not only survive—it can lead.

Because in the world of hardtech, vision alone isn’t enough—but vision backed by validation, value, and relationships? That’s the foundation for real impact.

What I Learned At Biogas Americas

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Fri, 02 May 2025 13:30:14 GMT

The American Biogas Council staff knows how to put on a welcoming, information-packed, and fun event every year—and they didn’t disappoint in 2025. However, part of the credit goes to the professionals attracted to the biogas industry, whose bottom line is more than just business development. They believe in doing good and doing well.

While I can’t say enough good things about the professionals and their trade association, I have some bones to pick with the industry's branding and the general inability of the companies that paid thousands of dollars for trade show booths to generate market differentiators that would help them gain a competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded market.

Twenty years ago, only a handful of American companies would've participated in a biogas conference like this, but thanks to California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the skyrocketing value of renewable natural gas from captured methane for transportation fleets and natural gas utilities trying to decarbonize, well over a thousand attendees sold solutions.

Surviving in a competitive landscape like this requires clearer branding and better market positioning.

Biogas Is a Bad Name

When you hear ‘solar,’ you think of the sun or a solar panel. When you hear ‘wind energy,’ you think of a turbine. The term ‘biogas’ has no descriptive visual, which is why few people outside of the industry know what it is, which is unfortunate because the energy generated from decomposing agricultural, food, human, and landfill waste is better for the environment than any of the better-known sources of clean energy.

Biogas has been around for decades, so the branding horse has probably left the stable for good. Still, if I had a magic wand, I would rechristen the industry with a more positive, visually associated term. Granted, biogas doesn’t have the stigma of branding nightmares like Homer Simpson becoming the face of nuclear energy, but even in the case of nuclear energy, at least people know what it is. If you told most homeowners that biogas powered their furnaces, you’d most likely get a blank stare.

Why is this so problematic? Because confusion breeds fear, especially in the energy industry. Opponents of the wind industry (funded by fossil fuel companies) created a whirlwind of trouble by making unfounded claims about birds, noise, and cancer that set the industry back years. Likewise, in the early years of dairy digesters, which collect methane from decaying cow manure, a few spills and engineering mishaps generated headlines that reverberated for decades.

The good news is that because most people are unaware of biogas, the industry still has time to refresh the brand into something more compelling.

Follow The Leader Is Bad Market Positioning

Of the 400 companies that hosted trade show booths, I could only find 3 or 4 with true unique value propositions. Every other company spent thousands of dollars trying to explain to its audience what it manufactured or what service it provided—and they all sounded alike.

In engineering, there’s a tendency to focus on what you make rather than the unique solution you provide for your customer. Statements like “We build digester tanks” or “We remove hydrogen sulfide” are not unique value propositions. They can be duplicated by dozens of different companies.

European companies or American companies that are subsidiaries of European companies are the worst offenders of bad marketing because they focus almost exclusively on the features of their products, which is the lowest rung of the marketing value chain.

Good marketing addresses a specific audience’s pain point. Better marketing makes your company the only one that can address that pain point. That’s what creates customer loyalty and brand value.

Companies With Unique Value Propositions

In the category of Best Brands, the winners at Biogas Americas were:

Windfall Bio

Alex Sadeghi has pioneered a process that removes nitrogen from methane captured inside a digester and turns it into a value-laden secondary revenue stream: non-toxic organic fertilizers. While there were a hundred companies capturing methane and turning it into carbon-free electricity or renewable natural gas, Windfall has figured out a way to make that methane more valuable.

Industrial & Environmental Concepts & Flexxolutions

Winner, winner, chicken dinner when your trade show booth has a display that looks like the Dalek from Dr. Who that allows you to interactively see how they’ve engineered geomembrane covers and liners for capturing methane from wastewater treatment plants. While they weren’t the only company at the tradeshow with a solution for municipal wastewater systems, they won on clever marketing that appealed to more than one brain lobe and engaged multiple senses.

Final Thoughts

If you spend thousands of dollars on a trade show booth, spec sheets, videos, and SWAG, spend the time upfront to figure out what will make your company unique in a sea of competitors who are pitching similar products. Trade shows are great for making connections, but your spend will go further if you have an original story that sticks out among the pile of business cards your audience wades through after the conference ends.

What I Learned At SF Climate Week

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 15:40:17 GMT

If fighting climate change were a religion, the San Francisco Bay area would be Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, which is why thousands of people like me poured into the city for Climate Week.

People of faith are an appropriate metaphor in an era when the federal government is rolling back environmental protections and terminating funding for startups and research institutions working on solutions to decarbonize transportation, energy, and waste, and use water more wisely.

The good news is that the founders and funders I encountered haven’t lost their fervor in creating a more habitable planet for the eight billion people who wake up every morning on our planet.

Cleantech Funding Is A Long-Term Investment

Scaling new technologies to move, feed, and keep us hydrated takes far longer than a four-year election cycle. Those who fund these technologies understand they are in this for the long haul, certainly much longer than any administration in Washington, D.C. While there is concern about the open hostility the Trump administration exhibits towards solutions for climate change, there’s a tacit understanding that the progress of these technologies is unmoored from a 24-hour news cycle.

There’s A Glut Of Dry Powder

“Dry powder” is a finance term for the money VCs can call on from larger funds to make investments. At the end of 2024, it was at an all-time high, which is unsurprising given the high interest rates and election uncertainty. But after a two-year downturn in investments from the private sector in cleantech, how long will that powder stay dry now that public funding is drying up? Mission-driven funds have a mission to deploy capital in mission-driven companies. Once the chaos of the first few months of the Trump administration settles into mere turbulence, we may see more funds step into the breach.

Stories Are Sticky

One doesn’t need an advanced degree in physics or chemistry to know that the companies in San Francisco this week with the best narratives were disproportionately rewarded by judging panels of savvy investors. I constantly heard feedback along the lines of, “Tell me who your customer is, and what’s their pain point?” Yet not once did I hear a judge ask about the actual technology outside of whether the company had patent protection.

How To Nail Your Market Positioning

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 12:57:20 GMT

In the world of cleantech and climate solutions, having a great product or breakthrough technology isn’t enough. Whether you're developing fusion energy or launching a SaaS tool for carbon reporting, your success will hinge on how clearly—and confidently—you can position yourself in the market.

Why? Because investors, customers, and partners don’t buy what you do. They buy why you matter. As one of the most competitive sectors in tech, cleantech companies must be able to answer two questions with precision:

1. What problem do you solve?

2. Why should someone choose you over any other solution?

Here’s how to define and articulate your market positioning so that your message lands with the right people—investors, customers, talent, and even media.

Start With a Reality Check: Who Are You Really Competing With?

Before you write a single sentence of positioning, map your market. Are you the only one in your space? Are there a few other players? Or are you entering a sector with multiple established solutions?

MasterClass does a masterful job of describing market positioning in broad terms to help the beginner understand the philosophy behind it, but if you’re more visually oriented, plotting it out on an X/Y axis graph can be even more beneficial .

To be clear, price should never be the main feature of market positioning, especially in cleantech where technology solutions run into the millions of dollars and where price is ephemeral. Your market positioning should be based on something that can stand the test of time, which is why I always advise clients to avoid basing their market position on cost or speed.

If your startup is like most companies, there are already solutions in the marketplace or in development. Understanding your market positioning starts with a deep dive into the competition, including customer interviews and expert opinions.

In those interviews, identify whether you're competing on benefits to your customer, pain points they experience, quality, use cases, history, need, size, mobility, success, geography, etc. Knowing your terrain allows you to speak strategically to the right differentiators.

In short, why should your prospective customers trust you to take their money and solve their problems instead of someone else?

This means you have to have some specificity beyond, “we’re for solving climate change.”

For example, if you’re a fusion energy company, you’re not just selling Einstein’s dream because every fusion energy company can say the same thing. Your pitch shouldn’t be “fusion is the future.” It should be: “Our micro-fusion system doesn’t require the rare earth mineral tritium, which makes it less risky for supply chain disruptions that could shut down your downtown or your data center. That’s clarity—and that’s positioning.

Use Case Over Innovation: The Technology Trap

Too many founders lead with how advanced or novel their tech is. But history has taught us that the best technology doesn’t always win. Think Beta vs. VHS—Beta was technically superior, but VHS dominated because it positioned itself as more available, user-friendly, and widely supported.

Positioning, isn't just about standing out—it's about standing for something your audience already wants. If you're solving a problem no one cares about or articulating it in a way that's too abstract, you’ll lose attention fast.

So ask yourself:

• What specific, high-value problem does my product solve?

• Who loses money, market share, or credibility if that problem isn’t solved?

• Why is my company the only one that can solve it this way?

When you shift the conversation from innovation to application, your solution becomes necessary—not just cool.

Define Your Differentiator (And Why It Matters)

The strongest positioning statements clearly define what you do, who it’s for, and how it’s different. But it's the “why it matters” that truly lands.

Don’t just say you're “faster” or “more efficient.” Explain what that speed or efficiency unlocks. Does it help municipalities comply with climate mandates faster? Does it reduce downtime for industrial clients? Does it increase yield in vertical farming operations?

Remember: Differentiation without relevance is just noise.

Clarify Your Position With a Statement That Sticks

An effective positioning statement is the foundation of your messaging. Edify Content suggests a clear and intuitive structure:

"For [target audience] who [specific need], our [product or service] is the only [category] that [unique benefit], because [reason to believe]."

Here’s an example for a cleantech battery storage startup:

“For regional utilities struggling with grid reliability, our modular battery systems are the only energy storage solution that deploys in 48 hours without permanent infrastructure—because we designed them for crisis response, not just long-term use.”

That’s a sharp, relevant, and specific position. It doesn’t try to compete with every other battery company on earth—it owns its lane.

________________________________________

Use Your Position to Shape Everything Else

Once you’ve nailed your positioning, it should inform your entire go-to-market strategy:

• Your pitch deck should lead with the problem you solve, not just your tech.

• Your website should reflect who you’re for—not just what you’ve built.

• Your social media should create content that resonates with that target market’s pain points.

• Your sales materials should reinforce why you're the best fit for a specific use case.

Positioning isn’t a tagline. It’s a strategic lens through which every message is filtered.

Final Thoughts

Nailing your market positioning is about clarity, not complexity. You don’t need to sound smarter than your competitors—you need to sound more relevant. By understanding your competitive landscape, focusing on specific use cases, and articulating your unique value in terms that matter to investors and customers, you set yourself up to stand out in even the most crowded cleantech markets.

Because at the end of the day, it’s not about being the best technology. It’s about being the best understood.

What’s a brand, and why does it need a workshop?

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 12:54:30 GMT

It sounds like a Jerry Seinfeld bit, but instead of setting up a punchline, it’s the setup for the success of your cleantech startup.

Early-stage companies are often consumed with technology traction by proving their concept through peer review to win government grants and secure patents. And it makes sense. There has to be some there, there, and having the blessing of the NSF, DOE, ARPA-E, a national laboratory, or the USPTO gives your idea credibility and gets you on the path to success. But as the famed Beatles song goes, it’s a long and winding road (to commercialization).

And if you want to stay on the road to scale, you need a strong brand.

Why Do Cleantech Companies Need A Brand?

A brand is far more than an icon. It’s a statement about your values and your vision. It tells your audience where you came from, whose problem you solve, and why you chose to solve it. If the foundation of your company has the strength of concrete, your brand is the cement, the binding material that holds the aggregate together.

A brand isn’t your technology. It’s what differentiates your technology. It’s the reason you spent so many years in the lab in the first place, and it’s the rallying cry that will organize your team in the same direction and move investors to take a risk in an industry with a high failure rate.

Building A Brand Starts With A Plan

Just as you have a business plan that guides your decision-making, you must have a marketing plan. And at the center of that marketing plan is a brand book that’s the result of painstaking research, including:

o Customer and industry interviews

o Competitor analysis

o Social listening

o Online search intent

Brand Workshops Are Built On Collective Wisdom

None of the great pillars of human societies were built by one person. They were based on the wisdom of the best minds of their time. That wisdom was collected, written down, and shared with adherents. In that sense, the Bible results from the world’s first brand workshop.

Your company doesn’t have hundreds of years to gather anecdotes into a coherent philosophy like it did thousands of years ago. Instead, after we’ve collected the research, we gather with your team over a day-long process to identify the core elements of your brand.

o Origin story

o Transformation story

o Mission, vision, and values

o Offering

o Unique value proposition

o Customer profiles

o Market positioning

Why Do You Need A Brand Book?

The book that emerges from that workshop becomes the company's guiding principles. Externally, it ensures message consistency, whether online or in person. Internally, it’s a key onboarding document for every new employee so they know why they’re devoting their working lives to your company.

Cash-strapped startups struggle with decisions about where to spend every dollar, and crafting the correct narrative is often viewed as “tomorrow’s problem” when pitted against hiring more staff, filling out grant applications, or meeting potential investors.

I’m not here to argue the validity of any of those priorities, but companies, like societies, need a glue to hold them together. They need a story and a mission that can be internalized to move forward in unison, and those core principles must be created and agreed upon at the outset of your journey. Otherwise, in the words of the Cheshire cat in Alice In Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you’re going, then any road leads you there.”

The Brand Book Story

Can AI Eliminate The Need for a Marketing Team?

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 13:04:43 GMT

Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized marketing, automating everything from ad targeting to content creation. But as AI grows more powerful, a crucial question emerges: can AI completely replace a marketing team?

The short answer? No. AI is a tool—an incredibly powerful one—but marketing still requires strategy, creativity, and human decision-making. Even OpenAI, the leader in AI innovation, spent $14 million on a Super Bowl ad that was created entirely by humans. While its text-to-video AI, Sora, was used to prototype ideas and explore different visuals, human artists handled the final execution. If AI was truly ready to replace marketing teams, wouldn’t OpenAI have been the first to prove it?

Let’s explore what AI can and can’t do in marketing, and why cleantech companies still need strategists who can use AI as a tool, not a replacement.

AI’s Strengths: Automating Tedious Marketing Tasks

AI is already transforming marketing by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks. According to OptiMonk , AI excels at:

• Data Processing & Analysis – AI can analyze vast amounts of marketing data in seconds, something that would take humans hours or days.

• Automated Content Generation – AI can draft emails, blog outlines, and even social media posts with impressive efficiency.

• Ad Targeting & Personalization – Platforms like Google Ads and Meta use AI to optimize ad spend and deliver personalized messaging to different audiences.

This automation frees up marketing teams to focus on higher-level strategy. AI doesn’t replace marketers—it gives them superpowers .

The Creative Gap: Why AI Can’t Fully Replace Marketers

Even though AI is reshaping marketing, it lacks human creativity, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence—qualities that make marketing successful.

• AI Lacks True Creativity – AI can remix existing content, but it struggles to create something original. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, predicts that AI will handle 95% of marketing work , but even he acknowledges that human involvement will remain critical for creativity and storytelling.

• AI Can’t Replace Strategy – AI can generate thousands of ad variations, but it takes a skilled strategist to know which one will resonate with the right audience. Forbes notes that while AI can automate certain tasks, it ultimately enhances human marketing roles rather than eliminating them.

• AI Can’t Build Relationships – Marketing is about trust and connection. AI can personalize email campaigns, but it can’t replace human-to-human relationships that drive brand loyalty and investor confidence.

AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement for Cleantech Marketers

Cleantech companies operate in a complex industry that requires education, trust-building, and long-term engagement with investors, regulators, and customers. AI can support cleantech marketing, but it takes a skilled strategist to use these tools effectively.

• AI is Like Google – Just as Google helps marketers research trends, AI can assist in content creation and market analysis. But you still need a strategist to ask the right questions and make the right decisions.

• AI is Like Social Media – Social platforms give brands direct access to their audience, but a marketer is needed to craft the right message and engage meaningfully.

• AI is Like Video Production – AI can help edit videos or generate scripts, but humans are still required to direct, produce, and ensure the final product aligns with brand values.

Final Verdict: AI Enhances Marketing, But It Doesn’t Replace It

AI is a game-changer for marketing, but it’s not a substitute for a skilled marketing team. Even OpenAI—arguably the most AI-forward company in the world—chose humans over AI for its biggest ad campaign of the year.

For cleantech companies, the key is not to fear AI, but to embrace it as a tool. AI can enhance efficiency, generate insights, and automate tasks, but it still needs human direction, creativity, and strategic oversight.

Rather than asking if AI can replace marketing teams, the better question is: are you using AI to strengthen your marketing strategy? The best marketers won’t be replaced by AI—they’ll be the ones who use it best.

Why Paid Ads Are the Cornerstone of Advocacy Campaigns

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 15:20:01 GMT

Advocacy campaigns are about more than spreading a message—they're about influencing hearts, minds, and ultimately, decisions. Whether you're championing renewable energy legislation, developing a clean energy project, or rallying public support for a cause, paid advertising is an essential tool to amplify your voice and maximize your impact. Without it, your campaign risks becoming a whisper in the noise of the modern information landscape.

Paid ads are not just about visibility—they're about control, precision, and persuasion. Here's how they can take any advocacy campaign to the next level.

What’s An Advocacy Campaign?

It’s a truism in our democracy that the loudest voice wins. For generations, corporations, labor unions, and non-governmental organizations have appealed to ordinary citizens to raise their voices for and against public policies. They understood that every elected official wants to keep their job, and that elected officials are keenly sensitive to how their constituents feel about the day's issues as it directly impacts their chances at the next election.

By encouraging John and Jane Q Voter to call or write their elected official, organizations knew elected officials would be more likely to vote how they desired.

Sometimes, corporations would have their employees write letters, while labor unions might hold rallies outside a representative’s office with homemade signs and a bullhorn. However, since the 1970s, paid lobbying has been one of the most significant growth industries in the United States.

The New York Times thought it was newsworthy in 1970 that 269 organizations were lobbying Congress the previous year and spent a record $5.1 million doing so. In 2023, that amount had increased to $4.2 billion, with nearly 13,000 paid lobbyists. And that’s just the amount spent in Washington, D.C. Another $1.4 billion was spent by organizations lobbying state legislatures.

Not all of that money was spent on paid lobbyists in tailored Brooks Brothers suits who met with cabinet members, Congress, governors, or state legislators to plead their clients’ cases directly. Some of it went to firms that specialize in mobilizing citizen support.

The History Of Paid Grassroots Advocacy

Before email and the internet transformed society, there were only three paid ways to influence public opinion: television, radio, and direct mail.

Television ads were great for defining the debate when there were only three major networks and three options for cable news. Audiences had limited viewership options so a campaign could saturate the public’s consciousness in a reasonably short time and have their audience take action by calling the phone number on their television screen. However, like most monopolies, television advertising charged a premium, and it was a given that a campaign would waste a considerable percentage of its budget on an audience that wasn’t interested or politically engaged.

Similarly, before the age of audio streaming, AM/FM radio advertising could yield a significant market share for your message, but targeting was limited to which format appealed to specific age and gender demographics. Radio was cheaper than television but less impactful because we live in a visual society and required the listener to have a pen and paper handy to write down a phone number to contact their elected representative.

Before Google, direct mail was the best way to target those in a community or state who were politically engaged. Thanks to voter databases, advocacy campaigns could target by political party, age, and vote history, yielding a more concise audience who were more politically informed and likely to contact their elected representatives. Still, even though it was more precise than television or radio advertising, there was no reliable way to track the ROI of a direct mail campaign. QR codes hadn’t yet been invented.

Paid Grassroots Ads Go Viral

Starting in the late 1990’s it became easier and more convenient for citizens to contact their elected representatives. Websites could be launched in a few days to shape an issue for public consumption, and anyone with a modem and a computer could speak directly to their member of Congress, state legislator, or city councilperson. This was grassroots lobbying 2.0.

But it was the adoption of high-speed broadband, Google’s algorithm, social media, and YouTube, and the disaggregation of media consumption that sent grassroots campaigns orbiting around the planet at the speed of light and birthed the paid digital ad as a fundamental component of advocacy efforts.

Why Paid Digital Ads Are Central To Your Advocacy Campaign’s Success

Today, nearly 80 percent of all web traffic is referred by either Alphabet (the parent company of Google) or Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram). Meanwhile, network television and analog radio are steadily declining, the analog equivalent of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. They still the largest media empire when it comes to political ad spend, but the foundation is crumbling beneath them.

Political campaigns spent $5.3 billion on broadcast television ads in the 2024 election cycle, but the eye-popping growth was seen on digital “connected” television ads on streaming networks like YouTube, Hulu, Amazon, Apple+, and Disney, which accounted for $2.3 billion , mainly at the expense of cable TV, which saw a $400 million drop from the 2020 election cycle. Political candidates spent an additional $1.35 billion on Google and Meta ads in the 2024 election cycle.

Why such an unprecedented amount of advertising on digital?

Political advertisers understand that traditional analog advertising can’t compete with the sophisticated algorithms designed by the behemoths of the internet when it comes to narrowly targeting audiences with specific messages designed to persuade them to behave in a certain way.

Network television can give advertisers about eight data points on their viewers. Online algorithms can be connected with thousands of data points and adjust behavior in real time.

Pro Tip: “Don’t cast a wide net when a laser focus will do the job. Precision targeting isn’t just effective—it’s cost-efficient.”

Control Your Narrative With Paid Digital Ads

Advocacy campaigns live and die by their ability to tell a compelling story. Paid ads give you the power to shape the narrative, ensuring your message reaches the right audience in the right way. As noted in Investopedia’s exploration of advocacy advertising, these campaigns are designed to promote ideas, influence public opinion, and inspire action. Without paid ads, you're relying on organic reach, which often lacks the speed and precision needed to drive meaningful change ( Investopedia ).

Build Credibility and Trust

In the world of advocacy, repetition builds recognition, and recognition builds trust. Paid ads allow you to consistently reinforce your message, positioning your campaign as a credible authority on the issue. Think of it as planting seeds in the minds of your audience—each ad serves as a gentle nudge toward understanding and agreement.

Case in Point: According to research from the Sentience Institute, media coverage and advertising have a significant impact on shaping public opinion. Advocacy campaigns that consistently deliver persuasive messaging can influence perceptions and behaviors over time ( Sentience Institute ).

Tell a Story That Inspires Action

A great advocacy campaign doesn’t just inform—it inspires. People are driven by emotion, not just logic, and paid ads are the perfect medium for sharing compelling stories that move people to act.

Why Stories Work: According to neuroscience and advocacy research, storytelling activates the emotional centers of the brain, making your message memorable and impactful. A well-told story about how clean energy transformed a rural community, for example, can be far more persuasive than statistics alone ( Sentience Institute ).

Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Advocacy Advertising

Even the most well-intentioned campaigns can fall flat without the right approach. Here are some mistakes to avoid:

1. Overloading Ads with Information: Keep it simple. Focus on benefits and emotional appeal rather than overwhelming your audience with data.

2. Neglecting Visuals: In a scroll-heavy world, eye-catching visuals can be the difference between a click and being ignored.

3. Targeting Too Broadly: Precision is key. Tailor your message to specific audiences for maximum engagement.

The Bottom Line: Paid Ads Are Advocacy's Secret Weapon

Advocacy campaigns are a battle for attention and influence, and paid ads are your best tool to win that battle. They provide the control, precision, and reach you need to amplify your message, inspire action, and achieve your goals.

As Investopedia explains, advocacy advertising is about “building a connection with audiences that aligns with their values and inspires change” ( Investopedia ). And according to the Sentience Institute, strategic media and advertising efforts can shape public opinion, making paid ads a critical element of any successful campaign ( Sentience Institute ).

Whether you’re changing minds or policies, remember: paid ads ensure your message isn’t just heard—it’s remembered. In advocacy, the ROI of a well-placed ad can be the tipping point for meaningful change.

How To Effectively Communicate With Email

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 12:55:38 GMT

How To Effectively Communicate With Email

Sales funnels are notoriously long in cleantech. The customers are very picky and often risk averse because the stakes of buying are so much higher than in a traditional B2C transaction. Building those bonds of trust over months and years requires constant interaction to create a comfortable space for a buyer to integrate your software, your feedstock, or your technology.

That’s why a carefully targeted, regularly scheduled email drip funnel is crucial to your success. But effective email communication is more than hitting "send" on a message. It requires strategy, clarity, and a focus on delivering value to your audience.

Why Effective Email Communication Matters

In the digital age, there’s no one “right way” to target an audience because we live in a disaggregated media landscape. However, email remains an essential channel for engaging with diverse audiences, including investors, customers, and policymakers. Its unique benefits include:

• Direct Reach: Unlike social media, email ensures your message lands directly in someone’s inbox, making it a personal and reliable communication method.

• Scalable Personalization: With the right tools, emails can be tailored to individual recipients, increasing their relevance and impact.

• High ROI: Email marketing boasts an average return of $36 for every $1 spent, making it one of the most cost-effective communication channels.(Juan, can you find a hyperlink to support this claim?)

For cleantech companies, effective email communication can help:

• Simplify complex technical information into digestible bits

• Strengthen relationships with key stakeholders.

• Build confidence among investors

• Drive action on critical initiatives, like building community support for a clean energy project or piece of legislation.

Keys to Effective Email Communication

1. Understand Your Audience: Before crafting your email, take time to understand your audience’s needs, interests, and challenges. Cleantech companies often communicate with a range of stakeholders, from engineers to sustainability advocates. Tailoring your message ensures it resonates with each group.

• Pro Tip: Segment your email list based on factors like industry, role, and stage in the buyer’s journey to deliver more targeted content.

2. Craft a Compelling Subject Line: Your subject line is the first impression of your email—it determines whether the recipient will open it. You should spend at least 30% of the time it takes you to write the content of your email on your subject headline. Effective subject lines are clear, concise, and action-oriented.

Some best practices include:

• Personalization—use the company name

• Highlight what competitors are doing

• Fear of missing out (FOMO)

• Use a specific number, whether it’s how much your software saves, or how much more efficient your lithium-ion battery is than the industry standard

• Examples:

o “How Our Solar Panels Save Businesses $10,000 Annually”

o “3 Sustainability Trends You Need to Know in 2024”

• Emerging Trend: Use AI tools to test and optimize subject lines for higher open rates.

3. Focus on Value: Try to create a “You-Orientation.” What does that mean? Imagine yourself as the recipient of your email. Why would they want to read it? What’s in it for them?

Most emails I see talk “at” an audience rather than invite them to have a conversation. Sure, everyone wants to share their good news, especially in an industry that moves at glacial speed (even while glaciers are melting). But instead of announcing the close of your latest fundraising round and bragging about who is backing your company, ask yourself first, “Why should my audience care?”

Instead of a “brag-a-log” email, let your audience know how your news impacts them. Even better, ask them for feedback on what’s important to them. We all have cluttered inboxes. Help insure yours doesn’t go straight to the trash by connecting them to your brand.

• Pro Tip: Share insights about industry trends, offer exclusive reports, or provide practical tips for adopting sustainable practices.

4. Keep it Clear and Concise: Long-winded emails are less likely to hold your reader’s attention. Aim for brevity without sacrificing clarity. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was 272 words proving that more isn’t necessarily better.

My rule of thumb is read your email aloud before sending it. Stop reading when you reach 30-seconds. Delete everything else. You don’t need to cram all of your news into one email. That’s why marketers use the term “drip funnel.” Using another historical analogy, civil rights protesters were blasted by firehoses. It wasn’t a good look then, and it’s no more effective today. Email is about a friendly conversation, which is also why you should use short paragraphs, bullet points, and headings to break up text.

• Pro Tip: Use visuals like infographics or charts to simplify complex information.

5. Use a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA): Every email should have a clear purpose, whether it’s driving traffic to your website, encouraging event registration, or downloading a report. Include a strong, visually distinct CTA button or link.

• Examples:

o “Learn more about our clean energy solutions.”

o “Download our free guide to sustainable packaging.”

Emerging Trends in Email Communication

The way we communicate via email is evolving. Here are some trends reshaping email strategies:

1. Interactive Emails: Interactive elements like polls, surveys, and embedded videos are becoming more popular. These features increase engagement by encouraging recipients to interact directly within the email.

• Example: Climate advocacy campaigns have long used calculators so their audience could see how to reduce their carbon footprint. (Sadly, it was Exxon who pioneered the tactic.)

2. Hyper-Personalization: With AI tools, personalization goes beyond using a recipient’s name. Emails can now include tailored content based on past behavior, preferences, and demographics.

3. Automation for Workflow Efficiency: Automation tools can send timely and relevant messages without requiring manual effort. This is ideal for nurturing leads or onboarding new customers.

• Example: Automate a welcome series introducing new subscribers to your company’s mission, services, and latest innovations.

4. Mobile-First Design: With more than 60% of emails opened on mobile devices, optimizing emails for small screens is no longer optional. Use responsive design and ensure key information is visible without scrolling.

Strategies for Building Effective Email Campaigns

1. Educate and Empower: Cleantech companies often deal with complex subjects. Use emails to educate your audience about your solutions and their benefits.

• Example: Law firms in the cleantech space often send monthly newsletter summarizing regulatory updates to be helpful to current and potential clients.

2. Establish Thought Leadership: Position your company as an industry leader by sharing original research, whitepapers, or expert opinions.

• Pro Tip: Include links to blogs or case studies to drive traffic back to your website.

3. Leverage Storytelling: People connect with stories more than facts. Use your emails to tell compelling stories about your company’s impact, whether it’s a community project or a customer success story.

• Example: A company that builds solar powered mobile generators offered equipment loans free of charge to relief organizations after the recent fires in Los Angeles.

4. Test and Optimize: Regularly A/B test elements like subject lines, CTAs, and email layouts to see what resonates most with your audience. Use analytics to refine your approach.

Avoiding Common Email Pitfalls

Effective email communication also means avoiding common mistakes that can hurt your engagement rates:

1. Overloading with Information: Don’t cram too much into one email. Focus on one primary message or goal.

2. Ignoring Compliance: Ensure your emails comply with privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA. Include clear unsubscribe options.

3. Failing to Segment: Sending the same email to your entire list can lead to irrelevant content and disengaged recipients.

Conclusion: Mastering the Art of Email Communication

Effective email communication is both an art and a science. For cleantech companies, it’s an invaluable tool for educating audiences, building trust, and driving meaningful action. By understanding your audience, crafting compelling messages, and leveraging emerging trends like personalization and automation, you can ensure your emails stand out in an increasingly crowded inbox.

Ready to elevate your email communication strategy? Start by focusing on delivering value, embracing innovation, and staying consistent. Your email list is more than a contact database—it’s your gateway to lasting connections and impactful conversations.

Cleantech Funding Is in Short Supply—Here’s How You Stand Out

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 18:46:47 GMT

The demand for cleantech solutions to create a more sustainable habitat for humanity has never been higher, but in the last two years funding in the private sector has been scarce due to high interest rates and U.S. election uncertainty. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is freezing billions of dollars of grants , loans, and tax credits. If that wasn’t scary enough, last week Bill Gates announced he was shutting down the policy arm of his Breakthrough Energy organization.

As global investment in climate tech faces slowdowns, startups must work harder to capture the attention of investors. With only $85 million raised by Aligned Climate Capital’s latest fund , compared to the billions that tech startups attract, it’s clear that capital for cleantech is limited and highly competitive.

So, how can your cleantech startup stand out in a crowded market? Let’s dive into the key steps to attract funding in an increasingly competitive landscape.

1. Have A Unique Story

The roughly 300 VC’s, accelerators, incubators, and angel funding groups who invest in early stage cleantech and adjacent industries in the U.S. receive dozens of Power Point pitch decks every month. What that means is you need to light up their limbic brains if you want to get past the first hurdle.

I guarantee you that when they hear “We’re solving climate change” or “Our technology is better, faster, or cheaper than what’s on the market,” an investor’s first thought is “It must be Tuesday.”

That’s not to say that mission, vision, and values aren’t important. They are, but that isn’t likely what makes your startup unique.

And to be clear, what you do isn’t what makes your story unique. Right now, hundreds of companies are trying to build better batteries, whether it’s using lithium, sodium, nickel or some other element of the Periodic Table, and all of them involve advanced chemistry and materials science that was unthinkable even ten years ago. The problem is that your audience of investors has heard essentially the same pitch for funding from all of your competitors. If interested, they will conduct their due diligence on your science and engineering, but those are the poker equivalent of table stakes. It’s not what will get the money deposited in your bank account.

Case Study:

ChargerHelp was started by a young female entrepreneur who recognized that one of the seemingly intractable hurdles towards EV adoption isn’t about battery materials or car prices, but the unreliability of EV charging stations. Any investor who owns an EV has pulled up to a public charging station only to depart in frustration and despair because the charger was broken or offline. She created an operations and maintenance company that maximizes EV charging station uptime and staffed the company with technicians from disadvantaged communities, paying for their training.

ChargerHelp has raised $21 million, including a $17 million Series A round led by Blue Bear Capital because the CEO, Kameale Terry, told a compelling story that addressed a problem that many of her investors had personally experienced.

2. Solve A Specific Problem

In the last year, I’ve encountered a seemingly endless line of startup CEO’s who want to capture carbon, produce green hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel, clean up PFAS, and use AI to solve all of the world’s problems. They are all smart, credentialed, and altruistic, but the few of them who will raise enough money to scale all have one thing in common: they can point to a specific problem only they can solve.

Case Study:

While I don’t love the name TLS Geothermics , even a non-techie like me understood their value proposition within seconds.

Geothermal energy could be a reliable supply of clean energy in the U.S. What’s holding the industry back is the expense of finding those sources of heat deep below the earth’s surface. TLS Geothermics pioneered AI-based predictive analytics to reduce the costs and reveal untapped sources of geothermal resources.

Because the Department of Defense has recognized the applicability of their analytics model to providing clean energy for military installations around the globe, investors won’t have to connect many dots to see returns from both privately owned utilities who don’t want to saddle ratepayers with more expensive infrastructure and from government contracts.

3. Focus on Scalability and Speed to Market

Investors want to know that your technology is not just innovative but also scalable. Aligned Climate Capital’s funding strategy prioritizes companies that can move from pilot to full-scale deployment quickly. This means startups must demonstrate how they can rapidly expand without excessive capital expenditures or long commercialization timelines.

How to Apply This:

• Develop a clear path to scale, whether through licensing, manufacturing partnerships, or modular technology solutions.

• Use case studies from successful pilot programs to show how your technology can be deployed across multiple industries or locations.

• Be transparent about your cost structure and show how your solution can be profitable at scale.

4. Target the Right Investors

Know your audience. Some funds focus on specific verticals, such as energy storage, grid modernization, or circular economy solutions. Aligned Climate Capital, for instance, directs its investments toward renewable power, electrification, and decarbonization technologies.

How to Apply This:

• Research investor portfolios to ensure your company aligns with their focus areas.

• Tailor your pitch to highlight aspects of your technology that match investor priorities.

• Build relationships with investors early—don’t wait until you need funding to start conversations.

5. Mission: Must-have

While financials and scalability are critical, investors also need to believe in the mission. Cleantech startups that successfully attract funding often do so by framing their solution as a must-have rather than a nice-to-have. Investors are more likely to fund a company that presents itself as essential to solving a pressing environmental or economic issue.

How to Apply This:

• Frame your company as solving an urgent problem, whether it’s grid stability, energy security, or emissions reduction.

• Use storytelling in your pitch to make the problem and solution relatable.

• Demonstrate momentum—whether through customer adoption, regulatory tailwinds, or industry recognition.

Case Study:

The paints, coatings, and adhesives we use in our day to day life are full of toxins, and their disposal creates even more environmental damage. Enter Lakril Technologies . Chris Nicholas and his team have invented a way to replace the petrochemicals used in these products with bio-based sugars. You don’t have to posess a PhD to recognize there will be an early adopter market for their technology from some of America’s largest companies like 3M who want to show their commitment to sustainability and understand the days of petro-based chemicals are numbered.

Final Thoughts

Cleantech funding is in short supply, but the right strategy can help your startup stand out. By proving your business model early, aligning with institutional capital, prioritizing scalability, targeting the right investors, and crafting a compelling narrative, you can increase your chances of securing the funding needed to bring your innovation to market.

With competition for capital only intensifying, cleantech companies that take a strategic approach to fundraising will be the ones that break through the noise and secure the investment they need to scale.

What I Learned At ARPA-E

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 18:25:22 GMT

Chaos might be the watchword of our political reality, but it hasn’t distracted the ecosystem around ARPA-E from forging our future.

At a gathering of some of the brightest minds in the country, there was no diminished commitment to finding clean and affordable baseload sources of energy, cleaner ways to manufacture, and less harmful ways to extract minerals from the earth, among other initiatives.

The Future Is Fusion

Large-scale fusion energy might not yet be a reality, but the number of companies and research institutions devoted to solving Einstein’s dream was ever-present. To make it a reality, an entire supply chain of industries is under development, from building reactors to the plasma and rare earth minerals needed to heat the cores.

Storage, Storage Everywhere

It’s mind-boggling to see the different materials that can be used to make anodes and cathodes that store energy for applications that are too numerous to list here. Don’t like lithium-ion, how about lithium-sulfur, aluminum air, or plain old domestic materials? All were on display.

Capture Carbon

The question is no longer whether we can capture CO2 (we can), but how many different ways can we put it to humanity’s use? Produce cleaner chemicals: check. Turn it into eFuels: yes. What about nanomaterials for consumer goods like tires? It’s closer than you think.

I’ve long been suspicious of relying on carbon credits as a means to value captured carbon, but by turning it into something of value is where we can finally unlock the technology’s promise.

The Built Environment

While I hate the term, I love the technologies I saw that use timber slash and bamboo for housing and lasers to melt iron ore into steel rather than fossil fuels.

Mineral Extraction

There’s a race for the rare earth minerals we need for car batteries and to power AI technologies. How we extract those resources has become an industry sector that’s exploded in recent years, and there is no shortage of companies with a mission to make the industry more sustainable.

Hydrogen

How are we producing it? How should we use it? Can it be a cost-effective way to decarbonize? The consensus is that, like fusion, we are just around the corner, but the use cases have expanded. Whereas it was a given that the first commercialized use for H2 would be for transportation, using it in smaller amounts to make cleaner chemicals and fertilizers may be the key to unlocking its potential.

Cheap Power

The conference thread's undercurrent was cost competitiveness to power data centers that run AI, home computers, and smartphones. The Trump administration has placed this at the center of its energy policy. I suspect research grants and funding will be directed at companies, universities, and technologies that can compete with oil and natural gas.

River and tidal energy are small baseload power sources that might have a heightened profile. Under Democratic administrations, ocean and wave energy technologies conflicted with environmental concerns, but politics making strange bedfellows might result in a Republican administration unlocking the potential of this clean, baseload source of energy.

Conclusion

The ARPA-E Summit was comfort food for me, reinforcing my belief that whatever the political exigencies of the moment, progress is inevitable and that America’s best and brightest are on the job.

What Are Clean Tech's Most Important Social Media Platforms?

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 14:39:01 GMT

For cleantech companies, social media is more than just a place to share updates—it’s a critical tool for connecting with investors, customers, and industry leaders. But with so many platforms available, where should you focus your efforts?

Not all cleantech startups have the sexy quotient or broad appeal of sectors like solar, AI, robotics, and fusion energy, which currently attract significant attention and investment. If your company doesn’t fall into one of these high-profile categories, the solution isn’t to cast a wider net but to niche down. The more specific and targeted your message, the more likely you are to attract the right investors, partners, and customers.

In addition to niching down your message, you need to pick your social media platforms based on your particular objective, whether that’s building a higher profile for your brand, targeting potential investors, creating a top of a sales funnel, or building your email list.

1. LinkedIn: The B2B Powerhouse

If you’re in cleantech and you’re not leveraging LinkedIn, you’re leaving money on the table. With over 310 million active monthly users, LinkedIn is the top platform for industry professionals, investors, and decision-makers. According to DG+ Design , LinkedIn drives more than 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs—making it the most powerful tool for business-driven cleantech companies.

Why It Works for Cleantech:

• Investor Outreach: VC firms and angel investors regularly browse LinkedIn for emerging trends and technologies.

• Thought Leadership: LinkedIn has targeted sectors like “Cleantech,” “Sustainability Professionals,”, “Sustainable Energy Development,” and so on where you can find other individuals who share your passions and pursuits.

• High-Value Networking: Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn fosters professional connections that lead to real-world partnerships and funding opportunities. While LinkedIn is free, I highly recommend a paid subscription to their Sales Navigator platform. While not a robust CRM for companies that need to manage thousands of contacts, it’s an excellent place to scout for talent and send private messages that are warmer than a typical cold email.

How to Use It Effectively:

• Send personalized connection requests letting the recipient know (in just a few characters) why they should want you in their circle.

• Engage with investor and industry discussions in LinkedIn groups.

• Use Sales Navigator to build relationships with investors, talent, and potential customers.

2. Twitter (Now X): Fast-Paced Thought Leadership

Twitter is an ideal platform for real-time updates, industry news, and engaging with policymakers and media. The transformation of the platform under the ownership of Elon Musk has driven away a segment of subscribers who amplified the reach of cleantech companies, but journalists and high profile investors still post regularly.

Why It Works for Cleantech:

• Direct Engagement: Connect with policymakers, journalists, and industry influencers in real-time.

• Breaking News & Trends: Stay ahead of the latest developments in the cleantech sector.

• Visibility for Advocacy: Organizations pushing for sustainability regulations use Twitter as a megaphone for policy influence.

How to Use It Effectively:

• Post short, data-backed insights that provide value to your industry.

• Engage, engage, engage. The “social” in social media implies that it is to be used as more than a one-way megaphone. Your inside marketing team or marketing agency should be responding to other content as well as creating your own.

• Use #hashtags strategically, such as #Cleantech #Sustainability #GreenEnergy to boost discoverability.

3. Instagram & YouTube: Visual Storytelling for Broad Engagement

If your cleantech innovation is highly visual—think robotics, sustainable consumer products, or ocean cleanup projects—Instagram and YouTube can be powerful platforms. According to DG+ Design , Instagram is a go-to for product discovery, with 81% of users using the platform to research brands. The nice thing about the platform is it doesn’t require the level of production that takes time and drives up costs. While Instagram is famous for its filters, in many ways the platform is less filtered with high production values. Its users like the more impromptu and intimate feel they get from the platform.

Meanwhile, YouTube’s massive audience (over 2 billion monthly users) makes it an essential platform for educational content, deep dives into your technology, and storytelling. Because YouTube is owned by Google, posting content on their video platform has the added benefit of improving your search engine rankings.

Why They Work for Cleantech:

• Instagram is ideal for B2C brands selling green products, sharing eye-catching photos, short videos, and behind-the-scenes looks. It’s far less impactful for B2B or B2G brands. Sprout Social’s 2024 Media Content Strategy Report revealed that Instagram is the top social media platform for discovering new products. Accordingly, Instagram’s users skew heavily towards advertisers desired 18-49 consumer demographic. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stats/

• YouTube is a much better fit for hardtech companies that have lengthy sales funnels. excels in long-form storytelling, explainer videos, and case studies.

How to Use Them Effectively:

• On Instagram: The watchword is “entertainment.” Instagram users scroll their feeds to be entertained. According to Sprout Social’s 2024 Media Content Strategy Report, videos less than 15-seconds are more effective.

• On YouTube: Two-thirds of a B2B sales cycle happens online before a person in your company is contacted. Your ability to create educational and impactful video content that targets a specific customer’s problem will go a long way to determining whether they will ever reach out or share their email. While video length on YouTube can and should be longer than on Instagram, any video longer than two minutes will test your viewer’s patience in an ephemeral world of endless content.

• Post video testimonials from customers and investors to build credibility.

4. Facebook: The Community Builder

Despite perceptions that Facebook is fading, it remains a key platform for community-driven cleantech brands. Jokes aside about Facebook being the preferred social media platform for grandparents, with over 3 billion users, it’s especially effective for advocacy campaigns to share information with like-minded followers who can amplify your message. Facebook’s private groups are also an excellent way to build community. It’s far less effective as a sales funnel for B2C or B2B companies.

Why It Works for Cleantech:

• Engages Local and Niche Communities: Good for municipal sustainability projects and advocacy campaigns.

• Supports Long-Form Content: Unlike Instagram or Twitter, Facebook allows for more detailed storytelling.

• Great for Paid Ads: If you’ve ever been creeped-out by how much Facebook’s algorithms seem to know about you, it’s because Facebook’s advanced targeting lets you pinpoint specific demographics with uncanny accuracy.

How to Use It Effectively:

• Create a Facebook Group around a specific niche, such as “Future of Carbon Capture” or “Green Building Solutions.”

• Run targeted Facebook Ads to reach angel investors on Sand Hill Road or frame your message with early adopters in the environmental community who live in a specific zip code.

• Post a mix of video, text, and infographic content to engage your audience.

• Build relationships. Social media is a two-way street. Respond to inquires in a timely fashion.

5. Pinterest: The Unexpected Powerhouse for Green Living

While often overlooked, Pinterest is a valuable platform for cleantech brands focused on green consumer products and sustainable lifestyle content. According to WebFX , Pinterest is especially effective for DIY sustainability projects and renewable energy tips.

Why It Works for Cleantech:

• Strong Search Intent: Users actively seek eco-friendly solutions and sustainable living ideas.

• High Engagement for Green Brands: Cleantech companies selling consumer-facing products (e.g., solar panels, sustainable packaging) can leverage Pinterest’s visual format.

How to Use It Effectively:

• Create pinnable infographics about sustainability.

• Share educational guides on topics like “How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint.”

• Link posts directly to landing pages that drive conversions.

Niche Down to Stand Out

Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, find your tribe—investors, customers, and policymakers who care about your specific problem and solution. A more targeted approach will attract the right engagement and increase your chances of getting noticed.

Conclusion: Where Should Your Cleantech Company Focus?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer for cleantech companies on social media, but some platforms stand out based on audience and content style:

✔ LinkedIn – Best for B2B, investors, and professional connections.

✔ Twitter (X) – Great for industry conversations and policy discussions.

✔ Instagram & YouTube – Ideal for visual storytelling and brand engagement.

✔ Facebook – Works well for community building and advocacy.

✔ Pinterest – A powerful tool for sustainability-focused brands.

By niching down, refining your story, and focusing on the platforms where your audience spends time, you’ll maximize engagement and create meaningful connections that drive real results.

Want to reach the right investors and customers? Pick your platform wisely—and tell your story with clarity, purpose, and impact.

Why Consistent Communication Matters, Even With a Small Audience

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 16:05:24 GMT

One of the most common misconceptions among startups, especially in cleantech, is the belief that a small audience requires less communication. For example, a startup with an investment from a major company like Shell might think their only necessary conversations are with oil majors interested in carbon capture for PR or regulatory reasons. While this may seem like an efficient focus, it is both untrue and risky.

Regardless of whether your audience is 10 or 1,000, consistent and meaningful communication is critical to building trust, fostering growth, and managing risks. Let’s explore why this approach is essential and how diversifying your communication strategies can future-proof your business.

Effective Communication Builds Trust and Transparency

Startups thrive on their ability to build and maintain trust with customers, partners, and stakeholders. Consistent communication creates an open dialogue that fosters transparency and collaboration—two ingredients vital for long-term success.

A recent Entrepreneur article highlights the importance of effective communication in startups, stating that it sets the tone for a company’s culture and helps establish trust and collaboration within its ecosystem. Without regular touchpoints, even the strongest relationships can falter, leading to missed opportunities or misunderstandings. You can find the full article here .

Over-Reliance on a Small Client Base is Risky Business

Relying on a limited number of clients, no matter how influential they may be, is inherently risky. Suppose a cleantech startup focuses solely on a handful of oil majors for their carbon capture technology. What happens if none of these companies choose their solution? The business becomes vulnerable to financial instability and limited growth opportunities.

An analysis by Finro Financial Consulting warns against customer concentration risks, explaining that startups must diversify their client base to ensure resilience. Landing large clients may validate market demand, but without diversification, a business becomes highly susceptible to market volatility. Diversifying your audience not only mitigates risk but also opens new growth opportunities. Read the full analysis here .

Diverse Communication Creates Resilience

Consistent outreach isn’t just about maintaining existing relationships—it’s about creating new ones. Startups that regularly communicate with a variety of audiences, including potential clients, investors, and stakeholders, position themselves as thought leaders and innovators in their field.

A piece from Startup Dreamers emphasizes the role of open and regular communication in fostering transparency and collaboration. By keeping all stakeholders informed and engaged, startups can generate collective solutions to challenges and cultivate stronger partnerships. Read the full article .

Conclusion: Always Communicate, Always Engage

Even if your customer base seems small or specific, regular communication is essential to building trust, reducing risk, and creating opportunities for growth. Whether you’re engaging with current clients, reaching out to potential partners, or maintaining a public presence, consistent communication keeps your cleantech startup top of mind and resilient in an ever-changing market.

Don’t let a limited audience limit your success. Build a strategy that values communication as much as innovation, and you’ll see the impact across your business.

Hooking Cleantech Investors: Strategies to Secure Funding in a Competitive Market

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 14:10:01 GMT

Securing funding in the cleantech industry has never been easy, and the stakes are even higher in today’s competitive environment. Global investment in climate tech has dropped to its lowest point in four years, according to Crunchbase. Yet, late-stage funding for transformative solutions like Pacific Fusion’s $900 million and Intersect Power’s $800 million demonstrates that investors are still willing to back compelling opportunities. The key? Positioning your startup as the must-have player in the cleantech space.

This blog outlines actionable strategies for cleantech startups to not just attract attention but to win over investors and secure the funding they need to scale.

1. Solve a Specific, High-Stakes Problem

Cleantech investors aren’t just looking for disruption—they’re looking for solutions to pressing, real-world problems. Startups that address urgent needs like regulatory compliance, supply chain disruptions, or rising energy costs are far more likely to capture investor interest.

Key Strategies:

• Frame the Problem Clearly: Use data to highlight the severity of the problem and its relevance to your target audience.

• Demonstrate Market Need: Show how your technology transitions from a “nice-to-have” to a “must-have” in your market.

Example: One of my favorite cleantech startups is a company called Steelhead Composites. They are a pioneer in the field of hydrogen storage components. To anyone who’s involved with the hydrogen economy, it’s well known that storage and transport are keys to unlocking its potential for road transport, maritime, and aerospace. They need only one PowerPoint slide to explain the problem they solve for a nascent trillion dollar industry.

2. Share a Compelling Story

While data is crucial, it’s your story that hooks investors. A strong narrative explains why your company exists, who you’re helping, and how you’re creating impact. Investors don’t just want to fund technology; they want to fund a vision.

Key Strategies:

• Humanize Your Mission: Share the personal or professional experiences that inspired your startup.

• Utilize All Five Senses: If your technology solves an air pollution problem, your audience needs to smell it. If it’s a water pollution problem you’re solving, remind your audience what foul water tastes like. While we are a visual society, it shouldn’t preclude using the other four senses to paint a picture.

• Act Locally, Think Globally: Tie your mission to the local impacts it’s combatting because your audience will understand its implications intuitively. Yes, your clean technology might be solving a global problem, but that’s an abstraction, even to impact investors. It’s one of the reasons government action on climate change has moved at a snail’s pace.

Example: Summit Nanotech has a backstory that’s hard to top—literally. The CEO was scaling K2 in the Himalayas when she noticed that even a Tibetan Monk had a smartphone. It made her realize the scale of need for lithium in the coming decades so she got to work and patented a more sustainable process to extract lithium, a notoriously dirty and geopolitically dangerous industry. They’ve raised over $65 million so far.

3. Prove Scalability and Market Potential

Cleantech investors want to see that your technology can go beyond a pilot project. Scalability isn’t just about technology—it’s about market demand, integration ease, and potential for sustained growth.

Key Strategies:

• Show Market Size: Use credible data to demonstrate the total addressable market (TAM) for your solution.

• Outline Scalability Plans: Explain how your technology integrates into existing infrastructure or processes.

• Highlight Diversified Revenue Streams: Show how your solution appeals to multiple industries or applications.

Example: Intersect Power’s funding success stemmed from its ability to scale renewable energy projects rapidly while serving diverse industries, making it a safer bet for long-term returns, which is why they’ve raised $8.9 billion.

4. Validate Your Solution with Metrics and Third Parties

Startups can’t rely on promises alone—investors need proof. Third-party endorsements and early customer traction help de-risk the investment and build credibility.

Many investors in the cleantech sector will openly say they invest in teams as much as they invest in technology, which is why seasoned advisors are often highlighted on startup company websites as much as the day-to-day team.

Key Strategies:

• Share Early Wins: Pilot projects, Letters of Intent (LOIs), or initial sales show demand for your solution.

• Leverage External Validation: Highlight grants, partnerships, or accelerator backing to prove credibility.

• Quantify Impact: Provide specific metrics showing the efficiency, savings, or sustainability gains of your solution.

Example: The myriad of incubators and accelerators that exist around the country have become a metaphorical front door for cleantech startups looking for validation. Investors know that companies that have been through programs they offer have been schooled and tested on the finer points of running a company, and it lowers the barriers to further funding.

5. Address Risks with a Mitigation Plan

Cleantech investors know the industry is fraught with challenges, from regulatory hurdles to market uncertainties. The last two years have been difficult for cleantech companies raising money in the private sector.

Acknowledging these risks—and presenting a plan to overcome them—demonstrates your preparedness and resilience.

Key Strategies:

• Be Transparent: Clearly outline potential risks, such as policy changes or technical bottlenecks.

• Provide Contingency Plans: Show how you’ll adapt to setbacks or shifting market conditions.

• Highlight Strengths: Explain why your team or technology is uniquely suited to handle these challenges.

Example Of What Not To Do: I met startup CEO at a conference last year who dismissed every one of my questions of how they would handle pitfalls with a wave of an assured hand and an overconfident assertion that he (and it’s always a he) had already thought of every scenario and that success was assured. He left the conference with his confidence in tact but without any new money to scale his company.

6. Build Relationships Before You Pitch

Investors back people, not just ideas. Building relationships with potential funders before making an ask allows you to establish trust and refine your pitch based on their feedback.

Key Strategies:

• Engage Early: Attend industry events, join cleantech accelerators, and connect with investors long before you need funding.

• Provide Updates: Share regular progress updates with potential investors, keeping your startup top-of-mind. This is where email marketing plays such an important part. It’s impossible to personally touch the entire universe of people who could fund your company, but a warm email keeps you top of mind.

• Leverage Referrals: Use your network to secure warm introductions to aligned investors.

Conclusion: Turning Interest into Investment

Attracting cleantech investors requires more than a solid product—it demands a clear vision, tangible results, and a compelling story. By focusing on solving high-stakes problems, demonstrating scalability, and validating your solution with metrics and endorsements, your startup can stand out in a crowded field.

With the right approach, you can turn investor interest into meaningful partnerships that propel your cleantech company toward a sustainable, impactful future. Start building those connections, refining your narrative, and showcasing your potential today. Investors are looking for transformative solutions—make sure they see yours as the one to back.

Why a Powerful Story, Unique Value Proposition, and Clear Problem-Solving Are Key to Cleantech Funding Success

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 14:13:50 GMT

The cleantech industry is at a pivotal moment. With global urgency to address climate change, startups are uniquely positioned to deliver groundbreaking solutions. Yet, securing funding in this space has become more challenging. According to PwC’s State of Climate Tech 2024 report, climate tech financing has dropped by 29%, underscoring the heightened competition for investors’ attention and dollars.

In this climate, having innovative technology is no longer enough. Investors need to see a cleantech startup that stands out—not just because of what it does, but because of the story it tells, the value it offers, and the real-world problem it solves. Let’s explore why these elements are more critical than ever for cleantech startups seeking funding.

1. The Power of a Compelling Story

Why Storytelling Matters

Humans connect with stories, not spreadsheets. A compelling story makes your startup memorable, helps communicate your mission, and creates an emotional connection with potential investors.

For cleantech startups, the stakes are even higher. Investors aren’t just looking for financial returns—they’re looking for companies that align with their values and have the potential to create meaningful change. Your story is the bridge between your technology and the impact you aim to achieve.

Elements of an Effective Cleantech Story

• Mission-Driven Narrative: What inspired your startup? Share the "why" behind your journey and the larger purpose driving your work.

• Human Impact: Illustrate how your technology improves lives or communities. Use testimonials, case studies, or vivid examples.

• Vision for the Future: Paint a picture of the sustainable, better world your startup is helping to create.

2. A Unique Value Proposition That Stands Out

Why a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is Non-Negotiable

In the crowded cleantech space, investors need to know why your solution is the one to back. Your UVP communicates what makes your startup different, better, and worth their investment.

Questions to Define Your UVP

• What problem does your technology solve? Be specific about the issue you’re addressing and its scale. Not every technology is sexy, but if you understand your audience’s motivation, they will swipe right.

• Why can’t the alternatives compete? Go beyond cost-effectiveness, scalability, or superior performance because those advantages are ephemeral and diminish the value of your brand.

• Who benefits, and how? Clearly define your target audience and the tangible outcomes they’ll experience. So often, I see cleantech startups tout aspirational benefits for society (which is great), but your investors need to why your specific target audience will buy your solution to convince them you have a business case.

Crafting a Winning UVP

• Be Specific: Avoid vague claims like "We help reduce emissions." Instead, say, "Our technology reduces industrial carbon emissions by 30% at half the cost of traditional methods."

• Quantify Your Impact: Investors love seeing measurable potential like the size of the market.

• Identify The Problem and The Urgency: Often impending government regulations drive the behavior of industries that are resistant to change. Deadlines to meet those new regulations give investors certainty that an industry is actively shopping for solutions.

3. Solving a Specific Problem: The Investor’s Perspective

The Importance of Problem-Solution Fit

Investors want to fund solutions to well-defined problems. They’re not just interested in the “cool factor” of your technology—they need to know it addresses a market need that people are willing to pay for.

How to Showcase Problem-Solution Fit

• Identify the Problem Clearly: Use data to show the severity of the problem and its relevance to key stakeholders.

• Prove Market Demand: Customer interviews, beta tests, letters of interest (LOI’s), or market research that validates your solution.

• Demonstrate Scalability: Investors want to know that your solution isn’t just effective in the lab, but can also be scaled to generate significant returns.

• Validation: Investors are partial to the expertise of teams. Weaving the experience of the founders to the solution is an effective way to get in the door for a pitch.

Trends Shaping Investor Expectations

1. AI-Driven Solutions

As highlighted in PwC’s State of Climate Tech 2024 report, AI-driven technologies are gaining investor attention, particularly in areas like climate adaptation and resilience. Cleantech startups incorporating AI should emphasize how it enhances their solution’s efficiency, accuracy, or scalability.

2. Focus on Adaptation and Resilience

Investors are increasingly looking for technologies that address the impacts of climate change, not just mitigation. Startups offering solutions for climate adaptation—like flood management or drought-resistant agriculture—should position themselves as essential players in building a resilient future.

3. Corporate Venture Capital

Corporate investors are becoming a key funding source, particularly for mid-to-late-stage startups. On a large scale, we’re seeing companies like Microsoft and Google invest directly in clean energy sources to power their data centers rather than relying on middle men like utilities and governments that tend to move at a glacial pace. This trend has proved to public companies that they can solve their problems more directly by investing in technologies that solve their sustainability problems.

Building Your Case for Funding

1. Combine Data with Storytellin g: While your story is the heart of your pitch, data provides the credibility investors need. Combine the two seamlessly to create a compelling and evidence-backed narrative.

2. Leverage Visuals : Pitch decks, infographics, and videos can make your message more impactful. Visuals help simplify complex concepts and keep investors engaged.

3. Prepare for Investor Questions : Be ready to address tough questions about your technology, market size, competition, and financial projections. Confidence and preparation go a long way in building trust.

Real-World Examples of Fundraising Success

1. Climate Resilience Startup Secures $10M: A startup developing AI-powered flood prediction tools captured investor attention by framing its mission around saving lives and protecting infrastructure. Their UVP highlighted 95% prediction accuracy, and their funding round closed ahead of schedule.

2. Renewable Energy Innovator Wins Corporate Backing: A company creating low-cost, scalable wind turbines partnered with a major energy corporation. By aligning its solution with the corporation’s ESG goals, the startup secured $20M in funding.

Conclusion: More Than Just Technology

In today’s competitive funding landscape, cleantech startups must go beyond their technology to win over investors. A powerful story connects emotionally, a unique value proposition demonstrates your edge, and a clear problem-solving focus proves your relevance.

Investors aren’t just looking for groundbreaking ideas—they’re looking for cleantech companies with the vision, strategy, and impact to change the world. By mastering these elements, you can position your startup as not just a great option but the only one worth their investment.

Ready to refine your pitch and secure the funding you need? Start by crafting a story, defining your UVP, and highlighting the problem only your solution can solve. The future of your startup—and the planet—depends on it.

Why Your Email List Is Still the Most Important Communication Tool

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:42:17 GMT

In a world dominated by social media algorithms, flashy ads, and ever-evolving digital platforms, one communication tool has consistently stood the test of time: the email list.

While newer technologies promise instant reach and viral potential, email marketing remains a cornerstone for meaningful engagement, particularly for cleantech companies navigating the complexities of building awareness and trust in a competitive industry.

Why is this old-school tool still so essential? Let’s dive into why your email list should remain your most treasured asset, explore how emerging trends enhance its power, and provide actionable insights for leveraging email marketing to its full potential.

The Value of an Email List: Direct, Personalized, and Owned

1. Direct Connection with Your Audience: An email list provides a direct line of communication with your audience, free from intermediaries like social media algorithms. Unlike social platforms where your content is filtered, email ensures that your message lands directly in your subscribers’ inboxes.

• For Cleantech Companies: This is especially critical for sharing detailed, technical information about your innovations, educating stakeholders, and nurturing long-term relationships.

2. Personalization Drives Engagement: Modern email tools allow for highly personalized messages. By segmenting your audience and tailoring content to their needs, you can achieve higher engagement rates than other communication channels.

• Example: A cleantech startup targeting B2B clients can send tailored case studies to potential investors or first customers while delivering sustainability tips to broader audiences.

3. You Own the Channel: Social media platforms and search engines have repeatedly changed their rules. Twitter is the latest high-profile example , impacting the visibility and reach of the entire climate-focused community. An email list is your asset, giving you complete control over how and when you communicate.

Emerging Trends Enhancing Email Marketing

While email marketing remains rooted in its fundamentals, emerging trends are supercharging its effectiveness for cleantech companies aiming to stay ahead of the curve.

1. AI-Powered Personalization: Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming email marketing by enabling hyper-personalization. AI can analyze subscriber behavior to send tailored messages with the right content at the right time.

• Application: A cleantech company can use AI to recommend relevant content based on a subscriber's past interactions, such as whitepapers or product updates.

2. Interactive Email Content: Emails are becoming more dynamic with features like embedded polls, videos, and clickable infographics. Interactive content increases engagement and allows recipients to act directly from their inboxes.

• Example: A sustainability-focused company could embed a kinesthetic tool, such as a carbon footprint calculator, in an email, encouraging users to engage with the brand.

3. Sustainability Messaging: As consumers and businesses increasingly prioritize sustainability, emails with eco-friendly messaging build trust and brand loyalty.

4. Automation and Workflows: Email automation tools allow companies to build sophisticated workflows, nurturing leads through tailored sequences.

• For Cleantech: Automation can guide potential investors or clients through a series of educational emails, building confidence in your brand’s expertise.

5. Compliance with Privacy Laws: With regulations like GDPR and CCPA, email marketing has become a trusted channel for maintaining customer privacy while delivering personalized content.

Why Email Works for Cleantech Companies

1. Educating a Complex Audience: Clean technology, whether hard tech or software, requires a more thoughtful explanation than consumer packaged goods. Emails provide a space for in-depth communication, whether it’s value propositions, business use cases, or product descriptions.

2. Building Relationships with Stakeholders: For cleantech startups, fostering relationships with investors, partners, and customers is crucial. Regular email updates help maintain engagement and ensure your company stays top of mind amidst a blizzard of information that besieges us daily.

3. Promoting Events and Initiatives: Emails are ideal for promoting events like webinars, product launches, or sustainability campaigns. They allow you to provide all necessary details in one place, with clear calls to action.

Strategies for Maximizing Your Email Marketing Efforts

1. Focus on Value-Driven Content: Ensure that every email provides value to your audience. This could be through insights, educational content, or exclusive offers. Avoid talking at your audience. Instead, invite them into a conversation with you in a way that’s helpful to them. I call it “Beyond Transactional.”

2. Segment Your Audience: Not all subscribers have the same needs. Segment your list to ensure the right people receive the right message. For instance:

3. Optimize for Mobile: With most emails now opened on mobile devices, ensure your campaigns are mobile-friendly. Use responsive design and concise, impactful content.

4. Incorporate Storytelling: Emails that tell a compelling story about how your founder realized that a problem needed to be solved, testimonials from clients or customers who’ve benefited from your technology, or even volunteer work highlighting your mission-driven company's origin story will enhance your reputation and increase long-term loyalty.

5. Test and Analyze: Subject lines and headings significantly impact whether your recipients open your email. Urgency and relevance in the subject line will increase your open rates. Conversely, a somnambulant title like “Newsletter” is an open invitation for your audience to hit the delete button.

Every audience is different, and no one formula guarantees that your email will be opened. That's why it’s essential to continuously test various elements of your email campaigns, such as subject lines, visuals, and CTAs. Use analytics to refine your strategy and improve results.

Avoiding Common Email Marketing Pitfalls

While email marketing is powerful, it’s crucial to steer clear of common mistakes:

• Neglecting Consistency: Irregular email schedules can lead to disengagement. Stick to a predictable cadence, whether weekly, biweekly, or monthly.

• Overloading with Information: Keep your emails focused and concise—link to additional resources rather than cramming everything into the email.

• Ignoring Compliance: Ensure your campaigns comply with privacy laws and include clear options for subscribers to manage their preferences.

Conclusion: Why Your Email List is Still King

For cleantech companies, email is more than a communication channel; it’s a bridge to educating audiences, building trust, and inspiring action.

Embracing emerging trends like AI personalization, interactive content, and automation elevates your brand by delivering value while segmenting your list and integrating storytelling will transform your email list into a powerhouse for growth and impact.

Your audience—and the planet—will thank you.

What Cleantech Investors Really Want to Know

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 15:41:31 GMT

In the high-stakes world of cleantech funding, understanding what investors are looking for can make or break your startup's ability to secure capital. With global investments in climate tech experiencing a 29% decline, according to PwC’s State of Climate Tech 2024 report, competition is fiercer than ever.

If you're seeking investment for your cleantech venture, you need to address more than just the technical merits of your innovation. Here’s a deep dive into what cleantech investors really want to know before they commit their dollars.

1. What Problem Are You Solving?

Cleantech investors are mission-driven, but they’re also pragmatic. They want to know that your solution addresses a specific, well-defined problem with significant market demand.

In any given month, they are likely to see dozens of slide decks, all of which claim to make our planet more habitable, whether that’s through carbon capture, cleaner energy and industry, safer chemicals, and efficiency gains through better software to name a few.

Your clean technology may very well move us in the direction of sustainability, but it will only yield dividends for investors if it solves someone’s issue, whether it’s impending government regulation, supply chain problems, or cost of goods.

Key Questions Investors Will Ask:

• Is this a specific problem? Is there an industry at risk if it doesn’t adapt? Could a company lose market share? Could the solution birth a new industry?

• Is there a market for this solution? Are customers actively seeking or willing to adopt your product? Is your technology a “want” or a “need” for its audience?

• What’s the impact? How does your solution contribute to decarbonization, sustainability, or climate resilience?

How to Answer: Stories trump data. There’s a reason the root of the word “numbers” is “numb.” Case studies are excellent ways to show the necessity of your technology and how it solves a specific problem.

2. Why You?

To recoup their investment and turn a profit, investors need to know why your startup is uniquely positioned to succeed in solving the specific problem. While your intellectual property is part of your competitive edge, technology advancements are ephemeral. Instead, showcase your unique value proposition (UVP).

Key Questions Investors Will Ask:

• What sets you apart? How is your technology different or better than existing solutions?

• Why now? Is the market ready for your solution, or are you ahead of the curve?

• Who’s on your team? Do you have the expertise and leadership to execute your vision?

How to Answer: Instead of emphasizing “better, faster, or cheaper” as your value proposition, find the space that’s unique to your company. Everyone is competing to build a better mousetrap, and the speed at which better mousetraps are built is unrivaled in human history. What pain point do you address that even a better mousetrap can’t?

Because your startup doesn’t have a long track record of success, you need third party validators, which could be members of your team who have successful track records, grants you’ve received from governments or foundations, or accelerators who’ve nurtured your nascent company.

3. How Scalable Is Your Solution?

Cleantech investors are not just funding ideas—they’re funding growth. They want to know that your solution can scale to meet increasing demand without losing efficiency or quality.

Key Questions Investors Will Ask:

• Is your technology scalable? Can it be deployed at scale without significant redesign or cost increases to current industrial, physical, or chemical processes?

• What’s the market potential? How large is the addressable market, and what percentage of it can you realistically capture?

• Can you expand beyond your initial target market? Are there additional applications or industries for your technology?

How to Answer: Technologies that can integrate into existing processes stand a better chance of receiving private funding and those with multiple revenue streams typically receive more interest.

4. What’s Your Business Model?

Investors need to see a clear path to profitability. A compelling business model reassures them that your startup is sustainable in the long run.

Key Questions Investors Will Ask:

• How do you make money? Are you relying on subscriptions, licensing, or partnerships? Who are your first customers?

• Are you operating inside your core competence? If your background is in science, who’s going to build your factory?

• What are your costs? How do you plan to manage production, distribution, and overhead expenses?

• What’s your pricing strategy? How do you meet your market where they are at, especially if it’s an industry that runs on narrow profit margins? Conversely, if sustainability is a value they tout to their audience, what’s a better mousetrap worth to them?

How to Answer: The customer discovery process is a critical early step before seeking investment because investors want to know what your customer’s think, whether they are interested in your technology, and if the premium they pay helps them save money or make more money in the long run.

5. What’s Your Market Traction?

Technology that works is table stakes. It’s what gets you in the game, but it isn’t what opens checkbooks. Your sustainable solution is a science project until you prove you can make that first sale.

Key Questions Investors Will Ask:

• Do you have customers or pilot programs? Are companies or governments already using or testing your technology?

• What’s the feedback? Do early adopters find your solution effective and valuable?

• What’s your pipeline? Are there potential deals or partnerships in the works?

How to Answer: Investors aren’t expecting your startup to have a line of customers like the iPhone, but LOI’s and a deep understanding of your target audience’s problem is critical. If you can clearly articulate the problem you solve and why your customer base needs it solved soon, they are more likely to support your solution, especially if there’s early interest, even if it’s not a signed contract.

6. What’s the Financial Plan?

Cleantech projects often require significant upfront investment, making financial planning critical. Investors want to know how their money will be used and when they can expect returns.

Key Questions Investors Will Ask:

• How will the funds be allocated? Are you spending on R&D, marketing, manufacturing, or expansion?

• What’s your runway? How long will the investment sustain your operations?

• What’s the return on investment (ROI)? When and how will investors see a return?

How to Answer: Here’s where the spreadsheets come into play, even though most savvy investors know that the most detailed financial plan is just a piece of paper. Still their due diligence will require , just like applying for a home loan with a bank, investors want to know budgets, timelines, and expected ROI, even if its years away.

7. What Are the Risks?

No investment is without risk, and cleantech startups often face unique challenges, from regulatory hurdles to technological uncertainties. Investors want transparency about potential risks and how you plan to mitigate them.

Key Questions Investors Will Ask:

• What are the biggest challenges? Are there technological, regulatory, or market barriers to overcome?

• What’s your contingency plan? How will you handle setbacks or delays?

• Are you compliant with regulations? Do you meet industry standards and environmental policies?

How to Answer: There are no guarantees in cleantech investing, and savvy fund managers know this. Still, showing potential investors that you’ve thought through risks and how to mitigate them inspires confidence. Waving away potential problems smacks of hubris, and chances are they’ve already invested in companies that crashed because they couldn’t see around the corners.

8. What’s the Long-Term Vision?

Cleantech investors know they aren’t going to see a return on investment for years, which is why they are looking for startups with staying power. A clear vision reassures them that your company is not just a quick fix but a long-term player in the cleantech ecosystem.

Key Questions Investors Will Ask:

• What’s your ultimate goal? What does a built-out company look like? Is the long-term plan based on one industry or product, or are their multiple ways to generate revenue from different industries?

• What’s your exit strategy? Are you aiming for an acquisition, IPO, or sustained growth as a private company?

• How does your startup align with global goals? As we wean ourselves off of carbon, can your mission align with those increasingly tightening targets?

How to Answer: Here again is where your unique value proposition comes into play. A technology might come along that’s better, cheaper, or faster than yours, but if it doesn’t share your customers’ values and it doesn’t solve a specific problem for a specific audience, you can more convincingly show your company has staying power.

Conclusion: Be the Startup Investors Can’t Ignore

Cleantech investors are looking for more than just innovative technology—they want inspiration, clarity, scalability, and alignment with global impact goals. By addressing their most pressing questions and presenting a well-rounded case, you can differentiate your startup and secure the funding needed to bring your vision to life.

In a competitive funding landscape, preparation is your greatest asset. Be ready to tell your story, prove your value, and show investors why your cleantech startup is the one to back.

Should Your Cleantech Company Stay On Twitter?

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 20:05:04 GMT

You're the founder or a C-Suite executive for a cleantech company that has a Twitter account (I refuse to call it X, for the record). You and your team are either uncomfortable or outraged by the direction of the social media platform and the antics of its owner, Elon Musk, in support of now President-Elect Donald Trump, who claims climate change is a hoax and who wants to cut many of the public sector grants, loans, and incentives that have been the lifeblood of the climate tech industry. Yet your company has spent considerable time on Twitter and has amassed an audience of hundreds, if not thousands, of interested followers who might one day invest in your company or who are inspired by your mission and want to work for you.

Do you deactivate your account and cut ties with a social media platform that doesn’t align with your company’s values? Do you continue to pump out content for a shrinking audience on the platform? Or do you put energy and resources into building a social media channel on a new network like Threads or Bluesky?

Why Should Cleantech Companies Even Bother With Social Media?

We live in an age of information saturation, and the news release your team put out about your quarterly earnings, new hire, or government grant has a shelf life shorter than the average sitcom. Our attention spans are so attenuated that the phrase "15 minutes of fame" today is about 14 minutes longer than you can retain an audience's focus.

The upshot is that your cleantech company needs a brand channel of content. That's where platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn come in. You are producing video, audio, or written content for an eager audience. Think Netflix or Amazon without paid subscribers.

Social media allows you to attract an audience that is as niche as your company and keep them in the loop on their terms.

Of course, social media's downside is the ever-changing algorithms that can highlight or throttle your content without your consent. This is why social media is a complement rather than a replacement for the email list your company controls.

Regardless, those who choose to follow you on Twitter have taken a real interest in your company, and you should treat them as a digital ambassador for your company because those advocates can spread your news to more like-minded individuals more efficiently than at any other time in human history.

Climate Tech Meets Cognitive Dissonance

We all have contradictory thoughts without them splitting the corpus callosum. Case in point: no one under 60 will admit to liking (or even knowing) Neil Diamond, but everyone, regardless of age, will sing along to the bridge of Sweet Caroline in a crowd.

You don't have to like Elon or the creative destruction he's unleashed on Twitter's platform. Still, there are 250 million subscribers to his social media network, and those who choose to subscribe are much more interested in news and politics (and climate) than any other social platform.

Meta's competitor, Threads, has a comparable number of subscribers, but it makes it abundantly clear that its algorithm de-emphasizes news and politics. Bluesky, where many Twitter defectors have emigrated for a more climate-friendly feed, only has 15 million subscribers globally.

To Tweet Or Not To Tweet

I advise my clients to invest time first on LinkedIn because you can hyper-target your audience with the same kind of content without the blowback of trolls or concern that you've made an enemy at Spaceship X's command center. I also urge my clients to create their own YouTube channel because videos will always grab more eyeballs than online written content. Google owns YouTube, and you always want to stay on its good side, whether or not your company is producing ads.

Keeping your Twitter account comes down to two questions:

How many followers do you have on the platform? If you are concerned that your company has lost a significant share post-presidential election, there are inexpensive tools you can use, like Fedica, to get an accurate count. For about $15/month, they will comb through your follower list so you can scrub inactive and deactivated accounts and show you how many live accounts still remain. Think twice before deactivating your account if it's in the hundreds or thousands.

Do you intend to produce regular content? The 80/20 rule applies to social media content as it applies to life. About 20% of the accounts produce 80% of the content. Content is king on social media platforms, and the algorithms will reward you for filling up feeds with entertaining and informative videos, news, and observations. On the other hand, if your cleantech company posts sporadically or only when someone is attending a conference or winning an award, you can deactivate and make a performative statement. Before you do, let your followers know what other platforms they can find your content.

A Final Bit of Advice, Whether You Stay or Leave Twitter

We live in a disaggregated information world, and it's been a long time since news was dominated by three major networks and the upstart CNN. Your content needs to be where your audience lives, which is why you should never be overly reliant on any platform. Owning the means of distribution, i.e., having your own email list, is the most effective way to keep them in the loop.

The Danger of Silent Startups: Why Limited Communication Limits Your Impact

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 13:50:03 GMT

In the cleantech industry, innovation is only part of the equation. Even if your startup has developed groundbreaking technology, silence can be your greatest liability. Many startups believe that a limited customer base or a few strong partnerships are enough to guarantee success. For instance, some rely solely on big names like Shell or other oil majors to drive their carbon capture solutions. However, this approach can leave your business vulnerable and hinder long-term growth.

Here’s the reality: no matter the size of your audience, consistent and strategic communication is essential. Without it, you risk falling behind competitors, missing valuable opportunities, and losing relevance in an increasingly crowded market.

Why Limited Communication is Risky

1. Over-Reliance on Key Customers: Relying heavily on a handful of clients may seem efficient, but it’s also risky. If none of these customers move forward with your technology or if they opt for a competitor’s solution, your startup faces significant setbacks.

• Example: A carbon capture startup working solely with oil majors for emissions control might miss opportunities to pitch their technology to mid-sized firms, governments, or NGOs seeking similar solutions.

• Risk: A narrow client base ties your success to external decision-making, leaving you with little control over your company’s future.

2. Missed Opportunities for Growth: Regular communication expands your reach and attracts new opportunities. By limiting your outreach, you’re closing the door to potential investors, partnerships, or customers who might see the value in your technology.

• Insight: Companies that maintain a visible and consistent presence through marketing and public relations are more likely to capture attention from untapped audiences.

3. Reduced Brand Visibility: In an industry as competitive as cleantech, staying visible is critical. If you’re not actively communicating, your brand risks being overshadowed by more vocal competitors.

• Takeaway: Consistent communication ensures your startup remains top-of-mind for stakeholders, from potential clients to policymakers and investors.

How Regular Communication Drives Impact

1. Builds Trust with Stakeholders: Investors, customers, and partners need reassurance that your company is active, engaged, and reliable. Consistent updates through newsletters, social media, or email campaigns build confidence in your brand and its capabilities. That said, brevity is key. Pick two or three topics or milestones. There’s a reason phone numbers were created with only seven digits. Neuroscience has shown that’s about the limit of information people can store in short term memory.

2. Attracts Diverse Audiences: While you want to target your messaging to a specific audience, different audiences have different interests. Just because your startup has a letter of intent with a behemoth like 3-M, doesn’t mean your company shouldn’t be on the lookout for other companies that could integrate with your technology.

3. Establishes Thought Leadership: Sharing your expertise through blogs, case studies, or webinars positions your startup as an authority in your niche. Most people won’t read your entire article or watch your entire webinar. That’s not the main goal of content creation, although you want to publish something you’re proud to have attached to your name. Good content boosts your credibility with the audience you already have and makes it easier for those looking for solutions to their problem to find you through a Google search.

Actionable Strategies for Consistent Communication

1. Diversify Your Audience: Co-authoring a blog post with noted investors, industry influencers, or research institutions can often make a larger ripple in your industry as well as help with search engine rankings. Google pushes institutions with high credibility scores to the top of the first page. While there might be more pride in sole authorship, it’s less likely that anyone searching for the solution you proffer will find it through search unless your last name happens to be Einstein.

2. Rinse And Repeat: Think of your content like your favorite playlist. It’s comforting to hear the same song over and over again. Familiarity breeds dopamine in your brain. It’s the same with your audience. Find new ways to repackage the same information. You want to pound one or two ideas about your brand and your technology into their long term memories. While inviting your audience to follow you down disparate rabbit holes can be tempting to show off your scientific chops, it muddles what you need to communicate to gain investors, first customers, or the support of policy makers, all of whom are already bombarded with messages daily.

3. Leverage Multiple Channels: Ensure you’re communicating regularly across platforms:

• Social Media: Share updates and industry insights to engage a broader audience.

• Email Campaigns: Provide consistent, value-driven updates to your stakeholders.

• Webinars and Events: Host discussions that showcase your expertise and innovation.

The Bottom Line: Communication Fuels Growth

Silence is not a strategy—especially for cleantech startups operating in a fast-moving, high-stakes industry. Whether your audience is 10 or 1,000, they need to hear from you regularly. Consistent communication keeps your startup relevant, visible, and positioned for long-term success.

Don’t let limited outreach limit your impact. By diversifying your audience, refining your messaging, and maintaining an active presence, your startup can stand out in the cleantech space and build a foundation for sustainable growth.

Your Clean Technology Isn’t Your Differentiator

michael@cleanupmarketing.com (Michael Grossman) — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 18:39:33 GMT

The speed with which clean technology companies are racing to develop solutions that address climate change by improving energy efficiency, scaling zero or low-carbon energy sources, reusing and recycling water, creating safer chemicals, and building with less harmful materials to our planet is only rivaled by our rising temperatures.

Yet, despite their technical breakthroughs, many early-stage cleantech companies struggle to find customers, investors, and talented staff. Why? Because while technology is table stakes, it’s not enough to differentiate your brand.

Here’s the truth: your clean technology isn’t your differentiator. Instead, how you position and market your innovation is what sets you apart from your industry competitors and a thousand other worthwhile cleantech companies vying for traction and funding

The Myth of Technology as a Differentiator

For many cleantech companies launched by credentialed scientists and engineers, the natural inclination is to rely on their technological innovation as their unique selling point. It’s understandable—years of R&D, groundbreaking discoveries, and patented processes are accomplishments worth celebrating. But here’s the catch: competitors are doing the same thing at the fastest pace in human history.

As a result, technological advancements can quickly become commoditized, and today’s advancement is tomorrow’s laggard. Additionally, customers, investors, and partners often lack the technical expertise to appreciate the nuances of your solution thoroughly. They don’t just want technology; they want impact, value, and trust.

Brands Transcend Moments In History

Unlike ephemeral scientific advancements, a unique brand and story stand the test of time. They appeal to the limbic brain, the lobe where humans have made decisions for the last 200,000 years.

If charted correctly, your brand is unique, not just for the technology but for the story behind it.

The entire discipline of neuroscience has shown how we make decisions, and it’s not based on ingots.

Understanding What a Brand Really Is

A brand is far more than a logo, a catchy tagline, or a sleek website. At its core, a brand is the emotional and psychological connection people have with your company. It is a collection of perceptions—what customers believe about you, how they feel when they interact with you, and what they tell others when you’re not in the room.

For cleantech startups, a brand isn’t just about what you do (your technology); it’s about why you do it and how your solution fits into your customers’ lives or the broader fight against climate change.

Your brand becomes the story people tell themselves about you. It turns a complex technology into a relatable solution. A strong brand:

• Builds trust with investors and customers.

• Simplifies decisions by aligning with values and emotions.

• Stands out in a sea of competitors by making people feel something.

How the Decision-Making Brain Works

When you pitch your cleantech solution, it’s easy to focus on data: efficiency gains, ROI projections, or lab results. However, neuroscience has proven that data alone rarely drives decisions. The human brain, particularly the limbic system, plays a critical role in how we process information and make choices.

The Limbic Brain: Where Decisions Happen

The limbic brain is responsible for our emotions, instincts, and decision-making processes. Unlike the neocortex, which handles logic and language, the limbic brain has no capacity for words—it operates through feelings. This is where stories resonate and where brands come to life.

• When you share a technical spreadsheet, the brain might process it logically, but it often fails to create an emotional connection.

• A good story, however, engages the limbic brain. It creates a feeling—trust, excitement, hope—that makes your technology matter.

According to studies shared on the Neuroscience of Branding, emotional engagement drives decision-making 300% more than logic alone. That’s why successful brands don’t just share facts—they share a narrative.

Why a Story Resonates More Than Data

A well-crafted story taps into universal human experiences and emotions, making your brand memorable and relatable. People don’t remember lab results or charts; they remember stories. Here’s why:

1. Stories Simplify Complexity: Cleantech solutions are often technical and intricate. A good story distills this complexity into something clear and relatable. Instead of saying "Our carbon capture technology increases efficiency by 15%", share how your innovation enables a factory to reduce emissions while saving costs—benefiting both the planet and the bottom line.

2. Stories Create Emotional Bonds: People connect with people, not products. When you tell the story of why you developed your solution, or how it’s impacting communities, you create an emotional bond. Investors and customers aren’t just backing technology—they’re buying into your purpose.

3. Stories Make You Memorable: The brain is wired to remember stories because they engage both logic and emotion. According to research, people remember stories 22 times more than they do facts alone.

Example

Imagine two pitches for a clean water technology:

• Pitch A: "We’ve developed a filtration system that removes 99.9% of contaminants, improving water purity at scale."

• Pitch B: "Our technology turned toxic water in a rural village into safe drinking water for 10,000 families. For the first time, children can drink clean water without fear of disease."

Both convey the same result, but Pitch B tells a story. It resonates emotionally and leaves a lasting impression.

Telling Your Cleantech Story the Right Way

So, how do you craft a story that resonates? Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Start with the Problem: Every good story begins with a problem. What challenge are you solving? Make it relatable and urgent. Frame the issue in a way that your audience can connect to emotionally.

o Example: "Every day, 2 million tons of wastewater pollute our rivers, damaging ecosystems and endangering communities."

2. Introduce Your Solution: Share how your technology solves the problem—but do it in a way that feels human. Don’t overload your audience with technical jargon. Instead, focus on the outcome.

o Example: "Our low-energy water purification system cleans wastewater at half the cost, turning pollution into a resource for agriculture and industry."

3. Show the Impact: Stories are about transformation. How has your technology made a difference in the real world? Use numbers to back up your claims, but make the human impact central.

o Example: "Our solution reduced river pollution by 70% in just six months, revitalizing an entire ecosystem and restoring livelihoods for local farmers."

4. Make it Personal: Add a face to your story. Share testimonials, customer success stories, or your team’s passion for solving this problem. People connect with people, not corporations.

o Example: "Maria, a local farmer, told us, ‘I can finally irrigate my crops without worrying about contaminated water. My family has hope again.’"

5. End with Your Vision: Paint a picture of the better future your company is building. A strong ending inspires and motivates action.

o Example: "Our goal is to eliminate wastewater pollution globally, ensuring clean water for every community and a healthier planet for future generations."

Investors Want Impact, Not Just Technology

Cleantech investors care about results—how your technology solves pressing challenges, improves lives, and generates value. A good story connects those dots. It answers key investor questions:

• Why does this matter?

• Who does it help?

• How is it different?

A story bridges the gap between your innovative technology and the real-world change it creates. It gives investors and customers a reason to believe in you, trust your vision, and choose you over competitors.

Final Thoughts: Your Brand is Your Differentiator

In a world overflowing with technological advancements, your brand—built on a powerful story, a clear purpose, and tangible impact—is what truly sets you apart. Neuroscience proves that humans don’t make decisions based on logic alone; they need to feel something first.

Your clean technology is impressive, but your story is what investors, customers, and partners will remember. Craft it carefully, deliver it authentically, and watch as it turns your innovation into a movement that captures hearts, minds, and the funding you need to scale.

Your technology changes the world, but your brand makes people care. Start telling your story today.

What A Marketer Learned At Biogas Americas

Sun, 19 May 2024 19:39:00 GMT

The congeniality and unpretentiousness of biogas industry professionals are why Biogas Americas has become one of my favorite cleantech conferences. Everyone treats you like a long-lost friend, even if you’re meeting them for the first time, and no one asks where you went to college before deciding if you are worth knowing.

As a result of the openness that pervades among the attendees, it’s much easier to learn what’s really happening in the industry at this moment in time, and here’s what I learned in Savannah last week.

Apps Matter

A good conference app can exponentially increase your exposure and networking opportunities. Fortunately, the American Biogas Council worked with a good developer to create an intuitive app . Features like attendee profiles and platform messaging made it easier to network and make meaningful connections, which is one of the most important benefits of conferences.

Unfortunately, I got the feeling that most attendees didn’t use the app to its fullest potential because they were uncomfortable with the technology, didn’t want to engage in another online platform, or didn’t understand the benefits.

Note to future cleantech conferences: when you send out all of those pre-conference emails, send sole subject emails (repeatedly) featuring how to use the app and describing its benefits.

QR Codes Are (Finally) Catching On

QR codes have become normalized in our society, especially since COVID-19, yet I was pleasantly surprised how many attendees had integrated them into their business cards.

Trading business cards at exhibitions is an old (but trusted) marketing tactic. Still, nobody has the time to manually enter all that data into a usable form after the conference—and neither do the recipients of your business cards.

If you haven’t already, do yourself and your prospects a favor by adding a QR code to your business card. This will make connecting on LinkedIn or entering contact information into a CRM easier.

SWAG Spend Still Missing The Mark

The more neural associations your audience has with your brand, the more likely it is to be stored in their long-term memory (read: they’re less likely to forget about you after the conference ends).

At a conference where anaerobic digesters were front and center, it was refreshing to see many companies adding toy cows to their display tables, which used to only contain branded pens and sales sheets.

That said, there are many ways to capture methane and turn it into biogas, and developers and suppliers could have stood out by using less obvious but more creative symbolism, like United Airlines deployed Oscar the Grouch for trash feedstock (they paid millions for the rights, which may not be in your budget), a pig snout for swine digesters, or a branded compost bin for food digesters to cite just a few examples.

We are a visually oriented species. Logic and our brains’ frontal lobe came much later, and there’s a reason the root word of numbers is ‘numb.’ Visual associations will always trump facts and figures in your audiences’ minds. SWAGs should be eye-catching reminders to easily understood concepts and should be at the forefront of your marketing materials.

Social Media Is Still A Foreign Language For Most

The American Biogas Council created a hashtag #biogasamericas for the conference to help create a community of biogas enthusiasts and supporters. That’s what social media is for—to connect people with common interests who can share information and progress.

I was disappointed that only a handful of the thousand conference attendees used it.

That’s not the fault of the conference organizers. The hashtag was on every display in prominent locations around the venue. The problem is with the perception of social media within the associated industries.

I get it. Twitter isn’t for everyone. If you grew up in the pre-internet era, like a large percentage of the attendees in Savannah, social media is a curiosity, much in the same way rocket ships were fascinating to previous generations. While touching the moon was a moment of national pride, not everyone knew why it was important to go, how it would increase our nation’s prosperity or the community of enthusiasts who were religious about the mission.

If you asked most CEOs there, they couldn’t tell you the value of social media beyond posting pictures of their children on Facebook, and only because it’s more convenient than sending emails with attachments to their family and friends.

So here it is: social media is an extension of your brand. It’s free advertising that draws potential customers into your sales funnel. It puts your brand in front of (potentially) billions of users but can also be targeted to the narrowest of niches, which is why hashtags on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter are so valuable. They allow you to bypass all of the cat videos and faux outrage and communicate with those who share like-minded interests.

Your brand doesn’t have to sell cosmetics to benefit from social media. Sales funnels in cleantech are notoriously long , and your company needs to stay top of mind and ahead of the competition during that entire period. Publishing regular content reminds your audience of your value, even when your team isn’t in the office.

“Our audience is small, and we know them all” is the common response that implies social media wastes time for developers, suppliers, and contractors. Here’s the problem with that belief: even if that’s true (and I don’t think it is), your audience doesn’t wake up every morning thinking about your brand. Like all of us, your audience lives in a stimulus-saturated world during every waking moment. Do you wake up thinking about what you’ll buy that day, that week, or that month? Neither does your audience.

Your project or product isn’t just competing against others in your market space. You are competing for attention. Period.

If you want to stay in your audience’s consciousness, your brand (project or product) needs to be where they live, and today, people live on Google and YouTube. Just as newspapers have struggled to come to terms with their broken business model in a digital age, you have a choice: follow your audience online or go the way of the dead trees that used to be delivered to your front door.

I look forward to seeing everyone in Denver next year!

The post What A Marketer Learned At Biogas Americas appeared first on Michael's Marc .

What I Learned At NREL

Mon, 06 May 2024 21:34:00 GMT

The annual gathering of the most promising early-stage cleantech companies at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Industry Growth Forum is a feast of ideas for those who believe we can stave off the worst impacts of climate change.

While history says 90 percent of these startup companies will never live to see profitability, one hopes they all find a way to bend the laws of economics as creatively as they’ve shaped physics and chemistry into unique value propositions.

Most of these companies aren’t yet thinking about marketing strategy or market positioning, so I spent most of my time walking from display table to display table to satisfy my curiosity, and here’s what I discovered.

Your Science Isn’t Your Story

One of the first questions I always ask a startup founder is, “What problem do you solve?” The answer is illuminating because it tells me whether or not there’s a business case for the technology.

There are many good ways to answer this question, but the wrong way always starts with the words, “We make…”

What you do will not light up the brains of your audience . Try starting with the words “We solve” instead.

The Investors Aren’t Biting

If I heard one universal theme, it was that VCs and equity investors weren’t writing checks. If you left NREL empty-handed, know this:

Cleantech investment has always come in cycles. Since the early 2000s, there have been waves of euphoria followed by fading interest. With the exception of the 2008 economic crash, those waves last about 18 months. Right now, cleantech investment is in a downcycle for two reasons:

If you are one of those cleantech founders who left disappointed, don’t despair. No matter the ingenuity of your technology, fundraising is about relationship building. First-date elopements don’t happen.

This is why regular content marketing is so important. Investors don’t wake up every morning thinking about your company—only you do. Your job is to stay top of mind and to do that; you need to use every tool in your arsenal, including video, social media, search engine optimization, and email updates.

Relationships Aren’t Just About Investors

With checkbooks difficult to pry open, it’s a good time to start building a relationship with your congressional delegation if you haven’t already.

Setting aside the vitriolic food fights that pervade our politics in public, members of Congress, from liberal to conservative, are pro-economic development. You are a taxpayer who pays the salaries of elected officials and their staff, and your company can create hundreds (maybe thousands) of jobs in the states and districts they represent.

They can help you navigate the federal government, which is awash in IRA funding. More importantly, they can be your advocates to secure that funding. A Senator from Wisconsin would rather see federal dollars go to a company in his/her state than to one in Texas, and vice versa.

The DOE and other federal agencies are not apolitical, despite what you may have heard. Funds aren’t solely awarded based on merit. They regularly field calls and letters of support from powerful members of Congress who control their purse strings.

Set up initial meetings with Congressional staff. It’s their job to know what’s happening back home and to keep their member in the loop. One meeting isn’t enough. Just like with VCs and equity funders, you need to keep up a regular line of communication because they are juggling multiple balls daily like you.

Your Competition Isn’t Limited To Your Cleantech Sector

Just because you make membranes for hydrogen electrolyzers doesn’t mean your competition is limited to other companies who make membranes for the hydrogen industry.

Your audiences’ attention is finite, and there were 50 other worthwhile companies at NREL vying for it. Your story can’t be limited to why your particular technology is better than a rival’s technology. It must be more compelling than all other companies seeking attention, validation, and funding. That means it can’t just be about the virtues of your technology.

To succeed, you need to capture the imagination of your audience first so they want to hear more.

I left NREL feeling optimistic that despite financial and political challenges, we are in the good hands of a coterie of climate tech CEOs.

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How To Yield Results From Your Cleantech Award

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 22:59:00 GMT

Climate solutions are a new frontier. That’s why third-party validation is critical to scaling a cleantech company. It’s a sign to potential investors and beta testers they should give your company a second look if they haven’t already found you.

Time Magazine and Biofuels Digest recently named their most impactful and promising greentech companies and industry influentials. Congratulations if you made the list!

In the intervening weeks, I’ve watched countless companies that could benefit from this recognition treat it like a dog that caught a car, wagging its tail but not sure what to do with it.

To be sure, I read several self-congratulatory LinkedIn posts that began with the words, “We were proud…” but that’s a single tactic, and a limited one at that, insufficient to leverage the notoriety.

The Academy Awards Example

Did you ever wonder how Academy Award voters choose the winners? It happens thanks to very scripted, months-long campaigns created by studios who understand that recognition translates into a big bang at the box office.

Academy voters are feted with free movie screenings, full-page ads are placed in the Arts & Leisure Sections of newspapers in New York and Los Angeles, and actors and actresses are sent out on dinner circuits to charm and woo voters. Like political campaigns, there’s a fair amount of skullduggery to be had, but let’s leave that aside for the moment.

The point is that these campaigns are built into movie and studio budgets because the puppet masters understand the value of the “experts” on public opinion.

Just because your cleantech company or project doesn’t have Disney’s budget doesn’t mean the same principle can’t be applied to your quest for success.

Leveraging Recognition For Your Cleantech Startup

As a child, I remember the adage, “Children should not be seen nor heard.” It was lousy parenting advice then and terrible communication advice for your cleantech company.

Your communication pipeline should always be set to “ON.” As a communicator, I scoff at the idea of stealth mode.

Having a website or a company profile on LinkedIn doesn’t qualify as a communication strategy if you aren’t leveraging your space online.

Audit Your Cleantech Company’s Marketing Strategy Before The Awards Season

Is your clean technology or clean energy project ready to be recognized? Here are some litmus test questions to ask your team. Think of it like checking an EV’s battery before buying it.

Who is our target audience ? What do they look like? How old are they? What do they do for a living? What’s their motivation for following us? Do our communication efforts reflect their needs and desires?

How will your target audience know about you, and can they find us online? This is much more than whether or not you have a website. Is your website optimized so Google’s algorithms will lead your audience to find you when looking for a solution?

What’s your unique value proposition ? Can you say something about your cleantech solution that goes beyond saying it’s better, faster, or cheaper than your competitors?

Are you consistently at the forefront of your audiences’ minds? Do you publish content on a planned and regular schedule for your social media and email list audiences, or are you more like a guest who shows up on their doorstep unannounced and out of nowhere?

Are you consistently building relationships with the experts in the industry, or are your connections strictly transactional?

Leveraging Your Planet-Saving Validation

Sticking with our Hollywood motif, screenwriter William Goldman’s famous quote about the movie industry applies equally to those who judge the merits of climate tech companies.

Just because your company or your CEO wasn’t recognized doesn’t mean your idea is destined for the dustbin of history. Likewise, industry plaudits are no guarantee of success.

Still, because our brains are always seeking comfort and risk avoidance is hardwired into our DNA, awards from “experts” lower your audiences’ barrier to entry, especially when it comes to hard-to-comprehend clean technologies.

That’s why your marketing efforts should be in constant campaign mode. You should be ready to leverage that validation when your company receives it.

Congratulations, and let the campaign begin!

Are you interested in learning more about leveraging your cleantech award? Schedule a free, 30-minute Zoom call with me.

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➡️ 5 Ways To Add More Subscribers To Your Cleantech Newsletter

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 23:10:00 GMT

It seems that every company in the cleantech sector has a newsletter. Unfortunately, those newsletters exist mainly as an afterthought, whether the company has a marketing team or not.

If you asked most of the cleantech C-Suite why they have a newsletter, they will either answer, “Because we have to,” or “To share updates on our progress to impress funders, stakeholders, and first customers.”

Both answers show a fundamental misunderstanding about the value of sharing content.

When executed properly, a newsletter is a breadcrumb trail into your company’s sales funnel and a way to keep your prospects engaged along the (very long) sales journey, whether selling your technology, building your project, or luring investors.

Here are five keys to capturing an interested audience more effectively and keeping them engaged.

Make It Visible

Most cleantech companies in their early stages (Seed, Series A, Series B) need a larger audience, yet most of them will place a “Subscribe to our Newsletter” invitation at the bottom of the home page or the top corner.

The average visitor to a website spends less than 15 seconds deciding whether to invest more time navigating the hub of your communications, and eyes follow a “Z” pattern when absorbing a screen. Placing your subscribe box out of their direct line of sight is a cardinal sin because it wastes the opportunity to capture interested parties, which is the primary reason for having a website.

It’s Not A “Newsletter”

When you name something, you give it life. Newsletters connote boring, dry monologues that no one wants to read. Calling them an “update” isn’t much better.

Think like your audience would, and give your content a juicier and more enticing face. Who races to open up something called a newsletter?

What’s the first email you open in the morning, and what separates it from the 50 other emails demanding your immediate attention? Sports, entertainment, family, cat videos? Does your audience even open up emails anymore, or do they go straight to the junk folder in favor of scrolling social media?

In today’s hyper-information-overloaded world, no one wants to read another newsletter. Change the online equation by offering an enticement to subscribe, and light up the limbic brain by making it exclusive.

There’s no ideal way to give your subscribers something in return for their sacred email address, but put yourself in their shoes. It’s not like you can give them 15% off their next electron to sign up. Can they get free online video content? Can they get a virtual tour of your facility? Despite its ubiquity, originality on the internet is scarce. Fill the void.

See It As Part Of Your Sales Funnel

Subscribers are typically beta customers, investors, regulators, and community stakeholders, and your content should be seen as a way to get their buy-in of your clean technology.

There’s a reason Fortune 500 companies continue to spend billions of dollars on marketing and advertising. They want to stay at the top of their target audience’s minds and control their company’s narrative.

The average human brain takes six or seven repetitions before it stores your message in long-term memory lobes, and each message is ephemeral. It lasts only until the next stimulus replaces it. That’s why the years-long sales funnels in cleantech require frequently paced exclusive content to nurture your core community and give them a stake in your success.

Email content goes hand-in-glove with your business development, community outreach, and sales teams . It builds trust and credibility and is another communication touchpoint with your audience over time in a distracted world.

Publish Regularly

Too often, I see growth-stage cleantech companies treat content as a necessary evil, and that’s half true; it is necessary.

There’s no “right” formula for how often your company or project should share content with your email list. Daily is obnoxious, and quarterly is like spitting in the ocean.

It’s easier to publish if you don’t view content through a 20th-century prism. A “newsletter” doesn’t have to be written content (see above). It doesn’t even have to be news.

Today, a panoply of communication options are available: video, audio, live-streaming, etc. If your communication style is not video, audio, or live-streaming, writing 800-1,000 words on a regular schedule can be exhausting. I can guarantee that your audience comprises various learning types, so why limit yourself?

Turn on your video camera and start speaking. Make a Loom video. If you’re ambitious, start a podcast. The only criteria are that it’s interesting and engaging.

Share It On Social Media

One of my personal pet peeves about the cleantech community’s arm’s length relationship with social media is the misconception that no news is good news.

Limiting your posting to conferences and awards isn’t just boring for your audiences; it’s a disincentive to social media’s all-powerful algorithms.

Quite simply, the more you post, the wider the algorithm distributes it. Social media business models (even LinkedIn) are based on keeping people engaged on their platforms so viewers see more ads. When you produce interesting content that viewers stop to read, the algorithm assumes more people will want to see it and behaves accordingly.

People watch videos far more than they read, so work with the platform, not against it. Produce content that inspires and entertains . Often, it’s a better way of connecting with your audience.

As a society, we like our information in bits, not chunks. Share pieces of your newsletter on social media more regularly rather than forcing people to read the entire thing. This will help keep you top of mind and encourage more people to become subscribers, where you can better educate and convert them.

Interested in creating a content strategy for your cleantech company? Set up a free 30-minute consultation.

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Can AI Help Your Cleantech Brand?

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 02:22:00 GMT

We all know a picture is worth a thousand words, but your images bore your audience. Could generating images with AI increase interest for your brand?

Are Your Cleantech Brand’s Images Set To ‘Snooze?’

By definition, if your company is in cleantech/climate tech, your mission is revolutionary. So why would you upend all that work by putting your viewers’ neurons into sleep mode?

Whether it’s posting pictures of your team at the water conference booth or uploading a picture of the CEO speaking at this year’s ‘must attend’ event, the goal of adding visuals that show up on social media feeds is to increase interest in your brand while reinforcing your brand’s unique value proposition.

Unfortunately, most companies in the cleantech space view taking and posting those images as an item to cross off a list rather than an opportunity to enhance and reinforce their brands.

Images Are Opportunities To Sell Your Audience On Your Cleantech Brand

There are dozens of companies making membranes, and lately, everyone is hyping their hydrogen electrolyzer. Because it’s likely your company isn’t the only one in its niche, you have to constantly find ways to stand out beyond better/faster/cheaper.

We are a visual society, so the most direct way to accomplish your attempt to differentiate your brand and your technology is through visual mediums.

Visual Options For Cleantech Companies Are Limited

A company can use a myriad of stock photography vendors to find images to help tell their story, but you’ll often find the same ten or twenty stock images across all of them for your niche industry.

Why?

Stock photography companies make money by selling the same image—over and over again. Cleantech/climate tech industries are extremely specialized. As a result, companies that sell image rights are less likely to recoup their investment when they purchase an original image from a photographer, hence no incentive for refilling their supply.

As a result, cleantech/climate tech websites trying to project the uniqueness of their mission and technology end up looking like kissing cousins to everyone else in their industry.

Your iPhone Is An Evolution

You bought the latest iPhone or Pixel Pro, thinking you could edit the images and backgrounds to give them a little pop. That’s the equivalent of moving from the internal combustion engine to the EV. You’re moving in the right direction and reducing the pollution of sameness everywhere on the internet.

Once upon a time, you had to have an expensive subscription to Adobe and intricate knowledge of how to use Photoshop to light and edit photos. That was then. Today, every smartphone has an accessible mini-suite of editing services for video and photos. You no longer need a Master’s degree in filmmaking from NYU to create high-quality still or video images; you only need the willingness to experiment with filters and lighting.

Social Exists To Share Your Images

The pictures your cleantech company takes of your workers in the warehouse or at an unveiling event will end up on social media, so why aren’t you using the free tools they offer you to make your images stand out?

Social media companies realized long ago their long-term success hinges on keeping people glued to their screens, hence the necessity of editing tools for their users to create to their hearts’ content. Where would cat videos be today without them?

I wish someone would’ve sent the neuroscience memo to the folks at Microsoft because LinkedIn, which is arguably the most crucial social media network for cleantech startups, lags behind its social competitors when it comes to tools to help its users make their images and videos compelling enough to compete with four-legged felines.

Artificial Intelligence: The Next Frontier

The mission of the Starship Enterprise was to go boldly where no man had gone before. Your mission as a cleantech company is not that dissimilar—and artificial intelligence is a tool you can use to bring to life anything you can imagine.

You no longer have to settle for the same stolid images undermining your claim to solve the climate crisis creatively.

You might remember the futuristic animated Disney movie, Wall-E. Today, thanks to Open AI’s DALL-E , the future is in your hands.

For $20/month, your company can subscribe to ChatGPT’s latest upgrade, which comes with an image tool.

Calling DALL-E an enhancement to the current image and video editing tools on the market would be like comparing a staircase to an elevator. If you can imagine it, DALL-E can bring it to life in moments.

Take, for example, this photo of the Wenatchee Valley in Washington State. You can find the same image on countless stock photography websites.

We inserted that image into DALL-E with a command to display how winning the DOE’s hydrogen hub competition could transform the region, and here’s what we got back.

Now, that’s a visual that stands out! The beam of light that stretches from the Wenatchee Valley to the heavens made of hydrogen. You can almost hear the operatic cymbals clash; it’s so powerful.

The viewer’s mind is focused. Mission achieved.

Use AI With Discretion To Help Bolster Your Cleantech Brand Story

Reinforcing your brand and enhancing sharability are the goals of using AI, but the tool only works when a skilled craftsperson uses it.

I worry that AI will be leveraged in the looming 2024 election, turning our feeds into a cesspool of deepfakes that will only serve to unmoor our society from facts and truth even further than we’ve already experienced. And what starts in a political laboratory in a binary election contest has the potential to infect every aspect of our society.

So yes, there are ethical concerns around AI, but that doesn’t mean it should be hermetically sealed from humanity. No technology going back to the invention of the wheel has been turned back because of ethical concerns. It’s up to us to harness that power.

Create to your heart’s content with DALL-E. The mission of your climate tech company is too important to die on the hill of boredom. Utilizing AI doesn’t make you a fabulist. It makes you more compelling, and that’s essential for any company trying to scale and commercialize.

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99 Black Friday Emails In Your Inbox

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 00:30:00 GMT

How Mind-Numbing Emails Hurt Your Brand

I’ve come up with a marketing take on the old camp song, “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” after today. It’s called “99 Black Friday Emails In My Inbox.”

Every year at this time, we get subjected to the email marketing version of this sing along as every company on the planet churns out endlessly repetitive, capitalized and exclamation point-filled headlines announcing their short windows of opportunity for you, the consumer, to take advantage of their once in a lifetime Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

Don’t be surprised if your readers revolt.

Why Creativity Is Central To The Success Of Your Email

While it’s true that the ultimate goal of email marketing is to sell your product, service, or technology, your brand undermines its credibility and gets captured in countless spam folders by skipping over the relationship building and information sharing part of the sales funnel.

In our work with B2B cleantech companies, this is especially crucial because the sales cycles are often 18-24 months long. There is no “Don’t Miss This One Day Sale Of The Year!!!!” missive.

The Cleantech Company Black Friday Email Marketing Mistake

OK, so your climate-focused mission isn’t going to make or break its year the day after Thanksgiving, yet cleantech companies have their own cringeworthy version of the Black Friday email headline. It’s called “ August Newsletter.”

(Groan)

This is what’s known in my business as ‘digital melatonin.’ No one (except possibly your largest funder to see how you’re wasting their money) is going to want to open that email, let alone read its contents. As a result, you missed an opportunity to foster a stronger bond with your audience.

Yours is just another email wasting my time as a recipient, and it negatively impacts my association with your brand.

Email Marketing Metrics

According to a large study by MailChimp , email open rates vary from about 20%-25%, and that’s part of a select group of people who’ve given you permission to email them. That means 75%-80% of recipients are just deleting your crafted missive sight unseen or your email is getting trapped in a spam folder that either doesn’t recognize the recipient has given you permission to email them or the algorithm thinks you belong in the same place as Veruca Salt.

via GIPHY

With open rates that low, why would you put another barrier between you and your audience with a boring headline?

About half of readers open an email based on the subject line alone, and nearly two-thirds say they open an email based on who it’s from.

What Do Email Openers Read?

OK. So they know who you are and care about your solution for humanity. Now what?

Consistent with their training in science and engineering, cleantech companies often send out emails to their subscribers that are long and laden with details on where they spoke, progress they’ve made, and team members they’ve hired. And while these are more than minor accomplishments, it’s not exactly the stuff that triggers a dopamine release for your readers.

In order to keep your audience reading, they have to start reading. That means your subject line and the first line of your email are the most important. For all of the editing and nitpicking that typically go on between the marketing staff and the C-Suite before sending an email, preciously little of it is spent on crafting a compelling opening, which is exactly the opposite of what should happen.

Like peanut butter and jelly, your subject line and first line belong together. They set the table for what’s to follow. First impressions are everything, and nowhere is that truer than with email communications.

A free resource you can use to help you craft better email headlines can be found at SubjectLine.com . Enter your headline, and it will evaluate several metrics in your copy and give you feedback on a 0-100 scale. Here’s what it showed for the headline of this email.

Your Email Should Stick To A Single Topic

In theater and improv, “Yes…and” is taught as a way to help draw in others on stage so they too can become part of the action. In email marketing “yes…and” is deadly.

Subscribers spend an average of 51 seconds reading an email after opening it (that number shrinks every year), and only 19 percent will read through to the bottom.

Whether the goal for your email is a call to action or to share a scientific breakthrough, adding additional topics only serves to cloud the readers’ minds. The more bullet points you add the more likely it is to be seen as a Rorschach ink blot, open to the reader’s interpretation rather leaving them with a clear takeaway.

Is Your Email Consistent With Your Brand?

An email sent from your company is a reflection of the company’s brand just as surely as every other communications touchpoint. If your brand story leans on its uniqueness (as it should) a bland or conformist email undermines your premise just as much as delivering a boring slide presentation that rambles on with nothing to tie it together.

Be Kind To Your Readers

Luckily, Black Friday comes only once each year because peoples’ inboxes are stretched more than their waistlines during the holidays. But whether it’s March or November, try not to stretch your subscribers’ patience with the same headline you used last month…and the month before that, because eventually, nobody cares how many bottles of beer are left on the wall when they all look alike.

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Cleantech Marketing: Why Better, Faster, Cheaper Are Brand Killing Positioning

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 23:31:00 GMT

In the fiercely competitive landscape of cleantech, the success of a marketing strategy often boils down to the art of positioning. In the realm of sustainable solutions, being better, faster, and cheaper might seem like the golden ticket to success. However, in reality, this conventional positioning could actually be the brand’s worst enemy. This article delves deep into the nuances of cleantech marketing, uncovering why relying on the “better, faster, cheaper” mantra can spell disaster for brands.

While it may seem counterintuitive, solely focusing on these attributes can dilute a brand’s uniqueness, leading to a downward spiral of commoditization and eroded brand equity.

Understanding cleantech marketing

For the purpose of this article, I’m limiting the definition of cleantech marketing to B2B companies who have a technology and materials solutions rather than software or off the shelf products sold to consumers. This sector includes a wide range of innovative solutions, such as renewable energy technologies, sustainable transportation, water purification systems, and waste management solutions.

The target audience typically comprises private companies who answer to shareholders, businesses seeking to reduce their carbon footprint, and government entities focused on sustainability initiatives. The direct audiences for these solutions often number less than one thousand, although the indirect audience may well be millions of ratepayers or consumers who want their utilities and product manufacturers to operate more sustainably.

I’m pointing out this particular direct audience because they are keenly interested in “better, faster, cheaper” because it improves their profit margins. But that’s not why they will buy from a nascent cleantech startup.

The Unique Value Proposition In Cleantech Marketing

Cleantech companies must navigate the complexities of marketing their offerings in a way that resonates with environmentally conscious consumers while differentiating themselves from competitors in a crowded marketplace.

The unique value proposition (UVP) or selling proposition (USP) of cleantech offerings includes their ability to address pressing environmental challenges while delivering tangible benefits to end-users. However, effectively communicating these advantages to the target market requires a strategic approach to branding and positioning.

The UVP is based on three criteria:

In my experience teaching cleantech companies how to find their UVP, I’ve found that almost all of them can answer the first question; some of them can answer the second question, and; almost none of them can answer the third question because they are focused on “better, faster, cheaper.”

The impact of positioning in cleantech marketing

Positioning plays a pivotal role in shaping brand identity within the cleantech industry. A well-crafted positioning strategy enables a company to carve out a distinct space in the minds of its target audience, highlighting its unique value proposition and differentiating itself from rivals. In the context of cleantech marketing, positioning extends beyond merely touting the functional benefits of a product or service. It encompasses the alignment of a brand’s core values with an emotional connection that transcends pure utility.

Effective positioning in cleantech marketing involves conveying a compelling narrative that goes beyond the product or service itself. It requires the articulation of a brand story that communicates the company’s commitment to sustainability, innovation, and social responsibility. By doing so, cleantech companies can foster a sense of trust and credibility among consumers who prioritize ethical and ecological considerations in their purchasing decisions.

The dangers of “better, faster, cheaper” positioning

The conventional approach to positioning, which revolves around being better, faster, and cheaper than the competition, can be particularly perilous in the context of cleantech marketing. While these attributes hold undeniable appeal from a cost-effectiveness standpoint, overemphasizing them can inadvertently lead to the commoditization of cleantech offerings. By positioning a product or service solely on the basis of its functional superiority or affordability, a brand risks being perceived as interchangeable with its competitors, eroding its ability to command premium pricing and engendering customer loyalty.

Furthermore, the relentless pursuit of being better, faster, and cheaper can overshadow the broader value proposition of cleantech solutions, undermining their potential to effect meaningful environmental change. In an industry where the overarching goal is to drive sustainability and combat climate change, a myopic focus on cost and performance metrics neglects the deeper impact that cleantech companies aspire to achieve. As a result, brands that succumb to the allure of “better, faster, cheaper” positioning may find themselves embroiled in a race to the bottom, where differentiation becomes elusive and profit margins dwindle.

Communicating value beyond cost-effectiveness

To transcend the pitfalls of “better, faster, cheaper” positioning, cleantech companies must adopt a more holistic approach to communicating their value proposition. This involves reframing the narrative surrounding their offerings to underscore the broader societal and environmental benefits they deliver. Instead of fixating solely on cost savings or performance metrics, brands can emphasize their role in driving positive change and contributing to a more sustainable future.

Effective communication of value in cleantech marketing entails highlighting the intangible benefits that go beyond mere financial considerations. This may encompass showcasing the reduction of carbon emissions, the conservation of natural resources, or the empowerment of communities through the adoption of cleantech solutions. By weaving these narratives into their marketing messaging, cleantech companies can resonate with consumers on a deeper level, tapping into their desire to support initiatives that align with their values and contribute to a greener planet.

Building a sustainable brand identity

At the core of successful cleantech marketing lies the cultivation of a sustainable brand identity that transcends the limitations of conventional positioning. A sustainable brand identity is rooted in a clear articulation of a company’s purpose, values, and vision for a better world. It reflects a commitment to environmental stewardship, ethical business practices, and a genuine desire to drive positive change through innovation and responsible leadership.

Central to building a sustainable brand identity is the alignment of a company’s actions with its stated values. Cleantech companies must demonstrate a steadfast dedication to sustainability across all facets of their operations, whether it pertains to product design, supply chain management, or community engagement. By embodying their values through tangible actions and initiatives, cleantech brands can bolster their credibility and engender trust among consumers who seek authenticity and transparency in the companies they support.

In conclusion, the allure of positioning a cleantech brand as better, faster, and cheaper must be approached with caution. While these attributes hold merit, relying solely on them can lead to brand commoditization and detract from the broader impact that cleantech solutions seek to achieve. By embracing a more nuanced approach to positioning and emphasizing the multifaceted value of their offerings, cleantech companies can carve out a distinctive space in the market and foster enduring connections with an environmentally conscious audience.

Ultimately, the path to sustainable success in cleantech marketing lies in transcending the confines of conventional positioning and embracing a narrative that resonates on both rational and emotional levels, driving meaningful change while building a resilient brand identity that stands the test of time.

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10 Tips For Making Inspiring Climate Tech Marketing Videos

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 08:35:00 GMT

Cleantech companies typically require a certain amount of scientific sophistication to comprehend, and therein lies the conflict with defining its value for an audience. A well-produced video is one of the best ways to bridge that gap.

A Cleantech Company Is More Than Just It’s Science

Ask most cleantech scientists why their idea is destined to scale, and they will likely tell you “because the science works.” Unfortunately, as millions of broke patent holders have discovered over the last couple hundred years, the recipe for success also requires money, timing, necessity, novelty, competitive advantage, and luck . It also needs a compelling story to capture peoples’ imaginations and appeal to their sensibilities.

And there’s no better medium to accomplish that goal than video…if you do it right.

Cleantech Marketing Video Tips

Here are some tips on how to make a video for your cleantech company that appeals to the heart and mind.

As a cleantech company, you have one significant advantage: everyone is on your side. No one is in favor of pollution or climate change. As a fellow human being, your audience is sympathetic. That’s a step businesses in other industries don’t get to take for granted. Bring that goodwill along for the ride, and keep the science, engineering, and financials in a separate place where your prospective audience can go AFTER you’ve pulled on their heartstrings.

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When Should A Startup Get Marketing Help?

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 08:09:00 GMT

Marketers Won’t Bite You

It’s a difficult task for most startups to determine when they need to bring marketing help to the team–and when I say marketing, I don’t mean sales. I’m talking about a vehicle to give your audience a better understanding of what problem the company solves and why the audience should care. This kind of marketing has a targeted audience, usually made up of investors, institutions, industry media and established players. The actual sales cycle comes much later in the marketing process and has a different person like a VP of business development directing it.

Why Does Marketing Fall So Low On The Priority List?

It’s a truism we all start work doing the easy things, the things we know and then work outwards in concentric circles, leaving those things which are mystifying or beyond our comprehension until we can’t ignore them. Scientists focus on the science first; engineers focus on the engineering first, and so on.

Since it’s rare for the founder of a startup to be a branding/marketing specialist, we tend to get less attention in the evolutionary chain. When the focus does turn to us, most founders view it as a cost they should spend as little on as possible–and it’s hard to fault their logic especially if they don’t understand the longer term ROI.

I was on the phone earlier today with a CEO of a startup in the cleantech space which saw the world through that exact lens. Mind you; this was a company which had already raised $25 million. For the few announcements they were willing to make public, they used a newswire service and hoped the phone would ring. The rest they viewed as icing.

It struck me as paradoxical that a company whose technology required a string of components to fit together to operate, was willing to skip that process when it came to creating its brand narrative. Surely, they wouldn’t skimp on the materials they were using or the preciseness of their industrial process. I’m equally sure they sought out and hired qualified professional patent attorneys to submit their IP to the United States Patent Office. When it came to marketing, though, the CEO didn’t connect the value dots.

Use This 20-Question Checklist To Help You

So what is the equation to determine the value of marketing for a company, and do you need to understand the partial derivative of Lambda and Beta to solve it? Here’s an excellent list of questions to ask your colleagues to determine when and how is the best time to invest in branding and marketing resources.

The bottom line is good marketing helps companies form a strong foundation upon which they can build, but ultimately it’s up to you whether you need to invest in marketing at the amoeba stage to create a strong pedigree, or whether you’d rather die off slowly and become fossilized rather than adapt to the landscape.

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Is Your Cleantech Tongue-Tied?

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 08:01:00 GMT

Simplifying Complex Cleantech Ideas With Story

From the dawn of the cleantech era, the environmental movement, really, complex language has been a constant stumbling block to widespread understanding and acceptance of good ideas.

It’s not anyone’s fault; distilling multi-faceted and jargon-laden ideas is hard to do, and there’s always been a giant chasm between those who see the limitlessness of science and engineering, and those who are trying to distill it for the rest of us.

That’s where the power of the story comes in.

Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience shed more light than the traditional left brain vs. right brain dichotomy that’s been the basis of understanding for decades to explain why people think differently. MRI technology has revealed how different parts of the brain “light up” to various stimuli, and what those scientists have found is telling a story is consistently more influential to the human mind than inundating it with facts.

A recent brain imaging study reported in Psychological Science reveals that the regions of the brain that process the sights, sounds, tastes and movement of real life are activated when we’re engrossed in a compelling narrative. That part of the brain is generally called the emotional brain.

If you are a scientist or engineer who relies on the rational part of the brain and are most comfortable speaking in that lingua franca, how do you translate that brilliant stroke of genius?

The answer starts with the audience.

What’s a WIFM?

WIFM is an acronym for What’s In It For Me. That’s the first hurdle a sustainable brand has to answer, and it’s the entree to the emotional brain. If you can’t engage your listener(s) in a benefit or a fear that directly impacts their lives, you will lose them right off the bat. Too often you’ll hear an entrepreneur start a pitch by telling his or her audience how his/her idea will revolutionize an industry followed by a long explanation how their product works.

Instead, try an approach that appeals to their aspirations like the ones below.

Imagine living in a world where your family budget is no longer held hostage to fluctuating gas prices, or;
What if we could use the basic elements of carbon dioxide polluting our air to make cement that cuts the cost of building your house in half?

Fear also is a powerful motivator.

Your home will be submerged in the ocean in 10 years, and no one will insure you anymore. I hope you have some savings.

Regardless of which avenue you choose, there is an immediate connection to your listener, who will want to know more. Compare it to the following oft-trodden path of inventors:

My widget will change the industry because we use a new alloy material that doesn’t break down as easily because there’s less friction. We believe your productivity will increase by 20% and the widget will pay for itself in 24 months.

There’s no contest.

A direct WIFM appeal to the emotional brain beats an abstract, data-laden presentation every time.

A Story Needs To Sustain Interest

But identifying the benefit for your listener is only the first step. Like any good story, you have to have the essential narrative elements if you want to light up their brains.

Driving your plot is the protagonist (the listener/audience) who is on a journey. You, as the communicator (narrator), need to help the protagonist get from where he/she is currently to where he/she wants to go, even if they don’t yet know they need to go there. Through your narration, you reveal the plot while navigating them around the obstacles in their path (antagonists) to achieve their goal.

Everyone learned this classic story structure in school, but it’s a structure that’s rarely evident in environmental marketing. Instead of a gripping tale like Homer’s The Odyssey , we get this kind of advocacy:

We want to plant 1,000 trees. Please come help us or donate money so we can buy more seedlings.

Let it be said I’m in favor of planting tree seedlings. I’m just not moved by that pitch compared to the hundreds of other requests for my attention.

Here’s one from a startup pitch I sat through last year:

Blockchain utility currency can ensure the security of transactions and can be used to securely purchase energy on the grid from any utility in North America.

Nice guy, but he walked out without a dollar (or a bitcoin) in his pocket. Not only couldn’t he identify what’s in it for me, but he couldn’t identify a problem he was solving, an aspiration that made me want to hear more or some imminent fear I would be facing if I didn’t take action immediately.

Now here’s a pitch from a startup I watched last year I thought combined all of the necessary story structure elements.

If you live in a Homeowners’ Association (HOA), you are forced to pay high utility bills because you are not allowed to have solar panels on your roof. (He identified the problem, the protagonist and the antagonist in one sentence.) Our painted on solar roof meets HOA standards and gives you the choice of how to power your home and if you want to be stuck paying high utility bills year after year or if you want to generate your own electricity for free. (Narrates how he’s taking the hero through the minefield to a happy ending, which has a WIFM.)

So remember, the easiest way to simplify your complex cleantech idea and reach your audience’s emotional brain is with the words, “Once upon a time…”

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Focus: Framing Your Brand Mission and Vision

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 08:25:00 GMT

Focus Is About The People You Serve

Ask an climate tech engineer or scientist what the focus of their start up company is, and you’re likely to hear a statement beginning with the words, “we make…”. That shouldn’t be surprising because scientists and engineers invent things.

Ask a CFO what the focus of the company is, and you’re likely to hear the company’s vision and goals, and strategy for generating a specific amount of revenue or even the eventual sale price plus EBIDTA.

The problem with both of these definitions is they spotlight the speaker instead of the audience.

Instead, the focus should be about the people you serve and how it will impact their lives.

When I start working with a new client, I take a page from Jim Collins and ask The Five Whys . By asking “Why is that important?” repeatedly, it forces my clients to change their perspective from looking at themselves in a mirror to looking through a two-way mirror at their audience. Let me use the biomaterials industry as an example.

Me: What’s Your Focus?

Client: We take (insert waste stream) and turn it into a (name your product)

Me: Why Is That Important?

Client: Because we are taking something that would end up in a landfill and repurpose it into something useful.

Me: Why Is That Important?

Client: Because eventually, we are going to run out of (name of the commodity) if we keep on the same path, and our landfills will overflow and cause damage to the environment.

Me: Why Is That Important?

Client: Running out of (name of the commodity) would be catastrophic to the economy, and we can’t keep dumping waste in our oceans.

Me : Why Is That Important?

Client: (Running out of patience with me) Because people need an alternative to (name of the commodity) that isn’t sustainable and polluting our environment.

Me: Why Is That Important?

Client: Because we have a moral obligation to leave a habitable planet for future generations, which requires us to stop using up all of the (name of the commodity) and fouling our land, air, and water.

BINGO!

After five whys, they have turned their perspective 180 degrees. Now they can see their work through the eyes of their audience. They are framing their mission and vision from “something we sell” to “something that will give our customers a better chance to live a more sustainable life. The company is contributing to its customer’s success.

Many in the branding world would use the term “mission” to describe what I’ve helped my client distill, but I prefer using the word “focus” because it’s a hybrid of the mission and the vision.

If your company is pitching investors, the mission is the unmet need for the customer or user who will eventually pay you. If your company is post-revenue, you can talk in the present tense about how you are meeting that need to build your customer/user base. If your clients are institutions, the unmet need might not be directly theirs, but rather their customers who in turn will want to pay the institution for their unmet need.

What you make or build should never be about you. It’s about meeting the needs of a customer who buys or invests in your product because it aligns with their own personal/institutional story.

Everyone doesn’t need your widget, nor does everyone want your widget. But by finding your focus, you will simultaneously winnow down your audience and discover if you have a business model outside of a laboratory.

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Nailing Your Climate Tech Investor Pitch

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 08:08:00 GMT

Is it All About Your Invention?

Over the course of my career in the climate tech industry, I’ve had the opportunity to judge the pitches of early stage cleantech companies. I love getting to participate in these events because of the pastiche of promising ideas which continue to pour out of engineers and entrepreneurs in the sector, and also because of the knowledge I get to absorb from the savvy finance people who are sitting next to me and offering their perspectives on the companies’ potential.

Typically, when an early stage cleantech CEO is pitching angel investors or a VC, they’ll be given 10 minutes to make their best case, 15 at the max, with a few questions after. Knowing how to maximize your story within this timeframe is key to getting a second meeting. That’s when the numbers start to matter. But to get to that second meeting, you first need to share a story that connects with your audience.

Here are a few tips to help keep their interest.

What’s The Problem?

If you can’t identify a compelling problem, you likely don’t have a business. You do not get to pass Go, and you do not get to collect $200. All of the great science and engineering in the world won’t change that equation.

Let me use blockchain as an example. Bitcoin has been a hot topic for the past few years, and it seemed like everyone would jump on the bandwagon, but you can’t just wave the word around like a flag and hope to generate investment in your blockchain scheme. Investors might think it’s cool technology, but before they give a startup a single dollar, they want to know why this is going to make a difference in people’s lives. Beyond the tin-foil hat wearing brigade, why will a large market of people suddenly reject their paper currency used for (in some cases) hundreds of years? What’s the motivation for change unless you believe the entire world economy is going to collapse?

What Do You Do To Make Money?

One of the mistakes I see early stage companies make repeatedly is to assume their audience can connect the dots between the invention and the business. You need to be able to explain concisely in one sentence what your company will do to make money. If that 30-second explanation doesn’t fit within your original ten-minute presentation, you need to take something else out because this is the glue that holds the other pieces together.

What’s Your Market?

To a large extent, all pitches are about change. You have to make the case something is already changing and/or will adapt to inevitable societal evolution. That’s your target market, and you need to be able to quantify it and what percentage of your target market will adopt your solution.

What’s Your Unique Advantage

If your market already has an incumbent, you have to be able to describe your competitive advantage succinctly, whether that be IP, changing technology, changing consumer tastes, lower costs of production, higher efficiency, better utilization of materials, etc.

While market research might not be in the budget at this stage of the company, finding third-party, independent and credible validators is essential.

Tell Them, Tell Them Again, And Remind Them What You Told Them

In a ten-minute span, the average human brain can only absorb a finite amount of information so as you are crafting your presentation decide in advance what the two or three takeaways from your presentation should be, then emphasize and reemphasize those points. Even if those points fall flat with investors at the time of your first pitch, you will have left an impression for future encounters when you won’t have to explain your concept all over again.

The Fewer Slides The Better

People absorb much less information when you distract their attention. Making investors read your slides during an oral presentation means one of those sensory inputs is going to be drowned out. A PowerPoint slide is supposed to enhance what you are saying, not compete with it.

If you garner interest from the first ten minutes, your audience will have questions. That’s when you show them the slides with the bullet points which are focused on just a sliver of the original conversation. You can make them in anticipation of those questions, but don’t add them to your main narrative.

Investors Are Your Friends

I saved this one for last, but when you walk into a conference room to pitch your wares, you have to have the right mindset about the people in the room with you. Angel investors and VC’s in the cleantech sector want to see you succeed because they are altruists by nature. If all they cared about were the ROI, they wouldn’t be investing their funds in cleantech.

They aren’t the enemy. Sometimes, their desire to help you requires them to tear you down first, but the desire to help is genuine. The advice they give you will make your case stronger in the long run so let their words bake into your consciousness, and don’t argue with them. Taking criticism is hard, especially when it’s your baby, but these folks are doing it because they want you to be able to make a business case they can invest in eventually.

Finally…

This list is not meant to be comprehensive, just an unscientific list of some of the major miscues I see young companies make on a regular basis. If you need some help telling your story for investors, let’s connect, I’m always happy to help cleantech startups nail their investor pitch.

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Should Climate Tech Companies Pay For Twitter Subscriptions?

Fri, 05 May 2023 06:41:00 GMT

Does Elon Musk’s Twitter Care About Climate Tech Companies?

You’d think a guy who founded an electric vehicle company and a company that builds solar panels would be all in on helping promote companies pursuing clean technology solutions on one of the world’s largest social media networks, right?

But as the saying goes, “Business is business.”

With “Verified Organizations,” Elon Musk is twisting the arms of Twitter companies to the tune of $1,000 per month to help diversify his revenue stream in exchange for benefits like:

Since my agency works for a number of companies in the climate tech sector, I’ve compiled some data so you can decide whether the investment makes sense for you.

New Numbers Provide Some Insight

Recently, the Business of Apps provided a comprehensive report on the state of Twitter which showed:

If you are into these sorts of things, Global Digital Insights gives a deep dive into Twitter’s business model, ad revenue, and reach. Go get yourself some popcorn and geek out.

Why Do People Even Use Twitter?

Not surprisingly, the largest share of users (42%) said entertainment was the top reason to use the site, while 20% listed “staying informed” as their top reason to use Twitter.

Breaking those numbers down by age is more revealing. While fully 53% of Twitter users aged 18-29 said they use the service foremost for entertainment, only 28% of those aged 50+ were primarily interested in entertainment. Those 50+ users cited “staying informed” (25%) as their top reason to log in to Twitter. Only 15% of those aged 18-29 cited staying informed as their most important reason to scroll.

Having An Account Is Not The Same As Being Active

There’s an old aphorism that 20% of the people will end up doing 80% of the work. That formula certainly holds when it comes to who’s actively using Twitter instead of those using the platform passively.

Almost two-thirds (64%) of Twitter users say they mostly use it to see what others say. In contrast, only 7% say they use it mainly to express their own opinions.

Pew’s analysis from June-September 2021 of over 1,000 Twitter users supported the earlier survey by showing the most active 25% of Twitter users produced 97% of all tweets . Let’s call them the “elites.”

What Kinds Of Content Do Elites Tweet?

What kind of content is the most active 25% sharing?

In Pew’s analysis from June through September 2021, original posts comprised just 14% of tweets from this ‘elite’ cohort of users. Yes, you read that right. Only 14% of the most active 25% of tweeters produce original content. The remaining 86% of their posts were either retweets (49%) or replies to other users (33%).

What does that mean for your brand? There’s a huge opportunity to find a well-educated audience eager for information about the world around them for your original content.

It’s worth noting that Twitter users have achieved higher levels of education than the general public at large. Fully 42% have at least a four-year college degree, and another 26% have some college background, according to Pew and Statista.

Can A Climate Tech Company Use Twitter Effectively?

It can be daunting for a climate tech company to jump on Twitter if the metric for success is follower numbers. Don’t expect to see subscriber numbers like former President Barack Obama (130 million) or Justin Bieber (114 million).

However, follower numbers aren’t the best way to determine success on Twitter. Remember, your brand isn’t supposed to be for everyone; it’s for a select few. And if you want to dominate the Twitter platform, all it takes is diligence and creativity (plus a good story).

Again, 25% of Twitter users produce 97% of the content, and only 14% of those tweets are ‘original’ content. Of the 350,000 tweets generated worldwide every minute, 63,000 are from the U.S., and only 8,800 are original content from the ‘elite cohort.’ Everything else is a retweet or response.

If your company is going to pay for extra Twitter features, it needs to commit to producing original content regularly.

What Kind Of Commitment Is Required To Succeed On Twitter?

There are about 6,000 tweets sent out every second of every day, and the average tweet has a lifespan of 15-20 minutes. Does that mean your brand is shouting into a black hole? Not necessarily.

At an average of 11 minutes per visit, Twitter ranks second only to YouTube in the average duration of social media visits. Multiply those 11 minutes by the number of times high-volume tweeters log into the site daily, which ranges from “once or twice” to “too many times to count.” You have a pretty high correlation of your content meeting the audience.

If you’re unsure when is the best time to tweet, some algorithms can help you plan the optimal time of day and days of the week to tweet to have the most significant reach possible.

And while there’s no hard and fast rule about the exact number of times to tweet per day, high-volume tweeters average 65 tweets per month or slightly more than two times per day.

What’s A Good Number Of Followers?

In social media metrics, engagement is considered the gold standard.

The main difference between ‘elite’ tweeters and the rest of Twitter is the amount of engagement they get with their followers. Elite tweeters get an average of 38 engagements every month, or 456 every year , compared to the Twitter majority, who get zero engagements.

Let me put that into context: 456 engagements with your brand every year means 456 people who are interested in what you are doing, 456 people who are reading about you and rooting for you, 456 people who are ambassadors for your brand and share it with others outside of your circle. Those 456 engagers touch audiences you don’t, and you now have a conduit to their audiences. If each of those engagers has an average of 230 followers, news about your brand reaches 104,880 feeds! And so on.

That’s what effective social media marketing looks like. Your following grows exponentially, as does your reputation.

If you run a B2B climate tech company in an obscure industry like fusion, water remediation, or safer chemicals, 456 nods from colleagues and early adopters are like a standing ovation at the Hollywood Bowl.

What Does Success Look Like?

B2B climate tech companies have a more extended sales funnel and are unlikely to benefit from impulse buying, so Twitter is about building confidence and trust in their brands.

There’s an ancillary benefit to producing original written and video content in the Twitterverse. Remember, 90% of all purchases begin with a search on Google or Bing, and those search results include Twitter content.

Search engine algorithms rank you higher by participating on social media platforms like Twitter that generate engagement. Your company gains online influence. And the more places Google’s spiders find your content, the more you will come to dominate your niche with multiple listings that connote credibility.

So Should I Pay Elon To Promote My Climate Tech Company?

$12,000 per year is a steep price for a climate tech startup to be seen on just one social media platform, especially when you can still tweet on the platform for free. So for most companies, the answer is no. In addition to the price tag, many companies in the sector starve their marketing department, preferring to invest in more engineers. ��

Even without paying Elon, you still have the opportunity to create a ripple in the industry if you commit to producing regular content that centers around a story that connects emotionally to your audience.

However, if your play is to become the dominant brand in your climate tech niche, and you’ve raised a healthy amount of money in your Series A or Series B rounds and are willing to commit the resources to become a Twitter ‘elite’ with wider exposure, try it out for a month or two. You can unsubscribe at any time.

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Can AI Replace All Marketing Tasks?

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 08:39:00 GMT

Here’s the situation: You’re the CEO of a climate-focused startup, and money is always tight.

You’re looking for that first customer to prove your concept, but you need to hire another engineer (or two) to finish your prototype.

You know you need a website built to market the company, but you can’t afford to hire a marketing agency or even a mid-level market manager. A marketing strategy? Positioning? Digital media? That’s something to be covered by the next capital raise.

In the interim, maybe you should look at the new artificial intelligence tool, ChatGPT, to handle those marketing tasks? It contains the entirety of human knowledge and writes so intuitively no reader can tell it wasn’t written by a human being. Best of all, it’s $20/month, a price any startup can afford.

Marketing Problem Solved. Or Is It?

I’ve read the media reports. This generation of artificial intelligence is supposed to push lawyers, marketers, speech writers, and code writers (among others) to the dustbin of history along with chimney sweeps, horse and buggy drivers, and newspaper criers.

Curious to learn if I needed to start preparing for a new career, I went straight to the disrupter of my industry to find out if I was in immediate danger or if I could stave off buying a cheaper brand of tuna for my cat for the foreseeable future.

Me: “Could I replace my marketing staff with ChatGPT?”

ChatGPT: “As an AI language model, ChatGPT is designed to assist with basic communication and automated responses. It cannot replace the creativity, innovation, and strategic planning that comes with having a dedicated marketing staff. ChatGPT can certainly help with certain aspects of marketing such as basic customer service, responding to frequently asked questions, and even generating product descriptions, but it cannot replace the key insights and ideas that a human marketing team can offer. While ChatGPT can certainly be an asset to any marketing team, its abilities are limited compared to the expertise and experience of a human marketing staff.”

There it is: Grammatically correct, and straight from the algorithm’s voice box.

Why Is Marketing Important For Climate Tech Companies?

Painful as it may be to the scientists and engineers reading this, the best technology isn’t guaranteed to win.

For your climate tech company to be successful, it has to solve a problem for a specific set of people, industries, or governments. If they don’t know a solution exists to their problem, your technology will sit on a shelf, no matter how many patents you’ve earned.

Beyond knowing a solution exists, your audience needs to connect with your brand story. Why? Because if competitors don’t already exist, they soon will. If you don’t want to be stuck competing solely on price, which will diminish your profits, your company must have a unique value proposition that no other company can match. That’s how you build brand loyalty, and that’s why your brand charges a premium price.

Can ChatGPT Write A Climate Tech Website?

So, ChatGPT can’t replace a team, but could it complete a task? I asked the platform to write the copy for a climate tech website, and here’s what it returned in under a minute .

Impressive, no? I couldn’t write that in an entire afternoon. But does speed equate with success?

There are three metrics I use to judge whether a marketing effort is successful:

If you feel ChatGPT met those three criteria, congratulations. You just saved your startup valuable time and money.

If AI, for all of its potential, failed those litmus tests, then contact me and let’s build a brand worthy of your climate-focused mission.

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Your Climate Tech Startup Needs A Sharper Story Now In The Wake Of SVB

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 15:39:00 GMT

Financial panics aren’t rational. They are just another demonstration of how numbers alone are an insufficient motivation for investors to act.

Spreadsheets Are No Match For Human Nature

Since the Dutch tulip bubble and crash in the 17th Century, financial markets have ebbed and flowed for irrational reasons. It underlies one of the foundational elements of marketing I share with clients when mapping out a marketing strategy: People are not rational actors.

Why did tulips become so valuable in the first place? They became showpieces for the wealthy, so people quickly jumped on the bandwagon to make a buck. The same culprits, be it flowers, real estate, or banks, are always at play. Out-of-balance supply and demand, coupled with greed.

Sound rational? Hardly.

Climate Tech Marketing Isn’t About The Numbers

When climate tech founders tell me what sets them apart from their competitors is “Our widget is better, simpler, more cost-effective, etc.” I receive it with a healthy dose of skepticism because they are breaking a fundamental law of human nature.

As a startup, there is no demand for your solution or euphoria around your product. You have to create that demand, and digits are an insufficient tool.

Numbers alone aren’t convincing; they don’t connect with the primal parts of our brains where decisions are made , and they don’t account for self-interest by investors or customers.

This isn’t a jeremiad against business plans, proformas or due diligence. It’s just that numbers are the equivalent of dry toast. No one orders it that way. What people want is butter and jam because that’s what excites the taste buds.

The business model is the store-bought bread that serves as your base, but the story delights the senses and draws in demand.

Your investor or end user might be a classically trained scientist or engineer; still, they have the same lobes in their brains. Flouting their emotions in favor of their ‘rational’ brain flies in the face of 10,000 years of human history.

What Does Human Nature Have To Do With Silicon Valley Bank And The Future Of Climate Tech?

In the coming days and weeks, countless analysts will try to pinpoint what caused SVB to crash. I’m not here to debate them.

I can tell you that SVB went under because of an old-fashioned bank rush in 48-72 hours. As a result, there’s one less climate-tech-friendly financial institution today. And in yet another example of fickleness and irrational behavior, the VCs who benefitted from SVB’s openness to climate tech companies were the same ones fueling the panic. For all of their financial savvy, they are subject to the same base emotions as the rest of us, and PowerPoint decks be damned.

What’s next for climate tech financing? If history is any guide, there will be a short period of introspection and risk-averse behavior for those who typically invest in project development and Series A & B level companies . There’s no guarantee other banks with less of a history in climate tech will pick up the slack. Sure, they will still be taking meetings, but the business pitches will be under higher scrutiny because no one wants to be the next cautionary tale.

That means it’s a must for climate tech startups to stir the senses of investors. Don’t bore them with your science. They have their experts validate it.

Instead, find your story, and answer why your customers need your solution so badly that your unique butter and jam could blossom into the next tulip.

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Top 5 Reasons Your Climate Tech Startup Must Create Content

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 09:25:00 GMT

Once upon a time, the Greeks created content, but it was known as lyric verse. The Egyptians created their content on papyrus while the Romans called content epic poems. Today, we lump all of these communication forms together under the guise of “content creation.”

Exceptional oratory, poetry, music and art have defined kingdoms through the ages, but perhaps none have been defined by their content as much as in our current era. In fact, I wonder if Shakespeare was writing Richard III today, if the king wouldn’t have cried, “My kingdom for some content!”

The reality is you can’t be a successful brand today without having your own media channel that operates 24/7, which means you have a lot of programming to do.

And your viewers want it all: long-form content, short-form content, video, podcasts, social media–the list goes on in a never-ending cycle.

Since I work for startup and mid-size cleantech companies who have niche markets, inevitably someone from the company will ask me, “Why do we need to do all of this?” and “How do you calculate an ROI for all of the money we spend producing content?”

It’s a question I enjoy answering because it gives me an opportunity to educate my clients on just why content is king.

Here’s what I tell them:

Content Drives Your Brand .

If brand awareness is the part of the iceberg people can see above the water line, your brand story is what keeps it afloat from below. If you want to keep it from melting away in a warming climate, your business needs to constantly refresh that story in novel ways that align with your brand. It’s a generally accepted rule of thumb people need to see your marketing message seven times before they will take action–and those seven times can’t be spread out over seven years because we live in a saturation bombed media landscape. Regular, exciting and informational content is the best way to achieve that goal.

Who Defines Your Industry?

When a company shares its brand story, the goal should be not only to increase brand awareness but to make its competitors define themselves based on criteria that are most advantageous to you. But if the company doesn’t tell that story regularly and convincingly, the competition will try to move the definition to terrain more favorable to them, a result which ends up costing your company more money than it would have cost to own the key perceptions in the first place.

Shared Values Breed Loyalty.

By continuing to share your story on various channels like social media, it creates a sense of community, and in the long run, it’s far cheaper to retain a customer than obtain a new one. Whether it’s the pitter patter of infotainment on Facebook or an instructional video with someone from the company, content gives the audience a sense of the company’s values and humanity–and that not only leads to loyalty, but it turns them into advocates for your brand.

Cut Out The Middle Man.

The beauty of the Internet is for the first time in human history, brands don’t need an intermediary to deliver their message. By using tools like email marketing and social media, brands can share good news or respond to bad news without any filters with a community that already trusts it.

Help Your Customers Find You.

Google wants to help your customers find you because it makes it more likely people will continue to trust the search engine. By getting more eyeballs, Google can charge more for advertising, so it rewards brands that provide high quality and relevant content. Producing content with keywords aligns with Google’s algorithms, which in turn, will push your brand closer to the top of search queries for the products the company sells.

So what’s the real value of content marketing? Visibility, Loyalty, Positioning and Value Creation. Come to think of it, those are the exact things brands have always sought and paid for, but today the ROI is significantly higher because brands aren’t limited to a 30-second commercial format. The key, though, is to provide enough engaging programming to keep the audience tuned in.

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A Good Cleantech Story Is Worth Its Weight In Gold

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:46:00 GMT

Last year, investment in clean energy technologies topped a trillion dollars for the first time. What’s the secret to tapping into it if you have a cleantech startup? For starters, get your story straight.

Your Story Needs An Answer For This…

Because so many cleantech startups are founded by scientists and engineers, they naturally lean towards focusing their story on their technology. It’s what they’ve devoted their lives to creating.

Not to diminish the accomplishment, but the title of the story isn’t, “Here’s What I Made In The Lab Today.” The title should be, “Here’s The Problem That Needs Solving.”

Why? Because investors are interested in technologies that solve specific problems more than the technology itself.

That opening ‘hook’ is key for funders who are looking for a technology that’s scalable (read: can make lots of money).

What’s The Pain Point Your Clean Technology Solves?

There’s an oft-repeated sales analogy that breaks products into two categories: vitamins and painkillers. Having a ‘vitamin’ technology means you have something that improves people’s lives or helps them live longer. Think flat-screen televisions; nice to have but not critical to survival.

Pain killers, on the other hand, are the kinds of clean technologies that solve a problem that could undermine an industry or one that protects people from a poisonous substance. In other words, without the painkiller people and/or businesses will die.

Your startup story needs to identify that pain point right out of the box and make it as visceral as possible for your potential funders.

That’s the context for the rest of the narrative. If your audience is leaning in, it’s because they realize the enormity of the problem and the profitability of a solution. If your funders don’t understand or don’t care, the rest of your story is likely meaningless to them.

Why Hasn’t It Been Solved?

Investors will eventually conduct their due diligence on your engineering, but the next question that will pique their interest is why hasn’t someone solved this seemingly obvious problem.

Answering this question allows you to give a preamble to your technology because by default it’s your technology that solves the problem. The key here, though, is keeping the focus on your prospective audience, and they are more interested in learning that there IS a solution to their problem rather than what’s inside the box.

What’s Your Differentiator?

If the problem is expensive enough, there’s likely more than one startup focusing its energies on solving it, and at this point in the game, it’s likely that every VC in town has heard about it.

This is why it’s crucial for your cleantech startup to have a unique value proposition (UVP).

What’s that?

A UVP is the strategic advantage that sets your startup apart and above any other startup working on solving the same problem. If your UVP is strong, no one else can overtake your slice of the marketplace.

Think Disney for a second (because it’s such a well-known brand). There are other theme parks in America, and there are other companies that make animated movies and kids’ shows. But that’s not Disney’s UVP. Those are just subsets of the Disney brand.

Disney’s UVP is bringing imagination to life, and they do it better than anyone else. They basically own that marketplace.

Similarly, your cleantech startup UVP isn’t about your technology. It’s about what your technology unlocks, whether it’s an industry, energy efficiency, waste, competitiveness with fossil fuels, etc.

Your IP strategy here is definitely important, but only because it supports the claim of your UVP, which is the same reason why Mickey Mouse, Snow White, and hundreds of other Disney characters, shows, and attractions are trademarked. It guarantees the superiority of their ability to bring imagination to life.

How To Deploy Your Cleantech Story

It’s a golden era for the cleantech industry, but like California miners had their tools in the 19th century, your startup needs the proper tools to tell your story.

Long before you get to pitch your idea to a group of angels or VCs, they’ll be conducting their research on you. That’s why you need a strong brand from the get-go and the tools to deploy it like a professionally written and designed website. It’s always obvious when a founder buys an off-the-shelf WordPress theme and writes the copy—and not in a good way.

Other early-stage key touchpoints that influence funders include:

There are a trillion reasons to get your startup story straight, and you’ll increase your chances of getting a slice of the pie if you give your marketing the time and tools to succeed.

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Search Engine Rankings – Why Cleantech Companies Need To Rank On Search Engines

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 02:02:00 GMT

If you’re a cleantech startup, you need to understand why search engine rankings matter so much. It’s not just about having a good website; it’s also about making sure that people can find you when they type in specific keywords.

Why Do Search Engines Matter For Cleantech Companies?

You can apply the age-old philosophical question about observation versus perception that asks, “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, did it fall?” to cleantech companies in the internet age. In this case, the question would be, “If you launch a cleantech company, and no one can find it online, does your company exist?”

A vast majority of cleantech solutions are sold B2B to high consideration sources, meaning there’s a long sales cycle with many players involved. Here’s how those buyers are making decisions.

So if they aren’t finding you online–and that’s not just limited to your website–you’re eliminated from the process long before the first person-to-person sales contact.

How Search Engines Work

Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines use algorithms to determine where websites appear in search results. These algorithms consider how often a site appears in searches, its popularity, and whether or not other sites link to it.

In general, search engines rank websites based on how relevant they are to a particular keyword. The higher your website ranks for a given keyword, the better chance you have of getting visitors to click through to your site.

The first thing you should know about search engines is that they aren’t always looking for what you want them to look for. Google, for example, doesn’t care if you’re searching for “cleantech” or “green energy.” It cares about whether you’re searching for something related to those terms.

That means that if you want to rank well for “cleantech,” you’ll need to be careful about what you write on your site. You might think that writing about solar panels would help you get improved results, but it won’t. Writing about solar panels could hurt your chances of ranking well because it’s too specific.

On the flip side of the coin, if you aren’t specific enough with the terms on your website, you’re likely to get lost amongst 1,000 other companies and products vying for rankings for the same word. So if you produced solar inverters, but your website focused on the more generic term ‘solar energy,’ Google likely wouldn’t rank you very high for the solution you sell.

How To Improve Your Search Engine Rankings

If you’re looking to improve your website’s ranking, there are several ways to do so. One of the easiest ways is to ensure your website is optimized for mobile devices, so people who visit your website via mobile device see it correctly. While desktop computers still comprise nearly 50% of B2B searches , the trend toward mobile devices–phones and tablets–is clear.

Another thing you can do is optimize your website for specific keywords. Before developing your website, your team needs to conduct SEO research. Google even has a tool called Google Trends to show you what terms generate website traffic so you can write search engine-friendly copy.

When using Google’s tools, you’ll want to look beyond which keywords get the most traffic and focus on those words and phrases that are most related to your solution and have a low competition score. Why? Because even if your website is choc full of high volume keywords, you’re likely competing against large institutions, government agencies, and longtime players in your sector–all of which will be ranked higher than you.

Another step to improving your search engine rankings is creating content relevant to your industry. You want to write articles that answer questions potential customers might ask when searching for information about your product or service. For example, if you sell solar panels, you should be writing blog posts about things like “How does solar power work?” and “What are the benefits of using solar energy?”.

Why Does It Take So Long For My Search Engine Rankings To Improve?

There are two main reasons search engine rankings take so long to improve. What underlies those reasons are that Google, Bing, and Yahoo! provide a service to their customers: relevant search engine information. Users will return to a search engine if they find what they are looking for, and the more clicks on the search engine, the more they can charge for advertising on their network.

Google’s algorithm considers the length of time a website has been active. Newer websites land in what’s called “the sandbox,” while Google’s algorithm determines if your website has valuable content or if it’s a bot or clickbait. Think of it like a probation period.

Google’s algorithm also assigns all websites a domain authority score from 0-100 based on how credible and relevant their algorithm finds your website’s content to a specific search term. The more content you develop and the more websites linking to your site, the more authoritative Google will find your website.

Your website needs to be dynamic and a source of specific information about your cleantech industry niche to get out of the sandbox and develop credibility.

Why Creating Content In Your Cleantech Niche Is Crucial To Being Found Online

Just because your company is a startup, it doesn’t mean you’re relegated to the outer reaches of the internet. Why? Because B2B companies that could be your customers are searching for solutions, not specific companies. 71% of B2B researchers start with a generic search — rather than searching for a particular company.

The glaring mistake I see on most cleantech startup websites is a focus on what the company does instead of what problem it solves for its potential customers . Simply turning the camera towards your audiences’ needs instead of highlighting your team and your technology will improve your search engine rankings.

Providing consistent, high-quality content that’s keyword specific is also critical to your rankings. Focus on creating unique, informative, and helpful content to help people solve their problems.

A blog is the most common method companies will use, though video typically gets far more views than a thousand-word post on a blog and is favored by Google’s algorithm. The more formats you use to connect with your audience, the better. Infographics, video streaming, and podcasts are other ways to improve your rankings while standing out from your competitors.

Displaying this content on social media is where the real value lies for B2B cleantech companies. More than half (53%) of B2B buyers report turning to social media to make buying decisions, with LinkedIn ranking as the most impactful in the sales cycle.

Final Thoughts On Search Engine Optimization for Cleantech Companies

To review, if you want to be heard in the forest of cleantech competition:

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Finding Your White Space Is Key To Your B2B Marketing Strategy

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 22:57:00 GMT

One of the first exercises I run new clients through is testing whether they know what their white space is and how to leverage it to create a marketing strategy.

What Is White Space?

In marketing, white space is a term describing where your brand (not your technology) has an unfair advantage over its competitors.

White space isn’t just being the best of the best in your category. You want to redefine the category so the perception is that your brand is the only option for customers looking for a specific solution.

This concept trips up many cleantech companies because they are trained to compete solely on performance metrics, when in fact those metrics are simply table stakes that get you in the door but don’t close a sale.

Here’s how this outdated and flawed assumption works in the B2B space in cleantech.

We’ve created the world’s best widget > You will buy our widget because it performs better than the old widget and saves you money.

There are numerous flaws in basing your cleantech brand marketing strategy on this assumption, not the least of which is it goes against the grain of how neuroscientists have demonstrated the decision-making process in the human brain .

Why Is White Space Key To Your Long Term Success?

Every market ebbs and flows and technology improvements in the cleantech space are especially rapid.

White space is core to your marketing strategy because your brand needs to stand on something beyond who has the best technology at a given moment in time. In fact, the phrase, white space underlies the concept of “ cornering the market. ”

Your brand shouldn’t try to appeal across the board, just to those who are looking to solve a specific problem. Finding your white space should lead that market directly to your brand as the obvious and only choice for them–whether or not your technology is the top performer in its category.

Once you’ve identified your white space, it should become the focal point for all your digital and non-digital communications because that’s what you want to reinforce. The result should be more targeted leads and a higher sales closing rate.

How To Identify Where You Have An Unassailable Advantage In Your Industry.

In the interview process, I ask clients and customers to define a value curve, that is, what are the key factors on which their industry competes.

Then I ask what perceptions my client owns and which perception their various competitors own.

When we finish, there’s a chart that will look something like this:

As you can see, along the bottom the key factors are listed, and along the left are the ratings. If the participants in the interviews were able to set aside their own biases, there should be one or two factors where your brand places higher than all of your competitors.

Does White Space Matter For Cleantech Companies?

Investment in cleantech runs like a herd. In the last year, financing has been pouring in for industries like fusion energy, green hydrogen, direct air capture, carbon capture and use, and green cement industries–and every one of those industries has multiple startups trying to break from the pack.

Some of the smart money might head towards performance, but an exponentially larger share will go to those companies with a compelling back story and an understanding of where their strengths match up well with a niche market.

Only Half Of Your Marketing Strategy Is Finding Your White Space.

It’s not enough to just identify your white space; you need to find ways to leverage it with an audience who cares. Think of it like a key and a keyhole. As good as each may be, they can only be successful when put together.

A shocking number of cleantech startups end up changing market direction specifically because they didn’t perform the necessary market research to figure out if the audience laid out in their initial business plan would care enough to change their status quo to adopt new technology.

If there’s a misalignment between the white space and your audience, it’s far more efficient to rethink your marketing strategy at the outset than it is to change the mindset of your audience.

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Use These Cleantech Marketing Tactics To Identify Your Ideal Customer

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 18:15:00 GMT

Why Cleantech Marketing Can’t Be Overlooked In Today’s Market

We’ve already discussed the influx of investment dollars into the cleantech sector over the last couple of years. And though savvy cleantech investors understand the patience required for their dollars to yield dividends, that patience isn’t unlimited.

The green economy is still capitalist, and investors know your cleantech business is still a business. That means your startup needs to find customers and sell something your company makes if it’s going to stay in business.

To be profitable, cleantech companies need to be as methodical about their marketing plan as they are about their business plan and scientific and engineering exactness.

Identifying your ideal customer is the foundation of every successful cleantech marketing plan.

Understand Your Cleantech Market.

When I work with a new cleantech client, one of the first exercises I perform is asking all of the different executives in the company (separately) a series of questions that include:

I ask these questions because I want to know if they know why they are in business (as opposed to an ongoing R & D company) and if there is strategic alignment amongst the key executives. Rallying around a single, sharp answer to all these questions is crucial before proceeding to the next step.

Create a Value Proposition That Will Attract Your Ideal Customer.

Before the concrete foundation dries, it needs a unique value proposition to hold it together over the long haul.

What’s a unique value proposition, and why does it matter to cleantech companies? It explains how you will improve your customer’s life in a way that no competitor will ever be able to match. When articulated correctly, it usually expands your market. I’ve written about this subject here , here , and here if you’d like to understand the concept more deeply. If you’d instead frame it as a question to other executives in your company, ask:

Here’s the key to answering those questions correctly. Your focus needs to be from your customer’s perspective , not yours. Instead of telling them what you do, ask what you do FOR THEM.

Know The Wishes and Wants Of Your Ideal Customer

Cleantech startups changing market direction happens as often as the sun rises in the east. Whether that’s because of investors pushing them or executives realizing their IP would be more useful in a different market sector, the result was millions in burned cash because the founders weren’t thinking clearly about the markets their inventions would serve.

Cleantech marketing in the early stages is more about marrying the right UVP to the pain points of the market sector your company wants to serve than building websites, establishing a social media presence, or product packaging.

Your company may have a novel and sustainable solution to a climate or waste problem. Still, if your customers or end users are happy with the status quo, there’s an inevitable mismatch unless you’re willing to lower your prices and cut your profit margin to gain market share. But if that’s the case, is your technology targeting the right market in the first place?

What Pain Point Does Your Cleantech Startup Address?

Another exercise I perform when determining the ideal customer is interviewing potential buyers of a cleantech solution. I’ll ask them questions like

Selling isn’t about your solution. It’s about finding someone else’s problem and giving THEM the solution .

And to be clear, your customers’ pain points might not lead them to a greener or more sustainable solution. The performance of your technology or the cost savings may very well be their reason for buying, while your altruistic notions of making our planet more habitable may be, at best, ancillary to the two entities consummating a transaction.

Understand What Motivates Your Ideal Customer To Act

I often get side-eyed glances from scientists and engineers when I tell them humans make irrational decisions, even other scientists and engineers. Their hair starts smoking when I say that cost and performance are mere table stakes in the sales process.

Neuroscience has made clear what parts of the brain are critical in decision-making. While the frontal lobe separates us from other primates, the limbic (or reptilian) brain lights up the MRIs in laboratory testing.

Human beings are biased, and self-interest is one of the most apparent biases. Before you launch that website, a smart cleantech company will figure out:

Your sales team will need to know the answers to these questions to close deals, but not knowing the answers at the outset of your company’s journey is akin to skipping the pilot facility and going straight to commercialization.

It takes time to understand the buyers’ motivation. I’ve found, for example, in the water reuse industry, better solutions lead to recognition and financial rewards for facility managers, plant managers, and engineers. They are willing to take chances on new and potentially better-performing technologies because it highlights their value to their employers.

The spreadsheet got you in the door, but their limbic brains saw a reward for themselves, and that’s why they signed the contract.

This transactional approach is ultimately driving the billions of dollars of investment into cleantech, so while your raison detre may be saving humanity from extinction, your marketing strategy needs to meet your customers where they live.

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Cleantech Marketing: How To Market Your Cleantech Business

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 18:50:00 GMT

Nascent cleantech companies can no longer rest on their altruistic intentions to build market share. They need savvy marketing strategies to attract some of the $56 billion in venture capital investment poured into the cleantech sector in 2021 if they hope to scale.

“Because we care about the planet” is not a mission statement, a unique value proposition, or a point of differentiation. Twenty-five years ago, maybe, but with 49 countries and one-fifth of the world’s 2,000 largest public companies committed to net zero emissions targets or carbon neutrality, it’s the default for a startup cleantech company to drown in the rising seas.

Last year, over 1,600 cleantech startups received funding in the U.S. alone according to Silicon Valley Bank. Your competition is no longer just the other startups in your industry sector. It’s about finding an emotional chord to connect with those investors above all the other noise. It’s about having a brand story that packs a punch and a marketing strategy that helps you stand out.

Why Is Cleantech Marketing Important?

It’s common wisdom in business that the best product doesn’t always win. It’s even more prescient advice in today’s hyperspeed economy because the best cleantech solution today is likely to be replaced as the metric-judged best solution reasonably quickly.

Science scales so much more rapidly today than at any time in history that the performance of your climate solution is now just table stakes.

No matter how good your science or engineering is, somewhere in the world, there’s a team with a similar solution that’s gunning for the same investment capital as you.

Your only hope is to forge an emotional or (dare I say) irrational connection with your investors and your audience. Enter cleantech marketing.

The Importance Of A Clear Vision And Strategy

It’s essential to understand what your business does and what your company does for others before you start marketing.

Why? Because that’s how you create an emotional connection and build brand loyalty that trumps performance. Your intellectual portfolio (IP) is crucial because it protects your unfair advantage over your competitors, attracts investment, and helps you define or redefine your market. But again, it’s unlikely your waste, water, or emissions solution will be the only one on the market for long.

If you don’t want to compete on the lowest price, you need to start with a clear definition of who your customers are, what problems they face, and how you plan to solve those problems for them. They need to know you are empathetic to them if you want them to identify with you.

Once you have a clear vision of whom you serve and why they should care, you can begin developing a marketing plan that aligns with your goals.

How To Build An Effective Cleantech Marketing Plan

A good cleantech marketing plan is the strategy by which you will achieve your sales goals, including identifying your customer base, developing a message that resonates with them, and building an effective sales funnel digitally and in person.

How To Create A Cleantech Brand Identity

You can recognize Nike by the swoosh and Coca-Cola by its font, but what do you do to stand out if nobody outside your company knows you and your audience consists of only a few thousand end-users or customers?

If you’re looking to start a new cleantech business, you must consider how you’ll brand yourself, everything from what kind of logo you choose to how you market your company online.

A brand identity is the values, beliefs, and personality traits that make up a company’s image. It’s what people think when they hear the name of your business. To build a successful cleantech business, you need to develop a strong brand identity.

Some of the factors that go into creating that identity include:

It’s easy enough to cast this off as unnecessary. Still, it’s important to remember that the brand you create serves as guiding principles for your internal and external audiences. That brand is key to selling to customers and potential recruits who internalize the brand as a reason to work for you.

How To Develop A Cleantech Website

Marketing your company usually begins with a website because it’s often the first touchpoint between a company and its customers . It also serves as the hub of your communications strategy.

Whether you have internal team members who can build a website or a marketing firm writes and designs it for you, there has to be an underlying purpose for its existence other than what’s expected in today’s marketplace.

Before you start, you need to know a few basics like:

For example, a pre-seed stage cleantech company might want only a landing page, a mission statement, and a way to collect names and email addresses while their research matures into a business.

Series A stage companies looking for their first customers need to hook them on the cost savings or other KPIs along with a brand story that helps create a positive first impression.

Series B stage companies need a more fully built website with sales funnels to drive leads.

Here’s the one piece of advice I implore you to follow whatever the stage your cleantech company:

Your website is not about you. It’s about your customers and the problem you solve for them.

Please have everyone on your team associated with website development repeat this like a mantra at least ten times before the first website brainstorming session begins.

Whether you use WordPress, Wix, HTML5, or some other platform, whom you serve is more important than what platform you use to communicate.

Starting The Cleantech Marketing Journey

“We don’t have the money,” or “We’re waiting until we perfect our technology,” are two excuses I often hear from cleantech startups who are more comfortable living in the realms of science or engineering. My stock response is, “Did you wait to go out on a date with your future spouse until you were perfect or had the right amount of money?”

Think of it this way. The investor(s) you are approaching has 50 other emails just like yours in his or her inbox. It’s not your technology or engineering that gets that email opened because all of those emails look alike. Novelty and excitement are the bait, and if you want to reel in dollars to scale, you need a marketing hook.

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Is A Bad Climate Tech Brand Name Holding Your Company Back?

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 05:29:00 GMT

Companies spend massive amounts of money worldwide to increase brand recognition. But what if your brand isn’t recognizable, or worse, what if your brand name makes it difficult for end-users and customers to find you?

I often see this problem in the cleantech/climate tech startup world where the lack of attention to the brand name detail holds great ideas back from their full potential.

What’s A Good Name For A Climate Tech Company?

Cleantech startup founders and early-stage employees work long days, devoting themselves to a selfless mission to keep the planet habitable for humankind. They research meticulously and methodically. They devise and revise tested patent strategies; the engineering tweaks are never-ending.

Generally speaking, nowhere near as much time and effort goes into what to call a climate-facing company or the products and technology it sells. Yet the months and years of toil can be upended, all because the founders chose a bad name.

Here are some ways you can tell if your climatetech company has a bad brand name.

Common Names Kill Clean Tech SEO

Nouns are a person, place, or thing. ( Remember the Schoolhouse Rock melody ?) Rarely are they good company names.

Why? Because the Lords of Google say so.

Google processed 89 billion searches last month , and fifty percent of all product purchases begin with a search. You’re invisible to your audience if you aren’t near the top.

Googling a noun almost ensures you’ll get a list of dictionary definitions that will receive thousands more click-throughs than your company ever will. Their algorithm will give those dictionary definitions a much higher authoritative score than your B2B. As a result, your company will remain pushed down the search engine rankings.

I don’t want to pick on any company in particular, so I’ll use the word ‘climate’ to illustrate my point.

The word ‘climate’ receives over 60,000 searches on Google every month. Currently, the organizations receiving the most clicks for that word include well-known brands and credible sources like National Geographic, NASA, NOAA, and Dictionary.com.

You’d have to be an Olympic pole vaulter to jump over those brands to the top of the search rankings.

My general rule is to avoid common nouns at all costs. You are flouting the search engines, and it shows your brand lacks imagination in a market segment where creativity is a must.

Does Your Brand Hint At What Climate Problem You Solve?

Your cleantech/climate tech brand should be about what you do for your audience, not what you do . A brand name helps your audience decipher why they should purchase from your company.

What’s the difference? Imagine my company produced widgets, and I named my company ‘ABC Widgets.’ The first problem (as I described above) is that your search engine rankings will not be on the first page, and your company will have to pay more for brand recognition.

More pertinent, though, is that the overwhelming number of searches on Google, Bing, and Yahoo are from individuals looking to solve a problem, not looking for a specific brand.

A relevant example would be if an individual were searching for an optometrist. Google’s algorithm would likely return a mixture of local optometrists and terms like ‘glaucoma’ that are diagnosed and treated by optometrists. What’s the connection? Solutions are either in the form of a local specialist who can solve a problem or information on an issue the user needs.

Indeed, search algorithms highlight well-known brands like Nike, Facebook, or Toyota, but it’s improbable that will be the case if you’re ramping up a cleantech company.

Is Your Clean Tech Brand Name Easy To Pronounce?

If you’re running a company with customers in America, your brand needs to follow American phonetic and pronunciation rules (unless you’re in the music business).

Every crossword puzzle expert knows certain letters follow each other. The letter “C,” for example, is either going to be followed by a vowel or the letters “h” or “r” unless it appears at the end of the word, in which case it could precede the letter “k.” You’ll never see “C” followed by a “g” or a “z.”

Trying to be too clever by half, as the Brits say, puts your brand in the litter box for two reasons:

Obscure Clean Tech Scientific Concepts Are Nouns, Not Brands

After years spent working for cleantech brands, I’ve discovered that their founders tended to be the smartest kid in their class throughout childhood and adolescence. They loved communicating with the most intelligent kids in other schools about obscure subjects beyond the grasp of mere mortals. Hence, the scientific conference was born.

Now don’t get me wrong. Without blossoming and nurturing these child prodigies into engineers, chemists, and physicists, we’d have no chance of solving the climate crisis. Lord knows, I certainly didn’t get up early enough in the morning to attend these kinds of classes in college.

But a vital component of a successful brand is that it’s accessible to those who might be intelligent and interested in your work but not necessarily Jeopardy champions in your particular scientific field.

Naming your brand after a faraway galaxy shows your love of space, but it excludes those looking for a solution to their problem but who were less interested in astronomy and were never part of the Star Trek cult.

A climate tech brand will always have a limited appeal beyond a particular niche, to begin with, but why divide the pie even further by making your audience feel inadequate because they aren’t part of the ‘in-crowd who understands the meaning behind the meaning?

Conclusion

The cleantech version of the joke, “Three guys walk into a bar…” is “Three founders with science, engineering, or business backgrounds are sitting around a table trying to come up with a name for their company.”

The difference between them is that one version is a setup for a punchline, while the other leaves your solution to save the planet knocked out.

Like you wouldn’t write a business plan on the back of the napkin or cut back on lab equipment you need to test your thesis, rarely does success result from shortchanging the process for naming your company or products. Branding is foundational and one of the totems upon which the weight of your company will rest.

The good thing is that it’s never too late to rectify the problem. Just as a business plan can change the direction of a company, a name change can better reflect the problem you solve and make it easier for your audience to find you.

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Could Your Brand Be In A Category Of One?

Wed, 04 May 2022 17:17:00 GMT

What’s Redefining A Category?

The banjo wasn’t a new instrument when comedian Steve Martin started playing it as a kid. It had been around for 100 years. Players in the genre became virtuosos, and you can hear it in everything from bluegrass and country to pop/rock.

Likewise, Martin hardly invented the genre of stand-up comedy.

But Martin was the first to use the banjo as a comedic prop. He took two distinct elements and, in the process, created a new category, becoming known as the banjo-playing comedian (and the guy with an arrow through his head).

How Redefining Your Category Benefits Your Brand

Before his banjo-playing stage act, Steve Martin was a successful comedic writer with a gig writing for one of the most successful TV shows— The Smothers Brothers . And while he was very successful as a writer, especially for his age, he was no headliner on his own .

But the moment he picked up his banjo and fastened his arrow on his head, the audience became receptive to his brand of absurdist, highbrow topical humor—and they couldn’t get enough.

He became a category of one. Fame and riches followed.

Brand Redefinition Happens In Clean Tech Too

Biofuels may be biofuels, and batteries may be batteries. Still, both categories have been redefined over time as market leaders jump over the current sideboards that keep an industry in its lane.

Today, we have ethanol blends, renewable diesel, biogas, biomass, biodiesel, and different technologies to make biofuels. Likewise, lithium batteries, zinc batteries, sodium-ion batteries, redox flow batteries, hydrogen storage, and sub-categories dot the energy storage landscape.

These advancements are mind-blowing for a guy who didn’t get beyond high school chemistry, which is precisely the problem; how do you tell the difference, and why should anyone care?

Why Creating A New Clean Tech Category Is So Important

Historians will tell you that one of the fatal mistakes of every fallen empire is trying to fight a two-front war. No matter how powerful, the odds of winning in business or combat when simultaneously fighting multiple opponents is slim.

Too often, companies fight what I call “trench warfare,” trying to gain inches of market share by quibbling over performance percentage advantages and prices with similar technologies.

Lithium battery companies are Example A in this World War I style combat. Don’t get me wrong; I admire the scientists and engineers wringing out incremental performance improvements. Still, how can they ever be successful in the commercial sector when the land beneath them looks like France in 1916?

Meanwhile, it may very well turn out that incremental improvements in lithium batteries are irrelevant because electrons degrade faster than hydrogen gas, a completely different energy storage solution without the burdens associated with lithium mining.

I’m not projecting that the lithium battery storage industry is dead, but rather than compete against others in the same territory, open terrain is where you can gain the most ground.

Heat Pumps Are An Example Of A New Clean Tech Category

The big names in heating and cooling have been touting incremental energy efficiency improvements in their equipment for decades (see: Energy Star ratings ). Still, it’s the heat pump that’s redefining the industry.

Traditional natural gas or electric furnaces can’t compete with heat pumps because standard equipment must use energy to heat the air before circulating it. In contrast, a heat pump is just finding air at the optimal temperature and moving it .

As a result, cost-conscious and environmentally sensitive homeowners and building owners are moving towards the heat pump in droves. The traditional industry leaders are playing catch up to find a banjo and arrow of their own.

Create Your Clean Tech Category For Success

“Don’t follow the crowd” is a cliché because it’s true. The real money will never be in incremental improvements because they are by nature ephemeral.

Don’t be “in” an industry; “be” the industry. Nike didn’t invent the sneaker, but they redefined it as several verticals of athletic shoes. Sugared water existed before Coca-Cola, but they created an entirely new category. Pepsi responded by creating its category— the Un Cola . And it’s just as accurate for cleantech as for consumer products.

I love cleantech startups like ChargerHelp! , which build equity by working with leading EV charging companies to maintain their far-flung network of chargers. They aren’t competing to build faster chargers or place chargers in a grocery store parking lot or multi-family complexes.

They have an open space to define with a simple proposition: Hire us. Your customers will have a more reliable charging network, and you’ll support workforce development in underserved communities. That’s not an easily co-opted value proposition.

A few of my other favorite cleantech startups who are also creating their categories are:

None of these companies pioneered solar energy, electronics recycling, or food waste reuse, but all of them have put a new spin on those topics and have the potential to create niches in which they become the Steve Martin of their brand.

Now, if they can just learn to play the banjo…

The post Could Your Brand Be In A Category Of One? appeared first on Michael's Marc .

How Do You Know If Your Website Is Too Copy Heavy?

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 20:47:00 GMT

Websites Demonstrate The Friction Between Climate Science and Marketing

The creativity manifested through science and engineering in the climate sector is truly remarkable. Yet, the creative inputs of these solutions often stifle the success of all of that work when placed online.

Over the years, I’ve had a ringside view of the pursed expressions on the faces of PhD’s as they see the online results of synthesizing years of their work into what some derisively describe as a digital Happy Meal.

To be clear, I’ve never used the likeness of Ronald McDonald or the Hamburgler on a website I’ve created. The more important point of the “Happy Meal” critique is what it takes to invent technology and what it takes to sell it online stems from two vastly different disciplines that emanate from separate regions of the brain .

Because websites are the central portal for getting customers into your sales funne l, it’s an excellent place to learn whether your exhaustive explanations are getting in the way of growing your brand.

Does Your Clean Tech Website Need Footnotes?

Technically, academic writing and ad copywriting are in the same language, but it’s the equivalent of American English vs. British English. Everyone immediately knows which side of the pond you are from, and whatever you say is going to sound a little off-key to the other.

While the written word is the central focus in academia, it’s only one supporting element on a B2B or B2C website. It contributes to an overall emotional connection to the customer; hence an academic paper has “readers” while a website browser is called a “viewer.”

Website copy can’t overwhelm the overall aesthetic of the brand.

Does Your Website Meet The Tom and Jerry Threshold?

One of the most famous cartoons of all time is Tom and Jerry, and it’s an excellent metaphor for brand consistency and creating a narrative arc. As it relates to an online creation, though, it’s a beautiful example for determining if your website is too copy-heavy.

If you recall (and who doesn’t), one of the novelties of Tom and Jerry’s cat and mouse hijinks was that there was no spoken dialogue. Music existed as a proxy. Different characters had different musical accompaniments, but your brain had to infer the plot through mediums other than the typical one.

Did your brain adapt to the different stimuli? Of course, it did.

Put your website to that same Tom and Jerry test. If you removed all of the copy except for the headlines and left only images, graphics, and video, would your audience have any sense of what you do and why they should care?

Tom and Jerry had no spoken dialogue, but you still understood the plot.

If you can’t, it’s a sign that your website is overly reliant on the copy.

Brands connect on more than the visual association cortex part of the brain. Over a dozen brain regions are associated with just sight , not to mention hearing, taste, or touch. And while it’s true that roughly 65-70 percent of Americans are visual learners , do you really want to exclude the other 30 percent, not to mention those visual learners stimulated by images rather than words?

Climatetech Has A Narrative. Does Your Website?

Our brains are hardwired for stories . Every book you’ve read. Every movie you’ve watched. Every song you’ve heard.

That story is about a character on a journey who eventually grows by overcoming internal or external obstacles. The plot transforms lives.

What’s the story of your company? Does it have a backstory? Does it have a mission? Why should the audience care?

How you created the technology, its features, and the people behind it are one-dimensional, disaggregated silos on separate pages of a website with no connecting thread.

Today’s websites are being geared more and more towards mobile users who are less likely to dig deep into the subpages of a website. So ask yourself, could you grab the emotions of this viewer as they scroll down a single page? Or would you choose to tell them about the materials and code you used?

Every Story Needs A Hero

I’m a child of the 1960s and 70’s era of animation, which wasn’t as technologically sophisticated as today’s CGI, but had characters you could root for, no matter their species. Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny, and Popeye were vastly different protagonists, and each had identifiable personality traits, but they were all unmistakably the heroes.

You aren’t supposed to be the hero of your brand. Your customer is. Your cleantech solution is only a tool for them to achieve their goal, whether using less energy, cleaning up their waste stream, reducing their carbon footprint, etc.

They love you because you help them (the hero) create a better world, not because they are bystanders as you fix the problem for them.

Every Story Needs A Villain

Evil, flawed, sad sacks like Snidely Whiplash, Elmer Fudd, and anyone chased by those meddling kids in the Mystery Machine littered Saturday mornings throughout my childhood. They were easily identifiable through clothing, facial features, and accents.

The villain’s job was to outwit our heroes to carry out their dastardly schemes.

Who is the villain in your climate tech story?

There’s no shortage of villains if you are in the climate tech industry. A successful website identifies them immediately because every story needs dramatic tension.

Unfortunately, too many cleantech companies get the villain of the story wrong. Sure, it’s easy to point the finger at Big Oil, coal companies, China, or SUVs (even though they are all culpable). Shorthand will suffice as an identifier for the audience. Spending precious time hammering home their history of greed and recklessness is redundant and a waste of time, especially since they often aren’t the bad guy in the story of what your company sells.

Does Your Website Answer ‘Who Is The Villain’ For The Audience?

Large majorities of people understand that climate change is a threat , but they either don’t know what they can do about it or, in many cases, turn a blind eye to the solutions because they are too expensive.

Telling the masses they are the morally bankrupt bad people and a disappointment to their children if they don’t immediately purchase your particular technology is not an effective way to encourage them to embrace your brand. Numerous studies have shown that it’s a disincentive to action .

The real villain here is complacency.

No one is in favor of climate change. Your brand’s job is to give them a tool to do something about it. Internal combustion engines burning CO2 will be with us for decades, to use just one example, and even with tax credits, EVs are out of many families’ price range. But what if you could give them an affordable tool to become part of the solution instead of throwing up their hands and saying it’s someone else’s problem?

Now you’ve turned them into the hero of their journey, a journey that has led them to a sage elder–you.

So What’s The Job Of A Climate Tech Website?

Because climate solutions aren’t purchased at your local drugstore over the counter, your climate tech website should focus on bringing the customer into your orbit by shining a bright light that is the solution to their problem.

Give them a chance to dig deeper with further engagement—after their initial brand experience with your website. Those touchpoints could come in the form of social media, video, email, newsletters, etc. , but keep the focal point on your ability to help THEM solve THEIR problem and overcome THEIR obstacles to completing their journey.

And as your marketing team goes about the process, see if the writing meets the Gettysburg Address test. In just 272 words , Abraham Lincoln reinvigorated our national ideals of freedom, justice, and liberty. If Lincoln could do that in under three minutes, how many words do you need to create a loyal customer for your brand?

The post How Do You Know If Your Website Is Too Copy Heavy? appeared first on Michael's Marc .

How To Create A Sales Funnel For Your Climate Tech Company

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 07:40:00 GMT

Your Climate Tech Science Still Has To Sell

What’s the most critical reason your climate tech company has a website?

The answer is the letter “E ,” and here’s why.

The Purpose Of Your Climate Tech Business Is Profit

Whenever I ask a CEO what’s the purpose of their business, they almost always say something related to solving an impossible environmental challenge. The follow-up question is, “How are you going to do that?” which inevitably elicits a response explaining the company’s technology.

Cool, but wrong.

The purpose of your climate tech business is no different from any other business—make money. If your idea isn’t profitable, it will likely end up in the dustbin of history.

While vital to your success, answers A through D are only tactical in nature, whereas profiting (letter E) is your strategy to make our world more sustainable.

What’s A Website’s Purpose For A Climate Tech Company?

A website is the hub of your digital marketing efforts, and the reason for building it is to bring customers/end users into your sales funnel.

A successful website makes viewers realize you have a solution to their particular problem and encourages them to travel further down your sales funnel as they learn more.

Your Climate Tech Website Is About Your Viewer, Not You

Highlighting news articles, awards, and prominent team members on your website validates your solution, but they should never trump the value of your solution for the buyer. Making yourself the focal point of your site only distracts from the user’s action.

The average amount of time spent on a B2B web page is one minute and 22 seconds , and on energy websites, it’s an even more truncated 44-seconds per page . Do you want those precious seconds spent reading news articles from other websites and your internally produced press releases patting yourself on the back?

De-emphasize the About and Media pages, and get to the point.

Get the user to take the next step, whether giving you their contact information or downloading a sales sheet, or setting up a video call to learn more about your solution to their problem.

Make The Sales Objective Clear

If produced correctly, a climate tech website only appeals to a limited audience, to begin with. Search terms like “green hydrogen,” “industrial water membranes,” or “seaweed for cows” aren’t searched very frequently. The only people coming to your site (besides friends, family, and employees) are people who are already interested in solving a particular problem.

Your job is to get them to contact you to sell them a solution, and you need to make that transaction expectation as unambiguous and frictionless as possible.

Calls to action belong on the first panel on the homepage, not an afterthought at the bottom. You still have something to sell even if you are running a pre-revenue start-up in the beta phase. It’s never too early to build your prospect list because those pre-qualified will end up becoming your first sales contracts and help your early-stage fundraising efforts.

Give Them Something Of Value In Exchange For Their Information

If you take nothing else from this post, please heed this piece of advice: Asking someone to subscribe to your email list is neither an effective sales tactic nor a substitute for actual sales funnels. It is a half-hearted, passive-aggressive waste of everyone’s time.

Look, I’m all for content marketing . It’s a successful search engine ranking strategy, and newsletters are valuable for brand recognition and defining your white space, but how many of them are helpful for your sales prospects?

If you want to entice someone into your sales funnel, give them something of value in exchange for their contact information.

People are reluctant to give out their email addresses for the same reason you are. They already have too many non-essential emails to thatch every day.

A Sales Funnel Test Case

What merits something of value? Here’s a recent example from my agency:

Our client has a sales cycle of over a year, and a single successful contract is worth millions of dollars. Developers come to them for their expertise in a very specialized niche.

By producing a free video course (tutorial) viewers download in exchange for their contact information, the company proved their bona fides. It also reduced the business development timeline by answering questions they typically field in meetings from well-financed interests and tire kickers alike.

The follow-up auto-generated emails we send the contacts bring them even deeper into the sales funnel, encouraging them to share more about their needs. Now, when the first meeting happens, our client better understands the prospect’s needs, and the prospect understands how our client adds value.

Producing a video course is just one way to peel the apple, and your giveaway depends on the length of your sales funnel, the size of your sales contracts, and the problem your technology solves.

How To Deploy Marketing Tools Into Your Sales Funnel

Now that you have prospects in your email list who will make you profitable, it’s time to deploy your other assets to reinforce the prospect’s decision to investigate further.

Other digital communication tools like a monthly newsletter, social media, YouTube videos, and long-form blog posts fill in information gaps to reassure the buyer and convince them that they made a wise initial decision. The information you share on these platforms are the tentacles from your website and used for the same purpose–bringing interested parties into your sales funnel (your website).

Here’s where you validate your solution with test results and your talented team. According to neuroscientists, these guarantees persuade the left brain into alignment with the right brain, where the original decision was made.

How Many Touches In A Climate Tech Sales Funnel?

Chances are, if your business is in climate tech, you aren’t selling $19.99 products on QVC. Yes, there are sustainable brands that sell B2C products for under $100, but most climate tech companies are B2B and have a much higher price point.

It’s also likely there’s more than one decision-maker, which is why it’s important to suss that information out of the buyer early in the process, so they have the same experience with your brand.

The marketer’s job is to support the sales team with more points of contact. In return, the sales team can add input, so the content addresses sticking points, which need smoothing over.

There are no perfect numbers of contact points in the sales funnel. Still, an upside of using digital marketing is that you can count each time a contact opens an email, downloads information, reads your newsletter, or watches your video, helping your company refine the sales process.

And voila, before you know it, your climate tech solution is profitable, and your company is changing the world.

The post How To Create A Sales Funnel For Your Climate Tech Company appeared first on Michael's Marc .

How Early Stage Climate Tech Companies Can Pollinate Their Story

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 02:06:00 GMT

Make Your Eco-Friendly Marketing Sprout By Taking These Four Steps

Perhaps the most transparently disingenuous and self-delusional lines I hear when I encounter startup CEOs in the climate tech space is, “We’re in stealth mode.”

News flash: your flight of fancy isn’t fooling anyone.

Beyond the initial friends and family list, your climate tech startup is going to be applying for government grants, pitching for venture capital, and looking for subscribers for your early-stage funding. To be successful in these endeavors, one cannot be surreptitious or clandestine.

More pointedly, in the age of social media, even the CIA can’t keep a secret. Hiding your climate tech IP from competitors while waiting for your sugar daddy’s check is as likely to be successful as trying to create a new democratic nation-state amid a civil war between rival factions who have been at each other’s throats for 1,400 years.

Here are four ways to let the story seed germinate in your mind during your company’s embryonic phase.

Tell Your Story From The Day You Start

When anyone applies for a business license, rents office space, or leases equipment, one of the questions on the order form is “What does your organization do?” Use this opportunity to start the process of refining your story.

These “fill in the box” questions are a perfect primer for brevity. Could you explain what your company does in four to six words? The more you write that way, the easier it will roll off your tongue in your next Zoom call.

Ask Questions First

Continually asking questions is one of the most basic principles of the scientific method to refine your hypothesis. Yet it always amazes me that climate tech founders steeped in science education seem to forget this basic principle when sharing their stories with others.

Here’s a test: Ask five people you know how your business makes a difference in the lives of its customers or end-users. Note: You aren’t asking what your company does. You’re asking what the customer or end-user gets out of the deal they make with you when purchasing your product or technology.

Suppose all five responses are nearly identical; congratulations! You’ve passed the first test of marketing. In all likelihood, though, you will get answers that range from shrugs to what you produce, which is a sign that the revision process has only begun

Eliminate All Verbs

If you’re trying to create a mission or vision statement, delete every word that ends in -ing because here’s what is NOT your mission or vision.

Those are what copywriters call empty words, and they have no place in your elevator schpiel. They are ‘puff out your chest’ words that make the founders feel good but have no bearing on whether your product or technology will be successful.

Your audience doesn’t care how you are making your contraption. Your audience cares how their lives are more manageable, more convenient, less expensive, healthier, etc.

Market to that. Speak to that. Save the puffery for industry awards night.

Story First. Marketing Tools Second.

Too often, climate tech startups treat marketing like a to-do list of items that need to be finished rather than something foundational for the business.

And sometimes, the list goes on from there. Other times not, but regardless, thought needs to precede action.

“Why should people care about us,” is as fundamental to a business as a constitution is to a government. It’s not theory; it’s requisite .

Before you even think about naming your company, there needs to be a reason for its existence. So hold off on the website and all of your other marketing tools until you answer that question.

Know your origin story and refine your value proposition before handing assets to web designers and marketing teams. If they can’t understand why the audience should care, how do you expect them to communicate that vision?

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So What If Your Climate-Saving Solution Is Better?

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 23:15:00 GMT

The Science Alone Won’t Close The Sale.

Would you honestly try to win a competition in the running shoe market against Nike by comparing the amount of sustainable rubber? How about throwing your lower energy use smartphone against Apple?

Climate tech companies face this dilemma every day because so many of them offer similar products and services that already exist in the market, only with better energy efficiency, less waste, zero toxicity, or advanced materials.

And then there are climate tech sectors like the battery storage industry, where many companies are competing in a wide-open market with only the claim of technological superiority as their calling card.

Here’s the problem: whether trying to sell to users or utilities, the rush to hang your hat on your best engineering feature and benefits forces you into a crowded space of competitors and drives up your marketing costs to distinguish yourself.

It’s the rare industry where the launch of a product or service will revolutionize it in perpetuity. Either the technology is replicable or improved by someone else after it’s on the market, or because the industry has large incumbents with loyal customers, a track record, and enough money in the reserve to squash their competition or buy them outright.

Climate tech companies should never base their brand on a particular technological advancement. Selling based on features is anathema to building a brand because the brand lasts while the technology is usually ephemeral. What are you left with when someone in your industry invents something that leapfrogs you?

What’s A Climate-Tech Company To Do?

This is not to say your science and engineering don’t matter. Of course, it does. And your new product should be celebrated as a climate-friendly advancement thanks to the features and benefits you’ve designed.

The disconnect, however, lies in assuming you can only market your product focused on the same key features and benefits, especially when your audience is paying more attention to the problem your product or service solves.

Let’s use the aforementioned Nike and Apple as examples.

Nike didn’t invent the sneaker, but they reinvented it to serve specific markets : runners, basketball players, etc. The materials Nike uses in its shoes aren’t space-age, but they market their shoe as something that can launch your athletic potential into the stratosphere.

Likewise, Apple didn’t invent the smartphone. The Palm Pilot and Blackberry ruled the early aughts with text, email, and calendar applications. Apple’s contribution to the smartphone was adding a camera and marketing the smartphone as a lifestyle device rather than a business tool.

Marketing & Engineering Have Different Audiences

Engineers become engineers because they enjoy solving problems, usually among their peers, and that’s how they put their creativity to work. They are the heroes of the company or institution they work for, and their audience is, by definition, internally focused.

Meanwhile, marketing is about solving other people’s problems, and their creativity makes the audience care. If the audience doesn’t care enough about an issue that your engineers solved, it’s a marketer’s job to either find an audience who does care or find a solution to a problem your product or service solves.

One should not be viewed simply as an extension of the other, and in fact, “this is why I built it” and “this is why people buy it” often lead to conflict between the two disciplines.

Run With The Herd & You’ll Get Trampled

White space is a business term meaning competitive territory only your company can occupy. It can be a space with no competition or a new industry.

Gatorade owned the white space for sports drinks for decades. They weren’t competing against Coca-Cola or Pepsi in the public’s mind. They were an entirely different category and marketed as such.

Gatorade had the same functional benefits as carbonated drinks—quenching thirst— and some of the same ingredients. But the company took one feature, electrolytes (something no one understood at the time), and blew it up into a brand that solved problems for athletes who needed essential nutrients replenished.

The point is that your technology’s unique features and benefits play a supporting role in the larger story about your brand. Apple talks about the number of pixels in their iPhone cameras, but it’s within the context of how those digital dots add color and excitement into the lives of their users.

It pains me to see promising climate tech startups with novel ideas fall into old constructs to sell their solutions where no white space exists. An excellent example in the climate tech space is selling energy efficiency products.

Imagine trying to sell your HVAC invention to the same set of homeowners and building managers already using universally known brands like Trane or Carrier because your technology is ‘more energy-efficient or ‘more climate-friendly.’

While objectively, your new indoor comfort device performs better than the incumbents, there’s no white space because Trane and Carrier already owned those terms for decades and have sold millions of dollars of energy-efficient equipment. And they have a marketing budget that’s 100x yours.

Another construct polluting our atmosphere is the confusion of inputs with outcomes. It’s not new news that the fashion industry is highly toxic to people and the planet, or those household cleaners contain petrochemicals. Still, your climate-friendly brand is much more than a list of plant-based dyes created in a laboratory.

The incumbents can figure out how to change ingredients to mimic your claims, but they can’t change the values alignment between your brand and your customers.

“Better” Is A Subjective Term

Circling back to the headline of this post, “better” is an objective term in the world of science. However, in the worlds of B2B and B2C, it’s devoid of meaning or white space.

Americans hear the word “better” in every sales pitch imaginable, from soup cans to used cars. No one believes it. “Better” is also subjective and bendable, like Play-Doh. Remember this mid-century ad for cigarettes that were “better for you” because they had lower tar and nicotine?

“Better” doesn’t separate you from the crowd, and it doesn’t create an emotional bond with your audience that makes them feel more intelligent, stronger, healthier, or morally superior.

Spending marketing dollars arguing whose lab test results are better is as likely to confuse your audience as Laurel trying to find out from Hardy “Who’s On First?” You can forget about the sale, and your customer won’t find it nearly as funny.

The post So What If Your Climate-Saving Solution Is Better? appeared first on Michael's Marc .

Update, Refresh, Rebrand—Does Your Company Need One?

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 17:50:00 GMT

Lessons From Facebook’s Meta Announcement

What IS A Rebrand?

Rebranding has become a catch-all term for any graphical or positioning change a company goes through, which is unfortunate because distinctions are much more profound than creating a new logo.

While updating your collateral materials is part of the rebranding process, it’s much more foundational.

Think of your home during the holidays as a brand. You might put up lights to celebrate the season and give it more curb appeal. As a result, more people will notice your home (and that’s important), but your home is still about the walls, roof, windows, and the people inside. The lights are only effective if there is somewhere to hang them.

Think of this as a brand refresh

So rebranding is more about what’s core to the business than what it might look like to the casual observer.

Suppose you were to use a building metaphor. In that case, rebranding is tearing down a house, cleaning up the demolition, and then rebuilding from the ground up.

This is a rebrand.

What Isn’t A Rebrand?

People often confuse a rebrand with a brand refresh. The difference? A rebrand is a complete teardown; a refresh is a new coat of paint on the exterior or new carpeting on the inside. The structure doesn’t change.

Some common elements of a brand refresh are:

Did Facebook Rebrand Or Refresh?

Here’s where it gets tricky because Facebook neither tore down the existing framework nor did it add a fresh coat of paint. Instead, they built a monumental structure around the brand while keeping the logo on the front door.

Sometimes, companies outgrow their brand . When Facebook launched in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room, it was a single product that became a conduit to connect to others. As is well chronicled, they’ve bought Instagram, What’s App, Oculus, Onavo, and Beluga since that time. In the process, it’s become a photo, video-sharing, virtual reality, and messenger service. It had outgrown its original footprint and thus the name change.

Google essentially did the same thing in 2015 by becoming Alphabet to evolve from an internet search and advertising company to include business lines like robotics, life sciences, and health care.

Like Facebook is under siege today, Google was under pressure from unhappy investors after its disastrous foray into social media and from the government, which was considering charging the company with antitrust violations when they reconstituted as Alphabet.

So which was it—rebrand or refresh? When a website called ShiftRefresh.com calls it a rebrand, maybe it’s best to call it a facelift.

Is Your Company Trying To Rebrand Or Refresh

Everyone has slightly different definitions of rebranding and refreshing, but here are some standard descriptions to consider before seeking help from branding and marketing professionals.

Rebranding

Refreshing

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Archetypes Trump Analytics

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 18:11:00 GMT

> Sabermetrics didn’t see this coming even though the story is thousands of years old. The underdog. David vs. Goliath. The 1980 U.S. hockey team vs. the U.S.S.R. Erin Brockovich vs. Pacific Gas & Electric.

Our brains are wired for this archetypal story, and the reward is a massive dopamine hit. Even though science can’t explain the outcome, neuroscience explains the reaction. And it never fails.

Story Is Higher In The Brain’s Hierarchy

I mention this today because as baseball cranks out its final weekend of the season and its well-known titans and stocked rosters battle for supremacy heading into October, David has emerged from the far reaches of the Pacific Northwest to stake a claim.

The Seattle Mariners have the worst batting average in baseball. They don’t have a pitcher who’s won even 15 games, let alone the 20-game gold standard. None of their players started in the All-Star game. Yet here they are battling two of the biggest brands in baseball (The Yankees & Red Sox) tied for a spot in the post-season with three games remaining.

This season, the Yankees payroll is $200 million , and the Red Sox aren’t far behind at $180 million. And Seattle’s David? They spent $100 million LESS than Boston

There is no analytic or algorithm to explain the Mariners, and that’s precisely why there’s more dopamine flowing in the far corner of the country than at a Pearl Jam concert. Our brains are wired for archetypal stories.

Tapping Into Brand Archetypes

The same paradigm holds for businesses. Spending lavishly on marketing will usually put you in the upper echelon of your industry, but it doesn’t trigger your audiences’ impulses unless it taps into the limbic brain . It’s why food advertising lingers over a person salivating over their first bite instead of listing ingredients. They aren’t looking to tap into your rational brain; it’s the primal brain they are after.

This appeal to emotion isn’t an isolated incident. Our brains make thousands of decisions every day, and most of them were pre-programmed before we had a prefrontal cortex.

That’s where the archetypes come in. Every culture and society has them. Depending on whom you ask, there are somewhere between seven and 12 classic character archetypes and plotlines.

Maybe your brand isn’t quite as quickly identifiable as the underdog, David; Odysseus’s explorer or rags-to-riches, Cinderella. But I guarantee you that once you clear away all the features and benefits designed for rational appeal, there’s an archetype at the core.

By uncovering your brand archetype , you’ll stand a much better chance of creating a connection to your audience and unleashing a torrent of dopamine that will direct them towards the decision you want them to make.

Which is why no one outside of New York ever wants the Yankees to win.

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Jargon Monoxide Is Suffocating Your Climate Saving Idea

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 22:44:00 GMT

On the FX television show “What We Do In The Shadows,” the audience meets a familiar character: the energy vampire. His name is Colin Robinson, an unassuming, spectacled man whose incessant droning small talk slowly sap those around him of their life force. Colin is a vampire who doesn’t have to bite anyone; he just has to explain mundane details of existence in a stifling monotone until his victims drop.

The subject doesn’t matter. Whether it’s discussions of nuclear fission or a hand-to-hand fight with a bear, Colin Robinson wants to explain the minutiae in the most boring possible way. How the unique design in his boot’s tread allowed him to escape the bear, and how he concluded to buy it. The bolts’ size that’s holding the Hadron collider together, not the application of the engineering miracle.

So ask yourself: are you being your own personal Colin Robinson?

You’re sitting on a ground-breaking piece of technology to solve a huge problem. Maybe it’s a non-toxic version of a widely used industrial chemical or a doubly efficient solar cell. You’ve been bent over a bench in your garage, occasionally shoving a sandwich into your body, and created something truly remarkable.

Like all big problems, you’ve untangled some of the granular issues that snarl-up in a rat king of static progress. People working on similar problems will be impressed, but those usually aren’t the people buying, investing, or using your end product.

Because like tends to congregate with like, there’s a strong temptation to load up your pitch with industry jargon because, well, we all like to impress our friends and colleagues, and we all want to feel smart.

Your idea is probably as excellent as you think it is — after all, it’s a product of tireless hours of work from a person in the know. But if you Robinson it all up, bogging down your audience in technical language, it’s destined to become the Betamax of green tech .

A Mushrooming Case Study

Paul Stamets is a mycologist who works with different strains of mushrooms to do everything from bioremediation of oil-contaminated soil to substitute for leather in clothing and many other industrious jobs suited to mycelia. And while you can find plenty of Stamets’ writing and research in industry journals, you can also find Stamets himself in media vehicles like Joe Rogan’s podcast or commenting on documentaries about mushrooms.

Paul Stamets

The point isn’t for Stamets to ramble on ad nauseum about one mushroom’s particular genome but to talk to the broadest possible audience about the most general possibilities of the mycology revolution of his dreams. He wears a hat made of mushroom leather. He tells Rogan about cleaning up oil spills with mushrooms until he gets Rogan’s signature varsity jock “Whoa” out of him.

In a never-ending media deluge, the venture capital guy you’re trying to reach has probably heard broadly about the problem you’re trying to solve.

Find that hook.

Your Audience Aren’t Your Peers. Deal With It.

Everyone knows, broadly, that industrial-scale farm pesticides are harmful to the soil. Everyone is also broadly aware that we are in a time crunch to reduce carbon emissions. Even CNBC viewers whose gifts are writing checks and stepping on necks know that climate change will cause considerable disruptions in the supply chain.

Understand that while you explain the scientific principles and engineering beauty that went into your cleantech solution, your audience is going to be more focused on crass questions like, “How much will it cost to manufacture?” and “Who’s going to buy it?”

While these people might not be part of your peer group, they are (for better or for worse) your audience. Are you going to use your allotted ten minutes to suck the life out of them, or are you going to do whatever is necessary to connect with them and bring your creation to market?

The Zero Jargon Test

Your goal is to explain your project in a way a five-year-old can understand. See how fast you can convey the broad outline of what problem your invention solves and why it matters to them. On your second attempt, cut 10 seconds off that explanation. On your third pass, slice off ten more. Even better, try to draw a stick figure diagram and have a friend guess.

Did you use any jargon? Probably not. Why? Because by the time you cut your pitch down to elevator size, you’ll realize there’s no room for it in a small, moving compartment packed with the essentials you intuitively know your audience must understand to care.

The truth is ‘jargon’ is a derivative of the French word ‘ego,’ and your attempt to make yourself seem like a more qualified expert by using it will only drown out the value of what you’ve created.

Don’t dare your audience to tune out.

Cleantech Is The Triumph Of Altruism Over Ego

If you’re in cleantech, you’re an altruist at heart. That means you care about other people. So if you want to change their lives for the better, make your pitch more accessible so more people can see themselves in the new world you’re creating.

The post Jargon Monoxide Is Suffocating Your Climate Saving Idea appeared first on Michael's Marc .

Did LinkedIn Sell Its Soul To Fit In?

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 03:11:00 GMT

If It Walks Like A Duck And Quacks Like A Duck, It’s Bad Branding

Whether you call them Stories, Reels, or Fleets, all represent the same idea: short-form video. In the grand tradition of success and repetition that defines the internet landscape, every social platform has now come up with its own version to grab just a few more seconds of user attention.

Even LinkedIn.

Yes, the original home of networking and professional long-form content now has its own short-form video module. If this is your first inkling that it exists, now you know, and you can get back to taking pictures of your cat.

Like watching a politician shaking it on the dais to appeal to the ‘young folk,’ It’s hard to find the reasoning behind LinkedIn’s decision, but easy to cringe at it. Just as Twitter plunged into their own ill-fated “fleets,” LinkedIn isn’t just sinning against originality; they’re forgoing the substance of their brand for the fluff of memes and dance contests.

When has anyone headed straight for LinkedIn — LinkedIn! — for quick, snappy content that distracts you from the real world? When has any professional loosened a tie at 6 pm and thought, “Ah, time to relax with some video content from LinkedIn”?

LinkedIn has always been the Un-Cola of social media, and their users don’t look like America. Fifty percent of LinkedIn users are college graduates, and 44 percent of LinkedIn users take home more than $75,000 per year , well above the US median.

If LinkedIn users have leisure time, they don’t spend it there. In fact, the average LinkedIn user spends a minuscule 17 minutes on LinkedIn per month . Measured against the 53 minutes the average Instagram user spends on that platform per day, LinkedIn isn’t even close.

Here’s a more astonishing fact: 39% of LinkedIn’s 150 million US users (myself included) pay for some premium LinkedIn subscription , meaning even the lowest tier subscribers pay an unbelievable $1.76 per minute if they follow regular user patterns. Miss Cleo wasn’t pulling those numbers even at the height of her phone psychic fame.

Twitter is built around pithy editorializing of the 24/7 news cycle through links and short-form sharing. At the same time, Facebook has morphed into simultaneously the most admired and hated company in America for allowing fact to become subjective while its ad sales soar.

LinkedIn’s purpose is business. It’s a source of leads in the B2B space and the warmest pool in town for job recruiters. The subtext is to get in, make the connections you need, and move on to a more content-rich platform. And its users seem to get it. Only 3 million of LinkedIn’s 700 million users share content weekly.

Don’t get me wrong, if you’re in the B2B space, LinkedIn is the #1 channel to distribute content, and LinkedIn towers over Twitter and Facebook when it comes to driving traffic to blogs , but that’s a different purpose than entertainment.

Continuing an unfortunate 15-year trend, Microsoft (the owners of LinkedIn) let the cool kids get to them, so they jumped off the bridge into an airless and soundless void, and voila, now we have LinkedIn Stories.

Set aside for a moment that LI’s Stories is the social media equivalent of watching your boss’s vacation slide show. The bigger problem is that it’s McDonald’s trying to sell pizza or salads. It’s selling your vegan cookbook exclusively at Cracker Barrel.

It contradicts the brand. It confuses the user. It undermines the purpose. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep your viewers glued to your platform. It’s the basis of the internet business model. This, though, is like offering users a third arm or additional toes. No one is quite sure what to do with it.

It’s not a tactical add-on like Nordstrom improving its e-commerce experience or McDonald’s adding second drive-thru lanes. They jive with how users already use their service, and they make that use better.

LinkedIn positions itself as the grown-up among other social platforms. It’s beautifully boring, the way its users like it. People pay that premium for the distinct absence of fluff.

If LinkedIn wanted snappier, more engaging content for their subscribers, all that video bandwidth would’ve been better spent on an algorithm helping users find more valuable connections and industry-related networking.

Every marketer has said at one point in his/her career, “the cheapest lead is the one who already bought something from you.” Most people put up their resumes and never use the platform except when job hunting — a massive missed opportunity for a platform of professionals in a mobile economy.

This is a captured audience, people! You have 3 million users paying you to allow them the privilege of providing free content for your other 700 million users? This was Medium before Medium.

Instead of trying to steal a few more minutes of screen time from the user from a cheap and tired gimmick, LinkedIn should focus on adding value to the precious 17 minutes they have and expand on that via quality content. Maybe it doesn’t excite your shareholders, but think of it as the Index Fund of social media. Nothing sexy. Just steady growth at a time when the other major platforms are bleeding subscribers to even more vapid platforms.

Strong branding aligns your values with your audience. They believe using your brand not only benefits them, but it tells the world who they are. LinkedIn had an opportunity to step into the void of reliable, authoritative social content sharing, driving up time on site organically.

But they chose a gimmick, which failed as all copycat strategies do. Lesson: Don’t fall into the quicksand of chasing someone else’s good ideas.

Trust your brand identity, your mission, and your audience. Then do that thing to the best of your ability.

The post Did LinkedIn Sell Its Soul To Fit In? appeared first on Michael's Marc .

Is Your Company Ready To Compete For Cleantech Funding?

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 01:46:00 GMT

The Battle for Cleantech Funding

A recent spate of stories in green media suggests a second climate funding boom is in the offing for startups in the cleantech sector. It’s a nice change of pace after funding dried up for almost a decade after the first wave of cleantech investment in the aughts.

Although the curve for cleantech companies might not be as steep in the coming decade for reasons that run the spectrum from public opinion shifting on man-made climate change to maturing technologies, this cluster is still a harder sell for investors.

Cleantech Investing Is Still Risky

While times change, investing fundamentals about risk remain the same . The cleantech/climate tech industry is projected to be worth $4.3 trillion by 2030 , which is more than any other sector. But it’s still a very different beast than software companies, where capital costs are practically nonexistent and startups can create a minimum viable product (MVO) in months. In cleantech, it can take 7 to 10 years to go from proof of concept to a scalable product with a reasonable profit margin.

When the prospect of positive cash flow is dubious and many years away, the stakes for an investor are high. Traditional venture capital firms often steer clear of the cleantech industry because they see the risk of failure as too high to justify. In fact, MIT even published a post-mortem on the cleantech industry in 2016 arguing venture capital simply doesn’t make sense in energy. Ouch!

What’s Driving The Carbon-Free Second Act?

While the enthusiasm of the early 2000s, inspired by Al Gore’s book and documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has long since dissipated, there are signs of a re-emergence. Philanthropists, family foundations, and accelerators are stepping in to fill a void, and donations toward climate change mitigation have doubled since 2015 . Some of those funds are getting funneled into supporting cleantech startups.

Living in the Pacific Northwest, I’m most familiar with the corridor of funds and foundations that run from the Bay Area to Vancouver, B.C., but similar clusters also dot the landscape in both Boston and Chicago where cleantech hubs already existed.

Attracting venture funding isn’t easy. You’ve got to make a credible business case because funds are limited, competition is tough, and only companies that are well-prepared stand a chance.

7 Questions to Ask

Regardless of whether the cohort model, philanthropic funding, or venture capital is right for your climate tech startup, there are seven questions you need to successfully answer before pitching your company to investors. The answers to all of these feed into your overall brand strategy, market positioning, and revenue growth potential.

If you’re unsure what kind of funding best suits your need, I highly recommend you take some time to read a tutorial on different kinds of investing so you don’t burn up your limited time and capital.

1. What is your unique value proposition?

You need to offer something that differs from existing technologies in the market. Understand your competition and be able to explain how and why your offering is unique. Commodity products don’t attract venture capital.

2. What problem are you solving?

If you can’t point to a problem that needs solving, you have a science project, not a company. Being unique and creative is not enough. Who are the people facing this problem? Is it a true pain point for them or a minor inconvenience? What’s preventing a solution?

3. Will people pay to solve the problem?

Unless the customer is motivated to solve the problem, there is no market for what you are offering. This is where urgency comes in. The more urgent the need, the more likely the customer will be inclined to pay to have their problem disappear. If you spell out the value your solution provides, you’ve also got a starting point for pricing.

4. Who is your customer?

Hint: it isn’t everyone or even every company in the industry you’re targeting. The more precisely you can describe your ideal first customer, the better. Just picture one customer who needs your product and explain exactly how it will benefit them. Find more customers like them, and you have a promising business proposition.

5. What is your initial market and how large is it?

Although you may have grand visions of how your product can benefit a dozen separate industries or applications, this is not the time to indulge those fantasies. You need to pick one market and research it thoroughly. Understand the market size, the key players, and the growth potential.

6. What is a realistic ask from a funder?

You need to know how funding works to determine how much money to request and what to offer in return. Although philanthropic investors are sympathetic and want to help, they aren’t giving away handouts. They won’t fund a company unless they see a path to getting a reasonable return on investment (ROI). The funders aren’t being greedy—even philanthropies need sufficient ROI to grow and fund more startups. How can you convince them that the risk/reward equation tips in their favor?

7. How will you survive the Valley of Death?

You need a long-term plan to bridge the so-called Valley of Death and translate your promising idea into a marketable product. How will you spend the money from this initial investment? How will you bring in your next round of money? At what point will revenue be able to offset expenses? Will you be returning in a year or two with another request to fund the same R&D projects or will your business have made progress that will attract additional funding?

All Details Make Jack a Dull Boy

One of the most discordant notes a startup can hit is D sharp, the “D” in this case standing for details, dull, and deadly.

When engineers and scientists communicate with each other, they typically default to how their invention works or what it does. And for other scientists and engineers, distinguishing details are the coin of the realm.

Not so with investors, especially in the cleantech sector. They are there because they want their money to do good while doing well. If you’ve hooked them on the business and environmental rationales, they’ll ask follow up questions or consult trusted scientists and engineers in their own circle to review your assumptions. Leave the equations at home along with your pocket protector.

Refine Your Pitch, Find Your Audience

Once you’ve formulated comprehensive answers to the questions above, you need to distill them down into tightly structured pitches.

Memorize three different pitches lasting two, five, and ten minutes. Why? Because like any showman, you have to be able to read your audience. You should be able to cover your main points in two minutes; the rest depends on the time you are allotted and the number of presentations an investor is asked to review at one sitting.

Over the years, I’ve reminded countless political candidates and cleantech founders that Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was only 273 spoken words. Unless you are saying something more profound, why do you need more than that to communicate an idea?

Focus on the “why” behind your story and appeal to the mutual desire to solve an urgent need.

Research the Funders

How do you find potential funders?

Look for those with a track record of helping companies in your sector, be that transportation, construction, energy, food, water, or the circular economy. Hint: if the organization’s brand image resonates with you, that’s a good sign.

I’m particularly bullish on organizations that providing hands-on training to scientists and engineers on pitching a compelling business case to funders and connecting them with funding opportunities. Here are a few to consider.

Practice, Prepare, Repeat

You have a compelling story and solid data to back it up. You have researched funders and found one or more that are accepting pitches. One last piece of advice: persistence pays. I’ve never heard of a company founder making a single pitch who was then deluged with dollars.

The pitch is part of the process of building relationships and trust. Going back to the beginning of this piece, before an investor is going to blindly throw money on a risky bet that might not pay off for a decade, there will be plenty of probing on their part. Think of it as your annual visit to the doctor. Investors want to see your vitals over a period of time because one data point doesn’t tell a story.

So keep your cholesterol and blood sugar down, and exercise those pitch muscles every day.

The post Is Your Company Ready To Compete For Cleantech Funding? appeared first on Michael's Marc .

COVID Is Changing The Climate Conversation

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 05:58:00 GMT

“The public is the only critic whose opinion means anything at all.”–Mark Twain

Reality Bites…Hard

One of life’s ultimate paradoxes is the nearly impossible task of changing a person’s mind while at the same time public opinion is never static. When it comes to climate change, we exist somewhere in the middle, painfully awaiting large swaths of the general public to accept proven facts.

And while facts are, in the words of John Adams, “stubborn things,” they tend to be inert, which is why they are such weak persuasion tools.

Events, on the other hand, encourage people to see the world through a new lens. Such has been the case when it comes to communicating the dangers of the climate crisis during COVID, according to the recent study published by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication , who reported “Most Americans are convinced that global warming is happening (72% nationally).”

Fake News Beats Climate Facts Because It’s Easier

Science is always a casualty of intuition and bias.

You probably know Mr. Anyone Can Make Up Facts and Mrs. I Live In A Bubble Of Disinformation. They’re cousins of the My Grandpa Smoked Till He Was 90 And Never Got Cancer family.

Yeah, we still have to live with them and nod at their nonsense politely. But here’s the good news: there are fewer and fewer climate deniers than there were 12 months ago. This is not to say a majority of Americans are eagerly advocating for a carbon tax. Still, we can now stop wasting brain space trying to convince the last of the intractable that life on earth is in danger and move on to finding solutions.

One of the takeaways from COVID is that no man is an island, and what happens across the country (or across the world) impacts us all. While no climate scientist or advocate would have ever wished a pandemic to be unleashed to prove a point, this event has moved the needle as much and certainly more quickly than decades of painstaking research.

Facts Are Finally Winning, But That’s Just The Beginning

According to the Yale report , Americans can be placed into six categories when factoring for their opinions about climate change. From most concerned to least concerned, Americans may be “Alarmed,” “Concerned,” “Cautious,” “Disengaged,” “Doubtful,” or “Dismissive.”

A majority (54%) of Americans are Alarmed or Concerned today, with a small minority (18%) falling into the Doubtful or Dismissive categories. Even more promising, that small minority is decreasing every year.

As the report indicates, there has been a significant change in the last five years, with Alarmed Americans doubling and Dismissive Americans halving.

Support for climate solutions is increasing, which is promising because, as the report points out, “Climate change requires strong, coordinated, and sustained action.”

The Climate Crisis Is Knocking At Our Door

In some ways, Americans’ perception of the climate crisis reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit, Land Shark. At the outset, the shark would knock at the door of an unsuspecting victim and announce it was the delivery man from the Chinese restaurant, but the skeptical residents would never open the door. Eventually, after several aliases, the shark would say it was a land shark, and the victim would laugh and open the door, only to be eaten alive.

Just like that routine, ocean warming, tsunamis, hurricanes, and forest fires were a distant concern for most people that could be waived off. But when they opened the door and saw Mount COVID ready to consume them, it became personal.

Corporate America Knows Where Its Bread Is Buttered

The climate change conversation isn’t just changing Americans; it’s also changing corporate America.

For years, the climate crisis was ignored by the biggest and the greediest, but now companies are feeling the push to change.

While oil companies will always act like oil companies (read: Funding Climate Change Deniers), Apple, Ford, McDonald’s, and Microsoft have all committed to net zero emissions by 2050. More are joining the call to take massive action to counter the climate crisis.

Why? Because nothing speaks to corporations more than money and feet. Inside these institutions, educated and tech-savvy workers are increasingly saying no to working for companies whose values are mired in the last century. Attracting talent requires a bottom-up revolution in thinking amongst these behemoths.

Correspondingly, the largest demographic purchasers of consumer goods are the most likely to feel passionately about solving the climate crisis because they are the ones who have to live with the outcome.

Finding your company ‘outed’ in Mother Jones for black hat climate policies can damage fortunes in a matter of hours. In the old selling calculus, the house always won just by having a good product. Today, Millennials and Gen Z will get up and walk away from your table if they don’t like the dealer.

Where The Kids Go, Corporations Will Follow

Will Pastures Be Greener?

Where to from here? I heard former President Obama remind an audience recently that change doesn’t happen overnight and that showing up would make a difference over time.

I have seen plenty of changes in my lifetime. When I was born, it was still illegal for an interracial couple to be married in most countries, and homosexuality was a crime in many parts of the “civilized” world. Looking back, we wonder how our forefathers even held such views.

While we aren’t going to decarbonize overnight, public opinion is driving change to act and has taken the (zero emissions) car out of neutral. Americans are demanding solutions, and corporations are heeding the call. Our politicians, grudgingly or not, are soon to follow.

It might have taken a pandemic to shake America out of our climate lethargy, but the good news is, over time, change only moves in one direction–forward.

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Marketing With Your Connections During Covid

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 03:32:00 GMT

Greetings fellow two-dimensional creatures:

With all of our interactions flattened into a rectangle, you may find yourself, like me, missing the human interaction that accompanies marketing and networking.

“Adapt or die,” said Oakland A’s General Manager, Billy Beane, in one of my favorite sports movies, “Moneyball.” And, whether you like it or not, you’ve had six months to build a bridge and get over your trepidation about online marketing to replace your three-dimensional routine.

Yes, it’s true: nothing can substitute for in-person meetings complete with inflection and micro-expressions when it comes to building business relationships. But if you hide in a cave until the pandemic is over, like the apocalyptic nuclear war movies of the 1950s , you are going to find the world moved on without you.

How To Remain True To Yourself Marketing Online

No one would ever say that a Zoom meeting, sterilized of all the IRL world’s subtlety, ever comes close to the in-person meeting.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t make meaningful, fruitful connections and extend your brand. In fact, now is the best time there’s ever been to overhaul your digital communications.

This is especially prudent for businesses steeped in esoteric sciences with scant online presences, like many of the ones I work with in climate tech.

People Buy From People

We all know people are starved for human contact. I’d seriously consider cutting my arm off to go to a ball game with 40-50,000 people screaming their heads off right about now.

The last baseball game I saw in person. It seems like forever.

Introverts aside, when you are on Zoom with your bedroom closet opened in the background, you have a unique opportunity to share something with colleagues, funders, prospects, etc., that otherwise would’ve had no context to be shared. The same goes if you’ve created a virtual background. Say something about yourself that will pique the interest of others and launch a genuine conversation instead of just a checklist.

COVID has eliminated your commute and added more productive time to your day, so languish in it for a few moments by allowing those calls to occasionally veer off-topic. Even better, make sure to have a token personal item with you before you launch the call as a way to casually bring your individuality and personal brand to the meeting . Wear a hat with your college insignia or your favorite team, for example, or position your favorite piece of wall art inside the camera frame.

My cat and my one piece of college memorabilia

Buyers are always going to do their due-diligence, socially distanced or not. Still, there are biases built into due diligence, like personal connections, that can give you the benefit of the doubt.

Social Media Is Supposed To Be…Social

The average adult knows between 20,000 and 30,000 words, but you’d never know it by the blandness of most social media posts. I feel strongly that all offenders should get kicked off Twitter Island for starting posts with, “I/We are so excited to…”

Talk about a dull digital conversationalist. Would you ever talk that way to someone at a conference or a cocktail party? No? Then why do you think your social media followers would want to read it?

Moreover, have you ever been unable to get away from an insufferable bore who goes on and on while you shuffle your feet? Now you know what it feels like to follow your tedious declarative statements on social media about the progress your company is making. Sure, I might give it a thumbs up, but you’ve blocked me at the rope line from having a dialogue.

Turn off the somnambulant auto-posting and shove the robots out of the driver’s seat for a while.

Social media channels have different audiences and styles. You’ve got to tailor your usage, and it’s a perfect time to show a little vulnerability as we all try to communicate our human struggles and triumphs while just hanging on through all of this.

Here are just a few suggestions on how to deploy each of the major social networks that don’t require you to dance, sing, or lip-synch on camera. As with anything on the Internet, display cats for more interaction.

LinkedIn:

Twitter:

Facebook:

YouTube:

Zoom:

5 Reasons Your B2B Needs A Brand

Mon, 07 Sep 2020 22:06:00 GMT

Does Every Size Company Need A Brand?

Recently, the CEO of a growth-stage cleantech company told me branding and marketing wasn’t something his company needed to do because their niche was so small that they already had relationships with most of the companies in their industry. “Decisions get made on price and engineering,” he said. “Nothing else matters.”

Politely, I demurred and asked him, “Did any of your competitors go to school with these engineers? Are any of these engineers somebody’s brother-in-law? Did they work on a previous project together at another company?”

Grudging silence.

I don’t mean to single out this particular CEO for looking at a situation the way most scientists and engineers look at solving a problem. These are analytical people, and without them, humanity wouldn’t have experienced the progress it has seen. But the reality is, businesses are made up of people, and people have biases when it comes to decisions about who to buy and sell from.

Creative Storytelling Overcomes Rational Decision Making

A brand is a story; a story about your business. Your customers either buy into that story, or they won’t buy into it based on their environment, their experience, and their beliefs. Yes, it’s true: you need to solve a problem. But then what? Nobody wants to compete on price, and that’s where your brand comes in.

Brands Are 360 Degree Experiences

Often-times, I hear people confuse brand recognition with a brand. Sure, it’s nice if you’re a famous B2B brand like Intel that advertises on national television. Chance is though, you don’t have that much money, nor is your audience that broad. In a niche B2B market, think of your brand as both the exterior and interior of your home. How it’s designed and furnished will tell your audience a good deal about your product.

Confusion Is A Brand Killer

Every company has a website and other digital marketing tools on display. But what do those tools say about your company and your product? Does it align with what you’re trying to sell? If your B2B is cutting edge, but your website looks like it was an afterthought, you’ve caused conflict in the minds of your audience, and confusion is a killer.

Lift The Corporate Veil

Just about every successful company knows the preeminence of transmitting its values to its customers. Otherwise, its just a nameless and faceless building with random people inside it working on things no one on the outside cares about.

So why are you in business, and why should it matter to your audience? Hint: the answer is usually not about the product you sell.

Why Does Brand Matter?

If all of this sounds like gobbledegook and double-speak to you, here are five good ROI-based reasons you need a solid brand story.

The post 5 Reasons Your B2B Needs A Brand appeared first on Michael's Marc .

Should Green Brands Be Colorblind?

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 23:15:00 GMT

Does your green brand meet its mission if it doesn’t appeal to all races?

Dear Michael’s Marc: I’ve always considered myself an ally for equality, regardless of a person’s color, religion, gender, etc. All human beings deserve respect, regardless of the color of their skin. But as I’ve been taking stock after the murder of yet another black man by a white police officer, I’m feeling like a guilty, over-educated, white liberal more than ever. You see, my company, the Ajax Brand, has an almost entirely white audience. We believe everyone, regardless of color, has a stake in the future of our planet. Still, our premium price point, while underlining our commitment to sustainable sourcing, has made it harder to attract a more diverse audience.

How do I create a brand that appeals to a broader spectrum of people who share our values around sustainability and climate change?

Signed,

Colorblind

Dear Colorblind: If you want to build a coalition, start a non-profit with a mission to help achieve equality before the law or make it easier for everyone to vote. Our society desperately needs more people and resources pushing in that direction. But like millions of other entrepreneurs, you’re in business to make money. You sell your products to people who see the world in the same terms you do. Guess what? So does everyone else.

This may shock you, but the most critical word in the phrase “green brand” is “brand.,” not “green.” Brands aren’t supposed to be all things to all people. They represent a specific value and a particular white space in the minds of consumers.

Wal-Mart’s brand is low prices; Disney’s is using imagination to bring happiness; Volvo’s is safety. None of those brands will appeal to everyone. They will, however, build a loyal audience among those who are budget conscious, want family entertainment, or who value arriving safely at their destination. Those values might appeal to some people of color, but not others. It’s not a monolithic audience.

Just the same, green brands can transcend color lines, but it’s specific to the audience member and the values that a person prioritizes. A strong brand has three essential criteria:

CEO’s of green brands like yours feel sheepish if their customer base isn’t diverse (code word for “not black enough”). My response: “Why is it OK for millions of white people not to buy your product because sustainability isn’t a high priority for them?”

Here’s the secret of Black, Latino, and Asian American consumers: they’re consumers with different needs and values, just like white America. It has no relevance to whether you make a worthy product or not. Hell, Wells Fargo and Comcast have millions of minority customers. So does Phillip Morris. Does that make them fine, upstanding corporate citizens? I think not.

Green brands don’t have to sell goods and services to people of color to stand alongside Black Lives Matter, and you don’t have to change your branding to be “woke.” Diversity doesn’t have to be core to your brand or your mission for you to hire promising young Black and Latino employees. They, on the other hand, do need to believe in the value of sustainability because it’s core to what’s true and meaningful to your consumers.

There are many ways for your green brand to touch people in a meaningful way. In this case, climate change won’t discriminate by color, but it will disproportionately impact poor and minority communities that don’t have the resources to create resiliency measures. Your brand might not get publicly recognized as an ally, but if you’re able to use your profits to create economic opportunity and a more just world, does it matter?

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Does COVID Have A Silver Lining For Climate?

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 03:26:00 GMT

“It takes two years to learn how to speak and sixty to learn how to keep quiet.” –Ernest Hemmingway

As the COVID-19 crisis has played out, I’ve been watching with increasing unease how some in the climate action community are uncomfortably close to cheerleading for the pandemic because of the unintended consequences of reduced global carbon emissions.

The repercussions of repeating this fallacy are only going to make the climb to actual carbon neutrality steeper.

Lessons From The Stock Market Crash For Climate Activists

Few Americans have heard of Jesse Livermore, but his tale carries essential lessons for the climate action community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Livermore was a somewhat noted stock market speculator who made (and lost) his fortunes by selling the market short, that is, betting against stock prices rising. Just before October 1929, Livermore shorted the market and walked away with $100 million, which would be worth billions in today’s dollars.

Given the ensuing panic, most of us would have taken the gains and lived a life of pastoral ease. But not Livermore. Maybe it was ego, but he proceeded to lose all of his winnings by 1933 and married a woman whose four previous husbands had all committed suicide. In 1940, Livermore turned that quartet into a quintet.

For those who believe in karma, I suppose his fate was inevitable as the Greek tragedies. For the rest of us, there’s an important lesson to be had about dancing on graves.

Hogging The Limelight Isn’t Always Good Messaging

Sometimes, brands and movements benefit from taking advantage of current events. Other times, the benefit is playing the long game and keeping quiet instead of trying to grab every molecule of oxygen you can. It’s clear as clean air which one the climate community needed to play.

Look, I know it’s frustrating to be shut out of a news cycle, let alone peoples’ consciousness for an extended period when dealing with an issue like climate change that has a time bomb attached to it. But believe it or not, when facing a modern version of the Bubonic Plague of the 18th century, it’s impossible to redirect attention to something that’s a generation away from calamity.

Just weeks ago, Twitter was abuzz with pictures of clear skies in Los Angeles and Beijing, and talk abou t the “benefits” of the economic shutdown caused by COVID because they needed some reason, any reason to get people focused on climate change. So much for that. The New York Times reported this week that despite a short drop in overall emissions, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has rebounded and is now at the highest levels in human history.

Unfortunately, in the Internet Age, memories might be short, but algorithms aren’t.

Michael’s First Rule Of Messaging

Never tie your brand or your movement to anything that kills millions of people or leaves millions more in poverty because there is no silver lining unless you are the doctor whose name becomes famous for curing the disease or the savior who can afford to airlift every refugee in the world to a tropical paradise island where everyone lives happily ever after.

Because of our gluttony to have any kind of a climate message, I can assure you the massive carbon emitters who’ve been the bulwark of the resistance against a cleaner economy will waste no time beating the drum about how the crazy, elitist environmentalists were all too happy to have millions of working people get sick and die while others starved just so they could save some squirrels, trees and polar bears.

We have allowed them the opportunity to reset the climate debate paradigm at a time when substantive action finally seems possible.

Activities That Could Help The Climate

Change rarely happens for the morally right reasons we want, but because of some secondary reason. That’s never been more accurate than in America in 2020.

If you want to do something to help, stop writing about how COVID helped drop global emissions as if it’s economic orthodoxy, and start writing abou t the new clean and how it’s safer and healthier for all of us than the status quo.

There’s a reason air purifiers are flying off shelves. It’s because people are fearful about what’s in the air they breathe like never before. OK, let them know what pollution does to their lungs and how a green economy helps.

The airline industry has taken a significant hit during the pandemic, and thousands of employees have lost jobs. This upheaval is an opportunity to drive home the message that cleaner airline fuel will not only create thousands of new careers but also reduce pollution.

Of course, none of this can happen without legislation, and the November ballot will be choc-full of options of candidates who support action on climate change.

For starters, you don’t have to be a climate voter to support Joe Biden in November (and don’t whine to me if he wasn’t your first choice in the Democratic primary. Put on your big boy and big girl pants and use your energy to talk to voters in states that matter. Bernie is on the bus too, so hop aboard.)

You’ll probably encounter voters who don’t care about climate change. So what. Learn from the disaster of the COVID silver lining argument, and talk about what matters to them . Chances are, whatever the issue, Biden is probably the better choice given how low the bar is currently set.

The same goes for the Senate. Democrats will need 52-53 seats to enact the kind of meaningful climate legislation that’s necessary to turn the tide on carbon emissions. That means we’d have to win every competitive Senate race in the country . If you’re feeling feisty, go to Kentucky and help Amy McGrath unseat the Voldemort of U.S. politics, Mitch McConnell.

Just as with Biden, millions of voters will cast a ballot for a Democrat for Senate, but it might not be because of climate change. If you get hung up on that, we can kiss a Senate majority goodbye, and along with it, any chance to build a greener economy.

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How The Pandemic Has Undermined Green Brands

Tue, 12 May 2020 00:54:00 GMT

At the outset of my state’s coronavirus shutdown, I headed to my local Target to do what most Americans did–stock up on supplies. In the household cleaning aisles, I got a focus group worth of information about how we view green brands and why mass adoption continues to be slow.

The Word ‘Clean’ Doesn’t Necessarily Mean ‘Green.’

During this pandemic, ‘It kills 99.99% of germs and bacteria’ has become the new definition of clean.

Clorox and Lysol are having a record-breaking year. Why? Because no one cares that their disinfecting wipes are chlorine laden and end up in landfills. Do you really believe if consumers knew between 1%-2% of the world’s electricity goes to making chlorine that they would change their buying behavior? Meanwhile, the compostable wipes are the only items left on the shelves.

Clean and healthy are no longer adjectives to describe sustainable living. They’ve become adjectives to describe staying alive.

We should be celebrating that cleaner air has allowed Indians to see the Himalayas for the first time in decades and that Angelenos can enjoy the sight of the San Gabriel Mountains. Unfortunately, the irony is COVID-19 has made us less able to see the horizon.

As we’ve retreated into our personal cocoons, clean and healthy for the future of the planet has taken a hit across a wide variety of sectors to the ascendent view of a narrowed focus of short term behaviors to benefit those in the immediate concentric social circle.

Is Sustainability Possible In This Pandemic Era?

I’m not just wagging my finger at others. I’m guilty too. I haven’t owned a car in five years, and my life’s circumstances have allowed me to rely on my transit pass and car share. But this past weekend, I bought a car.

When I calculated the limited number of people who would be allowed on a single bus or train for the foreseeable future, it became clear I needed more reliable transportation. I’m rationalizing my choice because I bought a used Nissan Leaf. Still, the reality is I didn’t want to risk the exposure to others I don’t know, as well as the potential loss of productivity due to unreliable mass transportation.

No matter that I purchased an EV, my carbon footprint just went up. Transportation already causes 40% of global carbon emissions in the U.S., but there’s no way around this: mass transit is going to take a mass hit in the short-to-midterm. And this is before factoring in historically cheap gasoline and desperate car dealer incentives for millions of gas-powered cars and SUVs they need to sell.

Speaking of which, if you watch or stream TV, you haven’t seen a single mention from any car company about gas mileage since the pandemic began. Do you know what you do hear, though? Soft, consoling words about safety and reliability.

You can see this trend across the consumer landscape. The sustainability of your life depends on how safe your life is.

Food Is Another Sustainability Brand Bellweather

One sign of hope for long-term thinking during this crisis is the demand for organic produce and eggs. While many conventional farms are destroying crops and livestock, organic producers are having a hard time keeping up with orders.

I’d argue the reason for the uptick is that the desire for ‘clean and healthy’ food more closely mirrors the emotional drivers for other ‘safe’ consumer products that are seeing growth.

To that end, it’s no surprise purchases of packaged foods are also up .

No doubt, the packaged provisions plumed off grocery shelves is partly due to people eating more at home. Convenience is a cultural totem of the American psyche.

Looking deeper, however, packaged foods have long benefitted from consumers’ association that something wrapped in plastic is free from contaminants and the elements. Hell, even Kellogg’s cereals, fruit snacks, and packaged ice cream are seeing sales increases over last year.

So yes, once again, the meaning of clean isn’t necessarily healthy, but rather safe for your family to eat.

How Can Green Brands Survive?

A fatal mistake any green brand can make right now is to appear more interested in the planet than in the people who are living on it and living through this nightmare.

To survive and thrive through the COVID menace, green brands need to make sustainability safe, but that doesn’t mean you have to throw out your entire marketing campaign.

‘Clean’ and ‘healthy’ are two words with which every green brand should be familiar. By making people the end beneficiary of that philosophy rather than the planet, they can keep their core values while extending their brands to new audiences whose only goal right now is survival–medically and financially.

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How Can You Successfully Market During A Pandemic?

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 23:47:00 GMT

…And What Happens When Everyone Shows Up To The Party Wearing The Same Outfit?

A month ago, I was scrambling to produce an ad for a client before Washington shut down due to the coronavirus. The client knew COVID-19 was going to cause a dramatic downturn in sales (especially on higher-end products) based on their experience during the 2008 banking meltdown. They asked me what I thought they should do.

The company was in a stable financial position and could afford to play the long game with their brand. So I wrote what I thought was an ingenious script highlighting their long time commitment to their community and their approach to “help” their neighbors through this crisis with a zero down/zero interest offer on everything they sold. The physically imposing CEO with the deep voice was to deliver the script, juxtaposed by a soft piano bed.

We had to cancel the shoot at the last minute as the CEO was called away on a family emergency. There was no one else in the company with his gravitas who could replace him before the shutdown made the logistics too tricky.

It turned out to be one of the luckier breaks of my career.

Can somebody please say something original?

It’s as if Siri was listening to the entire ad industry and simultaneously spit out the same answer to the lot of us. Since the beginning of April, if you’re stuck at home, you’ve watched an endless loop of the same two commercials from different brands in every sector of our economy. You probably don’t even need me to write them out for you because you, too, have seen them so often. It’s given me an excellent idea for a sequel to the movie Groundhog Day.

Commercial #1 : Cue piano. Concerned male or female voice letting the audience know that Brand X feels the same pain you do, and how they are here to help you get through these challenging times. Some went further, offering a specific solution to make it easier for you to survive the uncertainty by purchasing their product. Music fades.

Commercial #2 : Cue piano. A concerned male or female voice over sharing our collective gratitude to front-line workers. Stock images or old B-roll of nurses in hospital gowns, grocery store clerks, and package delivery crews, and a soft fade to the brand name and logo as the music fades.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m pleased the marketing and advertising industries have helped America discover how vital health care and service sector workers are to the functioning of our society and how their value isn’t reflected in their paychecks. It just hasn’t been a high-water mark for creativity.

To be fair, though, creative directors at agencies across the country shouldn’t be forced to commit hara-kiri because there are only so many ways to make lemonade out of this particular lemon. There’s no easily recognizable enemy to rally against or to parody; no one is ready to laugh about this tragedy, and there is no readily identifiable solution.

Should Your Brand Communicate Now?

Assuming you don’t own a bar, a gym, or a sports franchise, you’re brand is operating at some diminished level while trying to keep the doors open. And whether your brand is a B2B or B2C, the following questions have inevitably come up.

First, if you own a shipping/delivery company, Zoom, Clorox, or manufacture toilet paper, feel free to beat your chest. As Mel Brooks once observed, “It’s good to be the king.”

If you aren’t in those industries or manufacturing those products, the keys are relevancy and normalcy.

People understand a business has to make a profit. Insurance companies sell insurance. Car companies sell cars. Solar companies sell rooftop panels. Your brand isn’t going to be damaged by the sheer act of offering a product on the market.

Speak to your audience when you have something to say impacting THEIR lives, not your bottom line. People are in survival mode right now. They don’t care about your new technology unless it puts a protective bubble around their families. I’m not the first person to observe timing is everything, but it most definitely applies here. Unless your new product is related to solving COVID-19, downplay the features and benefits. They’re mostly irrelevant to your audience anyway.

How Can Brands Take Advantage Of The Coronavirus Quarantine?

Opportunities for engagement abound. Web traffic is up across the board; social media use is through the roof; email open rates have increased. In short, people are hungry for content. It may be because they’re bored, but we rarely are allowed to choose our opportunities. We only get to decide whether to take advantage of them or not.

It’s a given that almost every company besides Charmin is selling less of their product. In the case of my clients, I see a surge in web traffic, just not commitments at the end of the sales funnel. What it tells me is people still want to buy–just not today. In the short term, both consumer and business expenditures are down. Sales funnels are longer and require more (virtual) touches through different channels to feed the increased appetite for content.

So while business is down, it gives you the perfect opportunity to build long-term brand equity by placing yourself in front of your audience and aligning with their values.

For example, the day Washington shut down, the client who wasn’t able to shoot a commercial WAS in their customer’s email inboxes, letting them know about the precautions this high-touch company would be taking to protect their clients during the pandemic. Since then, we’ve published a free e-book and have sent out a series of weekly emails sharing best practices and tips for people who are stuck at home and want to be productive.

Yes, we pushed the zero down/zero interest promotion, but we tied it to the length of the stay-at-home order as a way to show the community we’d be there for them until the crisis was over.

What Should Brands Say?

If you want to say something meaningful to your audience, let them know you are taking care of your employees. Twenty-six million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last two months, and an equal number are worried they might lose their jobs as well. The results from a national survey released last week showed the substantial increases in brand favorability across all demographics for those companies helping their employees manage the crisis, whether through paying for sick leave, offering flexible hours so parents can take care of kids at home, extending health benefits, and promising to rehire employees when the crisis is over were the most likely to generate brand favorability among consumers across all demographics.

If your brand is doing something to help during the crisis, highlight your people as they are an extension of your brand. The pandemic might be global, but its impacts are local. From children who rely on school lunches and can’t get them to the lines outside of food banks, there isn’t a community left untouched. If your employees or families are doing something special or inspirational, showcase them as part of the culture you’ve built. Everyone loves a feel-good story, especially now.

Use social media platforms to highlight critical needs and invite your audience to join you. One of the most frustrating parts of social distancing is no one knows what (if anything) they can do to help. If you have a way for your audience to make a positive impact during this crisis, you’ve given them the ability to be the hero in this story, and it will help reinforce brand loyalty down the road.

In an era of massive income inequality, it’s never a bad idea to let the public know the highest-paid employees are cutting their pay in order to keep other employees working or donating the money to charity.

Avoid the temptation to over-capitalize on this crisis. Predators, opportunists, and price gougers will be the long-term losers. We’re already seeing well-to-do brands getting wire brushed for taking Paycheck Protection funds from the federal government. Eventually, one of them is going to become synonymous with this parasitic behavior–and it will cost them dearly.

Finally, your brand should be a pillar of strength and longevity. If you can’t help them now, you’ll still be there for them when we no longer have to greet each other by bumping elbows.

And please, whatever you do, come up with a better tagline than “We Got This.”

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Should Cleantech Be Rebranded As ClimateTech?

Sat, 15 Feb 2020 22:37:00 GMT

The Cleantech Brand Is A Failure If No One Knows What It Means

Invariably, it happens. I’m out at an event with professionals. Maybe it’s a business awards dinner like last week or at a convention. Someone will ask me what I do for a living, and I explain, “I’m a branding and marketing strategist with a focus in the cleantech sector.”

Wait for it…the blank stare and nod.

The question, “What does that mean?” or “Who do you work for” gets asked so regularly, I already have a pat response. “I work for growth-stage companies who are solving issues of water, energy, and waste.”

The Problem Might Be Me…Or Not.

If you’ve read Jay Baer , Sally Hogshead , or Nick Westergaard , they’d tell you the problem was I didn’t fascinate my listener, or I didn’t pique their curiosity enough. Because they didn’t understand my first answer, how could I possibly get them to ask me a follow-up question that would hook them into learning more about me? And I can completely forget about them asking why I chose to do what I do for a living, and how it could help them. And, they would be right.

Unfortunately, I’ve tried those approaches, and I still end up with the same awkward pause in the conversation.

Does SEO Hold The Answer?

This was one of those times when the phrase, “Google knows everything,” had a positive connotation.

When I start working with a new client to build their brand and to expand their communications infrastructure, I invest a significant amount of time in keyword research. These are the powerful words and phrases consumers and businesses use to search for products and ideas. Matching those inquires with commonly used synonyms is the underpinning of much of marketing in the 21st century.

And, lo and behold, there was the answer.

What SEO Says About Cleantech

According to Google’s free keyword forecasting tool, the phrase “cleantech” only gets about 3,000 inquiries across America every month…after being the umbrella term for industries focusing on energy, water, materials, chemicals that are more in harmony with our planet for nearly 20 years. Break “cleantech” up into two words, and the number of inquires drops to 368.

Google’s Forecasting Tool Shows How Rarely People Search For “Cleantech.”

Compare that with how people would respond to my job description if I told them I was in the business of “climate solutions,” according to Google.

The term “climate solutions” is searched far more often.

Yep, seven times more people searched for that term than “cleantech.” Is it an exact correlation? No.

Could I make it easier for people to understand what I do for a living by telling them, “I help brand climate solutions and tell the stories of companies trying to solve the climate crisis?” Absolutely.

Because people are far more in tune with that phrase, they are far more likely to inquire more about me.

This Is An Endemic Problem In The Cleantech World

By being too clever by half with our language, as the British say, it appears the climate movement has been set back by a generation. The words we use to describe the climate crisis haven’t connected or caught on, which is one of the reasons why the underpinnings have been consistently knocked from under it by those with hostile agendas and profit motives.

How do I know? Let’s turn to the all-too-powerful Google again.

Air pollution has been a common term since the dawn of the industrial age. Is it any surprise more people understand what it is and how they can help reduce it in their own lives?

“Air pollution” is a more commonly known and searched term than what the climate community has traditionally used.

Like my confusing description of my career, the same thing has happened on a macro scale when trying to connect the dots of climate change to the lives of everyday people.

Perhaps we all ought to revisit whether we practice what we preach when we say to the rest of the world, “Think Globally. Act Locally.”

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Here’s Why Market Research Is Key To Your Company’s Success

Sat, 11 Jan 2020 04:27:00 GMT

Two words no CEO of a seven or eight-figure company ever likes hearing from me are “market research,” as in, “I feel it would be helpful to clarify our value proposition, our strategic advantage, and our audience if we conducted some market research.”

It’s so toxic; I keep those two words in my back pocket at all meetings like an emergency fire alarm in case I want to cut the session short. I could probably write the most concise best selling book in history titled, “How To Make All Your Meetings End Promptly” with just those two words.

So why does someone who bills hourly continue to use those words? Because proper market research is the same as the controls on an airplane or the helpline at any technology company. You can certainly get lucky and land that plane, but it would be a helluva lot easier if you could tell the difference between a runway and a cornfield.

The simple fact is the better and more in-depth the research, the better I am at my job, which is to communicate that singular message of differentiation that matters to a specific group of people.

What’s Market Research?

There are several different market research taxonomies, not all suited for every company. Retail outlets might want to examine a user’s experience with their stores and products. Large brands will use quantitative polling through phone and internet interviews to gauge their performance and popularity with specific demographics in a statistically significant way. In the niches that I work (cleantech, sustainable brands, climate advocacy), qualitative research, most often (but not exclusively) focus groups in which a group of people is moved through a moderated 90-minute session to gather more “language-based” feelings about a brand.

Prior to undertaking either qualitative or quantitative research, I go through a one-on-one research process with stakeholders of a brand to learn what I should be asking about. These more intimate sessions are designed to learn what’s the brand’s personality, how they stack up against their competitors, and whether their words they use about their brand match their actions. Sometimes, with newer companies and those that haven’t established a track record of consistent results, this will be the only research they can afford.

Why Does Market Research Matter?

Science and engineering aside, a business needs a roadmap to success. You would never launch a business without a business plan, so too that business needs to understand what it’s selling, what problem they are solving, who are they selling a solution to, if they have a profitable solution and a customer base willing to pay it, and finally how the customer base perceives the brand.

Without knowing the answer to those questions, it’s impossible to create an effective brand marketing and communications plan. As someone who’s been working in this profession for years, I can make some educated guesses, but a marketing team has a learning curve. We know how to create brand strategies, but that doesn’t mean we understand your technology well enough to make it hit the high notes. And in the words of Albert Einstein, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

How Do I Deploy What I Learned By Conducting Market Research?

The knowledge gleaned from market research goes into every facet of a marketing communications plan. Based on how the company wants its brand positioned for the maximum value, it might impact the logo, website design, tagline, copy, social media voice, content, etc.

Specifically, I might recommend a specific look with color schemes and fonts that mirror our message. The visuals (which should be focused on the problem solved, not the technology) are the first thing viewers will notice. Not only do they need to communicate the brand value, but they also should mirror the company’s values. Is copy the best way to showcase technology, or does video make that explanation more easily translatable? If a company is still in a growth phase, investors should quickly get to the proper contacts. The list goes on.

Yes, market research costs money upfront, but like any investment, it saves a company from making expensive communication mistakes later on at the very least and most likely helps them get to their revenue goals with fewer detours. If a company is savvy, they’ll conduct this process once they’ve left the lab, but even mature companies can benefit from a redirect or sharpening of their message.

You wouldn’t send a carpenter out to a job without a saw or send a fisherman to a lake with no bait or nets. The same principle applies to market research. Yes, you can succeed without it, but why would you want to try?

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Can Your In-House Marketing Manager Do This?

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 04:21:00 GMT

Marketing Management Needs More Than One

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6 Ways Your Email Marketing Can Compete During The Holidays

Sun, 15 Dec 2019 01:23:00 GMT

Is anyone reading your email during the holiday season?

And if they are reading or listening to your message, does it pass the threshold of caring?

I’ve written before about how only about one-third of email recipients read beyond the fourth paragraph. What do you do if you have news to share with your community but can’t compete with offers from Amazon and every other retailer on the planet?

If your open rates are plummeting in December, here’s what you can do to fight the tide.

Email inbox fatigue is a real thing, and I expect it to appear in the next revision to the DSM . Don’t contribute to this psychological menace this year.

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What Are The Marketing Tools Every Cleantech Company Must Have?

Sat, 19 Oct 2019 23:21:00 GMT

Part 1–Research

This column is the first of a five-part series on the critical elements necessary for a cleantech company to successfully market itself, regardless of the budget.

Do I Have To Pay For Marketing?

One of the most frequent questions I hear from companies in the cleantech world, whether a pre-revenue startup, growth stage, or in competitive niches like solar, battery storage, or water treatment is, “What are the essential things we should be doing to market our company?”

Often, this question is posed from a scarcity mindset from those who are worried about making it through the next month, those who don’t believe in marketing in the first place, or those more concerned about protecting short-term profit margins. For many of these people, marketing is seen anywhere from a loss leader to a flat-out revenue loser, and I’m never going to convince them otherwise. That’s OK. We all have our biases, and there’s no single road to success.

But for the companies who are interested in building a marketing platform because they see the longer-term benefit, but who might be resource-constrained, here’s how I would recommend you prioritize.

Story First

I’ve written about this extensively about the need for cleantech companies to base their marketing on the story here , here and here. Suffice to say; the story is the foundation of your marketing efforts. It’s challenging to build an edifice on top of something less stable than stone, marble, or concrete. Marketing flows from your company’s narrative, and that narrative isn’t what you do; it’s about what problem you are solving for your audience and why.

Define Your Audience

Before you invest in any marketing tactics, your cleantech company needs to know who it’s trying to inform or convince. You need to understand:

Your team should be able to answer these questions on no more than one sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper.

How Are You Going To Communicate With Them?

I win the award for Master of the Obvious 2019 for writing there is no shortage of ways to communicate with your audience today, but you need to know who are the key decision-makers who are going to either recommend or purchase your technology.

Some decision-makers are kinesthetic, that is, they want to touch and feel your solution, while others are Joe Fridays and only want the facts. Do those people care whether or not your company is on social media? Are they more impressed with scientific journals and university studies? Most importantly, how do they get their information?

And if you’re cleantech company is at the stage of prototype building or in the pilot phase, is there any group more important than your investors? How are you going to keep them in the loop and committed to your cause?

It’s not difficult to research if your audience is on Twitter or any other social media channel. If they aren’t there, you don’t need to be there. If they are there, however, your company needs to make an effort to meet them where they live.

What’s The Buyer’s Journey?

If there’s a more extended buyer’s journey than for startup cleantech companies, I’m not aware of it. Most early-stage investors get behind companies knowing they won’t see a return for six to ten years. While subsequent rounds of investors see shorter timelines, they are still looking at years, not months.

While some of these companies are selling solutions like demand-side software in which the scale-up is modest, there are those in niches like fusion energy who’ve been searching for the Holy Grail for decades.

And if that hurdle wasn’t steep enough, customers for cleantech solutions are notoriously conservative about adopting new technologies. There’s no line outside the Apple Store waiting to buy the latest iPhone here.

As a result, your marketing and communications tactics in the cleantech sector have to mirror a much slower curve. I refer to it as the Chinese Water Torture method of marketing in which the drips your customers can hear are steady while getting progressively louder . So that splashy new website that’s now two years old is diminishing in impact as is the 2015 profile in the Wall Street Journal and the LinkedIn blog post you submitted 18-months ago.

So What’s The Plan?

Purists will tell you B2B and B2C marketing are distinct animals. I prefer to categorize them as evolutionary cousins that require the same amount of care and feeding. While it’s true a cleantech company in the B2B space isn’t going to be emailing coupons for a July 4th sale to their list of subscribers, they are going to need many of the same tools to build their brand.

And since 90% of all web traffic begins with a search , whether your company is B2B or B2C, if your audience can’t find you through a search engine, in all practicality, you don’t exist.

One final thought: no one spends as much time thinking about your company as you do. That means in an era saturated in information and data; you have to be a regular part of the cacophony. When your company stops communicating, your audience moves on to the next shiny object.

In next week’s column, I’ll discuss how and why search engine optimization is such a fundamental part of any cleantech company’s marketing efforts.

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What This City Needs Is A Tagline. With A Capital “T.”

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 01:45:00 GMT

Working with cleantech companies means I’m often in meetings with scientists and engineers. By nature, they are very analytical people, which is why they are excellent problem solvers. And in advanced mathematics, there is always a right answer and a wrong answer: Black and white.

I, on the other hand, talk about subjects that exist in more grey areas, and this makes me a quasi-Professor Harold Hill in many of their eyes. And near the top of the list of marketing strategies that set off their flim-flam alarm is the tagline.

Isn’t A Tagline Like An Appendix?

The first objection I generally hear against spending time and money developing a tagline is what I call the appendix argument: it doesn’t serve a purpose, and I’ll be fine after it’s taken out.

I take objection to the first part of the logic of that argument, and while it’s true, there is a line of successful companies that didn’t employ a tagline, you should think of a tagline much like the body’s core muscles. They’re vital to the posture of the rest of the body, and without core strength, the kinesthetic chain of movement will always have a hitch.

Enough with the anatomy lesson. Let’s move on to the second response to the flim-flam alarm.

I’m Selling Science, Not A Consumer Product

Cleantech companies are generally in the B2B space, so their audience runs from governments to large industrial users and manufacturers. And so the tagline pushback is, “Our customers don’t make decisions on fluffy marketing. They only care if what we make will scale, and if its cheaper than their current solution.”

My pat comeback is to ask my interlocutors what kind of car they drive? Unless the answer is a 1992 Honda with no floorboards, I ask them why they bought that particular car since they all come standard with four tires, a steering wheel, and windows. Whatever response they give, it’s subjective. Sure, one might have better gas mileage or is rated better in Consumer Reports, but overall all purchases are personal and driven by neurons in the frontal lobe, which controls emotions. There is no such thing as rational consumer behavior.

The sharp ones parry back by reminding me a car purchase is a B2C business, and they operate a B2B company. While I’m a mediocre chess player, at best, this is when I bring out the queen from the back row.

“Are all of your customers fully automated and driven by AI?” I ask. “Because if I’m not mistaken, human beings run every Fortune 500 company: a CEO, a Board of Directors, and the like. People make those choices, not organizations, and like everyone else, while they care about price and engineering, their brain is telling them to pick the equivalent of the shiny red one because it’s their favorite color.”

If there were no such things as biases, CEO’s would never get fired for making a wrong decision.

What’ll That Tagline Do For Me, Professor Hill?

I’ve overcome the objections, but I’ve yet to close the tagline sale. So if you can turn the alarm down just a bit, let me explain.

A tagline helps define your unique value proposition. Too often, it’s confused with what your company does, when in fact, it’s about the reward the buyer gets for working with you. It’s the ethos underlying the company that’s relatable to the customer. It defines you, and only you.

Why is that important? Unless you own a monopoly in your industry, chances are there are other companies on the market who have, who are, or who will be working on similar technology. What separates the companies in this space?

Going back to the car metaphor, they all have some standard features like tires. But Porsche, for example, wants to capture the imagination of the thrill seeker. That’s why their famous tagline “There Is No Substitute” separates them from Volvo, who appeals to those more conscious about safety. Volvo’s tagline? “For Life.”

You need to carve out space for your brand in your particular niche so the audience can understand why they should buy from you. And if you don’t do it, one of your competitors will, and your company will have to compete on their terrain. Imagine if Volvo tried to fight on the thrill-seeking axis? They would come up short every time. Instead, they want other companies to have to compete on safety–Volvo’s strong suit.

That space that belongs to you and only you is called ‘white space.’ Volvo has a solution for people who care about safe cars. That’s where they are going to compete, and they want to be the best of the best of the best at providing that solution.

A Cleantech Tagline Example

Let’s use the example of the highly competitive battery storage space . There are lithium-ion batteries, zinc batteries, and redox-flow batteries. All three are battling it out to become the default storage system for renewable energy generated by wind, solar, and hydropower, as well as the electric vehicle market.

To simplify things, I won’t delve into the various subtypes of each of these technologies or dozens of companies within each of these spaces because it would take too long. We’ll stick with the three major technologies and show how a tagline would help differentiate their technology from the other two.

Again, these descriptions are intentionally vastly oversimplified for the sake of brevity.

So how would a tagline help differentiate them to the market they wish to serve?

From the customer’s point of view (a utility), they are looking for a low-risk, reliable, cost-effective solution that can integrate with the rest of their grid and power generation. What does that mean is crucial to them?

Are they concerned about longer-term drawbacks like degradation and scarcity of materials? Much less so, especially in such a volatile industry.

If I’m the CEO of the lithium-ion company and utilities are my primary market, I want to emphasize my company wins on three of the utility’s four most important metrics: safety, track record, defensible. Why, because neither the flow or zinc batteries are ever going to be able to compete with me on those metrics. As a result, I’d recommend a simple, straightforward tagline that sums up their pitch.

Trusted Technology

Is it the most clever tagline? No. But in this case, it doesn’t need to be. It does, however, define their unique value proposition in a way that’s unparalleled unless there is some Three Mile Island-sized lithium-ion accident.

Trumpeting Your Tagline

Before I leave River City with my suitcase, let me leave you with a couple of last thoughts about deploying your taglines.

Decisions flow from a tagline, both internally and externally, from the kind of people the company hires to the design of its headquarters to the color schemes used for branding and marketing. It’s the glue that holds all of these elements together, much like a vision statement, but much more concise. It’s a foundational element, not an afterthought.

Taglines underscore your sales and marketing because they paint a picture. When someone says, “I’m driving my Porsche this weekend,” your brain conjures up an image of someone barrelling down a highway doing 90 with the wind blowing through their hair because literally and figuratively, there is no substitute. That’s what you’re aiming for: a singular picture in the mind that defines the experience of working with and for your company.

So pick up your trumpet, trombone, or tuba and join the band. If you don’t know how to play, I can teach you.

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The Winner Of The Nobel Peace Prize Will Be…

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 03:01:00 GMT

A Noble Story Fit For A Nobel Prize

When the Nobel Peace Prize is announced on Friday, there is better than a decent chance the name inside the envelope will be that of a precocious, 16-year-old Swedish girl, the youngest person to ever receive this prestigious award.

If the prognosticators are right, Gretta’s (she needs no last name anymore) unlikely ascension to this lofty height is a testament to the power of the story.

How is it possible a girl of no particular consequence 12-months ago has become the face of a global movement and the name of a generation, all because she stopped going to school on Fridays?

Should she win, I suspect she would humbly acknowledge her lack of concrete accomplishments to deal with the climate crisis before pivoting to note that perhaps she won because the bar has been set so low due to the adults accomplishing so criminally little. But that’s beside the point.

Facts And Figures Pale In Comparison

The movement to stop global warming is several decades old and littered with white papers, academic research, data, and measurements. There are non-profit organizations in the climate space named after the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (350.org), ones that highlight particular generations fighting climate change (Next Gen Climate), and even ones named after animals (Climate Adaptation Mitigation E-Learning, or CAMEL).

I’ve written before about my brand name frustration with climate-based groups because not one of them puts human beings and the plight of humanity in their names, preferring to align with the impacts on the planet and planetary ecosystems.

But Gretta, she’s a tiny, vulnerable, innocent-looking, cherub-faced child with a story of her impediments and underdog-like determination who has ignited protests all over the world. She is a hero precisely because she is such an unlikely hero, and she is the protagonist climate activists need right now to bring this monumental challenge to a triumphant denouement.

Now I’m not naive enough to believe her inspiration will unite governments around the world to take action, namely because there’s one fact that has mattered for the last 40 years: we are all carbon junkies in-hock to the most powerful drug dealer in the world.

But every story needs a hero and an antagonist to conquer along the journey. Gretta is the archetypal David (with a nod to female empowerment) to the oil companies’ Goliath. People can understand this story, and that’s why everyone is rooting for her.

Takeaway Lessons From Gretta’s Story

A number of the other rumored Nobel Prize nominees also share with Gretta a compelling narrative. The Hong Kong activists, for example, haven’t forced a change in the island’s government, but they are also David to the Communist Party Goliath that rules China with an iron fist. Ethiopian Prime Minister fits a more traditional Peace Prize mold as laid out in Matthew 5:9 (Blessed be the peacemakers..), but again it was not the size of the accomplishment of ending the long-running war between his nation and Eritrea.

Baring someone’s thumb on the scale accolades rarely goes to the biggest; they go to the most compelling. It’s not a coincidence that other than Titanic (please let me live the rest of my life without hearing that song again), there isn’t a single Best Picture winner in the all-time top-grossing movies.

If you want to connect with your audience in the business world, rarely is it going to be with pie charts, bar graphs, or any numeric-based taxonomy. Skip the data and give them a heaping slice of story. No one cares how many widgets you sold. They care that the widgets align with their values. Numbers only serve to reinforce the choice they’ve already made.

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Remind Me Again-Why Are We On Social Media?

Sun, 06 Oct 2019 04:19:00 GMT

“If all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off it too?”–my mother

In today’s business world, it’s a given your company needs a social media strategy. My favorite question in the last year or so is to ask why. Here are the three most typical ways in which that conversation starts.

Scenario #1 –Start up–a company using online professional services portal sends out a request for social media help to sell more of their product or service, OR to advertise on Facebook, OR to gain followers on Twitter, OR to gain visibility, OR to improve their search engine rankings, OR…or…or…

Scenario #2 –I’m in a meeting with an established mid-size company ($10-$50 million annual revenue) because they feel posting more content on social media will help them better distinguish them from their competition.

Scenario #3- -Same two companies six months later wondering why they aren’t going viral and getting thousands of followers and scores of new leads because they invested in social media marketing.

Why Are You On Social Media?

After I ask the “Why” question, here are the most typical answers I hear.

These answers can be boiled down to a simple, “Everyone else is doing it.” As I pointed out above, my mother always had a ready retort for that answer. Today, I’m the one who gets to ask that question.

Social Media Strategy vs. Tactics

Unless you have one of those newly minted, self-proclaimed careers as a ‘social media influencer’ that’s ripe for parody in 20 years like the much-maligned leisure suit of the ’70s is today, simply being on social media is a means to an end, not the end itself.

Strategy always comes before tactics, so before your company invests significant resources in social media , you need to answer the following questions:

Where Social Media Falls Short

Unless you appear regularly on television, have a record contract, or are running for high political office, social media isn’t likely to be your primary communication tool. And if it is, it probably shouldn’t be. Here are a few reasons why.

Where Social Media Excels

If this column is starting to read like an old man yelling, “Get off my lawn!”, take heart because I believe social media is a valuable tool, when used correctly and in conjunction with other tactics to meet a strategic goal. One of the best ways to create value is to reverse engineer it several steps until you reach your company’s unique value proposition.

By starting at your purpose and your sales goal, you can more effectively deploy the content you post.

One thing social builds like few other tools is a loyal community …as long as your company isn’t using it to close sales. The best means to determine success on social is engagement. Are people commenting on your posts? Are they sharing them? Do they like them? Social is about infotainment and opening up the sales funnel. It allows your audience closer, behind the scenes look at your company, and makes it more familiar to them.

Social media is about indirect sales and creating advocates for your brand. Can you ever sell directly on social? Sure, as long as the ratio is at least 10:1, with the 10 being stories of interest or value to your customers. That’s why your brand needs to publish engaging and original content. Trust is the coin of the realm.

When you open the sales funnel on social media, it’s more likely to open wide when your company is promoting posts or purchasing ads. The algorithms used by social media companies are unlike anything the world has ever seen, and it allows for microtargeting your key demographics and likely buyers like no medium before it.

Finally, if your business is time-sensitive, social is the best way to get your news out directly to your audience with the fewest keystrokes. Building a new web page consumes much more time. Amending the old saying–if you want to go fast, go social. Depending on the number of followers you’ve captured, your news could be in the stream of thousands of customers, employees, and brand advocates in minutes.

Simon Says Don’t Look At Everyone Else

So interpreting my mother’s edict for growing children into advice on using social media, sometimes following along with others can be a good thing, but you need to consider it on a case by case basis. And always wear clean underwear.

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Why Man-Made Climate Change Is A Messaging Misnomer

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 01:10:00 GMT

Circular-firing squads have a lousy success rate.

Don’t worry. I haven’t gone off the deep end and gone into denial about the scale and urgency of reducing carbon emissions. I do, however, have a bone to pick about how we communicate the threat of the climate crisis and inspire action among 7.5 billion people.

I’m hardly the first person to point out that for all of the brainpower that exists behind tackling the climate crisis, we sure are maladroit when it comes to advocacy . Not to dismiss people who spend their lives dedicated to studying climate science, working for non-profits to educate and change behavior or those who go into public service because of their passion for the issue. They’ve done a thankless job on behalf of humanity, and they’ve made many inroads on issues like land use, water conservation, and habitat protection.

Unfortunately, the Enlightenment Age informed belief systems instilled in so many of these earnest people has gotten in the way of something more critical–enacting wholesale change that has little to do with facts.

Altering the famous James Carville line, “It’s the story, stupid.”

Why Behavior Changes

Throughout history, the two prime drivers of behavior change in humans have been self-interest and fear. While I’m sure we all wish homo sapiens were more noble creatures, time and time again we’ve proven otherwise. The community fighting to save humankind hasn’t been able (or willing) to tap into either of those veins.

Neuroscientists and psychologists have studied drivers of human behavior ad nauseum . Marketers and political consultants have been perfecting these arts for thousands of years, even before those jobs had titles.

It’s true; cleantech industries are already creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs t o replace those coal mining and hourly-wage jobs lost to technology. But that can’t be the main thrust of our story; it’s an adjunct.

I cringe at names like 350.org to represent carbon emissions zooming past 350 PPM. Ask the average person on the street what it means, and you’ll get a shrug. Why? Because 350 parts per million is a fact-based argument designed to appeal to the intellect in the frontal lobe, not the amygdala, hypothalamus and the reptilian brain that processes emotions and the survival instinct.

Please! Stop with the numbers! 1.5C or 2C will change our climate, but it won’t change opinions and behavior, or at least not in time to do anything about it.

Our Language Is Counterproductive

Let’s start with the phrase “man-made climate change.” That’s a word jumble that must have come out of symposium because it certainly isn’t a term designed to inspire or fear. Let me point out just a few of the reasons it’s wrong.

Here’s How The Real Culprits Use Story To Win

If you are a resource-extraction based company, you know how to use the elements of a story to benefit your bottom line. It goes something like this:

To recap, they’ve used a plotline that has driven stories for thousands of years.

This story is the Bible, The Odyssey, and Norse mythology all wrapped up into a neat package–and it’s useful.

Meanwhile, here’s our inept attempt to tell a story about the climate crisis

Whew! Where do I sign up? Is it any wonder progress to reduce carbon emissions is so slow?

The Plot Must Be Binary

Nuance is our enemy. At 400 PPM (yes, I’m using a fact, but only to illustrate my point), the planet has reached a critical tipping point. That’s why we should frame the danger in clear, binary terms. We either survive, or we don’t. While I’m not in favor of shaming each other because it’s counterproductive, you also don’t get a dispensation because you ate grass-fed beef instead of grain-fed beef.

Scientists can lead this thrust because they are trusted validators. “The planet doesn’t distinguish between good and bad intentions. If we keep on the same path, the result is clear.”

Climate change messaging must be an either-or choice.

The Enemy Must Have A Face

A winning story frame has to include a culprit trying to stop the hero from completing his/her journey. Fortunately, if we stop shooting ourselves in the foot by painting “us” as the problem, there are no shortage of antagonists who can play the role of Snidley Whiplash tying humanity to the train tracks.

But for this story frame to work, we need to put names and faces to the enemy, just as we have for every binary global conflict in history. We need individuals to be representative of the villainy caused by greed over the last 150 years.

Start with corporate executives. Allowing them to hide behind their company shield needs to end. The company didn’t drill for oil. People made those decisions; so let’s hold those people responsible.

The list goes on, but you get the idea. Every despot or anyone who became obscenely wealthy while leaving a mess behind for the rest of us needs to be the ones we hold accountable, not the shrinking middle-class family driving a 15-year-old gas guzzler.

Stop the self-blaming and point the finger at the real culprits.

Give people a focal point for their anger. Tell them these millionaires and billionaires (Bernie Sanders Brooklyn accent is optional) are laughing at you because they’re getting rich while your family is getting stuck with the bill. These people have opposed anything and everything that would compromise their profits and have no qualms about lying to do so. They knew burning fossil fuels was a danger to the planet 40 years ago and chose to lie about it to protect short-term profits.

When they say “radical environmentalists,” the response is not to defend ourselves or state the facts. We are now in a binary existential fight to the death; we need to throw even more incendiary rhetoric back at them, like “planet killers,” “humanity destroyers,” or “hurricane creators.” People might not want to sit in a tree with a hippie and pee in a bucket, but they sure as hell don’t want to be associated with the destruction of humanity either.

Ultimately, these greedy tyrants will be responsible for more deaths in the 21st century than Hitler, Stalin and Tojo combined killed in the 20th. Why have they been able to escape the notoriety and accountability?

Counter Their Fearmongering With Even Greater Fears

Perhaps the most outrageous statement made in the history of discourse is when oil companies tell middle-class families carbon regulations mean higher gas prices as if they had no power over it. Even worse, the environmental community then proceeds to bite the hook and argue how much the price of gas will change.

WRONG!

If the oil companies are going to peddle fear, we need to trump it with something direr. When they scream higher gas prices, we need to scream back higher food prices and shortages because of their greed-driven pollution . People can live without a car, but they can’t live without food.

Make them responsible for high food prices and scarcity.

Coordinate the Message

It’s frustrating to watch how the climate-lying cognoscenti coordinate their message of denial so well. The question is why we aren’t doing likewise. Tragic as Hurricane Dorian was, it was an opportunity to create our echo chamber tracing this disaster right back to the greed that created it. We know these episodes are only going to increase as time goes by, whether it’s flooding along the Mississippi, drought in the Southwest or more intense hurricanes along the East Coast.

Every one of these weather-related disasters along with every crop failure, is fodder to point out the enemy and drive the message relentlessly. We need to synch like an orchestra to make our sound unmistakeable for our audience. When they associate the climate crisis with the opening lines of Beethoven’s 5th, that’s when you know you’ve turned the tide.

Thanks, Exxon-Mobil! That hurricane saved me the demolition costs.

And For Heaven Sake, Let’s Get Our Story Straight

The story we need to use to overcome the deceit and misdirection from the fossil fuel industries and combat the climate crisis has been in front of us all along. It’s the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

To sell it though, first, the polluters have to be synonymous with the serpent. Once we are immune to the serpent’s lies, we can ignore their hollow threats and break the cycle of addiction.

We followed a similar playbook successfully taking on Big Tobacco. It worked because we didn’t blame smokers for the problem, although we graphically showed them the harmful effects of smoking to change their behavior.

Anti-smoking commercials didn’t bother with the facts because the facts about smoking were well known. They used the testimonials of disfigured former smokers to either get you to stop smoking or not to start in the first place. (Sound familiar to what I’m advocating?)

Eventually, Big Tobacco was brought to heel by damning evidence revealed in the courts, but also because they lost most of their friends in Congress who were no longer willing to shill for companies whose brands were held in contempt by the public and even from their consumers.

Finally…

To those who yearn for a more civilized discourse of yonder days and tsk tsk this strategy, I say go home and read a history book. You won’t find gentlemen of integrity there either. Meanwhile, leave the critical work of winning to the rest of us willing to get dirt under our nails. You can thank us later, like when you still have a home and a front yard, unlike the millions of uprooted migrants who will be leaving their homes thanks to rising sea levels.

We’ve run out of time for incrementalism so let’s start talking like it.

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Tie Your Brand To The Story We Share

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 20:29:00 GMT

Like millions of parents around the country, I took my daughter to college last week. It’s a bittersweet ritual that started when I let her hand go on her first day of kindergarten and is now complete. She has chosen a path, and it forevermore will diverge from mine.

I mention this not to remind you to offer me a Kleenex when you see me, but rather to share the connection and the emotional impact of a story that’s as old as homo sapiens have walked the planet.

Admittedly, not every story is that accessible or straightforward, yet because of that commonality, it took only eight words–I TOOK MY DAUGHTER TO COLLEGE LAST WEEK–to paint an entire mental picture for you.

What did you visualize? Is it a college campus full of life? A final hug? Tears on the drive home? Are you walking around an empty bedroom? Your own experience saying goodbye to your children or your parents?

The days are long, but the years are short. The stories are what’s left.

Regardless of the image, we are now simpatico through our brains’ frontal lobe, where the amygdala and hippocampus reign supreme and the dopamine is dispensed. And because of how we react to that shared experience, you are likely to see me in a more positive framework–compassionate, empathetic, trustworthy– than you did before you read those eight words. I now get your benefit of the doubt, whether it’s an opinion of mine, a service I offer, a friend I introduce to you, or a favor I ask.

This personal connection is fundamental to all sales and brand building, but it’s something I see missing at all levels of American business today. They can’t answer the question for their audience, “Why should I care about you?”

To fill the void, brands fall back on facts, features, and benefits, like “We’re 20% better than the competition.” While those cost savings may indeed be valid, it’s a two-dimensional advantage. They’re just different sides of the same marketing coin. They don’t tell me why I should trust you, or why I should care about what you’re selling. Without an emotional base to support the claim, it’s just another commodity.

Imagine if I told you my daughter’s GPA or named the college she is attending without any prior context. Meaningful to you? Probably not, unless you happened to go to the same college and had a similar experience. Sharing that goodbye, on the other hand, was the emotional hook that made you want to know more about her.

Smart brands understand this . Mastercard can be used to purchase millions of items, but they chose to highlight the tickets purchased with their card for a father-son trip to watch a baseball game. Why? Because it’s an American ritual. They didn’t highlight cash rewards or discounts the customer receives when using the card.

For their latest ad, Google showed a dog hiding behind a piece of furniture while being quizzed about a box of missing treats as a pretext for conducting a Google search on dog training. If you’ve ever owned a dog, you’ve probably had a similar experience. As a result, the next time you use Google, your neurotransmitters will release a reward. They’ve created a cause-effect pattern in your brain going forward (until you learn about how much information they know about you).

So whether your business is B2B or B2C and you want to communicate to your targeted audience, first find the cultural totem familiar to them. If it connects, they’ll be more likely to hear the rest of your pitch and respond in the way you’d like.

PS. I guess that means if I did my job, you’d now be interested in hearing my pitch on how to base your marketing on your own unique story.

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How Circumstances Can Upend Your Social Media Ad Budget

Sat, 31 Aug 2019 01:42:00 GMT

Facebook got gamed again this week by people trying to influence an election, and it’s a great case study in why you need flexibility in your social media ad budget.

The Illuminati Isn’t Alive

No, this time it wasn’t Vladimir Putin sitting behind his desk at the Kremlin scheming a sequel to 2016. Facebook ad prices skyrocketed this past week because of a decision made months ago by the Democratic National Committee to set thresholds for which candidates qualify for televised presidential debates.

For the next set of debates in September, presidential wannabes had to receive at least two percent support in two credible polls and amass 130,000 donors from 20 different states with a minimum of 400 donors per state.

I swear! I did nothing!

Now if you’re former Vice President, Joe Biden, that’s an easy bar to clear. But with 24 mostly unknown candidates running for the Democratic nomination (as of a couple of weeks ago), there was a tsunami-sized need to reach people from across the country willing to listen to their pitch and perhaps contribute to their campaign. How do you do this?

That brings us to Facebook.

How Does Facebook Work?

Roughly 70 percent of American adults use Facebook , making it the second-largest social platform in the country (YouTube is #1), and the third most visited website (Google is #1).

Because Facebook collects so much data on its users (a discussion for another day), it’s a gold mine for advertisers wishing to reach highly targeted audiences of say (in this case) Democrats.

Facebook’s ad systems are auction-based, so higher demand for ad space drives up prices. Multiply that by 20 desperate candidates trying to gain exposure and donations from the same group of people, and you have a veritable free-for-all with the ultimate winner being…Facebook. According to the digital-ad research firm, political advertisers spent $92 million in the three months ending August 14. With an August 28 deadline to qualify for the next televised debates, that number, when released, will be significantly higher.

How Do I Protect My Social Media Ad Spend?

It’s unlikely your average B2B or B2C company is going to target advertising to the same group of people as political candidates, so your company wasn’t likely to be impacted by this chain of events.

The more significant point, however, is that unforeseen circumstances can wreak havoc with the average-sized company ad budget, especially on a platform that bases ad rates on an auction rather than on available inventory.

If you operate a local business with multiple competitors or rely on seasonal sales, the auction game can be quite costly. While you can lock in your rates on television and radio, it’s the Wild West on Google and Facebook where you get to play a game of “Who Wants To Buy Mark Zuckerberg’s Second French Villa?”

Fortunately, there are safety valves to protect you on these platforms. When creating an ad on Facebook or targeting keywords on Google, you can preset a cap limit on your advertising. So, for example, if your company can only afford $1,000 for an entire month of ads, both Google and Facebook provide the option to shut off your ads once you reach that threshold. You can also suspend your ads in real-time if you feel the auction prices have gotten outside of your comfort zone.

Spending caps aside, the reality in today’s world of marketing is there has to be flexibility in the budget. No one can predict every twist of fate or how that might set forces beyond your control in motion. In this particular case, I’m sure it wasn’t even a consideration for the DNC when they created the debate rules.

This episode is just the latest example of why DIY marketing is DOA. Your project manager, who does marketing on the side isn’t going to see the peaks and valleys of prices until it’s too late. Much like a stock broker, marketing and digital ad firms are paid in part for the nimble ways they respond to news that impacts their clients and maximizing their clients’ money.

Don’t get left out of the debate. Contact me and set up a free 15-minute call about how your marketing can make the cut.

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Why Communicating Climate Change Continues To Challenge Us

Sat, 10 Aug 2019 01:58:00 GMT

Every year, more and more Americans tell pollsters they believe in climate change, yet insufficient action has been taken by business and government to solve the problem. Welcome to the world of the communicating climate change action as seen by Americans of every stripe since Al Gore raised the profile of the issue in his 2000 campaign for the Presidency.

Great strides on critical climate change issues like reduced consumption from energy efficiency and higher gas mileage standards are welcome news. So is the dramatic drop in the price of solar energy and the retirement of coal-generated power plants. Still, it’s fair to say progress has been painfully slow and halting.

There’s been plenty of prognostication as to the why this transition is so difficult from a policy perspective, but I’m not going down that rabbit hole here.

But as a marketing strategist who spent 20 years creating messages for politicians before I transitioned to working for cleantech companies, I’d like to point out a few of the climate change communications boogeymen that bedevil the movement to reduce carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and how we can turn on some lights to make the nighttime creepers disappear.

Climate Change Doesn’t Matter Until It Impacts Me

Do you want to know why issues like health care, taxes, mass shootings, and immigration rise to the top of voter concerns ? It’s because those issues are visceral, and they impact people in very personal and emotional ways.

Everyone pays taxes; everyone has a family member who had a health scare, and pretty much every town and city in America has been impacted by gun violence. “It could happen to me” is a constant rejoinder to every middle-class American who consumes news.

Climate change, on the other hand, is a theoretical issue for most people, much like the federal government’s deficits. Sure, everyone says they are against climate change and public debt, but they aren’t going to be forced to deal with the consequences. Therefore, it can be put off until tomorrow. Today, I have bills to pay, errands to run, and a family to feed.

The Recipe For Communicating Climate Change

So how does the climate not just become top of mind, but the top of the action item list ?

Certainly, as floods, forest fires and heatwaves continue to increase, the desire for action on climate change has become more intense, but climate activists are still using an incomplete message to drive the necessary policies forward.

Since there are always too many cooks in the kitchen anyway when it comes to political communication, here’s my recipe to communicate a crisp climate message.

Inciting Fear Of Climate Change Is Necessary

History has shown fear is a potent motivator. Video of ice sheets cleaving and melting in Greenland; people are dying from heatwaves in Anchorage and Moscow; asthmatics wearing facial masks while choking downwind from forest fires; hurricane-ravaged communities; and bug infestations in places never before seen. These are all compelling images that replace the theoretical with the actual, and instills a sense of dread in every human being, no matter their age, race, or socioeconomic status.

Why is that fear so compelling in changing hearts and minds?

Neuroscience research has shown there are two neural pathways from amygdala, which processes fear, to every one neural pathway that fires from the frontal lobe , which processes reason. So while we’ve had a survival instinct since before Lucy, our mechanisms for reasoning evolved much more recently and have less capacity to transmit signals.

Fear of having your life wiped out by climate change related fires and floods are very effective persuasion tools.

Ironically, it seems to me it’s always the smartest climate activists who reject neuroscience because they believe in the Aristotelean notion of argument based in fact and logic. For that reason, I propose we overcome our first and most self-inflicted problem by renaming the amygdala the “ancient brain,” which evokes wisdom, so we can get this group of otherwise highly functioning advocates over their need to be right at the expense of winning.

In another twist of irony, one of the best allies the climate community has to make its case for change are the same wall to wall cable news channels credited with debasing our democracy. Due to their constant need for ratings and eyeballs, coverage of extreme weather events, bug swarms, and diseases get more coverage than ever. It reinforces the narrative of troubling changes across our planet and an urgent need to act.

You know that record typhoon barrelling down on China this week? Make it trend on Twitter. Editorializing is not necessary when mothers are carrying their children to safety through flooded streets. No amount of bellyaching about Donald Trump (while richly deserved) will be anywhere near as effective.

What Do Bread and Butter Have To Do With Communicating Climate Change?

No, this isn’t a screed about industrial-scale farming or condemnation of the dairy industry. In fact, I would recommend climate change activists stop vilifying cows. People love cows. Next to cats and dogs, they are the most popular animal on the internet.

Hating on cows reinforces the image of climate change activists as mean and petty scolds, an no one wants to listen to a hectoring lecture. I get that cow emanation are a significant source of methane emissions, but the average age of people who want to hear about cow burps and farts are seven-years-old (or viewers of South Park). Not exactly a massive voter demographic.

Communicating the dangers of climate change requires connecting the dots to self-interest without abstraction. Instead of telling people to toss the cows off the ark to keep the water from rising, inform people the price of milk, a daily staple in most diets, is going to double along with their produce and poultry if we don’t take meaningful action.

Most families live on a budget. For too long, fossil fuel interests have been unopposed in appealing to the necessary and self-interested choices families have to make every week by claiming colossal price increases in the cost of gas and electricity will result from carbon-reducing remedies. And every time coal and oil companies put out that piece of cheese, climate activists frustratingly take the bait and argue a point they can’t possibly win because it’s true. That’s called fighting in a losing frame.

Instead, we need to fight this battle on grounds that are even more fundamental to families’ self-interest than gasoline. And what could be more fundamental to human life besides food?

Every time they use their billions in profits to scream “High Gas Prices!”, our counter-argument is NOT that more people should drive electric vehicles. The rallying cry retort is their product is causing drought and floods that will drive up food prices if we don’t act . Make the choice between spending an extra $20 gas per week versus paying Whole Foods prices to feed your family every week if we don’t act swiftly and decisively.

Fossil fuel companies convince lower-income voters to side against their own self-interest by asking, “How do you like those apples?” while pointing their index finger at Tesla driving, cappuccino drinking, tech-savvy urbanites as the enemy of the proletariat. For once, instead of taking that poisoned cheese, I wish we would take a collective deep breath, check our own self-image and calmly reply, “Thanks, but we can’t afford to eat apples anymore because your product ruined the crop.”

Instead of arguing over gas prices, make fossil fuel companies explain high food prices thanks to their product.

Communicate Climate Change With Urgency And With Words People Can Understand

No one was more surprised than me to read the Republican Party’s message master, Frank Luntz, showed up on Capitol Hill to speak to the Special Committee on the Climate Crisis about breaking down partisan barriers and taking action on climate change . Luntz is the same man who advised the party to take up a strategy of climate science obfuscation during the George W. Bush administration.

Do you know what drove this political svengali of climate denialism to this committee hearing? A come to Jesus moment when he had to evacuate his own home in Southern California due to a rapidly spreading wildfire. (See my first point about personal impact.)

Luntz brought a chart of climate-related “Words To Use And Words To Lose.” While I don’t agree with him on every point, his overarching principles were spot on. For example:

Two more I’d like to add to Luntz’s list are:

It’s not that complicated. When climate advocates talk about the benefits of a clean economy, use words everyone favors. After all, who doesn’t want to be safer or healthier? When discussing the threats, use accessible words that everyone opposes. Carbon emissions, while technically accurate, is ambiguous; but even children understand the words ‘pollution’ and ‘threat’ isn’t good.

We Win Either Way

The esteemed writer and New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, has articulated the case for transitioning to a clean energy economy longer and better than just about anyone else. At its core, he defines taking action on the climate crisis as a win-win strategy. Frank Luntz used a similarly useful phrase, the “no-regrets strategy.”

Their description of a worst-case scenario paints a picture of scientists being wrong about climate change, but Americans still having cleaner air, cleaner water, less dependence on foreign fuels and an economy that continues to produce new jobs in new industries. And if scientists are right, Americans get all of those things and avoid the most catastrophic environmental problem in the history of mankind.

Embedded in this argument is the belief people can change their destiny, the crescendo of any good speech or movement that arises from the destruction of the old order.

As a reminder when fits of despair hit, the evolution of cigarette smoking had a similarly frustrating and decades-long arc before people’s attitudes and behaviors changed. And make no mistake, people’s opinions about the reality and causes of climate change are moving in the right direction. Now that we have the scalable technology, we need the right language more than ever to rally a slumbering nation to action.

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What Are The Best Social Media Channels For Cleantech?

Sat, 20 Jul 2019 02:19:00 GMT

To be engaged in social media, or not to be engaged in social media. That is the question for cleantech companies.

Through the left ear, you hear, “Free Exposure!” being shouted at you; but through the right ear, you hear, “Waste of time and money!” Which ear should you trust?

The answer, like everything else in the green marketing world, is there’s no one stock answer. It depends on what your cleantech company is trying to achieve.

The Left Ear: Free Exposure!

Social media hasn’t altered the need for a cleantech company to have a compelling story to share, but it’s given cash-strapped companies more channels to share that story. But, as the saying goes, there’s no free lunch. Companies that put out slapdash content or who spam their followers lose credibility, lose followers and lose engagement opportunities that would otherwise extend their brand story.

Compounding the problem is no two social media networks are alike. While their audiences might overlap to a great extent, the purpose of the platforms and the kind of engagement you can expect is very different.

The Pew Survey has the most comprehensive and detailed look at the demographics of social media today.

The Right Ear: Waste Of Time!

Those who favor traditional media over its more upstart brethren poo-poo social because “it’s for the kids,” and because it’s harder to see a direct correlation between the time spent investing in social and a direct yield either financially or in exposure. If you came of age before the Millenium, this logic is understandable because there were only three networks, basic cable, and the daily newspaper. In order to deliver a message, you had to do it through a filter and the media was the gatekeeper.

In the last 15 years, technology has made it possible for any company to BE its own media network. The filter between companies and their audience has largely been erased as long as the company chooses to produce enough content to eradicate it.

The key to success, as any fitness guru will tell you, is “use it or lose it.” Using social media is a conscious decision a company makes, and it has to follow through with the same deliberateness as any other undertaking. If you are going to post content in an ad hoc manner, the skeptics are right; the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. On the other hand, put together a systematic plan to reinforce your brand story and publish quality content with intention, and your followers will find you.

The ROI Of Social Media In Cleantech

As Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin, famously said, “It’s not who votes that counts; it’s who counts the votes.” And on the internet, Google is the counter.

Regardless of how much I prattle on about the importance of reinforcing your brand story , if no one can find you on a search engine, your company is effectively MIA, like a Soviet dissident tucked away in a mountainous gulag. The more content your company produces, the easier it is for Google’s GPS to find you. And since 90% of all internet purchases begin with a search term, they are your guide out of the wilderness.

Social media, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or some other channel, is content. When people like and share what you have to say or follow you on a social media channel, it’s like putting high test gasoline (biofuel, of course) into the tank. Your company’s brand will burn hotter on search engines.

Improving your organic search engine rankings alone can save your cleantech company tens of thousands of dollars every year that it doesn’t have to spend on paid search engine ads to be seen. The same goes for generating followers on social media. There’s a value in showing up automatically in the feed of industry influencers and getting their attention.

My Advice? Listen In Stereo

Mama always said there’s a reason we were all born with two ears and only one mouth, and it’s wise counsel on whether your company should invest in social media.

Growth stage cleantech companies need as much exposure as they can get, but they have to choose how to spend their resources wisely. Unless your company has the resources to outsource your marketing, launching your own media network complete with videos, blog posts, entertainment, and calls to action is next to impossible. Targeting your platforms is a much more realistic option. Pick one and dominate it. When your company accomplishes the first goal, pick a second platform and so on.

But why not use an automated marketing system to post simultaneously on every social media network? Because, as I pointed out above, every network has its purpose and zeitgeist. What works on LinkedIn won’t necessarily be welcomed by your Facebook fans.

The upshot? Choose wisely, my friends, so you too can be the most interesting cleantech company in the world.

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How Cleantech Companies Should Announce Their Exciting News

Sat, 13 Jul 2019 23:19:00 GMT

Groundbreaking cleantech ideas don’t guarantee eyeballs.

I track dozens of cleantech companies on Google, subscribe to all sorts of newsletter lists, and follow even more cleantech companies on LinkedIn so that I can keep up with industry news. I spend hours each week sifting through the inane and irrelevant to find compelling announcements worth reading. And while it’s a good thing I only have to get past the title in about one in twenty articles and news releases that show up on my feed or inbox, it also means 95% of the announcements cleantech companies wanted to share gets overlooked or ignored–and I’m a junkie who lives for my next hit of news. Imagine what the hit rate is for less enthusiastic readers?

The reality is that even if your cleantech company is creating groundbreaking technologies to solve the climate crisis, it still exists in a cluttered environment filled with cat videos, graduations, vacation pictures, and other ephemera. So, how do you break through to ensure you’re connecting with the right audience at the right time with the right message? The short answer is that it’s a process, not a one-time tactic.

If your cleantech company is serious about attracting investment and building credibility, here’s the spadework you need to do to ensure your brand pollinates the ecosystem.

1. If You Build It, They Will Come

Since it’s the middle of summer, I’m risking the Field Of Dreams cliche to make the point. Attracting attention isn’t about hitting the one 600-foot homerun, but rather it’s about making consistent contact with the ball (your audience). Again, your competition isn’t the scientists in Silicon Valley, it’s every crazy tweet authored by the President at 3 a.m., Nike’s latest marketing campaign, and the most recent hurricane to hit the coast.

Your cleantech company can’t compete with that news deluge, but you can help yourself by continually pumping out the news. This requires an infrastructure to support a constant peppering of your audience to extend your brand and share news to promote your brand story. What do I mean by infrastructure?

2. Serve Multiple Food Groups In Moderate Portions

Too often, I see cleantech companies run by scientists, engineers, or MBA’s attempt to spread their news like peanut butter with the assumption if we throw it out everywhere it will stick somewhere. Following this strategy will make your story increasingly irrelevant over time while putting you in the dog house with reporters who hate spam.

One of my first communications rules for understaffed growth stage companies is “do a few things well rather than do a half-assed job trying to be everywhere.” Using social media as an example, your company doesn’t need to have an account on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snap Chat, and What’s App. Pick one or two (at most) channels where your knowledge can make you an influencer, and be active on those channels through sharing industry news, commenting on others’ posts and updating your followers on your project.

The same strategy applies to the content your company is creating. Repetitive sharing of the essential news yields more tangible results for brand recall than inundating your audience with a dozen unimportant bits of information.

Not every threshold achieved deserves a megaphone, so while new patents might be worth the cost of putting out a press release on a media wire service, less engaging stories like the latest hire or the move to a new building would be better suited for a newsletter or blog post to a narrower audience.

3. Connect Directly With Your Audience

One of the benefits of media disaggregation over the last 15-20 years is any company can become a media channel if it produces enough quality content. News is no longer dependent on a media filter or assignment editors who get to decide what stories to cover.

If your company built a reliable communications infrastructure, you should have lists of interested parties who want to hear directly from you, whether it’s via email, social media, video, or an RSS feed. This is especially important in the cleantech world if your company is seeking investment. Investors want to get to know a company before he/she is willing to write a check, and your company’s public face is either going to increase or decrease their confidence. That constant water drip of news output is another data point to them that suggests your company has the talent and savvy to scale and commercialize.

4. Use Fewer Words And More Visuals

It’s not exactly a secret that Americans don’t read, and yes television and the internet have had something to do with it, but those mediums are piggybacking on something neuroscientists have long known: visuals stimulate different parts of our brains. There’s a reason research papers don’t appear on the New York Times Best Seller list, and it’s not because you aren’t a good writer.

Cleantech relies on sophisticated knowledge of engineering, chemistry, and physics in most cases, but if you can’t explain your idea’s essence in seven seconds, you’re likely to lose your audience. Pictures and video should accompany and sometimes outright replace any copy because most people don’t care about what you are doing below the waterline; they want to touch your final product and understand how it impacts their lives.

5. It’s Not About You

No matter which channels you use to share news and insights, your company’s content must be audience-focused. Before offering anything for public consumption, your company needs to ask itself, “Why would my audience care about this?” And unless your audience is chock full of PhD.’s, the way your widget works is the least of their concerns.

If your news can’t answer at least one of those questions, it’s not news.

6. Don’t Use 10 Words When 3 Will Suffice

This goes under the heading of “Dispense With The Non-Essential.” One of the ways I know whether a news release was authored by the CEO of a company or by a communications professional is by the length. If I see boilerplate in the order of the paragraphs, overly dense copy and 1,500 words, it screams to the audience, NEXT!”

Whether it’s a news release, blog article, or social media post, the goal is to communicate one idea in as little time as possible. Over the years, I’ve put speeches, articles, and every other form of communication there is to what I call the Gettysburg test.

In short, my rhetorical question to your attempt at communicating a message is this:

Editing should be about addition through subtraction. If there’s more than one idea present, break it into two different posts and give yourself an extra opportunity to communicate with your audience. Your job is not to cram as much information as possible into each outreach; it’s to leave a single imprint on your audience. Anything extra is vanity or a sign your company is too bureaucratic.

Communicating complex cleantech ideas is challenging enough, which is why the first hurdle of cleantech marketing should be to make it easier for your audience to understand.

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The Secret To Getting Your Green Brand Discovered

Tue, 09 Jul 2019 05:10:00 GMT

So you’ve got a great idea to stave off climate change and make the world a more sustainable place, and you’re convinced you can turn it into a profitable business. You’ve written your business plan; you’re searching for investment, and; you know you have an audience waiting to become your ambassadors and your customers, if only they learn about you. It’s the basic algebraic formula “a + b = c.” Or is it?

Frankly, I hated algebra, so it gives me a perverse joy when I get to tell green company founders “a + b” can equal anything you want it to be in the perception business. But more importantly, I tell them the equation is much more complex and not nearly as linear as they would like to believe.

In honor of the 9th-grade math teacher who gave me a passing grade because (I assume) she didn’t want me in her class two years in a row, I’d like to discuss the formula to brand liftoff that applies only to green companies.

A = Your Great Idea

By nature, anyone who’s in cleantech/greentech is an altruist at heart. Not to cross my math disciplines here, but it’s a geometric fact. As such, you have an almost Polyannish belief the rest of the world will see your invention with the same Aristotelian logic you do and come to the conclusion that it’s the greatest thing since Aristotle.

Unfortunately, you’ve overestimated your fellow man, so your brand fame equation has already started with a false premise, which means your brand rocketship will miss the moon and float endlessly in space, minus the Hollywood ending or cool Star Trek gadgetry which will allow you to break the space/time continuum.

The reality is the “a” in the equation is only applicable if your world-changing idea meets the following criteria:

B = Exposure

Recently, I had a conversation with the CEO of a cleantech startup, who upon learning what I do, asked me, “Who do I need to call at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times?”

I demurred his question because exposure isn’t something that just happens for green companies. It only happens for cats, people doing stupid things who video themselves and post it on YouTube, or companies who have initial investors with last names like Gates, Branson, Kholsa, etc. For the rest of us, exposure is part of a well-thought-out plan.

Before you program any of the writers for Fast Company or Inc. into your smartphone, there are several things you need to work out strategically, including:

Journalists who work in specialized niches like cleantech get dozens of pitches every day from companies just like yours. Just because you are doing good things for the planet doesn’t entitle your company to special attention. Everybody thinks it’s great that you turn waste cotton fibers from blue jeans into sustainable insulation for people’s homes, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to attract media attention.

Maybe you have a local angle, or perhaps your company is industry specific. Start there, but first, make sure you have your story straight, and you know what points you want to emphasize based on your audience.

I’ve written before about how cleantech scientists and engineers love to talk about what they invented and how they invented it, and why they need to be focused instead about how it impacts the audience . The only thing worse than being ignored is getting attention and blowing the opportunity to reinforce the advantages your audience will see with your product/idea.

The other reason to hold off on calling The Times? It’s much easier to get your feet wet in the exposure game when you’re talking to industry journalists who are going to be a sympathetic ear. Regardless, though, if you want media attention, at a minimum you need to have a hub for your communications platform where you share your brand story and additional ways to share your good news like an e-mail list because, believe it or not, no one is paying as much attention to your company as you are.

C = Credibility

In a basic algebraic equation, the letter “C” is usually the answer. In getting liftoff for your green brand, however, it belongs on the left side of the equation because credibility is not the ultimate goal for your brand, and it’s no more or less important than “A” or “B.”

Credibility comes from grants and winning awards, but it also comes from another “c” word–content.

Whether your green company is B2B or B2C, producing content not only gives you new ways to reach your audience, but it also helps your SERP (search engine page rank), which in itself is a sign of credibility. When your brand appears at the top of the first page in your industry, there is a bias in your favor because the Lords of Google have bent the sun to shine in your direction.

In a world where 90% of all internet traffic starts with a search before purchasing, search engine ranking is the most powerful avatar of credibility in the world today.

That’s not to say the support from powerful VC’s, politicians, and respected voices are worthless. Quite the contrary; they convey credibility. But if you don’t or can’t share that content with others, and with Google, Bing, and Yahoo, you’re only filling a bucket that has a hole in the bottom.

D = Discovery Of Your Brand

Ultimately, you’re trying to make a stage for your targeted audience to notice you. If you’ve added a + b + c, you’ve built that stage with bright lights so they can see your story, feel good about it, and become part of your sales funnel.

And to pass this algebra course, all you need to do is repeat the equation over and over again, making sure your brand story stays consistent with the values you display in your marketing tactics both online and off.

If you’re interested in having your green brand discovered, contact me for a free initial 30-minute consultation.

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Do You Make These Mistakes With Your Cleantech Pitch?

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 21:52:00 GMT

If you’ve founded a cleantech company, there’s a better than even chance your background is in science or engineering. There’s also a high probability you could write an encyclopedia about your invention. Neither of these factors is likely to help you make a successful pitch for investment in your cleantech startup.

In the academic world, people are praised for their brilliance and encouraged to achieve breakthroughs in their fields and publish technical papers which are only understood by a small cohort of similarly trained individuals. Unfortunately, the premise behind your entire academic career is no longer operative when it comes to attracting investment and customers.

No, this isn’t a clarion call for smart people to dumb themselves down or appeal to the lowest common denominator, but after spending yesterday at a cleantech showcase with two dozen growth stage companies, it became apparent to me there is an inverse relationship between the expertise of the speaker and the success of their pitch.

With the hope of seeing more cleantech companies get funded, here’s a list of the most common pitch mistakes and how they can be solved.

The First Commandment: Get Your Story Straight

Whether you are pitching investors, building a website, or sending out an email, if your audience can’t follow along, your credentials and ideas are irrelevant.

What I repeatedly heard yesterday was smart people talking about their science instead of engaging their audience with a story they could relate to and get behind.

Getting your story straight means having a narrative structure , which is always a variation of the same basic plotline.

Use Your Time Wisely

I like pitch competitions that allow presenters no more than five to seven minutes. Why? Because it forces the speaker to narrow his/her focus down to only the essential points, he/she is trying to make.

Yesterday, each presenter had 20 minutes to speak, including questions and answers. Unfortunately, every one of them used their entire time.

The antidote, learn your five-minute pitch until you can recite it in your sleep. Don’t deviate from it.

I get blow-back for saying this, and my reply is always the same. “If you can illustrate your story in five minutes, anything more than that is either restating what you said or muting the volume of the points you already made.

If the audience gets your main objective, they will ask questions after. It’s not your job to fill in all of the blanks or answer all of their questions before the Q & A session; your job is to pique their curiosity, so they want to learn more.

Your Audience Is There To Ask You Questions, Not Vice-Versa

It’s OK to launch your presentation with a question to the audience as a way of focusing their attention on your narrative. Asking multiple questions in a presentation makes you look like the smartest kid in the class showing off, and no one likes to have their intelligence belittled.

If an audience member doesn’t understand something, they will ask a question. If you continue getting asked the same question, it’s a good indication there’s a hole in your narrative.

Slides Are Adjuncts, Not Focal Points

Neuroscientific research has shown over and over again that people are only able to focus on one thing at a time. They are either watching the presenter or viewing the slide deck.

I find most presenters cram information on to their slides because they think it allows them to present more information, when in fact they are diluting their presentation.

Don’t Waste Time Restating the Obvious

If you are pitching your idea at a cleantech conference, it’s a safe assumption 100% of the audience already knows carbon emissions are rising and we need solutions to stave off the climate crisis. They also know we use too much plastic, need alternative fuels to power our transportation system, and know solar and wind is intermittent power requiring storage when the sun isn’t shining, or when the wind isn’t blowing. If they didn’t understand these facts, they wouldn’t be at a niche conference like this. Restating the obvious not only insults them but wastes valuable time you could be using to make a more convincing case for your company.

From a visual perspective, no one needs to see slides of the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, polluted city air, or algae blooms in lakes and rivers. It can go unstated unless you are speaking to a 101 college-level course. Start with a shared values statement like, “We all want clean air and water” as an aspirational statement like the one in the first section.

You Are No Longer A Neutral Party In The Process

One way I can always tell if the speaker is a Ph.D. scientist is they shirk away from answering questions about the advantage of their technology over the competition. Engineers typically have the reverse problem: they can’t wait to tell you how superior their invention is to others in their field.

Scientists: once you launch your company, you have taken a side. You are a participant in the scrum, not the referee. The paper you wrote to be peer-reviewed needs to be crumpled up and tossed away because you are now a fully-fledged advocate; act like one. It might hurt your professional pride, but your audience assumes you have a bias so you might as well own it.

Your Investors Care More About How They Make Money

Finally, think of your pitch like an iceberg. Sure, the vast majority of your time was spent building and testing your invention, but that’s not the part your audience wants to see. They want to see the section above the waterline: your business, pricing and distribution model; your price or technology advantage; your IP; the customer’s ROI, and; your growth or exit strategy.

Before you deliver that 5-7 minute presentation, imagine yourself as a member of the audience, and ask, “Why would I want to be involved with this cleantech startup?” That’s your starting point.

It’s hard enough launching a cleantech startup in 2019. There’s a smaller pool of investors who have to be more patient to see a return on their investment. Overcome some of these classic pitch mistakes and give them one more reason to put your company at the top of their due diligence list.

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Are Your B2B Brand’s Images Powerful?

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 21:14:00 GMT

The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” has been around so long because it’s true. But when I look at the brand strategy behind the websites, social media and content marketing of companies In the B2B space, I often wonder if I missed out on the instructions from a parallel school of thought which taught its graduates, “You should use a thousand words to describe your picture.”

Powerful Branding Images Require Scant Explanation

A common thread running through the best works of art is that it speaks for itself. You might want to read the description next to the painting, but you already know what the work communicates before you start reading.

While touring an art gallery exhibit of Victorian Radicals with my daughter last weekend, I came across a painting from an artist I had never heard of, which perfectly exhibited the transcendence of a powerful image. The title of the painting served merely as a reinforcement of the artist’s intent.

Powerful images need few words to describe them. In the case of this painting, “Work,” the one-word title was enough context.

The image to the right captured a specific time and place without a single adjective attached to it. The title, “Work,” gave the viewer all the context necessary for this 19th Century example of the sights, smells, and costumes of the English proletariat.

After viewing the painting, I read the description next to it to learn more, but that was by choice. I could have easily moved on to the next picture without reading and still had a cognitive imprint.

How Many Words Do Your Brand Images Require?

Here’s a great test to use if you’re a startup launching your first website or if your B2B company is going through a rebrand. Look at each brand image through a storytelling lens and ask:

Things Are Not Powerful Images

If I had a dime for every B2B company that used an image of its machine or technology front and center, I’d be wealthy enough to own an art gallery. I have two rules about using images of things:

Think Like A Painter When Building Your Brand Story

As your company is working on its brand story or re-branding itself internally or with a creative agency, imagine you are curating an art exhibit. Somehow, all of the images you’re using must fit in a narrative cluster that reinforces the previous one.

Before you have professional photos taken or video shot, lay out a series of frames; the large frames in the front for the images that set the table for the rest of the narrative, and the smaller frames for those that support the larger themes you are trying to convey behind them.

You might want to move the frames around to tell a more powerful story, but make sure your visitors see the ones that will resonate with them first so if they wander off to another part of the gallery, at least they’ll remember why they came in the first place.

Arrange your brand story like a painter. Show off your most powerful images in the most massive frames and place them at the front of the exhibit.

The post Are Your B2B Brand’s Images Powerful? appeared first on Michael's Marc .

Fledgling Stories

Sat, 15 Jun 2019 02:14:00 GMT

What does honey have to do with saving elephants in Botswana, and why would I want to buy another pair of shoes made in Asia? These business propositions were just a couple of the conscious companies crafting their pitch at Fledge’s Demo Day.

Not familiar with Fledge? They brand themselves as the conscious company accelerator and bring in entrepreneurs from all over the world, much like a traditional accelerator, but with a focus on companies that solve real problems in the world. They started in Seattle 7 years ago, but now have locations in Padua, Nairobi, Lima, and Boston, among others. Soon they’ll be in Egypt and Rwanda. Fledge helps their “fledglings” create business plans, learn how to market themselves and make pitches to investors. You know, the usual incubator type intensive skill training.

The Fledgling in Chief, Luni Libes , believes he’s found the sweet spot where impact investors can pad their portfolios while creating opportunities for mission-driven, for-profit companies to build in places a traditional VC would never look. That’s because the goal here isn’t to exit at 10x; it’s about creating a growing and sustainable business. He must be on to something because 454 companies from 85 countries submitted applications to be part of the program this year.

As someone who preaches the gospel of story , it was like listening to the harmonies of a church choir. After seven weeks of intense training, they were all polished and on key. I tried the wise-guy contrarian act on several of them in one-on-one conversations, but they sidestepped my gentle barbs and didn’t miss a note. Curses!

But here’s the thing that made them all successful in my eyes; they all used the basic narrative structure to bring me along on their journey. So often, when I listen to pitches from MBA’s and engineers, they lose me because they don’t establish a place or a hero who piques my interest.

The founder of Kalahari Honey didn’t sell me on the purity of her product; she sold me on a story about the conflict between man and elephant, and her solution to ease the divide.

What was her solution? Honey bees. I didn’t know elephants were afraid of bees. Did you? It turns out that not only do honey bees strategically located around the perimeter of a farm keep the elephants away, but it also creates an opportunity for small farmers in Botswana to earn a living. I don’t know what the expected ROI is, but how could you not want to know more?

Shoes made in Asia? Been there, done that–or not. Fuchsia Shoes has contracted with individual artisans in Pakistan and connected them with women all over the world who want to win the Best Original Shoes award among their peers.

The list went on.

If you have a chance, watch their 5-7 minute TED-style talks here. There are great lessons in building a narrative for your company, but it’s also going to be the feel-good highlight of your week.

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Want Your Brand In Bright Lights? Build From The Bottom

Sun, 09 Jun 2019 22:04:00 GMT

Every business owner thinks his/her brand should be in the spotlight, and why not? The long hours, the novel ideas, the enthusiasm, the purposeful value proposition: isn’t it evident the media should take note?

And from the days of Gutenberg to the 1970s, the process of generating exposure for your brand was pretty straightforward: write some copy–or hire a publicist to do it for you–and take it to the local newspaper (and maybe buy an ad while you were there.).

Times have changed. A lot. I remember serving as a press secretary for a gubernatorial candidate in the early 1990s when someone would have to spend hours by the fax machine, hand inserting and dialing the number of every reporter in the state, which was a vast improvement over the United States Postal Service. A few years later, email made it much more efficient to generate exposure for your brand, but the media still played the role of news filter.

While Y2K didn’t cause the disruption everyone feared, Web 2.0 reset the tectonic plates in the crust of how people and brands connect. And the world of generating exposure has never been the same since.

How Do I Gain Exposure For My Brand?

Exposure no longer solely requires a media filter, but it’s still a good practice to keep them in the loop and make it easy for them to find you. To do that, you need a communications infrastructure.

It’s easier than ever to find a place on the web, even if you don’t have much of a budget. Thousands of brands started with a simple WordPress template and added their copy and pictures. It might not be optimal, but if you don’t have much liquidity, it’s what you do to plant the flag.

Regardless of whether you are a DIYer or you had the budget to hire a marketing strategist, professional web developer and a photographer to grab compelling images, the website is only one of the building blocks your brand needs.

Generating exposure requires your audience to be able to find you, and sinc e 90 percent of purchases begin with a web search , you are the proverbial tree in the forest if you don’t have a good SERP (search engine page ranking). Hopefully, you have the budget to hire a professional online marketing company to help you because Google is forever changing its algorithm which determines rankings, but at the very least you should be figuring out which words people use to search for businesses like yours and make sure to use them in your metatags and copy.

But like having a website, SEO is just another marketing tactic to help your brand rise above the waterline. There are also building email lists to communicate directly with your audience, social media presence to build brand loyalty, blogging and content marketing to assert your authority, video marketing (because Americans don’t read anymore, silly), online advertising to target specific keywords, etc.

These tactics serve to gain validation to generate more attention from trusted third party sources. It’s a template that looks like this:

In contrast to that more traditional template, start-ups can build a cadre of brand ambassadors to find their audience in a flatter world. It might not, however, come with the same credibility. If your business is direct to consumer, it might not matter, but in the B2B sector, it doesn’t carry the same validity punch as a profile in Inc. or Fast Company.

Why Media Attention Still Matters

Once upon a time, the press, whether that’s trade media, local media or national publications, was the only game in town. But while individually none of them has the dominance or reach they once did, they are still outsized generators of credibility for your brand.

If you run a local business like a restaurant or HVAC company, individual reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp are undeniably important, but even if you are in a B2C business, there is still no substitute for the validation of a branded third-party source like reviewer in the local online newspaper. And if you are in a B2B industry, trade journal articles are not the only key to your audience finding you, but often it’s the difference between getting the contract and seeing it go to a competitor.

Validation comes from the credibility your brand gets from exposure from trusted brand names. First, though, you need to put the building blocks in place to get to the surface. That’s where you can ride the wave.

You No Longer Control Exposure, But You Can Manage It

The first time you see your brand in lights, it’s like your first hit of cocaine (I’m told). You want more and more. You just saw your brand on a 4K television, and now you want to see it in the movie theater. The problem is that once your brand has reached a threshold, you no longer control it. Everyone and anyone with an opinion and a Facebook account can weigh in–and often do.

The only option now is to feed the beast and try to get it addicted to the sugar high from your story, so it ignores the incoming slings and arrows from all angles. You never want the beast to look away from you because once it does you become just another point of view among millions and your brand gets diminished.

So, how do you keep the beast focused on you? Feed it the food it likes, and lots of it.

Content marketing becomes so valuable because if your brand leaves a consumption void, someone else will fill it. The media abhors a vacuum. While this isn’t an actual law of physics, it should be because it’s spot on 100% of the time.

Some feed the beast with a drumbeat of new product launches like the showcases Apple puts on for developers and acolytes every year. Others court controversy by picking trivial fights (See: magazines in grocery store checkout lines). But if your not Apple and your last name aren’t Kardashian, how do you continue to generate continued media exposure? Here’s how the internet has changed things.

Once upon a time, brands controlled their exposure with an iron fist. Today, they don’t have that luxury because secrets are hard to keep, and a motivated audience can swamp your message. Case in point: Monsanto. No matter how much their science helps feed the world, their story will forever be overshadowed as the poster child of GMO’s and agri-pollution. And this is a company that spends hundreds of millions of dollars marketing its products.

Monsanto: A Case Study In Brand Exposure Gone Haywire

Monsanto made the classic mistake of listening to their scientists when it came to communications advice. Not to disparage scientists just because I didn’t get up early enough in college to attend those classes, but because the scientific method is about finding fact while brand reputation is about perception.

The Monsanto scientists likely assured the C-Suite that GMO’s are harmless according to their extensive testing, but because of the blemishes on Monsanto’s brand, those assurances weren’t good enough for activists who were concerned about food safety and public health. Monsanto never got ahead of the alarm, and the rest is history.

Google “Monsanto” today and you’ll see a virtual rap sheet on the first page of devious corporate behavior and an endless stream of lawsuits and invective.

The lesson here is once your brand pokes its head out of its turtle shell, it can no longer hide back inside. It has to keep moving forward aggressively use every marketing tool at its disposal to protect its brand story because like anything in life, you rarely get a second chance to make a first impression.

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4 Ways To Write A Memorable Website Homepage

Sat, 01 Jun 2019 23:55:00 GMT

Your website is the online portal for your audience, and your website’s homepage is the cyber front door. How you welcome your viewers will be the first impression of your brand and is critical to move them through the sales funnel to become your brand advocates. As the old saying goes, “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression,” so no matter how important your invention or novel your product, you better write a homepage that entices them to learn more.

There are four things you need to remember when you write and design your content to achieve this goal.

Know Your Brand

One of the most deadly mistakes I see early stage companies make is creating a website before they’ve figured out their brand. Usually, this happens because someone told them they had to have a website.

Fair enough. It’s nearly impossible to survive in business today without an online presence, but you need to know more than just about what you are selling if you want to build a loyal audience. Homepages are about values and building relationships. Even well-established brands go out of their way to welcome back their customers.

That’s not to say there shouldn’t be an invitation for your audience to purchase what you sell; it’s just shouldn’t be the first thing they encounter.

A homepage is about explaining the “why:” why you are in business, and why should your audience care. You might be intimately familiar with what you make, but your homepage has to reach out to the audience and create a kinship both through its design and copy.

Start with identifying what’s true, meaningful, and distinctive about your brand.

Know Your Audience

I can always tell when a company has written their website because it screams ME! ME! ME!

My response to ME! ME! ME! is WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

If you have raised children, you are likely familiar with the phrase, “It’s not about you.” The same goes for creating a website homepage.

You may indeed have created the best invention since sliced bread, but if it’s not meaningful to your audience, you’re going to sell a whole lot of nothing. The same principle applies to books, movies, or any other form of entertainment. You have to draw your audience into your world.

So, as you are writing and designing a website, imagine the person you are communicating to and ask yourself:

And so on. Your audience isn’t a reflection in the mirror, so your prose needs to be on your audience’s level, and your design needs to meet their expectations of your brand. You contradict yourself, for example, when you refer to your company as innovative, but pick the same cheap, off the shelf Word Press template that everyone else is using this year.

People Care About People

Say it with me, “People care more about people than they care about things.” If I had a dime for every website I saw (particularly in the B2B space) which featured an invention, product or concept smack in the middle of the homepage, I’d be on the cover of the Financial Times.

Individuals and companies can and should be proud of their achievements. Years of hard work and sacrifice deserve to be noted, just not on your website homepage.

So please, if you’re in the biotech space, don’t make the first thing your viewer sees is a microscope or the double-helix you’ve reconfigured. If you’re in agtech, please don’t show me a stalk of corn; and if you’re in cleantech, I don’t want to see the barrel containing the chemicals you created from captured carbon.

Your audience wants to know how your inventions are going to improve their lives and those of their loved ones. They want to see people like them. How you did it? What kind of credentials you have? That’s why there are website subpages. If you’ve hooked them initially, they’ll be far more likely to dig into the other pages where they can learn more about your team and your process.

Hire Outside Help

There are many reasons to turn to a marketing strategist or agency to help create an integrating marketing communications plan. At the top of the list, though, is just like a doctor should never treat him/herself, a company founder, CEO or insider is the worst option to write the company’s website homepage. They are too close to the subject.

Having a dedicated team is a good thing, but dispassionate outsiders can speak the truth and see the company’s goals from a different perspective. An outsider is invested in the company and its people, not necessarily the inventions.

If you’d like to talk about how to establish your company’s brand story online, contact me for a free 30-minute consultation.

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Act On Climate To Honor Our Dead

Tue, 28 May 2019 22:39:00 GMT

It’s the day after Memorial Day, and the flags are being put away. Americans honored their dead warriors in cemeteries across the globe in somber ceremonies and seventh-inning stretches at the ballgame. But as we looked back and gratefully saluted the sacrifices of so many who gave their lives for the ideal we call America, we seem to have a tougher time recalling what they sacrificed for and how to keep that spirit and their memories alive.

In the 79 years since the end of World War II, our nation hasn’t asked much of us beyond those who’ve served in uniform and their families. Maybe that’s a luxury we’ve taken for granted for all of these decades except for every Memorial Day and Veterans Day when we pause for a moment to share our shared history.

The Heroes Of The Past Are Speaking To Us

No one doubts men and women in graves marked with crosses, stars, and crescents were fighting the evils of their generation. What seems lost, though, is they fought so future generations of Americans would also be able to tackle their costly burdens. That’s the price of a great nation.

Those who died did so in vain only when future generations stop paying it forward. And today, we have an enormous battle to wage, the climate crisis, and from the military graveyards across the world, the message is loud and clear: Uncle Sam needs you.

We need to follow the example of World War II patriotism if we are to defeat global melting.

Unity Takes Time To Achieve

I don’t want to glorify the past and create revisionist history here. We weren’t exactly quick to the fight against tyranny in World Wars I or II. Hitler’s authoritarian regime had been in power for almost nine years before America declared war against Germany, and there’s an excellent chance had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor, we would have stayed neutral even longer.

There were thousands of American holdouts for Nazi Germany as the world went to war in 1939, just as there are thousands of global melting deniers today despite overwhelming evidence. Americans were not united in their enthusiasm for war before December 7th, 1941 , any more than pinched middle-class families today are enthusiastic about paying more at the gas pump to reduce CO2 emissions.

Whether it was tribal pride or economic self-interest that blinded people to the evil growing in Central Europe in the 1930s or the danger of oceans rising today, we need to recognize the difficulty of national unity when there are 330 million points of view. There will always be leaders as well as laggards. Let historians sort out who was who after the battle. The evidence for taking action has long tipped the scales, and if we lose this generational challenge, the question of who’s to blame will be the least of our concerns.

Recycling was seen as your patriotic duty in World War II. Why aren’t we pushing the same connection to everyday Americans in the fight against global warming?

Climate Action Is Patriotic

What we now remember from World War II was the shared unity of purpose. Whether you enlisted and picked up a gun or grew your vegetables in a Victory Garden , everyone felt like they had a part to play. That sense of patriotic pride is within our grasp again.

Remember, recycling aluminum and tires for the war effort? That patriotism can be rekindled whether it’s keeping your car tuned up, taking the bus to work, insulating your home or demanding companies follow best practices in energy efficiency and supply chains.

We need to connect everyday actions to combat global warming.

Environmentalists have never been very good at flag-waving, but that’s precisely how they should construct their frame and use language around tackling global melting. You might not personally fight wildfires, but you can be a climate patriot by not burning backyard waste. If you don’t want more young Americans to die in the Middle East for oil, be patriotic and purchase an EV or at least a more fuel-efficient car and slap an American flag on your bumper next to a catchphrase, “Polluting Is Unpatriotic.”

The ideas are endless:

The Military Is Our Last, Best Hope

“Support the troops” has become one of our favorite societal tropes, but for most people, it carries no meaning. Few people even know the American armed forces have been on the vanguard of clean energy development and deployment. Yet, because of the global implications for national security that our military has been preparing for the eventuality of global temperatures rising.

Because our armed forces are one of the few remaining institutions that retain Americans trus t, use them to recruit an army of young scientists and engineers who don’t know which end of a gun is which, but who want to devote themselves to a larger cause than unbridled consumerism. We all know the next war won’t be fought with tanks and soldiers, but fighting back the seas can be patriotic, idealistic, and winnable.

Elect A Leader Who’s Up To The Challenge

Here’s hoping the years 2017-2021 are an aberration of America’s greatness. We might not always get it right, but when the chips have been down over the last 240 years, the world hasn’t seen a better society of problem solvers. Now we just need a leader who understands the historical significance of the moment and is ready to marshall the necessary resources to win.

Jay Inslee is giving the right rhetorical response to the cost of winning the climate crisis.

Since it seems like half the world is running for the Democratic nomination for President, I’m not going to forecast a winner here. There are plenty of good options to consider. I do, however, want to give special attention to Washington Governor, Jay Inslee, who has made the climate crisis core to his candidacy. “We’re the first generation to feel the effects of climate change, and the last generation who can do something about it,” he says pointedly.

While all of the candidates running have urged action on climate, Inslee has bet his entire underdog campaign on changing the trajectory of carbon emissions. Whether that makes for good electoral politics remains to be seen, but he alone is giving the right retort to naysayers who only want to talk about the cost of combatting coastal cities under water. “Dear God, man! Did anybody ask what it was going to cost to win World War II?” he said, exasperated after being asked the cost question for the hundredth time.

I have to believe if there’s an afterlife, there were thousands of dead American soldiers nodding in agreement.

An American flag waves in the breeze beside a French flag before a headstone at Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, France. The cemetery is the final resting place for 9,387 American war dead.

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Use Emotive Language To Power Your Story

Mon, 20 May 2019 01:12:00 GMT

The B2B space is chock full of brilliant scientists, engineers, software developers, and the like. I am in awe of their achievements and advancements, and I’m grateful for all of them–especially the ones who have devoted themselves to reverse or at least slow down climate change. That said, none of them should be allowed to write the copy for their websites. The reason can be summed up in two words: emotive language.

Why Scientists Don’t Write Good Sales Copy

The dictum, “Let the data be your guide,” is one of the first things budding scientists and engineers learn as they should because it’s fundamental to the scientific method. And while they are passionate about their work, they are also taught to deliver their results dispassionately. They are referees, not players, who abide by the laws of physics, chemistry and biology.

Sharing your story online, however, requires a different set of writing skills that spur people to action whether through fear, inspiration, joy or anger.

What’s Emotive Language?

Emotive language isn’t about stringing frilly adjectives together. In fact, the emotive language is best when it’s simple and follows a basic narrative structure.

Using emotive language is as old as man himself. Think for a moment about the biblical story of Genesis. We all remember the story of Adam and Eve. Now compare that creation story to the Big Bang version of gasses and heat. While only one is true, the first is more appealing.

While not untruthful, emotive language isn’t designed to be litera l. It’s designed to elicit emotion.

Words To Never Use On Digital Media

I can always tell when someone with a scientific or engineering background wrote their website or blog or the copy for a video. They use words like these:

There are many more of these technical terms, but suffice to say they carry zero emotional weight. Words like these are terms of art in a scholarly paper but have little value in taking a buyer on an inspiring journey.

Facts Can Undermine Action

There have been tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers published on climate change over the last few decades, and I’m sure from a scientific perspective they are all correct. Unfortunately, no matter how many papers are published, climate deniers have for years muddied the waters over the consensus of science on climate change, and they have done so (in part) because scientists want to argue over data. And while 97% of them argue climate change is happening, they are missing the point. This debate isn’t happening in a laboratory; it’s happening online, and it’s a debate between two story framings and two worldviews.

Unfortunately, scientists have been so concerned with passively presenting the facts in a polarized atmosphere that it’s used language that undermines the urgency of the problem.

For example, the term ‘climate change’ itself connotes no urgency or even hints at the scale of the problem. It’s emotionally neutral when it should have been, in fact, much more alarming, and it’s made it harder to get the public to buy into the concept, let alone the solutions.

Emotive Language Paints A Picture

Whether you’re running a B2B selling a product or trying to spur action to prevent human extinction, the underlying principles are the same. The language that tells a story sells much more quickly and effectively than observationally neutral language.

This week, The Guardian newspaper updated its style guide to reflect current realities by introducing terms that more accurately describe the environmental crisis facing our planet, and it’s a lesson in both rhetoric and story framing.

While continuing to base their stories in fact, The Guardian has shone a light on how writing can be factual but actively engaging an audience by using language that appeals to the emotive parts of the brain as well as the analytical elements.

If you would like to learn how to use emotive language in your digital media, schedule a free 30-minute call with me.

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4 Things Your Brand Can Learn From Grumpy Cat

Sat, 18 May 2019 01:52:00 GMT

The internet was made by and for cats. What other possible explanation could there be for the crazy sensation known as Grumpy Cat? But as you indulge yourself in a private moment of mourning over her death earlier today , it’s never too soon to think about the lessons we can apply from her fame. The internet’s backbone, after all, is shamelessness so let’s dig into the litter box.

Defining How A Brand Is Perceived

For starters, let’s define a brand. There are four main categorizations of brands: good, bad, strong, weak. On an X and Y axis graph, it looks like this.

Grumpy Cat had what would be considered a strong and good brand.

While Grumpy Cat had both a strong and a good brand, those two things don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. United Airlines, for example, has a strong brand that’s bad because people know about United for all of the wrong reasons. Ideally, you want your brand in the same quadrant as Grumpy Cat.

How Did Grumpy Cat Become A Good Brand?

Our late feline friend played into an existing stereotype: cats are as%^&les. It’s a given they are self-serving and contemptuous of all life around them. So when Grumpy’s owner, Tabatha Bundssen, began placing pictures of Tardar Sauce (the cat’s real name) online, it existed in a milieu people could understand. Everyone was in on the joke.

Tardar also had a compelling background story to explain her unique facial expressions, feline dwarfism , which made her more relatable both to cat lovers and cat agnostics.

How Did Grumpy Cat Become A Strong Brand?

One of the cornerstones of every strong brand is their uniqueness. There are tens of millions of cats in the world, but none of them look like Tardar Sauce, and none have the same facial expressions. If you’re brave, you can put a cat in a costume, but it won’t have the same impact. A strong brand has to have a hook.

And in this social age, your brand has to be sharable. Ms. Bundssen, Grumpy’s owner, encouraged Photoshopped memes of her cat across all social platforms. At the time of her death, Grumpy Cat had 2.4 million Instagram followers and 1.5 million Twitter followers . What she didn’t have was a team of lawyers threatening to sue anyone who used Grumpy’s likeness. While you have to protect your brand for commercial purposes (and Grumpy’s owners did) , it can often help to loosen your grip a little and let people be creative.

Good Brands Must Be Likable

As I mentioned earlier, companies like United, Volkswagen (and lately) Facebook have strong brands, but no one would associate the adjectives most people use to describe these companies as positive. Words like deceitful, uncaring, greedy and intrusive have become synonymous for these companies. They would all exist in the lower right quadrant of the graph above.

Strong Brands Must Be Consistent

One of the reasons Grumpy Cat had so many fans is her fans knew what they were going to get. No matter the meme or the costume, every picture had her frowning face to either enhance or juxtapose it. Had she suddenly appeared as content and happy, her brand would have lost its edge. What was so devastating about a United gate agent dragging an unarmed man off a plane was United had used the slogan “Fly The Friendly Skies” for years. Talk about cognitive dissonance for their audience!

Everyone Loves Animals

There’s a reason Geico’s brand uses a Gekko, and Frosted Flakes has a tiger. Humans love and identify with animals. Neuropsychologists have been studying the use of animals to increase brand identity for years, and the research is clear: it works. So if all else fails, and your brand can’t get any traction or has a likeability problem, don’t just bring Fido to work; put him in front of the camera. You know you already think he should be famous. After all, if it worked for that angry cat. How hard can it be?

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Is Carbon Capture Coming Of Age?

Wed, 08 May 2019 23:42:00 GMT

For years, I was a carbon capture skeptic because the technology has an “S” for storage or sequestration. To me, storing CO2 underground was like asking a smoker to hold his breath to protect everyone around him from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. Eventually, the lungs are going to exhale.

I realize that’s an imperfect comparison as the Earth has held carbon in its strata for millions of years until we dug it up, and the more wishful interpretation is CCS is putting the carbon back where we found it, or what I call the toy box theory. When forced to clean up, the toys get thrown in any which way, and if the top doesn’t close, you sit on it and mash everything down. So much for science.

Today, though, there are a host of successful companies in the carbon capture field who’ve changed the acronym from CCS to CCU–carbon capture and utilization, and with it, the future of the technology is changing for the better.

Why Is Carbon Capture Important?

Humanity has long passed the oft-warned about 350 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere and now has passed 400 ppm. Some modeling has shown we could easily reach 500 ppm by 2050 or sooner. While much of the regulatory focus to solve climate change has been on electrifying the economy and scaling up renewable energy, neither of those laudable goals can stop the ticking time bomb of climate disaster; they can only slow down future nightmares.

We have to find a way to take carbon dioxide out of the air if there’s any hope of stopping or even (dare I say) reversing climate catastrophe.

So far, there are four main types of carbon capture: active air capture, passive air capture, air to fuels, and capture from biofuels. This Bloomberg article explains the differences concisely. Each has its purpose, and it’s fair to say everyone agrees it’s too soon to tell which will scale with the most promise over the next decade. Everyone also agrees carbon capture is critical if we want to reduce global greenhouse emissions. Leaders in the space believe carbon capture can take a 14 percent wedge out of the GHG pie .

The Carbon Capture Leader

If carbon capture were the Kentucky Derby, Swiss company Climeworks would be in the lead at the first turn. Founded in 2009, Climeworks uses huge fans to draw in ambient air through an integrated filter material that somehow captures only CO2. When the filters are full, the CO2 is heated up and then cooled into a concentrated CO2 which can be used for fuels, in greenhouses to help grow vegetables and even for carbonated beverages.

Canada Is Becoming King Of Carbon Capture

The best-funded of Canada’s carbon capture kings is Carbon Engineering, a direct air capture company, which has already received $68 million in investment from the likes of Bill Gates and Chevron Energy Technology Ventures. They aim to purify atmospheric CO2 for under $100/ton and turn it into ultra-low carbon fuels that can power existing cars, trucks and airplanes without any modifications.

Another British Columbia startup, Inventys, has developed an adsorption material that draws CO2 from industrial flue gas stacks

Meanwhile, on Canada’s Atlantic coast, Carbon Cure Technologies is capturing CO2 and converting it into a mineral to make a lighter, stronger and lower-carbon concrete, in essence capturing two high emitting industries with one stone. (Sorry about the pun.)

Consumer Focused Carbon Capture

Leave it up to American entrepreneurialism to solve a problem by creating consumer demand, which is precisely what California company, Newlight Technologies , is doing by capturing dairy methane, mixing it with air and enzymes in a bioreactor to create a material already being used to make desk chairs, computer packaging and smartphone covers.

Like every cleantech sector, California is awash in carbon capture and utilization companies with commercial applications. Among the more notable companies:

Several other high profile companies recycle carbon into products like LanzaTech , but I didn’t include them even though they perform groundbreaking work because they aren’t in the business of carbon capture. Of course, this group of companies will be the offtakers for the volumes of captured carbon in the future, so their success is vital to the CCU cycle.

Thanks to all of these pioneers, we might be able to breathe easier and tip the scales towards a more habitable planet.

If you need help telling your cleantech story, contact me to set up a free 30-minute consultation.

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Build Marketing Muscle By Keeping Active

Thu, 02 May 2019 21:48:00 GMT

We’ve all heard the old trope. “Active bodies stay active while sedentary bodies atrophy.” The same is true for marketing; use your tools to keep them sharp and your audience engaged. That’s why your company needs a marketing strategy.

See if this rings true for you. Your company has a big announcement, so the best writer on your team crafts a press release and you pay to send it out on PR Newswire. When the story comes out, you copy the link and post it on your company’s LinkedIn page with a self-congratulatory note. There, now the marketing is done. The business should be coming in the door in 3…2…1

I’ve seen that playbook as many times as I’ve seen out-of-shape adults show up at the gym the week of January 1st with a commitment to get fit.

As it turns out, having a healthy marketing strategy and a healthy body both require constant motion. You can’t sprint to cross the finish line if you haven’t run the first 25 miles of the marathon.

What Is A Marketing Strategy?

Continuing the fitness metaphor, the marketing strategy is a plan your company uses to achieve its goal, whether that goal is brand recognition, brand positioning, market share or sales. Just like you don’t walk into a gym and do a few Jumping Jacks and press out a few reps on the bench before hitting the showers, neither do you want to send out a few random tweets only when you have big news to share. Exercising and marketing are both steady, long-term commitments with end goals.

What’s The Value Of A Marketing Strategy?

Many growth stage companies avoid serious marketing efforts because they either view it solely as a cost, or they don’t understand the underlying value. Sure, they get the direct sales approach, especially in the B2B sector, but why bother with broader marketing efforts when you have a niche market to sell to, and your invention isn’t a commodity?

Two reasons:

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Companies Can Learn Message Discipline From Candidates

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 03:34:00 GMT

Washington Governor, Jay Inslee is unlikely to become the 46th President of the United States, but by the time the votes get counted in Iowa in January, every voter will know one thing about him: he’s the climate change candidate . If you’re in the cleantech space or merely care about climate change, Inslee’s disciplined messaging is an excellent lesson in how to create a strong brand.

Let’s clarify the terms first:

Just because you have a strong brand doesn’t necessarily mean you have a good brand. Boeing’s 737 Max airplanes are an example of a strong brand that’s not a good brand. Right now, it’s known for all of the wrong reasons.

Sole Focus

One of the keys to developing a brand that’s both strong and good is having one attribute for which you (or your company) is known. Hopefully, that attribute is seen positively by your audience and helps differentiate you from your competitors.

Imagine you have 18 competitors in your niche as currently exists for Inslee in the 2020 Democratic field, and they are all selling nearly the same thing as you are. How do you stand out? You hang your hat on one crucial facet of your candidacy. In Inslee’s case, he’s gone all in on climate change.

Just like a product has many facets, so too does Inslee. He has a record on health care, gun safety, taxes, etc., but he made a choice in a crowded marketplace to focus on one thing he wants voters to remember. What’s most impressive is watching him find ways to continue to hone in on that message over and over again. It’s that sole focus that’s critical.

Tell Them, Tell Them Again, And Remind Them What You Told Them

When Inslee launched his presidential campaign, he did it at the headquarters of a solar installation company based in his home state. When asked about most issues, Jay will find a way to connect it to climate change. Health care? The cost of pollution is driving up costs. Budget deficits? The most significant burden we are leaving our kids is the planet collapsing. Recently he called for a debate focused solely on climate change because of the importance of the issue. Repetition, repetition, repetition. That’s message discipline.

Because Inslee has stellar credentials and credibility on tackling climate change, he’s put all of his chips in the center of the table that he can “own” this issue in the minds of voters.

Isn’t It Risky To Be One Dimensional?

Back when I was running political campaigns, I used to get pushback from candidates who argued voters are multi-dimensional and can care about more than one thing. “Why should I put all my eggs in one basket?” they’d ask. Today, the pushback I get from my cleantech clients is nearly identical: customers want to know how we make our widget and all of its different features. Different dog, same fleas, I always say.

My response is usually, “Why do you think Burger King has spent billions of dollars promoting itself as the home of the flame-broiled burger? It’s because it’s the one thing they can use to differentiate themselves from McDonald’s, who fry their burgers.” Year after year, Burger King demonstrates its commitment to messaging discipline in its advertising because it helps them create a marketplace differentiation that leads to a stronger brand. That’s why they rarely use paid advertising to talk about their french fries; there’s no easy differentiator between theirs and those made by other chains.

Will Message Discipline Carry The Day?

If you can stand behind your claims, and there is a real difference to exploit, message discipline will take you a long way. If your claims get undermined though, it will destroy your credibility and your good brand. (See: Volkswagen Clean Diesel Emissions Scandal)

Governor Inslee is still a longshot at the London betting parlors, but that’s for some entirely different reasons like brand name identification and fundraising . But in a crowded field of like-minded individuals, is his commitment to message discipline going to help Democratic primary voters remember him? Absolutely.

If you’re in the cleantech world where everyone is hailing their technology as revolutionary, you’re going to need that same kind of message discipline to stand out to investors who have a pile of prospectuses to wade through not to mention green consumers who now have dozens of choices that meet their values.

If your green company could benefit from better message discipline, email me to set up a free initial 30-minute consultation .

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Who’s On First? Abbott and Costello Discuss Branding, Marketing and Advertising

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 21:02:00 GMT

For most founders and growth stage companies, unspooling the difference between branding, marketing and advertising is akin to watching the most famous comedy routine of the 20th century. So, to give clarity to those whose gifts are in other endeavors here’s a short recap using Bud Abbott and Lou Costello to explain why who is on first.

Abbott: Now, see here. We have marketing, branding, and advertising.

Costello: Yeah, but who’s who?

Abbott: They’re a who’s who and they’re all part of the team.

Costello: That’s what I want to know. Who’s who so I can tell them apart.

Abbott: Marketing who? Branding who? Or Advertising Who?

Costello: All of ’em.

Abbott: That’s what you need to ask in marketing, branding or advertising–who?

Costello: I don’t know. That’s what I’m asking you?

Abbott: What’s the question after you ask who. First, you’ve gotta know who before you ask what.

Costello: What am I asking?

Abbott: You’re asking what are they marketing, branding or advertising, and I said, “First, you’ve gotta ask who?”

Costello: Who do I ask about marketing, branding and advertising?

Abbott: And I said the first question you have to ask is who.

Costello: Then how do I ask about marketing, branding and advertising?

Abbott: Nobody cares about how. They care about who.

Costello: Who’s marketing, branding and advertising?

Abbott: Exactly.

Costello: But what’s the difference?

Abbott: Don’t ask what until after you’ve asked who.

Costello: So I ask who first?

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: So who do I ask.

Abbott: Right

Costello: But what’s the name?

Abbott: Who’s the name you need to ask when you’re marketing, branding and advertising.

Costello: So let me get this right: I’m asking who’s marketing, branding and advertising first before I ask what they are marketing, branding and advertising?

Abbott: Yes

Costello: But that’s what I want to know: who?

Abbott: And that’s what marketing, branding and advertising tell you–who.

Costello: But how do you know who to ask?

Abbott: There’s no how in marketing, branding and advertising. You’re supposed to ask what.

Costello: What am I asking?

Abbott: You’re asking how do they do this instead of who. Who’s important!

Costello : I know who is important.

Abbott: Well I’m glad we finally cleared that up.

Costello: What did we clear up?

Abbott: No, we cleared up who comes first in marketing, branding and advertising.

Costello: But which one of them comes first?

Abbott: You can only ask which after you’ve asked who.

Costello: So let me get this straight. I’ve gotta ask who so I can figure out what to ask which one of them.

Abbott: Naturally. Now that we’ve solved that, let’s watch some baseball. I hear St. Louis has a guy named who playing first base.

The End

If the who, what, how and why of marketing, branding, and advertising confuses you, schedule a 30-minute call with me , and we’ll figure it out together.

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Branding Is About Cutting To The Flawless Center

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 05:57:00 GMT

Cut To The Core To Find Your Brand

First, let’s start with what’s NOT at the core of your brand:

These are all things you do, but they aren’t the things that makeup who you are or why your customers choose you. Modes of operation change as does ownership and technologies. That’s why while some of these things might represent your brand, they will never be at the core of your brand.

So What’s A Brand?

Anyone can Google the term “brand,” but here’s how a few of the experts have defined it:

1. Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about your company with what people actually do think about your company. And vice-versa. Jay Baer

2. A brand is a reason to choose. Cheryl Burgess

3. Brand is the sum total of how someone perceives a particular organization. Branding is about shaping that perception. Ashley Friedlein

4. A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. Seth Godin

While they use different words, you get the idea; it’s about what’s true, meaningful and distinct about your company and the perceptions people hold about it.

How Do I Figure Out My Brand?

True To The Brand

Meaningful To The Customer

Distinctive From The Competition

Once you’ve answered all of those questions, see if you can keep chipping away at the slight flaws until you get down to most fundamental and valuable state in one sentence or less.

For example, Disney might value teamwork and customer service, but their core reason for being is using imagination to bring people happiness. As a consequence, everything they do puts creativity at the forefront, and that’s what millions have come to expect from the Disney brand. Yes, Disney produces movies, TV shows and runs theme parks, but that’s what they do. Their essence is about using the imaginary world to bring these things to life, and regardless of the format, Disney will always use imagination to make people happy.

When you’re ready, put your unique value proposition up against some of the most luminescent brands in the world . If you’re still confused or reaching a dead end, email me for a free 30-minute consultation, and we’ll see if we can make you shine.

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Will Climate Change Be An Issue In 2020?

Mon, 25 Mar 2019 05:06:00 GMT

The Democratic slate of candidates running for President in 2020 has been rounded out with the delightfully appropriate “oops” announcement of former Vice President, Joe Biden. Now, attention turns to matters like what differentiates 15 left of center politicians, all of whom have views that are far more in common with each other than they are with the current White House occupant. And while all of them believe in man-made climate change and the need to address it, the question is how much attention the candidates and media will give it over the next 18 months?

Climate Change In The Democratic Primary

Primary elections are generally about four things: name identification, base loyalty (like endorsements), brand persona, and the big M- Money. Issues tend to take a back seat due to ideological constancy, and in a race with 15 candidates, issue positions will become muddled for the primary electorate, even though voters usually pay more attention to tend to public policy.

To that list of four key drivers of primary electoral success, there is one issue which might trump them all in the 2020 Democratic primary: electability. Last week, CNN came out with a new poll that showed a majority of Democrats would rather see the party nominate a candidate with a strong chance of beating President Trump (56%) than those who say they prioritize a candidate’s issue positions (35%).

The anger and loathing of Donald Trump that exists among Democrats make winning not just the main thing anymore; it’s the only thing.

There have been several polls in the last six months which have observed the same mindset among likely Democratic voters. It’s doubtful this attitude will change as the election draws closer.

Since climate change has never proven to be a potent electoral strategy, it’s likely to end up once again as part of a second-tier issue set. And while all the Democrats will talk about it and issue downloadable position papers on solving the climate crisis (both good things), even candidates appealing to “issue” voters are more likely to talk about economic inequality, health care and gun safety.

Two notable exceptions to the rule are “Senator, Bernie Sanders, and Governor, Jay Inslee. In the case of “Buhnie,” his followers love him because he is unrepentant on the issue and has been for years , while in the case of Inslee, he’s built his entire political persona around climate change and is as close to running a credible single-issue candidacy as Americans have seen since the Vietnam War.

Climate Change As A General Election Issue

After becoming Prime Minister of England, a journalist asked Harold Macmillan what would determine his government’s course. Macmillan’s famous response was, “Events, dear boy. Events.” This truism holds for climate change as an issue in the 2020 general election.

We already know the Democrats will nominate someone who believes in man-made climate change and is in favor of doing something about it, while President Donald Trump does not believe in man-made climate change. At a blush, it would seem like this would be a ripe opportunity to exploit a high profile differentiator between the candidates, but in all likelihood, the only way climate change will become a central issue in 2020 is if events dictate it.

Last year, we experienced a horrible calamity of forest fires, hurricanes, floods and storms, all of which are consequences of a warming planet. If the spring and summer of 2020 continue the trend of hotter temperatures, more severe weather events and fires, especially near East Coast media centers, climate change may very well become the elephant in the room.

Up until now, while climate change shows up on polls as an important issue, it’s rarely a deciding factor for voters in crucial swing states. If millions of Floridians are running from the ocean in September and October 2020, though, all bets are off.

Will We Fiddle While The Climate Burns?

One of history’s great canards is Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned. Violins didn’t even exist in 64 A.D., but the metaphor lives on.

Americans will have no such lasting excuse in 2020. We both know the causes of climate change and have invented at least some of the solutions to mitigate its impacts. The question that remains is how long we wait until we as a society are willing to take meaningful action? At the end of the day, politicians can talk themselves blue in the face about climate change, but in a democracy, change only happens when the populace demands it.

Had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor, many historians believe the U.S. would have sat out the entire Second World War. While I hate to think something that drastic would have to happen for us to engage in a mobilized effort against climate change, I’m equally as sure one election (regardless of the outcome) won’t spin our collective consciousness to put aside our differences and pull the wagon in the same direction.

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What’s Your Logline?

Thu, 21 Mar 2019 06:00:00 GMT

Imagine you are looking for a movie to see with friends on a Saturday night. You open the movie app of your choice and begin scrolling through the selections. As you share the options with your friends, inevitably someone will ask, “what’s it about?” Your answer is what’s known in Hollywood as the logline, and they’ve been practicing the art since the days of Rudolph Valentino’s silent movies. Brands should take heed.

Here’s one of the more concise definitions:

Here are some loglines from movies you’ll recognize.

THE GODFATHER

The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.

PULP FICTION

The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster’s wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.

FOREST GUMP

Forrest Gump, while not intelligent, has accidentally been present at many historic moments, but his true love, Jenny Curran, eludes him.

THE MATRIX

A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

A young F.B.I. Cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims.

What Does This Have To Do With Branding and Marketing?

Think of the logline as your unique value proposition .

Ninety percent of consumers start shopping for a product or service through a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo, no differently than how they search for movies. When they type in a product you sell, they encounter a long list of entries with different company names, just like the long list of movies playing at the Movieplex. How do they decide which (movie/product) to choose?

Hopefully, you’ve invested in search engine optimization , and your brand’s name is at or near the top of the list. Maybe your audience scours reviews on Yelp as closely as avid moviegoers read what the critics wrote in the L.A. Times or Rolling Stone before making a decision.

Regardless of your search engine ranking or online ratings, though, the searcher is now faced with a litany of company names who grow, produce, or manufacture a similar product, some of which might even sit next to each other on store shelves in standardized packaging.

The ability to quickly and emotionally distinguish yourself from every other widget maker on the market is what’s going to keep you in business. If it doesn’t grab your audience by appealing to them in a unique way, it won’t get a second look.

Studios might hook you with name actors, which is their version of branding a movie. It’s a pretty good guess if it stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, it’s going to be an action movie, and The Rock is going to be the hero of the story. If you are a fan of action movies, that one will make it to the top of the list.

But how do they find out about your brand if you don’t have the $20 million budget to have The Rock endorse you?

What Are Title Tags And Meta Tags?

If you want to form an immediate bond with your potential consumer to distinguish you from your online competition, you need to have a crystal clear title tag and meta tag, which are concise and accurate descriptions of the page’s content. Here’s mine.

The title tag is the headline in blue. Think of it as the name of the movie, and best practices suggest it should be less than 70 characters. In other words, like a movie title. Look at the movie titles above; none of them exceed the 70 character maximum. There are exceptions to the title rule in the movie, of course, but in general, studios try to keep them to four words or less.

The metatag is the logline. That’s the black text in my search engine profile which describes what I do and who I do it for, and a one-sentence TV Guide summary is an excellent way to describe it.

Using my entry as an example, someone could search online for “branding” or “marketing,” and my strategic consultancy might show up because these are inclusive topics just as if you typed into the search engine, “movies playing near me.”

But just as there are numerous film genres, there are dozens of specialists and sub-specialists among marketing and branding consultants. The logline is key.

If your company is searching for marketing and branding help and you are in the cleantech or greentech sphere, my meta tag will likely pique your interest. On the other hand, if your company wants to sell more dog food, you’re likely to scroll past my entry.

But what if two or three comedies are playing at the Multiplex or two movies with the same actor? How does your logline help you then?

Define Your Story At The Outset

When I sit down with new clients, questions I ask include, “What companies do you admire?” and “Who’s image resonates with you?” because I want to help define the direction. All too often though, what I think they hear from those questions is “How can we be more like them?” when in fact that’s the last thing I want to happen.

Not only should your meta tag share what you do and who you do it for, but it should also give the reader an emotional thread to grab. Think of it as the audience’s introduction to the hero at the beginning of a story . That meta tag should make them want to know more.

My logline uses adjectives to spice up my persona for my audience. Words like “braggadocio” and “groundbreakers” are included because I like working with people who have a wry sense of humor and who aren’t afraid to take risks. If you were a staid and conservative Fortune 500 financial company, would you be interested in a “brand braggadocio” and “message minstrel” to help you with your marketing? Probably not. But if you are pushing the bounds of physics to solve an existential problem like climate change? That’s the kind of movie I make.

If your meta tag is colorless, it says you don’t have anything to offer your audience can’t find elsewhere . A litmus test I use asks, “Are you the only company in the market who can say this?” If the answer is no, you probably don’t have a unique value proposition to sell, and the blandness of your search engine logline will transmit that message.

Since there are only about seven story types in our literary canon , it’s almost a guarantee someone will be selling the same story as you. The challenge of loglines then is recognizing which genre best suits your brand and telling it clearly and using vivid language to separate you from the pack.

If you’d like to learn more about how smart branding and marketing can set your brand apart, subscribe to my monthly column with tips and insights,

or schedule a free 30-minute consultation by sending me an email.

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Stop Using These Two Words On Twitter

Wed, 13 Mar 2019 06:00:00 GMT

If the most annoying bios on Twitter are people who call themselves “hackers,” “life coaches” and “keynote speakers,” then the two most annoying types of tweets begin with the words “interesting” or “great” as in:

Social media is the new journalism, allowing each of us to report on the events of our lives and our businesses in an unfiltered way. Still, even though Twitter, Facebook, and Google (and the companies they own) are a free-form expression, there are basic rules from legacy media that still apply, starting with the need to engage your audience.

Frame Your Tweet With The Five Basic Questions

Anyone who went to journalism school will tell you one of the first edicts pounded into their heads was how to craft a lede. Engage your audience by using operative words to answer ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘why,’ ‘where’ and ‘when’–if you want them to keep reading.

Even with Twitter’s 280-character limit, there’s still plenty of room to answer ‘why’ something was interesting or ‘what’ was discussed at the meeting that made it noteworthy.

As a close relation, it drives me up a wall when people repeat the headline of the news story they linked to in their narrative. The goal of your Twitter post is adding something original to something someone else has already posted. If you haven’t heard, social media has democratized the information landscape, and now everyone is an expert (light sarcasm), so pontificate, don’t reiterate.

You’re not a neutral observer of what’s going on around you when posting on Twitter. That’s why journalists existed.

Be An Active Participant In Your Tweets

It’s your story, and the people who follow you on Twitter or Facebook want to get the benefit of your wit or your wisdom because that’s what makes it original. That’s also what makes them want to click through to the pictures, videos and stories you shared. Otherwise, why would they follow you when they could be watching cat videos?

Here’s a much better option for the above tweets:

Both of these posts not only answer one of the five lede questions, but they both give the audience context about the author and answers the question, “Why should I care?” As a reader, now I want to know more so I might click on your link, watch your video or respond with a comment of my own.

Engagement is the holy grail of social media, and your social media content is competing for eyeballs against millions of other pieces of content. So before you tweet next time, ask yourself, “Am I providing any value to anyone on Twitter, or am I just letting everyone know I’m alive?”

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Brand Stories Need An Archetype

Mon, 11 Mar 2019 06:00:00 GMT

What’s A Brand Archetype?

Most of my friends and casual acquaintances know I perform stand up comedy as a hobby . I suspect it’s the Catskill genes inside of me, and I genuinely enjoy making people laugh. After my most recent performance though, it struck me there was something fundamental missing from the material I wrote: there was no relatable person behind it.

The material was whimsical enough to get laughs, and no one threw compostable produce at my head, but as I thought back on the performance, I realized I didn’t do the very thing I advise clients to do in my day job: form a brand archetype through which an audience can understand you, root for you and support you.

Using that paradigm, it was no surprise the comic who received the heartiest reaction was a mid-60’s Microsoft retiree who dressed the part in casual fleece and who shared personal anecdotes about urinary troubles and leaving his keys in his car. To his credit, he was legitimately funny, but the reason he was successful is that he shared his personal experiences and through those experiences and his visage, people felt they knew him even though he was a stranger.

That relatability comes from stories we tell ourselves and tell each other. The legendary psychologist, Carl Jung is generally credited with creating the term archetypes to define the personalities within our stories. It’s our way of decoding a complex world around us by using shorthand.

What Are The 12 Archetypes?

The 12 categories we use to define everyone we encounter are Innocent, Sage, Explorer, Outlaw, Magician, Hero, Lover, Jester, Everyman, Caregiver, Ruler, and Artist. Each of them is easily identifiable through some experience. Superman is the hero; Gandalf is the magician; Mother Theresa is the caregiver; and so on.

Brands also adhere to these archetypes. Harley Davidson is the outlaw; Home Depot is the everyman; Crayola is the artist, and; Victoria’s Secret is the lover.

It’s certainly possible to be represented by two brand archetypes on the wheel, as long as they extend to every customer touchpoint. For example, an explorer could be an outlaw as well, but the explorer would never be the everyman because they contradict each other.

The Microsoft retiree at the comedy showcase was as much of an everyman as he was a jester. Yes, he told jokes, but his dress, demeanor, and delivery all said “everyman.”

Meanwhile, I was bouncing all over the wheel. My attire crossed everyman with ruler and outlaw, and my material was a hybrid of jester, sage and caregiver.

What Do Brand Archetypes Mean For Your Business?

How do you expect your audience to understand your business if you can’t even define yourself?

Sure, everyone wants to be the hero in their drama, but that might not be how your customers see you. For example, it would be logical to place Federal Express in the explorer brand archetype category because they travel all over the world with packages, but you’d be wrong. Fed Ex plays the role of the hero, always delivering your parcel to you when you need it.

If you think you’ve got the hang of it, here’s a list of brands. The first person who emails me with the correct brand archetype for each will receive a $10 gift card to Starbucks.

12 principal personality archetypes diagram.

How Is A Brand Archetype Deployed?

Someone is reading this and thinking, “This is a nice intellectual exercise, but how do I use it on a day to day basis?”

Brand archetypes touch everything you do and integrate into every customer touchpoint. It’s the decor of your interior; the businesses you ally with; what your employees wear and drive; your advertising and your social media posts; it’s even the manuals and processes you institute.

What you sell might change over time, but your brand archetype should remain the same. Ben and Jerry’s might sell new flavors of ice cream, but they’ll always market it with the same cheeky, hippie flair that’s marked the company for decades. IKEA will design new nightstands and bookcases, but with the same customer in mind.

By the way, it’s challenging to look in the mirror and define your archetype. Take it from a guy who shepherds clients on the subject, but who has to stick to his day job for the foreseeable future until his own archetype wheel stops spinning.

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Can We Decouple Carbon Emissions From GDP?

Mon, 04 Mar 2019 06:00:00 GMT

Save yourself from pre-ordering the history book for 2019 because I can sum it up in one sentence: Too many people wanted too much stuff for carbon emissions to stop rising.

Assuming the Earth’s population continues to grow at present rates, the choice facing the climate movement is whether we can encourage people to want less stuff, or whether we can make all of that stuff without a corresponding rise in global temperatures?

At this point, it’s a rhetorical question, but it’s also becoming an academic one.

Father Time and Mother Nature have teamed up with The Fates to brew up a storm unlike any seen in millions of years, and time is running out to throw a monkey wrench into their plans.

I feel like I’m reliving the campy Batman series of my childhood, in which the caped crusader dramatically extinguishes the bomb at the last possible moment to escape the evil designs of The Penguin or The Joker.

I doubt we will ever be able to convince consumers in a capitalist society or emerging economy to want less stuff. They might be forced to cut their carbon emissions eventually, but as long as advertising and social statuses exist, there’s always going to be a race to sell you something to make you feel better, look better, appear wealthier, and so on.

So that leaves us with an experiment in wrenches. Fortunately, I’m living in one of the marquee locations in America to see if we can make this carbon emissions experiment succeed.

Seattle Has Been Counting Its Carbon Emissions

Seattle is not only one of the top cleantech hubs, but the city has been tracking its carbon emissions in every sector of its local economy for years. It checks off pretty much every green box imaginable, from multi-family recycling and composting to green roofs on city-owned buildings. It even adopted its Climate Action Policy in 2013 , focusing on road transportation, building energy and waste sectors.

Last week, the City’s Office of Sustainability released its latest inventory of the total greenhouse gas emissions from cars, buildings, and industry as part of its effort to achieve a 50 percent reduction in carbon pollution by 2030 and zero emissions by 2050. The report was clear: while the city is paddling in the right direction, it needs to exchange the paddles for a powerful emission free motor.

To their credit, Seattlites are doing their best to bend the carbon emissions curve. Since 2008, per-person emissions have declined 20 percent, and while population has increased over the same period by 18 percent and employment by 16 percent, total emissions declined 5 percent.

Per-person transportation emissions also declined, as did the per-person usage of building energy and emissions from waste.

In most cities, this would be cause for laudatory news releases and celebrations, but unfortunately, our atmosphere doesn’t trap greenhouse gasses based on a per-person basis.

Measurement Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Management

Once you pull back the telescope lens to see a wider picture of Seattle’s carbon emissions ecosystem that includes all modes of transportation like air travel, the industrial and manufacturing sector and building and industrial equipment, a decidedly less rosy picture emerges.

With air travel emissions (+17%) and industrial use of oil and natural gas (+26%) increasing in just the two most recent years of the inventory, Seattle’s overall greenhouse gas emissions have only dropped 4 percent since 2008. At that pace, Seattle’s carbon emissions will be reduced by only 10 percent by mid-century, a far cry from the ambitious goal called for in the city’s Climate Action Plan.

Where To From Here?

Passenger vehicles emit 53 percent of all of Seattle’s carbon emissions. Unless that slice of the pie becomes significantly cleaner, we might see melting Arctic ice in Puget Sound sooner than later. While the authors of the report tried to put some lipstick on this pig in places, they were brutally honest in writing:

In one paragraph, the authors have summed up how difficult it will be to achieve the meaningful emissions reductions called for by 2030 in the city’s Climate Action Plan and to achieve what’s required globally. While taking significant steps over the last decade, Seattle’s businesses and residents will need to move 11 times faster than they have since 2008. A few more miles per gallon in fuel efficiency isn’t going to cut it.

And this is how one of the greenest cities in America is tackling climate change. Is it any wonder that carbon emissions have increased globally ?

Seattle and the rest of the nation must fundamentally reimagine its transportation system.

Massive investments in electric vehicle infrastructure and upgraded transit are no longer just options; they are a necessity–and fast! The good news is that technology is here; it just needs to be deployed.

People, even greenies, are not going to stop flying . We have elderly parents to take care of and kids to send off to college as well as the periodic family vacation, so we better scale up cleaner jet fuels or batteries powerful enough to electrify our commercial airlines.

Companies that make things from toys to textiles, and those who mine things necessary to make smartphones and cement need alternative sources of fuel to power their businesses which are cost-competitive and readily available at scale because we aren’t going back to the rotary dial age.

Even monkey wrenches aren’t worth much if they emit more greenhouse gasses than they save.

It’s true that cities are only one lens through which to observe greenhouse gasses, but it’s an instructive one. The good news is people are becoming more aware of their carbon footprints and acting accordingly where they can.

The bad news is we haven’t disconnected the link between consumerism and climate change, even in the most environmentally sensitive communities. I fear that genie was let out of the bottle with Adam Smith, leaving us with a more profound question: is our instinct for survival greater than the sum of our purchases?

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Storage Drags Utility Into The (Sun)Light

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 06:00:00 GMT

It’s true: good news comes when you least expect it.

Jaw, meet the floor. Yesterday, Arizona’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service (APS), announced a commitment of a billion dollars for battery storage for the power grid by 2025 .

The 850 MW APS plans for batteries that store energy is enough to power over 200,000 homes for up to four hours . The utility will now be able to soak up excess clean energy from solar panels during the early part of the day, and use that storage during peak demand hours (3-7 p.m. in Arizona) or later in the evening.

Currently, APS gets about 14 percent of its energy from renewable sources like wind and solar. The investment in battery storage will increase that number by three to four percent. Even more importantly, the battery storage capacity will allow the utility to build more utility-scale solar projects while opening opportunities for more homeowners to install solar panels on their roof without overloading the transmission grid.

An Unlikely Clean Energy Hero

APS has long had a reputation as the bete noir of solar energy companies in Arizona. In recent rate cases heard before the state’s utility regulators APS has argued to reduce the rate it paid homeowners for the solar energy they generate (net metering) and fought to add a fixed charge to solar-powered homes to “use” the grid. The resource plan the utility submitted to regulators in 2017 showed them building no large scale solar projects through 2032.

To top off their clean energy hostility, APS spent a state record $40 million in ratepayer dollars to fight a ballot measure that would have increased the state’s renewable energy standard to 50 percent by 2030.

This antagonism has had a chilling effect on solar energy adoption in the state, resulting in a “C” grade for solar friendliness i n a study published earlier this year.

Why Is This Decision A Big Deal?

With the closing of the Navajo Coal Generating Station later this year , APS needed to replace its baseload power from the West’s largest coal-fired power plant. While APS only took a small share of the energy generated by the 2,250 MW facility, it had become increasingly clear in recent years the plant was no longer economical to run between the annual maintenance costs and offtakers lack of interest in coal-generated power.

NGS isn’t just a heavy polluter; it’s a water hog. Every year, the facility takes 9 billion gallons of water from Lake Powell for steam generating and cooling. The great irony of the NGS is one of the owners of the plant, the Bureau of Reclamation, used most of its share of the energy to move 1.6 million acre-feet of water to Arizona’s cities every year. The energy from those water pumps is enough to power 240,000 homes.

Knowing that the closure of NGS was imminent, APS was faced with a decision: invest in new natural gas generating power stations, contract natural gas from independent power producers, or commit to building more solar energy with a heavy dose of battery storage to mimic a baseload power system that works even when the sun isn’t shining. (Arizona gets 300+ days of sunshine every year.)

Not only did APS choose the solar energy plus battery storage option in the short-term, but they did something unusual in the utility industry: they opted not to lock in long term contracts for fossil fuels to generate electricity. Instead, the power agreement with the natural gas producer was for 460 MW for only seven years , suggesting very strongly the utility sees its lowest cost long-term baseload power option as renewable energy!

A Clear Signal

Countless reports show solar’s price per kWh has become cost-competitive with traditional fossil fuels in recent years, but political, financial and cultural hurdles have slowed adoption. But even with a climate change denialist in the White House aggressively pushing a fossil fuel agenda, the market has spoken. Consumers want clean energy, and they no longer have to pay premium prices to get it. Where politics and regulation failed, those who supply electricity got the message from their customers loud and clear.

If history looks for an inflection point in the adoption of clean energy, this is as good of a moment as any. It may have taken longer than hoped, but if I told you ten years ago, a large utility in a red state with coal resources and the generation that could last for decades was about to throw all its chips in on solar energy, most people wouldn’t have believed me. As Dr. King said, “The arc of moral history is long, but it bends towards justice.”

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The Green New Deal Won’t Pass In 2019. Here’s Why That’s A Good Thing.

Mon, 18 Feb 2019 06:00:00 GMT

It moves us one step closer to the low carbon economy of the future.

Before I’m voted out of the club for heresy, there’s much I admire about the recently released Ed Markey/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sponsored Green New Deal. Much of it I’d like to see enacted into law. It’s just not going to happen this year or with this document.

The reason I know this is the first word underneath “In The House Of Representatives,” it says “Resolution.” For the uninitiated, a resolution is a non-binding document stating the will of Congress. It has no legal impact. And while that might disappoint you from a policy perspective, it’s good politics. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has admitted as much.

The real goal of the resolution is to inject the issue into the 2020 campaign, first by getting Congress to vote on it this year, and second to keep climate change in the headlines. With 70 percent of the electorate now saying they believe in climate change and 81 percent support for the ideas in the Green New Deal absent partisan affiliation for the proposals , Congressional House Democrats feel this will be a defining issue for the Party nationally, and in swing House districts.

Before you get too giddy, however, be aware Republican Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, is already calling for a vote on the Green New Deal in his chamber. His goal is to get elected officials on the record with some of the more controversial provisions in the resolution, regardless of whether or not they are binding. He knows an affirmative vote on the Green New Deal will make it more difficult for Democrats who represent red states to get reelected next year. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the 100-member chamber.

McConnell is also well aware 82 percent of the public has never heard of the Green New Deal, and support drops sharply once the ideas in the resolution are attached to a political party.

What’s In The Green New Deal?

The best way to describe this resolution is a political manifesto for the Democratic Party. For a party which has traditionally had difficulty defining its brand, this is a good thing. Instead of “vote against Donald Trump,” the Green New Deal is a bold policy wish list, which will create a clear contrast with the current occupant of the White House.

Progressives will love that it embraces core issues like climate change, income inequality, racial injustice, higher education for all, affordable housing, labor standards, union organizing, family-wage jobs, and infrastructure development. But instead of going through the litany of policy prescriptives Democratic candidates typically reel off to appeal to every interest group (and put everyone else to sleep), they can state they support the Green New Deal.

Conservatives will love talking about the Green New Deal because they’ll be able to blast their more liberal opponents for the spending cornucopia necessary to implement this agenda. Ridiculing their Democratic opponents for basing federal policy on “ curbing cow burps” is sure to get some laughs.

Will It Help Foster A Green Economy?

The cleantech community should be ecstatic about it because it’s even more ambitious than President Obama’s 2009 America Recovery Act and addresses all of the significant cleantech industries, including commitments towards:

What’s Not In The Green New Deal?

First, props to AOC and company for NOT getting into the carbon pricing pigsty. This resolution is agnostic when it comes to cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax. That will get vetted through the committee process in Congress.

Similarly, the document smartly avoids picking preferred low-carbon technologies. As if passing this ambitious agenda won’t be hard enough, watching the political left tear itself apart again over nuclear energy is a rerun no one wants to see.

For the same reasons, the Green New Deal conspicuously avoids any benchmarks other than the commitment to 100 percent ‘clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources. Because this is a political document, its level of specificity is commensurate with what voters will require–for now. When the Iowa caucuses draw near, we’ll inevitably see Democratic presidential candidates parse out details to differentiate themselves from each other. Still, most if not all of the candidates will support the Green New Deal in principle.

Interestingly, there’s no mention of land use planning in the Green New Deal, but this is an issue where state and local governments are going to have to take the lead.

Conclusion

We are long overdue for a climate change rallying cry in Congress. I suspect someday some of the more timid politicians in Washington, D.C. will thank Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for an idea that could only be considered brash by today’s Congressional standards.

Will Green New Deal become the Democrats’ three-word convention chant like “Build The Wall” and “Drill, Baby Drill” was for Republicans in 2008 and 2016? I doubt it. Unlike Trump’s “Build The Wall,” which is binary (you’re either for it or against it), there are innumerable moving parts to pass legislation combatting climate change successfully. All of it will be up for negotiations, hostage taking and potshots from the sidelines. The only thing I can promise with 100 percent certainty is whatever passes will look nothing like the current iteration.

If a Democrat defeats President Trump in 2020, there are still obstacles to overcome. It’s highly likely the Republicans will maintain control of the U.S. Senate, and this balance of power stalled the more ambitious parts of former President Obama’s climate agenda for his entire second term.

Because of this endless stalemate, translating this resolution into law hinges on whether continued intense wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and flooding finally cause voters in red states to demand the Republican members of Congress work in a bipartisan manner to tackle the toughest issue of our time.

Here’s hoping old age and treachery doesn’t outwit youth and enthusiasm this time.

The post The Green New Deal Won’t Pass In 2019. Here’s Why That’s A Good Thing. appeared first on Michael's Marc .

Can Green Companies Take Their Story For Granted?

Thu, 07 Feb 2019 06:00:00 GMT

According to a 2017 Unilever International study , 78% of U.S. consumers said they feel better when they buy sustainably produced products, yet green companies in both the B2C and B2B sectors have nowhere near that kind of market share. What gives?

Savvy market researchers would tell you the statistic cited by Unilever, while technically correct, lacks salience. What’s that? Imagine if a survey asked if you liked the color blue. Most people would, of course, say, “Yes, blue is a fine color.” However, a more accurate representation of fondness for that spectrum wavelength could be measured by asking the question, “Do you like blue or red more?” Now the respondent is forced to prioritize, leading to a more accurate metric of the popularity of blue.

We’ve seen the same dichotomy pop up time and again in public policy polling. When asked if climate change is a threat, large majorities say it is; however, when the same sample responds about the importance of climate change as opposed to funding public schools, tax rates, national defense, health care, and budget deficits, climate change consistently sinks to the bottom of the priority list.

Why? Well, yes, it’s true climate change is still an abstract issue for most people, comparatively speaking, but the real reason is that we all have to make choices and those choices are made based on what we value most.

Consumer behavior is no different. You might like Italian food, but tonight you choose Chinese. You still love Italian food, but since your stomach couldn’t eat two dinners, you had to make a choice.

With that in mind, a more accurate barometer of the number of green B2C and B2B consumers in the Unilever survey is the 33% of consumers who say they are now actively buying from brands based on their social and environmental impact. That’s a $1 trillion market, not including the one in five consumers who said they would actively choose brands if they made their sustainability credentials clearer on their packaging and in their marketing.

So whether you’re in the B2C space like non-toxic cleaning products or in B2B like renewable chemicals or carbon capture, the lesson is clear: while you might not be able to be at the top of everyone’s radar screen, there’s a significant and devoted sector of consumers who want to hear your story.

Proclaiming your company’s mission or devotion to sustainability won’t get your company lasting loyalty, though. It only gets consumers to look at your brand. If you want to cement a bond with your audience, you have to build trust in your brand, according to Nielsen reports .

Look at REI, for example, one of the most trusted brands in America. Their ethic of quality, sustainable outdoor clothing goes hand-in-hand with their support of nature, whether that’s trails, mountains, lakes or rivers where their consumers use their products. Their brand story is reinforced every time you walk into an REI store, visit their website, take one of their classes or read their online journal. That devotion to our big, blue marble shines through, and its why REI has such a dedicated base of customers who wouldn’t even think of shopping at one of their competitors.

The flip side of the coin is Volkswagen. Their fake emission testing scandal has ruined years of marketing efforts to position the company as a pioneer in low emission vehicles. While VW has redoubled its commitment to sustainability through initiatives like building an ultra-green factory in Tennessee and a car they’ve released called the Eco-Up, there is a chasm of trust they will have to rebuild with green consumers.

At the other end of the auto spectrum is Toyota, who pioneered the hybrid with the eponymous Prius and now has an almost cult following among people who want to be seen as driving with their values, a bond that has only strengthened over the two decades since the hybrid was released.

There’s no doubt having a green mission is positive in the eyes of consumers, and even a driving factor for some, but you can’t just plant the tree of sustainability in the minds of consumers. You have to water and nurture that sustainable brand by adhering to your brand story every day in all of your digital and in-person touchpoints to ensure that perception matures. And whatever you do, don’t saw off the branch you’re sitting on because dead branches don’t grow back, and it’s one less branch you can use to climb back to the top.

The post Can Green Companies Take Their Story For Granted? appeared first on Michael's Marc .

What I Learned At American Clean Power 2026

What I Learned At American Clean Power

Clean Energy Is Caught In The Culture Wars

As Goes Denmark...

A funny thing happened on the way to decarbonization.

The Most Common Messaging Mistake Clean Energy Developers Make

Part 1: Coalition Building

AI Produces Familiar Marketing. Cleantech Needs Something New.

Claude, Gemini, and Chat GPT walk into a bar.

Why One-Third of Clean Energy Projects Fail Before Construction

Across America, clean energy plants are being banned faster than they’re being built.

Why Clean Energy Projects Are Losing Rural America — and How Developers Can Change the Story

Engineering solves technical problems. Community trust determines whether projects get built.

Is Your Website A Virtual Scavenger Hunt?

Most cleantech websites aren’t broken. They’re just confusing.

Why Cleantech Founders Need a Content Plan — Not Random Posts

Why consistent communication on LinkedIn and email builds credibility with investors, partners, and customers long before your technology reaches scale.

Branding Is More Than A Logo or Tagline

Why Your Cleantech Company Must Produce Video Content

Affordability Isn’t a Value Proposition

The 10-Second Rule: How to Win (or Lose) Your Cleantech Audience Before They Click Away

How Does Your Email Newsletter Measure Up?

Clean Fuel Washington Case Study

The Clean Up Marketing Playbook: How a Strategic Rebrand Built a National Biogas Leader

B2C Case Study: Andgar HVAC

The Most Common Messaging Mistake Cleantech Startups Make (and How to Fix It)

5 Marketing Priorities Every Cleantech Startup Should Tackle Before Fundraising

Why Grant Applications Fail: Weak Messaging and How to Strengthen Yours

The Bare Minimum Marketing Stack Every Cleantech Founder Needs

How Early-Stage Cleantech Startups Can Build Investor-Ready Messaging in 30 Days

Why Random Acts of AI Can’t Replace Strategy

What Colors Are Most Effective For Your Cleantech Brand?

Follow The ABP Rule To Get Online Traction

Where Does Podcasting Fit Into Your Marketing Plan?

How Many Slides Should A Cleantech Founder Create For A Pitch?

Steps To Create A Successful B2B Sales Funnel

Why Your Lab Results Need Social Proof to Scale

Should Cleantech Remain At Arm’s Length From Instagram?

Why Benefits Trump the Features of Your Clean Technology

Surprise! Your Mission Isn’t Solving Climate Change

Get Out of the Lab to Tell Your Cleantech Story

Should Your Mission Chase The Money?

Why No One Opens Your Newsletter

3 Keys For Building Community Support For Your Clean Energy Project

Why a Fractional CMO Might Be a Good Fit for Your Cleantech Company

Jargon Monoxide Is Suffocating Your Climate Saving Idea

7 Steps For A Successful Cleantech Investor Pitch

What You MUST Have on Your Cleantech Website

Why Greek Mythology Doesn’t Translate Into a Good Cleantech Company Name

Why Two Minutes Is Too Long for Your Cleantech Video

3 Tips to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings

Does Google Matter for Cleantech Companies?

What I Learned At The California Hydrogen Leadership Summit

Is There Any Oxygen For America’s Hydrogen Industry?

Chicken And The Egg

Those Swinging For The Fences Are Striking Out

Strong Value Propositions Are More Important Than Ever

Get On The Bus

Final Thoughts

This World Environment Day You Aren’t Giving Up, And Neither Are We

Setbacks Don’t Determine Your Destination

Why Storytelling Matters Now More Than Ever

Marketing That Moves the Needle

Overcoming the 90% Failure Rate in Cleantech

World Environment Day Is a Call to Action

What Is A Story Arc And Why It Matters

Is Your Cleantech Pitch Too Left-Brained?

How To Build A Sales Funnel To Hook Investors & Customers

Why Bringing Hardtech to Market Is Hard

What I Learned At Biogas Americas

Biogas Is a Bad Name

Follow The Leader Is Bad Market Positioning

Companies With Unique Value Propositions ﻿

Windfall Bio

Industrial & Environmental Concepts & Flexxolutions

Final Thoughts

What I Learned At SF Climate Week

Cleantech Funding Is A Long-Term Investment

There’s A Glut Of Dry Powder

Stories Are Sticky

Companies With Unique Value Propositions