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.

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 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.

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?

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

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.

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

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