You want to make your business more sustainable. How can you use marketing research to help?

2 Evaluate your opportunities and threats

Once you have a clear picture of your target market, you need to assess your opportunities and threats in the market. Marketing research can help you analyze your competitors, suppliers, and industry trends to identify where you have a competitive advantage or a gap to fill in terms of sustainability. For example, you can use secondary data, such as reports, articles, or reviews, to benchmark your sustainability performance against your competitors and see how they communicate their sustainability efforts. You can also use primary data, such as surveys, interviews, or experiments, to test your customers' reactions to different sustainability features or claims and see how they affect their purchase decisions.

3 Develop your value proposition

After you have identified your opportunities and threats, you need to develop your value proposition that communicates how your sustainability efforts benefit your customers and differentiate you from your competitors. Marketing research can help you craft your value proposition based on your customers' needs and expectations, and test its effectiveness and appeal. For example, you can use surveys, interviews, or focus groups to understand your customers' pain points, motivations, and emotions regarding sustainability, and how they relate to your products or services. You can also use experiments, such as A/B testing or conjoint analysis, to compare different value propositions and see which one generates the most interest, engagement, or conversion.

4 Monitor your results and feedback

Finally, after you have launched your sustainability initiatives and communicated your value proposition, you need to monitor your results and feedback to measure your impact and improve your performance. Marketing research can help you track your key performance indicators, such as sales, loyalty, satisfaction, or awareness, and collect feedback from your customers, employees, or stakeholders to evaluate your sustainability efforts. For example, you can use surveys, interviews, or online reviews to measure your customers' satisfaction, loyalty, or advocacy regarding your sustainability efforts, and identify any gaps or issues. You can also use analytics, such as web or social media analytics, to monitor your online presence, reach, or sentiment regarding your sustainability efforts, and optimize your content or campaigns.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?