“Shift your focus to adopting marketing strategies that will help your business grow in the ways that it’s reaching your ideal client.” – Michelle Miller on impacting the digital carbon footprint of a business
In this episode of EnvironMental with Dandelion, we talked with Miller, the owner and creative director of Minty Made and founder of the Green Marketing Academy.
Minty Made is a Seattle-based branding and web design company that uses strategy to help businesses on the route to making a difference in the world. And her second business, Green Marketing Academy, teaches other marketing professionals how to do it too!
We talked about the digital carbon footprint and the best ways for businesses to use content marketing to grow.
What is Digital Waste and the Digital Carbon Footprint
One of the less-known aspects of sustainability is digital waste and the digital carbon footprint. This refers to the environmental impact of our online activities.
It’s easy to think that just because it’s in the cloud, it is sustainable. We can’t see it, so it must not be wasteful. But every google search and website page has a carbon footprint! It takes energy to send information around the world and it takes up physical server space to house all those extra web pages and duplicated content on your website.
The Ripple Effect of Sustainable Marketing
In the episode we say several times that we feel like we talk about this stuff all the time, so we think everyone knows about it. But sustainable marketing is actually still in its infancy. All three of us in this episode understand the power of marketing and how much of an influence we can have on the planet – and we all want to use sustainable marketing to create a ripple effect towards a better future.
At Dandelion, we use it with our clients everyday by staying efficient with website designs, choosing quality over quantity for content, and making sure that their marketing strategies are sustainable for them. We elevate those businesses and make sure that their impact is known!
Michelle follows those same guidelines for marketing with Minty Made, but her vision for the Green Marketing Academy(GMA) is even broader! Her ripple effect is to encourage more agencies to adopt sustainable marketing practices. While there are a lot of ESG reporting agencies out there, there aren’t many marketing agencies that truly help businesses reduce their digital carbon footprint. So she believes that her business is the starting point for a sustainable marketer’s journey – and we agree.
In fact, we think the Green Marketing Academy could be one of the best things to happen to marketing culture in a long time. We are excited to watch the marketing world step up and put quality content building at the forefront of good strategy.
The Value of Storytelling
“Remember Clubhouse?”
Michelle Miller on trendy marketing tactics
It’s easy to get side tracked by trendy marketing tactics. And there is something to be said for trying out all the platforms so that we know how they work. But the reality is that the platforms don’t matter as much as the story.
All marketing is strategic storytelling. The platform matters because it is where you meet the audience that is looking for you. But a brand’s story is always central piece of their marketing. Being dedicated to reducing digital carbon footprints doesn’t detract from that. It emboldens it.
When we focus solely on good storytelling, we remove the fillers. We post less and post better. We reuse and upcycle old content instead of starting over with every post. And we build content that people are searching for instead of creating mindlessly.
Michelle gets it – and we’re grateful for her! Here’s where you can connect with her:
The Minty Made site: mintymade.com
The Green Marketing Academy: greenmarketingacademy.com
Michelle’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/greenmarketingmovement
Are you on a journey to reduce your digital carbon footprint? Tell us about it in the comments
