In our last post, we explored how you might counter the economic downturn by reminding your market that collapses don't take turns — and the environmental crisis is as dire as ever.  Getting this across with impact may help, but you can do more.

For example, try moving the green aspects of your products to the side or the back of the benefits list.

To you, the environmental benefits of your products might be their most important merits.  These green benefits may be important to your customers, too, but in bad times they are less likely to be the most important benefits of your products.  So if you've been leading with these benefits, move them alongside others.  And if you were already presenting them alongside others, you might even want to move them to the back.

Being better for the planet is great.  Indeed, it's crucial.  But in hard times, emphasize instead those aspects of your products that are better for the customer as a separate individual, rather than as a member of society.  (I emphasize "as a separate individual" because of the tragedy of the commons, which is precisely what we're up against here.)

Start with the assumption that, on the average, your customers' values will have shifted from green values toward money, from community values toward personal, and from long term toward short term.  This suggests a hierarchy or sequence in which you should present benefits — tempered by how strong and direct a particular benefit is.

• Your products are less expensive than alternatives, right off the shelf.  (Lucky you!)
   
• Your products are less expensive in the long run, because they last longer.
   
• Your products are less expensive in the long run, because they use less energy, refills or other resources — they have a lower operating cost.
   
• Your products are less expensive in the larger picture, because they render products in other categories unnecessary, or preserve other items or cause less damage.
   
• Your products are safer or healthier for family and pets.
   
• Your products other personal benefits, relative to competitor products or alternative ways of meeting the need.
   
• Purchasing your products now will put in place a system your customers will want down the road, preventing the cost of starting over, or will keep in place a system already instituted.
   

The sequence here is not hard-and-fast, and the list is not complete, but you get the idea.  The point is to rethink the competitive benefits of your products from the standpoint of a prospect customer who has come to feel that buying green is temporarily a luxury they may not be able to afford.  Their attention will be more on costs and benefits to themselves rather than the planet — so show them advantages in terms of costs and benefits to themselves!  Align the presentation of benefits with your customer's new priorities.  It's as simple as that.

And what about the green benefits themselves, when you finally get to them on the list?  How do you present them?  Less as a reason to buy than as a reason to feel good about buying.  "And oh, by the way, when you purchase Acme acne cream, you can feel good knowing that washing your face will put fewer toxins into the ocean that might ultimately poison the polar bears."  (Adapt to your situation and work on the wording, but that's the attitude to convey.)

Does this offend your sensibilities of what's really important?  Then get over it.  First of all, if your customer's self-perceived needs are not important to you, you shouldn't be in business.  But even from a green standpoint, this rearrangement of your benefits list — pushing green benefits towards the back — is not a betrayal of your own green values.  Rather, it's currently your best way to serve and preserve them.

Our next post will explore further ways to sell green during the economic meltdown.