Do Your Research - Understanding the Green Market

According to a recent ImagePower Green Brands Survey, 80 percent of consumers believe it is important to buy from green companies, most responded they would spend more on green products. Word of mouth also leads as the way 50 percent of Americans learn about green products and services. Online search engines and television also remained popular channels for learning about green, according to a recent quarterly update from the Green Confidence Index.

Findings such as these provide valuable information to business owners when developing and executing a plan for marketing their eco-friendly products and services. Before rushing into executing your marketing ideas, it is important to take a step back and focus on the strategic direction of your efforts to ensure your message is reaching the correct target audience through the appropriate channel in a format they can easily understand.

Through our strategic analysis process, Marketecture™, we help clients identify and analyze relationships between marketplace competitors and the criteria used by target audiences in making buying decisions. Also through this process, we can provide primary and secondary research to help clients better understand their market, in this case, the green market, to gauge how their target audience feels about sustainable products and services.

Consider the benefits of conducting market research:

1. Understanding your current position in the marketplace
2. Identifying your main competition and analyzing how you stand up against them
3. Determining your products or services’ role in the strategic direction of your company
4. Analyzing your company’s strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities to grow your business
5. Evaluating market forces that influence your target audiences’ buying decisions, helping to determine how you can overcome these challenges and remain profitable

Conducting market research is an important element in the promotional process and will truly help you develop the best strategic marketing plan for your company, enabling you to effectively reach your target audience and produce the highest results.

Let CMA utilize our strategic marketing expertise to help point your marketing efforts in the right direction.

Jeffrey Barnhart
President and CEO
jbarnhart@cmasolutions.com

Furry Friends Give Local Marketing Firm a Creative Boost

For 23 years, the marketing professionals at CMA have abided by founder Jeff Barnhart’s motto emphasizing good client service—“our people are our product.” Now, Barnhart and the rest of the CMA team are welcoming more than just people through the doors of 191 Clarksville Road.

“I’m a dog lover and have been all my life. Allowing employees to bring pets in just felt like a natural extension of our ‘casual Fridays’ policy—employees should feel free to wear jeans and bring along their dog, hamster or turtle if they want,” said Barnhart, who is the President and CEO of CMA. “It provides stress relief and just makes for a fun atmosphere.”

According to a survey by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, millions of Americans believe pets on the job lower absenteeism and encourage workers to get along. The same survey stated that one in five companies currently allow pets at work.

Since the winter of 2008, CMA employees with pets have been able to bring their furry (and scaly) friends to work with them, as long as no client meetings are scheduled for that day. For somewhat of a test run of this concept, CMA staffers brought in all pets at once in November 2008 for a holiday card photo shoot, which many clients commented was one of the firm’s best. Since then, “baby” gates, chew toys and water dishes are common sights among the offices and cubicles at CMA.

“It’s been a challenging business environment for the past two years and while CMA has weathered the storm well, our employees have appreciated the extra thought we put into creating a relaxed, family-oriented work environment,” said Burt Lambert, CMA’s CFO.