Sustainability Solutions Group Case Study
Challenge
Sustainability Solutions Group (SSG) is Canada’s leading sustainability consulting and carbon management group.
I was brought on to identify opportunities within the Canadian Cooperative market segment, define target audience, craft key messages and develop an implementation strategy to establish market preference and generate demand for SSG’s Carbon Account and consulting services.
Methodologies Used
Interviews and workshop with client.
Secondary research including horizon scan, competitive analysis, target market analysis.
Insights Gained
- Largest co‐op sectors in Canada are financial sector and food retailers.
- Retail co‐ops have released plans to measure and reduce environmental impact. There is an opportunity for greening supply chain; setting internal benchmarks, and employee engagement.
- Financial co-ops are lagging behind, there is an opportunity to develop a business case to target financial co‐ops who are in the early‐mid stage of GHG planning and management.
- SSG needs to get clear and specific on drivers for carbon management for each targeted customer sector as these vary sector to sector.
- SSG's existing marketing efforts are not targeted and customer acquisition opportunities are not defined. There is lots of opportunities for strengthening communications and customer acquisition channels.
Solutions
Sector-specific Targeted Messaging: Reframe SSG’s current positioning of the product from “mitigating climate change” to a targeted business benefit for each particular market segment and each of the customer buying stages, to ensure target audience sees messaging addressing pain points.
Establish Thought Leadership: Strategic opportunities such as The Year of the Co-op to establish SSG as a leader in sustainability solutions within the co‐op sector by getting involved in events and developing and hosting webinars.
Develop Online Presence: Develop a newsletter and webinar template and help establish social media presence. Re-design website and marketing materials to enable easy visual access adding case studies, client list, and client testimonials.
I developed the Stages of Buying process map as part of SSG's customer acquisition strategy.
I designed marketing and sales collateral to help SSG tell their story and present their products and services in a creative and inspiring way.