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The Three Steps of Efficient Web-based Marketing of ESTs

Create curiosity - start with a simple positioning message articulating competitive advantage of your EST solution in a matter of seconds Generate interest - provide an executive summary presenting your EST solution in a manner that shows your prospective customers exactly which benefits they will experience by applying it. Lead to decision - describe your EST solution in more details - in-house or by connecting to your partners - and provide convenient steps to implementing this solution

Related how-to guides:

EST Transfer (slide show)

Master of Business Systems (MBS) e-Coach on Green Productivity

Environmentally Sound Technologies (ESTs)

Eco-E-Commerce: Untapped Resources of Affiliate Marketing

Note: This paper is prepared for innovative environmental sponsors and EST promoters who would like to improve the impact of their investments on  environmental performance of SMEs in the new economy driven by knowledge-based innovative firms.

The Three Myths About ESTs

Strengths and Weaknesses of Traditional EST ISs

Ten³ - a New Generation Comprehensive Web-based Business Service

Cooperation Opportunities

The Three Myths About ESTs

Myth 1:  Lack of information about ESTs is the main barrier to their adoption by SMEs. Wright?

- Wrong! The rapid growth of communication methods has brought about a new disease: the Information Overflow Syndrome. In today's communication jungle, there are just too many products, too many companies, and too much marketing noise. What is actually needed is not just more information but lean quality information that should also be well positioned and targeted.

Myth 2:  EST information services face no competition because they are free. Wright?

- Wrong! They have to compete for the manager's time with other main business concerns: finance, markets, processes, and growth strategies. In today's rapidly changing marketplace that requires fast business decisions, competition for the manager's time is more critical than that for money.

Myth 3:  Just making information about ESTs available through the Internet is good enough to get it used by SME managers. Wright?

- Wrong! Communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstances. The mind accepts only that new information which matches its current state. It filters out everything else. Thus, minds of SME managers need first to be prepared for EST information. Besides, in today's highly competitive marketplace with many players, EST information systems need to be able to articulate their competitive advantage in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. If they cannot, they will lose their prospective customer's attention, and the business.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Traditional EST ISs

Most of traditional EST information systems (EST ISs) are doing well in providing information to the environmentalist market that include relevant government agencies, R&D community, and public pressure groups. This information goes to the prepared of mind and it is well accepted there.

As to the primary EST target group of industrial end-users, especially SMEs, the mind of business managers needs first to be prepared for this type of information. EST promoters should have very sharp teeth to compete successfully in this market. They should learn how to communicate successfully with entrepreneurs. Every person has his unique map of the reality. The maps of entrepreneurs and environmentalists are quite different. Thus, environmentalists, if they do want SMEs to adopt ESTs, should try to understand better the reality map of entrepreneurs and tailor their navigating instruments to the entrepreneur's map.

To entering the SME marketplace,  environmentalists require:

1. special marketing skills and resources,

2. balanced approach to business systems, and

3. continuous service throughout the whole technology transfer process.

Far too many traditional EST ISs lack all of the above. To picture the problem, imagine a farm that produces environmentally safe agricultural products but it neither invests in marketing of these products and their delivery to prospective customers, nor signs marketing or reselling contracts with professional salespeople. Thus a great deal of these environmentally sound products turns actually into waste as it remains unused.

Lack of market focus is the major weakness of most traditional EST ISs. This weakness could be strengthened through developing public-private partnerships (PPP) between EST ISs and market-driven web service providers.

Ten³ - A New Generation Comprehensive Web-based Business Service

Technology e-ncubate, e-nnovate, e-nvest (Ten³) is being developed to provide a comprehensive four-in-one online business service:

1. Online business coaching

2. Data base search and matching of business, technology, and investment partners

3. Communication and cross-pollination of ideas among stakeholders in area- and sector-specific communities, and

4. Private and secure workspaces for initiation, planning and execution of projects by remote partners

The three main features of this innovative Web-based solution are as follows:

• Ten³ is not just a business library, but an inspiring business coaching service, available free anytime to anybody

• Ten³ is not just a business match-maker, but a comprehensive project initiation, planning and execution service.

• Ten³ is not just a choice of business support services, but a complete online office equipped with all necessary information, coaching, communication, management, and marketing tools.

The first-ever Online Business e-Coach is the core competitive advantage of Ten³ portals. Being developed at www.1000ventures.com, the lead portal of the global Ten³ network, the Online Business Coach can be browsed free of charge. It provides inspiring guidance to various types of its target clients and, for their convenience, is formally divided into the following cross-pollinated chapters:

• Developing Yourself: helps the client to realize his or her true potential and to achieve extraordinary results

• Business Development: guides through various company growth stages: gestation, start-up, pilot, roll-out, growth, expansion, and maturity

• Venture Financing: guides both investees and investors through the venture financing process

• The Art of Management: helps to master competitive management techniques

• Innovation Management: helps to develop innovation-friendly organizations and improve productivity

• Technology Transfer: guides step-by-step through the technology transfer process

• Green Productivity (a demo version): introduces business strategies for green productivity and sustainable growth

Opportunities for Sponsorship and Cooperation with Ten³

Ten³, that due to its first-ever Online Business Coach attracts a fast growing audience of entrepreneurs and business managers (see visitors statistics), is well positioned to play a key role in promoting ESTs to SMEs. The comprehensive support to EST projects from their initiation through planning and implementation can be done through developing the following solutions:

1. Development of a full-scale version of the chapter on Green Productivity and Sustainable Business Strategies and its cross-pollination with the other chapters of the Ten³ Online Business Coach

2. Developing a green Business Plan software that would facilitate integration of sustainable solutions into the business planning process

3. Developing project management modules on Environmental Impact Assessment, Design for Environment, Cleaner Production, Energy Efficiency, Eco-Education, and End-of-Pipe Solutions and their integration in the Ten³ Online Project Development Workspaces.

Development of the above solutions and their integration into geographical and sector-specific Ten³ portals would create a self-sustainable, effective, continuous and comprehensive service promoting ESTs among SMEs.

However, not only demand side, but also supply side problems need to be solved to bring down barriers to effective promotion of ESTs among SMEs. Among the problems to be solved is that EST suppliers usually do not use powerful affiliate e-marketing networks that could increase dramatically the volume of Eco-E-Commerce (E2-Commerce) globally.

In view of these double-sided problems, a seed capital from donor agencies would be required for developing and integrating environmental business solutions in the Ten³ service in order to bring it to the self-sustainability stage. With as little as  10% of the total Ten³ portal development cost, environmental grants would provide very high environmental return on investment and a long-term impact on wider EST adoption by SMEs in your targeted geographical area.

Some donors have already studied the potential for promoting ESTs among SMEs through the global network of Ten³ portals and expressed their willingness to sponsor this work. The Sustainable Alternatives Network (SANet) funded by the Global Environment Fund (GEF) has offered to provide a grant equal to 10% of the total development cost of the Ten³ regional Asia-Pacific portal for developing and integrating sustainable solutions into it. The Asia-Pacific Ten³ portal is being developed by the Asian and Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology (APCTT)