Page 334 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

312 CHAPTER 10

While they seem to be adequate at the time, those logos and designs look more and more
amateurish as time goes by and can come back to haunt you. Also, improperly designed
logos can end up costing you money. You’ll want a logo that can be reversed out (white
on a color or black), that can be printed in a single color, and that looks good even when
it’s pretty small. Amateurish logos frequently look lousy printed small or require too
many colors to print. Remember this is foundational work for the brand of a place
you’re pouring your heart and dollars into. Do not be tempted to cut this corner. (We
will discuss non-conventional compensation schemes later in the chapter.)

SHAPING YOUR MESSAGE

An important question too few companies ask internally is, “Why do we need to
deliver this message?” Ask yourself this: “What is the outcome I hope for from this
communication?” For example, are you seeking to lease space to tenants? Are you
seeking simply to inform? Here are a number of outcomes you may want to consider:

■ Awareness – You want the target to be aware of your project/company.
■ Action – You want the target to visit/lease/purchase/try your project.
■ Relationship – You seek to establish a relationship with the target by having them
call you or visit your website.
■ Education – You seek to educate your target regarding sustainable development.

It’s important to know up front what you want your outcome to be, and to establish
a measurement tool to gauge the success of your campaign. For example, deciding at
the onset that you want to generate one hundred inquiries a month gives you a target.
If the target seems easy to hit, raise the bar. If you seem way short of your mark, try
to determine if your initial goal was reasonable.
How you establish your goals depends on what you want your outcomes to be. For
example, if you goal is to have people regularly visit your website, you will want to
use engagement tools on your website that allow visitors to opt in. An example of such
an engagement tool is offering the visitor a monthly update on all LEED changes. If
that’s something of interest, the visitor must offer up an e-mail address. Equipping
your site with relatively simple analytics allows you to verify how often that same per-
son returns to your site. Conversely, knowing the outcomes you seek can help you
define your goals. Goals force us to measure results, and measuring results over time
lets us know how we’re doing. Setting specific measurable goals and determining how
you can gather performance metrics are vital to effective marketing, whether you’re
doing it in-house or using an outside partner.

DEFINING YOUR TARGET

Before you spend a dime marketing your development project or creating communi-
cations around your sustainable effort, identify your target market. To whom are you