Table of contents 

• The challenge of marketing tech for good 
• Why tech for good businesses need marketing 
• 4 killer marketing strategy goals for tech for good businesses
• How to market yourself for good, without shameful self-promotion 
• The roundup

As technology becomes the main driver for a larger number of industries, and the capabilities of tech solutions continue to grow, we are seeing more and more businesses take up the mantle of tech for good. A greater number of companies than ever before are focused on harnessing technology to make a positive impact for many international causes. From rewilding and habitat monitoring to charity aid and vaccine management, the opportunities to incorporate responsive technology into sustainable, positive business missions are ever-increasing.  

However, as businesses wish to continue making a positive impact through the use of technology (tech for good businesses), one key issue persists; how to grow revenue while staying true to an unselfish mission and business model.  

A solid and effective marketing strategy is the key – but many tech for good entrepreneurs shy away from this approach.  

The challenge of marketing tech for good 

Marketing can often seem conflicting for businesses wishing to use technology for good causes. Stray too far into a highly technical and calculated marketing approach, and businesses face losing sight of those key values that led them to take up the venture to begin with. Or there’s the risk of appearing self-seeking and inauthentic, ultimately driving their primary audience away.  

Incorporate too little marketing technique, and businesses threaten their revenue stream and put those beneficial ventures at risk. The world of retargeting and SEO optimisation may disrupt a brand’s image, making them appear too self-promotional, or ‘corporate,’ rather than as responsive groups wishing to generate change for the better.  

However, they are necessary. Without a marketing strategy, the cause may be lost permanently, therefore even tech for good businesses must regard their marketing strategy with care and planning.  

Why tech for good businesses need marketing 

When executed correctly, marketing enables tech for good businesses to succeed in their mission. It builds their audience, their support, and their funding, allowing them to continue coordinating meaningful projects – generating revenue while still retaining a brand image that reflects the values and ethics that make the soul of a business. 

For tech for good businesses, growth doesn’t mean just developing more methods for revenue. It means finding more opportunities to make a bigger impact – both locally, nationally and internationally. Ultimately, the goal of any tech for good business should be in scaling as much as possible. In doing so, your outreach becomes wider, and your team thrives in the process.  

4 killer marketing strategy goals for tech for good businesses: 

When creating a marketing strategy, the first step is to establish your overarching goals. There are a wide number of suitable goals, however, we recommend the following to optimise not only your business’s growth but the positive efforts you are coordinating as well.  

1. Establish outreach through marketing to connect with other businesses and organisations that share the same ideals, ethics, and goals. This will facilitate future partnerships which can help you expand your efforts. 
2. Create content that directly appeals to, and addresses, the emotions of the target audience. The content’s emotional appeal should always be prioritised over content that is purely generated to boost SEO performances and rankings. 
3. Continue to use technology to further boost growth efforts so the business can expand into new areas. This opens the door to new opportunities for making a positive impact.  
4. Establish a clear and consistent tone of voice that fits the ideals of the organisation. These should be implemented throughout the entirety of the marketing strategy. Rather than formality for formality’s sake, tech for good businesses should always prioritise the effect of speaking directly to the heart of the audience to maximise impact and demonstrate your motivations.  

Inbound marketing is the key to creating a successful, authentic brand 

Inbound marketing is all about putting your audience first. This approach primarily facilitates friendly lead generation and building trustworthy, authoritative reputations.

The aim is to centre your marketing activity around supporting your audience’s success and helping them reach their goals. By delivering genuinely valuable communications and content you can entice prospects to come to you (hence the term inbound) and build truly lasting relationships with your customers.

The benefits of inbound marketing: 

• Cost-effective lead generation with greater ROI, exploiting digital marketing
• Building digital presence, brand authority, and brand equity
• Defining a customer journey that creates sales qualified leads
• Continually tracking, evaluating and adapting strategies based on performance

How to market yourself for good, without shameful self-promotion 

How do tech for good businesses achieve these goals?  

There is such a thin line between unengaging self-promotion and natural and authentic content. One risks driving away your audience and the other will encourage organic growth – but it can be difficult to distinguish between them.  

At EV, we want to help you thrive. We want to give your tech for good business the tools and resources you need to drive effective and measurable growth.  

Below, we outline the many ways in which tech for good businesses can strengthen, rather than weaken, their marketing strategy – from PR to SEO and beyond. By adapting B2B inbound marketing techniques to suit your sector and your values, you can see success in marketing without undermining your positive, authentic vision.  

What this article covers: 

To begin with, we cover how best to, and the importance of, promoting your tech for good business to potential partners and like-minded organisations – noting the multiple advantages in doing so. Additionally, we’ll also cover: 

• The importance of integrating elements of company culture into the overarching marketing strategy. 
• Injecting your campaigns with a soul and vigour that will appeal directly to the heart and emotions of your audience. This is vital when they come to decide whether or not to choose your business.  
• The importance and advantages of using guest blogging, as well as the power of public relations.  
• Navigating the seemingly impossible world of SEO optimisation and how, when used correctly, it can be used to add value to, rather than detract soul from, your pre-existing content.  

5 ways to promote tech for good using inbound marketing techniques  

1. Promote your partners 

One key element that will help you to connect to new potential opportunities for growth lies within your current network of partners and associates. Through working collaboratively with other partners, and actively promoting those partners and their contributions, businesses can expect a wealth of benefits. 

Actively promoting your partners and their contributions through your marketing strategy generates two key advantages:  

Enhance your brand image 

The first major advantage to actively promoting your partners is that it allows businesses to openly enhance their brand image by showcasing their ability to work alongside others towards a shared objective. This is vital in detracting from the constant expectation that marketing is purely about self-promotion. Actively promoting your partners alleviates self-centric focus. It gives the audience a wider perspective on efforts made to make a discernible, positive change, and appeals more to emotions rather than logic. 

Learn more about the importance of a fantastic brand personality

Grow your collaboration efforts 

The second key advantage is that it will allow other likeminded businesses to notice your willingness to cooperate and coordinate shared efforts. Eventually, this will support lead generation for more potential partnerships. When this is done multiple times, what may have started as one or two small tech for good businesses may soon develop into a far-reaching, openly collaborative network. Ultimately this facilitates greater action – with many businesses all united towards the same goal. 

These are just two benefits of promoting your partners within your marketing strategy. In doing so, businesses will be able to successfully meet the first killer goal – finding new and available opportunities.  

2. Be aware of the power of guest blogging 

Guest blogging is an important tool in any marketing strategy, involving the act of writing blogs for another website, usually industry or sector relevant. Guest blogs help increase awareness, drive organic backlinks to your site, and reinforces the collaborative spirit native to your business. 

Best practices for guest blogging: 

By choosing where your guest blog will be featured, and alongside whom, tech for good businesses can also reach more potential partners and widen their collaborative network.  

Another key benefit of guest blogging is that, through hosting your original content on another site with a potentially larger audience, it automatically increases your reach. By including external links to your original brand website, or including calls-to-action, this wider audience may be directly converted into customers. 

Guest blogging also allows tech for good businesses to discuss their positive contributions without, once again, being seen as too self-indulgent. This will always be a major challenge for tech for good businesses. By writing content for another site focused around either thought-leadership topics, or directly centred around the impact and reasoning of your contributions, businesses can avoid the negative connotations while also enjoying the many benefits of positive publicity. 

3. Don’t be afraid of PR 

For those worried that their marketing strategy may currently seem too self-centred, an effective, calculated and well-voiced PR campaign may just be your best friend. When used effectively, it can not only generate additional interest in you and your business, but it can also help establish your role as experts in a certain field. This both solidifies your brand image and detracts from the self-promotional field simultaneously. 

For tech for good business, the secret to correctly harnessing the power of PR lies in establishing an element of thought leadership. Through projecting yourself as an expert voice on the wider issue that you are tackling, your audience will view you and your business as a call-to-action for the greater good.  

RELATED: How to effectively communicate your company mission

For you, this means greater interest, which will drive lead generation. Additionally, expect an erasure of that harmful self-promotional and corporate image that can too easily be associated with a brand. Instead, you and your business will be viewed as ambassadors for driving positive change and may act as a CTA to encourage others to join and make a wider impact. 

4. Culture matters 

Businesses that have built a reputation focused on driving a positive impact can add culture pieces into their content plan to solidify this image.  

This type of content shows that the emphasis on driving positive change isn’t just a simple objective but is also reflected deep within the business itself. Culture pieces give readers the chance to look deeper into how a business functions, as well as why it functions.  

Read the full blog on company culture and its role in marketing

Displaying an excellent company culture centred around values over conversion rates achieves two impactful benefits: 

1. It attracts like-minded individuals to your businesses, allowing your cause to grow and further develop.
2. It proves that the values and mission of your company are genuine, and not just skin-deep. 

5. Steer clear of SEO optimised content 

Content that is purely generated to achieve search engine ranking can not only be inefficient for tech for good businesses, but destructive for a brand image. Content that provides neither meaningful insights nor demonstrates value (two essential factors for tech for good businesses) will be regarded as meaningless and may distract or frustrate your audience. 

Instead of pursuing content focused purely on appeasing SERP rankings and conversion rates, tech for good businesses should speak from the heart, echoing the values that have been reflected in your PR campaigns or culture pieces. The priority should always be on demonstrating genuine honesty and passion – qualities that purely SEO-focused content will be unable to provide.  

By no means does this demonstrate that SEO optimisation should be entirely forgotten. Instead, a great challenge of tech for good businesses is finding the right balance between demonstrating value while encouraging growth through SEO practices and driving website traffic. When done right, businesses can benefit from creating meaningful content that also supports growth.  

The roundup 

There are a wide variety of ways in which tech for good businesses can thrive through the power of a marketing campaign without being seen as too self-promotional and losing audience engagement. 

Each of these tips are designed to help businesses find the right balance between sincerity and the need for growth – from the use of PR in promoting a wider discussion of pressing issues, to creating content focused on the true essence of the business. 

3 key takeaways 

1. ‘Tech for good’ business content should always focus more on their cause and passion over topics generated purely for SEO optimisation. If not, businesses may come across as lifeless, and their mission may be perceived as disingenuous.  
2. Promoting a positive company culture has a wide number of benefits. Some of these include allowing your audience to view the values and ethics behind the business, as well as potentially drawing in likeminded individuals to work with you.  
3. When used correctly, PR campaigns can accelerate your marketing strategy. PR simultaneously allows you to promote your business while establishing yourself as an expert in your field. 

‘Tech for good’ businesses are responsible for some of the greatest worldwide contributions in driving positive change. With a clear marketing model, established marketing goals, and marketing best practices tailored to what audiences in this sector engage with, these businesses can accelerate their development and drive more rapid, impactful change.  

For more information about how best to market tech for good businesses, why not take a look at some of our insights or case studies. Alternatively, you can contact us directly with any queries you may have.