Marketing Toolkit
As soon as your project is EDGE certified, pull out all the stops to take advantage of promotional opportunities.
As soon as your project is EDGE certified, pull out all the stops to take advantage of promotional opportunities.
Project owners that position their properties as certified green gain a competitive advantage over others in the market. Here are more than a dozen ways to maximize your commitment to EDGE, with actual examples of how to do it. Companies that prioritize the certified status of their projects leverage their marketing and sales strategies, resulting in a faster and increased response from customers.
Almost all of the techniques listed below apply to both the preliminary and final certification stages, offering twice the opportunity to leverage your marketing efforts.
Publish Your Project Study
Publish your EDGE project publicly on the EDGE Buildings website as validation of certification and to be highlighted as part of the country’s projects. This helps clients find your company for no cost on the highly ranked webpage. You can find the guideline for submission here.
Issue a Press Release
Publish and distribute a media announcement to your press contacts (here’s an example from HC Capital and Asia Green Real Estate). Once the media publish the announcement, it will appear in the News section of the EDGE website.
Launch a Social Media Campaign
Once your project study is published, a social media campaign will be created on the following EDGE channels: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Create your own social media campaigns as well, encouraging your employees, partners and customers to share your message. Use EDGE’s premade marketing templates to share your initiatives, events, trainings, and other events.
Publicize Your Events
Share your events through our social media channels and events pages on the EDGE Buildings website.
Publish Your Story
Create a blog post on your corporate channels (such as LinkedIn or your website) to tell an in-depth story about your project (here are examples from Agility Logistics, Asia Green Real Estate and The 1O1 Yogyakarta Tugu). Tag @edgebuildings when you tweet and post about it, and we’ll amplify your message.
Create a Brochure
Create a brochure for your company that incorporates EDGE to show how you are driving transformation. Define in your own words why EDGE is important to you, such as in this example by KSH Infra. You can also create a handout, such as EchoStone’s Peridot Parkland in Nigeria, to demonstrate the features and achievements of your projects.
Send an Email
Tell everyone on your mailing list that your project has been EDGE-certified. Link to stories in the media, a lengthier blog post, a video and your project study on the EDGE website.
Include EDGE in Your Mission Statement
When setting a mission statement, an organization can align its commitment to sustainability with its EDGE certification by emphasizing:
- Commitment to Sustainability: Highlighting the dedication to reducing environmental impact through energy, water, and material efficiency.
- Enhancing Well-being: Focusing on improving the health and quality of life for building occupants and the broader community.
- Promoting Transparency and Accountability: Ensuring that sustainable practices are verifiable and transparent, building trust with stakeholders.
- Fostering Innovation and Inclusion: Encouraging the development of innovative, cost-effective solutions that make sustainable buildings accessible to a wider audience.
Become an EDGE “Champion”
EDGE Champions are companies that have made an official commitment (like Novare, Vinacapital, Signature Homes, or Shelter Afrique) to prioritize green building practices and aim to certify at least 80% of their building portfolios, or have at least 1 million m2 of floor area certified using EDGE. As of 2023, around the world, a total of 79 companies have already made this commitment. EDGE Champions commit to significant promotion of the EDGE software, standard, and certification system in their operations. In turn, IFC will support the organization by issuing an official Champions certificate, support with press release, participate a signing ceremony, invitations to exclusive gatherings such as the champions summit, and more. To learn about this program, please reach out to edge@ifc.org
Shoot a Video
Make a video testimonial by your CEO about the value of EDGE, or create a commercial such as by 127Living in Colombia. The EDGE marketing team develops many videos per year, such as the story of Aavas and Self-Built Housing finance in India, EDGE Champion Spotlight, EDGE Champions Summit in Asia, Financial Institutions and other relevant topics. The regional The EDGE marketing team is always looking for stories from companies with innovative approaches to cover, such as Balwin Properties in South Africa.
Use EDGE in Your Sales Strategy
Include the EDGE logo and mention that your project is certified green on your digital sales pages. Communicate the benefits of certification to differentiate your project. Blu Homes in the Philippines highlights the features of the buildings for buyers, Onomo Hotel in Cameroon attracts media attention, METRO Myanmar to demonstrate corporate commitment, or ALP as part of their corporate sustainability strategy.
Construct an On-site Billboard
Include the EDGE logo on any billboards at the construction site of your project as yet another way to distinguish your property from others, bringing attention to your property being certified green. See the examples from Signature Homes in India.
Add EDGE to Your Showroom
Give prominence to the fact that you’ve certified your project by featuring the EDGE logo and listing the benefits for renters and buyers, such as in this photo by Capital House. EDGE also provides developers with materials targeted towards homebuyers to support your sales teams.
Win an Award or Host a Competition
Enter the Financial Times Awards, Construction21 Awards, and Building Sense Now Awards. Whether you win or not, you’ll receive international marketing attention just by participating in these competitions. IFC also hosts several conferences led by the EDGE team, including the student competition in Ghana where an EDGE clients offers the winner an internship opportunity.
Speak at a Conference
Encourage a high-level member of your team to speak at a conference to tell their story about their commitment to EDGE certification and talk about the positive outcomes. At COP28, EDGE arranged a session including client CIB Bank in Egypt. Please reach out if you would like to invite or speak in an event alongside an IFC expert.
Hold a Certification Ceremony or Plaque Handover Ceremony
Hold a ceremony when you receive a preliminary certificate. For residential projects, you can also host an event on-site to distribute final EDGE certificates to homeowners. Here’s an example of Greenox in Turkey. Commercial and government certifications can be celebrated by in IFC dignitaries to celebrate the achievements. Find an example from Indonesia with the certification of Badan Pengelola Masjid Istiqlal (BPMI) or in Vietnam with DIC Group or BIM Land.
Sales and Market Team Training
IFC EDGE team can provide customized training and marketing materials to developers to assist with the promotion of green building elements to their potential clients. During a one-hour session, EDGE’s business experts share key features and benefits for homeowners or tenants in green certified properties. Request a session for your company at edge@ifc.org
By working together, we can ensure that EDGE is fully integrated into your marketing and sales strategies, to maximize the benefits of certification.
Your certifier has tremendous marketing reach and can also help to bring attention to your project. Contact them directly to share your marketing and sales strategies and explore ways to collaborate.
Are you working with an EDGE Expert? They can also help to spread the word about your achievements, as they have strong professional networks and are well-connected digitally. Here’s an example of Edificio Edwards from Peru.
See something that’s missing from the list of marketing and sales ideas that you’ve found to be effective? Have an amazing data point about how EDGE contributed to the success of your project that you want to share? Need access to the EDGE logo? Let us know at edge@ifc.org. To keep your entire team up to speed on new opportunities with EDGE, encourage them to become a part of our EDGE Community.