[Dalya’s Note: This guest post was written by Shel Horowitz, lead author of Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green.]

How many times have you heard some green entrepreneur telling you to buy a product because it’s good for the earth? The problem with that approach is that it only reaches one of the three markets that green communicators need to attract.

“Good for the planet” attracts the Deep Green crowd: people who are heavily motivated by messages about doing the right thing. People like me.

But even though green consciousness is growing rapidly, we don’t have enough of those folks to change the world; and in many cases, are also not enough to create a sustainable business. Green entrepreneurs also need to reach two other audiences:

Lazy Greens: people who are mildly disposed to do the right thing. They’ll buy your stuff—but only if it’s at least as easy, cheap, durable, convenient, and functional as the product it’s replacing. They have a philosophical sympathy with greening the planet, but they have relatively low knowledge and they don’t want to be inconvenienced. To get them to buy, not only do you need to make it just as good as or better than what they’ve been buying all along, you also have to put it right in front of their faces in the shopping channels they’re already using.

Non-Greens: these folks aren’t convinced that the planet is even at risk. They may consume news from media that routinely present the handful of climate-change-denying scientists, and may have bought the line that there’s a wide scientific debate on climate change. Or they may even come from an “I’ve got mine, and I don’t care if you get yours” attitude.

And to reach those two kinds of people, you cannot motivate with guilt or shame. “Shoulds” simply don’t work. You have to motivate them positively. You have to show that your product is better.

For the Lazy Greens, you can even wrap these benefits in the environmental cloak: your offering is better because of the green features. A hybrid car offers better gas mileage and silent operation because it uses an electric motor. An LED light bulb burns so much longer and uses so much less electricity because its energy-efficient design converts more electricity to light instead of heat. An organic local tomato tastes so fresh and is so good for you because it’s grown without chemicals and is not picked unripe to be shipped thousands of miles.

For the Non-Greens, the education part has to come later—after they’ve already used and loved the product. Then we can begin to show them the advantages of a green lifestyle. But first, they are going to buy on value, not values.

Smart marketers reach all three audiences. A great example is Marcal, a manufacturer of recycled toilet paper, napkins, and paper towels in the northeast United States. Located just outside New York City, the company creates these products from that city’s abundant supply of discarded junk mail. For the Deep Green, Marcal’s Small Steps packaging emphasizes saving trees. The Light Green not only gets a panel of “Environmental Facts” that note the absence of harmful chlorine and other chemicals, but also an invitation to compare with other vendors. Most importantly, the Light Green finds Marcal on the local supermarket shelf, right next to the virgin-paper brands. The Non-Green can ignore all that, and buy Marcal because it’s a high-quality paper at a very affordable price.

Which would you rather read? “Electronic Privacy Expert Releases New Book” or “It’s 10 O’Clock—Do You Know Where Your Credit History Is?” People will THANK you for letting them read press releases, book jackets, sellsheets, web pages by Shel Horowitz (author, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, six other books; internationally syndicated columnist) Bye-bye boring copy! Green and Profitable.