Say you’ve got the basics down—your communications are clear, meaningful, and on message. What else can you do to be heard amid the cloud of babble?

We have some ideas—nine favorites, to be precise, detailed in our freshly updated 9 Ways to Make a Powerful Impression Strategy>Shift guide. We put these methods to work every day for our clients, and the guide includes examples of successes from our portfolio and beyond.

The guide—it’s a quick read, we promise—provides a concise description of each approach, along with why you should try it and tips for doing it well. Check it out and consider whether it might be time for you to take a stand, hit a nerve, sell your dream or try some other profile-boosting strategy.

Not all these approaches are appropriate for every occasion or enterprise, but we hope you’ll try something out of your comfort zone. Strategies that challenge you to think differently often have the greatest potential for making your communications more powerful.

Download it now. Then let us know what you think, and if you have any tips of your own or results to share.

A colleague recently sent me an article from a British publication chastising U.K. cleantech businesses for using fluffy greenspeak to market their products. I don’t see many U.S.-based cleantech companies doing that, but the critique got me to thinking about the cleantech marketing don’ts I do notice regularly. My top five:

Unprofessional materials. Many cleantech companies are competing with gigantic corporate incumbents. Websites and collateral featuring quicksand-like prose and a design sensibility circa the dawn of the Internet are not going to inspire confidence in prospects who can already think of 50 reasons to stick with the status quo.

Unclear benefits. Cleantech companies often have supercool technology—but that’s no excuse to let the engineers drive marketing. Communications that focus too much on the product’s technical splendors and too little on what it does for users aren’t going to build a market.

Confusing technical explanations. Sometimes technical explanations are necessary, and when they are, they’re usually targeted at a technical audience. Companies often see this as license to dispense with clarity—“they’ll figure it out”—but technical readers are often the pickiest about precision.

Poor understanding of target markets. Sometimes we think people care about something because they should. Alas, they often care about something entirely different. Simple example: companies should care about reducing their electricity bills, but what if the people typically authorized to buy your energy-conserving product aren’t accountable for electricity costs? Marketing needs to speak to the intersection of what the product achieves and what buyers think is important.

Internally focused marketing. Cleantech companies are just joining the party on this one—all kinds of businesses wander off down the dead-end path of internally focused marketing. The problem here is not so much failing to understand target markets as failing to consider them. This happens when decisions about content, tone and style are based purely on the personal preferences of company leaders. Unless these leaders are the target market, the company may end up marketing mainly to itself.

A friend recently alerted me to this great video presentation about motivation based on a presentation by Daniel Pink, whose new book is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It got me thinking about how we make assumptions when we’re communicating about sustainability and marketing green initiatives.

Pink points out that research on what motivates people to excel at their work flies in the face of common assumptions when the work involves cognitive skill and critical thinking. Monetary rewards actually backfire; studies show that motivation comes from self-direction, mastery, and  making a contribution. I’d like to see more about motivation where sustainability initiatives are concerned. I hear anecdotes that “doing the right thing” isn’t enough to get people to act. Research I’ve seen about energy conservation behavior shows that’s true. But we don’t know enough about what does make people conduct their business in sustainable ways. It’s always assumed that the clincher always has something to do with money (you’ll save it or spend less) or effort (it’s easier) or competition (looking better than your neighbor).

It’s not that simple. In my work I’ve recently seen how sustainability goals unite employees and inspire them to go the extra mile. I also see customers making the green/sustainable choice because it’s the right thing to do. In both cases, these groups are active advocates. What can we learn about the other two factors, mastery and self-direction, that will help us market more effectively and change behavior—and bring about lasting results that will make a dent in climate change?

So I’m off to find a copy of Drive at the library. (And forgive me if this sounds like an ad for the book, which was published in December.) I’ll report back.

One last note: The video is incredibly creative—an artist draws cartoon illustrations on a whiteboard in time with Pink’s talk. It’s a production of RSA, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. RSA are brilliant (they’re British so I can say it like that), and so fun, progressive and insightful that you’d never guess the organization is 250 years old.