Today’s customers expect more than just a reliable energy supply from their utility. They want to take control of their energy use — to save money, or reduce their carbon footprint, or just make their homes more comfortable — and they’re looking for advice and resources that will help.
Energy providers can give customers that support by taking advantage of utility personalized communications. By leveraging their data to understand customers’ needs and preferences, and delivering messages tailored to each individual, utilities can better connect customers with relevant, useful resources.
“Customers expect marketing messages to be relevant to their needs and interests — or they will simply tune them out,” says Jared Brandon, Director of Innovation at Harris Computer. “Utilities need to be communicating in the same way.”
Utilities can learn from outside industries like retail, tech and consumer goods on how to tailor messages to individual customers. With personalized energy communications, utilities can build the same kinds of digital relationships that customers expect from other popular brands.
For example, Starbucks takes advantage of personalization through its gamified mobile app. The app uses customer data like purchase history, mobile app usage and location to recommend products, build loyalty and increase engagement.
Shutterfly, a website for creating personalized cards, photo books and gifts, uses personalization in its marketing efforts. When customers download the company’s app, they can allow Shutterfly to access their photos. With this feature, each product is personalized with the customer’s photos, encouraging them to make a purchase.
As these examples illustrate, personalization is everywhere in today’s digital landscape. Utilities can adopt a similar approach when communicating with their customers.
Personalized Communications: The Utility Advantage
Customers view their utility as an energy expert and helpful resource, whether they need advice on improving home energy efficiency or taking advantage of solar power. Personalized energy communications allow utilities to give customers the detailed and accurate energy information they expect — and which they can’t get from any other source. This is a powerful differentiator for utilities.
“Utilities have information that people care about,” says Matt Irving, Questline Digital’s Creative Director of Video. “I think it’s valuable for customers to know, for example, where they fall in terms of energy efficiency compared to their neighbors. Utilities have all this data at their disposal. Why not use it to make personalized videos to improve the customer experience?”
Data is an important component of a personalization strategy, used to create customer segments and identify characteristics for targeted messages. But data can also be used in the content of the messages themselves. Customers can learn how their energy usage compares to their neighbors, for example, or how a new rate plan would affect their bill based on their actual energy usage.
“You could send them a positive message like, ‘Great job for reducing your energy usage! That’s comparable to a reduction of (insert number) gasoline-powered cars on the road,’” Irving says. “Positive feedback just makes customers feel good and encourages them to keep pushing forward to reduce their energy usage even more.”
One of the biggest benefits of utility personalized communications is educating customers on complex energy programs and technologies, like time-of-use rate plans (TOU) and smart meters. For example, a TOU marketing message is much more effective when it provides specific information on how much a customer can save based on their energy usage behaviors. Without personalization, the savings benefit is ambiguous.
“The reality is that customers don’t live and breathe the utility industry,” Brandon says. “Personalization can simplify complex industry-specific topics to a layman’s audience, while also showing customers why a particular program is relevant to them.”
A Midwest-based utility recently used personalized videos to educate customers about relevant financial assistance programs and encourage enrollment. The videos provide each recipient with tailored program recommendations based on their energy usage, past program participation and payment history. The videos have voiceovers and onscreen graphics that are unique to each customer.
In a Questline Digital webinar, Tony Todesco, Market Research Senior Specialist with Con Edison, explained that personalization was essential to prepare for community events.
The utility’s outreach team leveraged zip code-level statistics to prepare for these events held in local neighborhoods throughout New York City and Westchester County. They gained important information like language preferences, education, affinity for tech adoption, likelihood of being eco-friendly and more.
“In marketing, we’re primarily using this data to analyze key customer segments, like electric vehicle drivers, solar adopters and low-income customers, and use the findings to refine our marketing strategy and act on opportunities,” Todesco says. “This data typically takes the form of personas characterizing specific users of technology. We always learn something new with personas.”
Effective Communications Require the Right Data
Utilities have a wealth of customer data available to them for personalized energy communications, including energy usage, program participation, content consumption and more.
According to a recent survey, the biggest challenge for utilities is finding the right tools to gather and analyze customer data. While this is a vital step to ensure accuracy, McKinsey & Company notes that utilities shouldn’t be hung up on how much data they have. To send effective personalized energy communications, utilities don’t need more customer data – they simply need the right data.
To truly connect with customers and provide value, personalization is only going to grow in importance. As utilities ramp up their efforts to communicate with customers about complex topics, like TOU, smart meters and demand response, utility personalized communications will be necessary to educate, engage and encourage program participation.
“If you want customers to stay engaged to receive the full message, and actually take meaningful actions from it, communications have to be personalized,” Brandon says. “Greeting customers by name, showing them their usage, and how a program specifically impacts them helps to build trust and deliver value.”
Learn how a personalized energy communications solution from Questline Digital will improve engagement with your utility’s customers.
For utilities, perfecting the welcome message is key to building stronger digital customer relationships. Utility welcome messages are arguably the most important customer touchpoint, setting the stage for future communications and laying the foundation for long-term engagement.
Companies in every industry are strategic about welcoming new customers, whether it’s a food delivery service like Hello Fresh or a vacation rental site like Airbnb. Just like these companies, utilities need to onboard customers immediately upon starting service.
“Whether you become a bank customer or a member of a retail loyalty program, that company is communicating with you at the beginning stages,” says Susan Kownacki, Vice President of Account Services with Questline Digital. “If you don’t have a good relationship at the start, that relationship isn’t going to last very long.”
New Customer Welcome Emails Have an Immediate Impact
Customers are most receptive to utility outreach at the very beginning of service. According to Questline Digital’s 2023 Benchmarks Report, utility welcome messages reach nearly 71% of all residential customers and over 54% of SMB customers, respectively.
These highly effective messages contain valuable information that customers need to know for a smooth onboarding experience, including My Account setup, billing and payment options, outage resources, safety and conservation education, and program information.
“Use a strategic welcome campaign as a way to connect with your customers at the very beginning of service, since this is when they are most receptive to outreach,” says Maureen Huss, Group Accounts Director at Questline Digital. “Doing so is the first step in building a trusted relationship.”
In today’s landscape of hyper-personalization, consumers expect relevant communications from their utility, just like they do from a streaming service, online retailer or fitness app. New customer welcome emails should be tailored to segmented groups of customers, whether residential customers, business customers or those who have recently moved within the service territory.
For example, residential customers may be interested in home efficiency or conservation programs, while business customers need to know what to do during an outage or power quality issue.
Utility welcome messages should include the following:
Welcome message to new or moving customers
Billing and payment options
DIY tips, energy-saving or water conservation resources
Outage and storm safety resources
Each utility welcome message should educate customers on various programs and services, answer commonly asked questions, provide available resources and prompt customers to take action, such as enrolling in paperless billing or autopay, signing up for outage text alerts or setting up their My Account.
“There is an art and science to a welcome campaign,” Kownacki says. “The content, the timing, the cadence — everything mirrors the new customer experience. Each email is an opportunity to introduce new and moving customers to their utility’s offerings and gather data on what customers care about.”
New customer welcome emails are also vital for future customer engagement. According to Questline Digital benchmarks data, customers who open at least one welcome message are more likely to engage with future utility email communications. In fact, customers who have opened at least one welcome message are 30% more likely to engage with a program promotion email.
Additionally, a strategic utility welcome message can help utilities improve future communications by better understanding customer preferences. For example, if a customer clicks on links to your electric vehicle resources, you can send them subsequent communications about EV incentives and rebate programs.
How to Welcome New Residential Customers
For residential customers, it’s important for utilities to show appreciation and welcome them to the community. This goes a long way toward showing the human side of a utility and building long-term customer satisfaction.
After the initial welcome, utility welcome messages should focus on what customers care about most at the start of service: creating an account and establishing their preferred billing and payment methods.
New customer welcome emails should also showcase your utility as a trusted resource and expert. This is where residential customers benefit from energy efficiency tips, water conservation advice, helpful outage resources and programs to save on their bills.
“A welcome series is necessary to meet utility customers where they are in the digital space,” Kownacki says. “It’s about managing the relationship with customers through well-timed engagement upfront and then continuing that relationship with email newsletters, content marketing and other best practices to build long-term customer satisfaction.”
In this welcome email from Con Edison, the utility makes it easy for customers to know exactly what is being asked of them: to set up their My Account. Utility welcome messages should be clear, concise and easy to understand. The use of video also improves customer engagement with the message and provides more detailed information on how to make the most of My Account.
“Video is really good at simplifying topics or concepts that are easier to show than describe,” says Matt Irving, Questline Digital’s Creative Director of Video Content.
In their second welcome email, Rockland Electric Company in New Jersey encourages residential customers to sign up for outage text alerts and download the mobile app. The headline, “We’ll Help You Weather the Storm!” lets customers know that their utility is there for them.
This utility welcome message also serves another purpose — better understanding what customers are interested in communicating via mobile device as well as which customers have Apple versus Google devices. With these two important pieces of information, Rockland Electric Company can enhance future communications with customers.
Welcome Emails for New Business Customers
Welcoming business customers requires a unique approach, as these busy customers are inundated with everyday priorities. Utility welcome messages to business customers must take place every time a workplace transition occurs. As a result, continuity can be a challenge for key account managers.
“I think sometimes electric service can be a secondhand thought for businesses. It’s not a priority as long as their lights are on,” says Chad Brousseau, Business Accounts Manager at Cass County Electric Cooperative. “Businesses often don’t think of us until there is a power interruption or other issue. That’s why it’s important to build those trusted relationships and let them know how we can be of service.”
Each new customer welcome email should center around a specific topic that business customers need to know, such as billing and payment resources, My Account enrollment, outage resources and energy efficiency programs. “This proactive outreach provides business customers with answers to the questions that they have yet to ask,” Huss explains.
Welcome messages for business customers should include:
Welcome message and how to set up My Account
Explanation of billing and payment options
Prompts to sign up for newsletters and/or programs
Resources to help businesses save energy and water
The initial welcome messages should encourage My Account enrollment and ensure businesses are set up with their preferred billing and payment option. Each utility welcome message should provide value to business customers and connect them with all the resources they need to successfully set up their utility service.
This is also an opportunity to uncover segmentation data, like industry and interests, to shape future business customer experiences.
“Business customers are extremely busy, and they don’t want to waste time with communications they don’t see as relevant to their operations,” says Brian Lindamood, Questline Digital’s Vice President of Marketing and Content Strategy. “By collecting data and listening to preferences during a welcome campaign, you can tailor future interactions to meet each customer’s specific needs. It’s the best way to position your utility as a helpful resource that supports business customers with information that’s relevant to them.”
Building Connections with Utility Welcome Messages
New customer welcome emails are an essential touchpoint, helping to begin the customer relationship and set the stage for future communications. With the right welcome strategy, your utility can go a long way to building strong digital relationships and becoming a trusted resource for all of your customers.
Learn how Questline Digital’s Welcome Series solution can help your utility build strong relationships with new customers.
Companies everywhere, including utilities, are seeking innovative ways to engage customers and build lasting relationships. One powerful tool that has evolved leaps and bounds in the past five years is the online webinar. With their ability to connect businesses directly with customers in real-time, webinars have become an invaluable resource for utilities looking to maximize customer engagement.
Utility webinars offer a unique platform to educate, inform and connect with customers and employees. By hosting webinars, utilities can deliver valuable content directly to their target audience, providing them with insights and solutions tailored to their specific needs. Whether it’s educating customers on energy-saving practices or showcasing new industry technologies to employees, utility webinars offer an interactive and engaging way to share knowledge.
One of the key advantages of webinars is their ability to foster direct interaction between utilities and customers or employees. Unlike traditional marketing channels, utility webinars enable two-way communication, allowing customers to actively participate, ask questions and get instant responses. This level of engagement not only enhances customer satisfaction but also builds trust and loyalty. Additionally, webinars provide utilities with valuable feedback, helping them understand customer preferences, concerns and pain points, which can be used to refine products, services and messaging strategies.
“It’s time to break free from one-directional presentations where a presenter speaks at the audience,” says Christopher Loehrer, Webinar Manager at Questline Digital. “Rather, organizations need to embrace the conversational aspects of webinar events. Think about how podcasts engage with their audiences by having conversations with other subject matter experts; ask for audience participation. The format of your webinar event is only limited by your imagination.”
There are many ways utility webinars can be used to foster engagement and achieve educational and training objectives. Let’s dive into 25 effective strategies utilities can use to harness the power of webinars.
Strategic Ways to Use Utility Webinars
There are a variety of ways to think about how to leverage the advantages of webinars. Strategically using webinars means that you’re adding them into your content mix or marketing plan to help your utility reach its goals, whether improving education or increasing program enrollments.
When you’re considering the technical implications of utility webinars, you must consider the features that occur behind-the-scenes. These capabilities help increase traffic to your webinar or improve engagement throughout the event.
“Attendees expect your presentations to be informative, engaging, relatable and entertaining,” says Loehrer. “Think about what captures your attention at in-person events and sprinkle that into your webinar to increase engagement and conversion.”
Some strategic ways to use utility webinars include:
1. Educational Webinars: Your utility’s marketing or program teams can host webinars to educate customers about water conservation tips, renewable energy options or new industry technologies. Additionally, educational webinars are a great way to train utility employees about trends or best practices they should be aware of.
2. Product Demos: Webinars can be used to showcase new products or services offered by your utility, providing customers with a detailed demonstration and answering any questions.
3. Customer Q&A Sessions: Utility webinars can be designed as interactive sessions where customers can ask questions about their bills, conservation strategies or any concerns they may have.
4. Efficiency Workshops: These webinars can focus on providing customers with practical tips and strategies to improve energy efficiency or water conservation in their homes or businesses, helping them save money and reduce their carbon footprint.
5. Program Launches: Webinars are an effective platform to introduce new utility programs or initiatives, including rate plans or billing options, explaining the benefits and encouraging customer participation.
6. Case Studies: Utility marketers can use webinars to share success stories of customers who have achieved significant energy or water savings or implemented sustainable practices. By highlighting these case studies, it may encourage other customers to adopt your utility’s programs or services.
7. Industry Expert Interviews: By inviting experts to speak as guests during webinars, your utility can provide valuable insights and new perspectives to customers and employees. This is also a way of keeping customers or employees informed about the latest trends and advancements inside and outside the industry.
8. Community Engagement: Webinars can be utilized to engage with local communities, addressing specific challenges and soliciting feedback or suggestions from customers.
9. Sustainability Initiatives: Leverage webinars to highlight your utility’s sustainability efforts, showcasing its commitment to renewable energy, water conservation or environmental stewardship. Explain in a thoughtful way how your utility is working to reach its sustainability goals and how these goals affect customers.
10. Conservation Challenges: Remember: webinars are fun! Try hosting energy or water conservation challenges via webinars to encourage customers to participate actively in reducing their consumption, offering incentives and rewards for achieving specific targets.
11. Customer Testimonials: Invite satisfied customers to join your utility’s webinars and share their experiences. Hearing first-hand from customers who have benefited from programs or services can encourage other customers to sign up. This is a great way to build trust and credibility.
12. Collaborative Partnerships: Webinars can be used to promote your utility’s partnerships with organizations or businesses in the community, showcasing joint efforts in promoting sustainability and conservation efforts.
13. Rebate Programs: Use webinars to provide customers with detailed information about available rebate programs, explaining eligibility criteria, application processes and the potential savings.
14 .Resource Roadmaps: Webinars can serve as a platform to present your utility’s long-term plans for a clean and sustainable future, keeping customers informed about future energy and water resource plans and resilience initiatives.
15. Virtual Tours: Organize online tours of customers’ facilities, renewable energy installations or water plants through webinars, giving customers an inside look into the operations and showcasing their commitment to sustainability.
One Southeast energy utility used webinars to empower its account managers with training and education events. With a one-person training team and busy internal subject matter experts (SMEs), the utility didn’t have the time or resources to produce quality educational assets for its 300 employees. By including webinars in its strategy, the utility was able to build a robust training program and educational library for its employees, all without exhausting the organization’s resources.
Another utility, Duke Energy, incorporated webinars into its sales strategy as a way to inform customers and encourage new sales of its programs and services. By creating webinars that catered to customers’ interests and needs, the utility was able to not only sell to its customers but educate them about the benefits of its programs. This program exceeded webinar attendance benchmarks and Duke noticed a dramatic increase in customer engagement and J.D. Power ratings since beginning the webinars.
Building Engagement with Advanced Webinar Technology
Effective educational content is key to hosting a successful webinar. But just as important are the technical features of a webinar platform. These capabilities can provide exceptional user experiences and make attendees want to come back for more.
“With a solid launch pad of features and a high-quality delivery, the sky is the limit,” says Loehrer. “Be sure to gather as much information about your attendees as possible to ensure you deliver the right message to the right viewers with these options.”
Some considerations to make about the technical capabilities of utility webinars include:
16. Interactive Tools: Utilities should have access to interactive features that encourage active participation. These tools also allow your utility to gather valuable data throughout the event. Some of these features might be a chatbox, polls and surveys, live emoji reactions, quizzes, and breakout rooms for smaller group discussions.
17. Screen Sharing and Annotation Tools: The ability to share screens during webinars allows utilities to present slides, demonstrate software or showcase visuals. Additionally, your utility may want to have whiteboard and annotation tools to facilitate real-time collaboration and illustrate concepts.
18. Cross-Promotion Tactics: A webinar platform that allows pop-up offers or banners to share more information about your utility’s programs is a great way to redirect attendees to your utility’s current offerings.
19. Professional Attendee Journey: An effective registration system and scheduling tool are essential to managing participant sign-ups and sending out reminders for upcoming utility webinars.
20. Recording Capability: An on-demand version of your utility’s webinar enables utilities to capture the session for later playback and is a valuable way to share the information with those who couldn’t attend the live event. The recording can also serve as a reference for those who did attend and wish to review or share the event with others.
21. Presentation Format: Many utility webinars are presented in a typical fashion with one speaker and a presentation deck. Consider new formats like roundtable conversations, ask-the-expert discussions, and interviews with subject matter experts to further the conversation and retain attendees’ attention.
22. Clean User Experience and Polished Delivery: As a professional organization, it’s imperative to highlight this any time you’re communicating with customers or employees. Ensure that the webinar environment you’re using is clean and easy to use for participants. The webinar platform itself should be well-suited to handle high-definition delivery, play pre-loaded videos and switch between multiple presenters and presentations seamlessly. Plus, don’t forget to include your brand colors and logo to keep your webinars consistent with other communications.
23. Webinar Series: Webinar series that are delivered on a consistent schedule helps your utility stay top-of-mind with attendees. As you continue to produce webinars, you may find some topics resonate with attendees more than others. The ability to adjust webinars as the year progresses is also an important capability.
24. Analytics and Reporting: Robust reporting capabilities provide utilities with insights into attendance rates, engagement levels and attendee feedback to evaluate the success of their webinars. Remember: The key to measuring success is knowing what works and what doesn’t.
25. Accessibility: Accessibility comes in many forms. Make sure your utility webinar is accessible for viewers on desktop or mobile devices, in multiple languages and with closed captioning features so that all attendees have the best experience possible.
These technical features help to create a dynamic and engaging webinar experience for both utilities and the audience, fostering effective communication and knowledge sharing.
National Grid and Eversource effectively used technical features that contributed to successful webinars. As many Americans struggled to make utility payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, the two utilities partnered to get the word out about their available financial assistance programs. They worked with Questline Digital to produce a series of educational webinars.
To accommodate the varying needs of customers, the webinars were produced with closed captioning and broadcast separately in Spanish and Portuguese. The webinars also included video of an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter. By incorporating these features, the utilities were able to reach a broader audience. In fact, the language accommodations were met with such positivity that National Grid and Eversource permanently changed how they promote services, ensuring information is available to those with varying needs. Over 9,770 total customers registered for the webinars to learn about solutions for their energy bills, with nearly 1,000 attending the ASL broadcast.
Leveraging The Benefits of Utility Webinars
The potential benefits of incorporating webinars into your utility’s educational and training strategies are undeniable. Webinars offer a unique opportunity to engage with customers and employees in a dynamic and interactive manner, fostering meaningful connections and delivering valuable content. By leveraging the technical features discussed above, utilities can create compelling webinar experiences that drive customer engagement.
With the rapid advancements in technology and the increasing emphasis on digital communication, it’s crucial for utilities to stay ahead of the curve. By investing in webinars, utilities can harness the power of real-time engagement to build stronger relationships with customers, train employees, enhance brand reputation and ultimately drive conversions.
“Webinars are a unique way to deliver information and measure success,” says Loehrer. “Start with your end goal in mind and work with an expert team to align the strategy to your goals.”
Learn how Questline Digital’s webinar solutions and help your utility educate customers and train employees.
An effective digital marketing strategy is essential for reaching utility customers and establishing a long-lasting digital relationship over time. To genuinely connect with customers, utilities must embrace a relevant outreach strategy.
As another year has come and gone, the digital marketing landscape has continued to evolve with the emergence of new trends and technologies. It’s crucial for utilities to adapt to the evolving digital marketing landscape to ensure their communications are relevant and engaging for customers.
Our recent webinar, “2024 Digital Marketing Trends and Best Practices,” provided insights and strategies from marketing experts Brian Lindamood, Questline Digital’s VP of Marketing and Content Strategy, and Jonathan Nelson, Sr. Digital Marketing Manager, Growth with the American Marketing Association. They discussed what’s new in the digital marketing world as well as best practices for the upcoming year to revolutionize the way utilities engage with customers.
What’s new and trending for digital marketing in 2024?
Content Marketing
Newsletters
Social Media
Artificial Intelligence
Content Marketing Trends for 2024
To kick off the webinar, Nelson introduced the EEAT, which stands for:
Experience
Expertise
Authoritativeness
Trustworthiness
This is a framework used by Google to evaluate content for search engine optimization, or SEO. Content that encompasses EEAT is more likely to show up on the first page of Google search results, which makes it a valuable guide to follow while creating content.
Nelson recommends that utilities should incorporate the EEAT framework in everything they do. He advises to consider your audience and assess if your content is engaging and consumable.
“You’re writing for someone who is not nearly as involved in the industry as you are. Take time to explain and walk them along the process and your thoughts,” says Nelson. “My general recommendation is to write something that you want to read. You should be publishing and creating content that you’re excited about.”
The concept of EEAT lends itself to the work Questline Digital does with utilities nationwide. “EEAT is right in the wheelhouse of how we create content for utilities. Content marketing is a chance to educate customers about utility topics to inform them without being promotional. You can explain programs without directly selling,” says Lindamood. As content becomes educational and engaging, it builds trust among customers and reinforces the utility’s authenticity.
Newsletter Trends for 2024
Newsletters are another way that EEAT and authenticity can be implemented into utility digital marketing strategies. Newsletters provide a chance for utilities to establish a digital relationship with customers that extends beyond the monthly bill. They are an engaging and meaningful touchpoint that offers an opportunity to add value to customers on a consistent basis.
“No one likes parting with their money. Having a form of communication where you aren’t asking for money and you’re just providing value is a fantastic route for any organization to go after,” says Nelson. “I think utility companies in particular have a huge opportunity to help educate and reach out to their community.”
Lindamood agreed, explaining that newsletters are an especially effective way to deliver relevant and timely information directly to a customer’s inbox. “As a consumer, it saves time and cuts out the digital clutter of trying to find that information on your own time,” he says.
Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) utilized this approach, establishing a monthly residential email newsletter that included educational content for customers, plus information on the utility’s programs. As a result of this implementation, SWEPCO saw a substantial increase in J.D. power scores for customer satisfaction and increased participation in its energy efficiency programs.
Like SWEPCO, the results of consistent digital communications, such as newsletters, can be substantial. “Newsletters have an impact on your overall brand and company health,” says Nelson.
Social Media Trends for 2024
Harnessing social media is imperative for proactive digital marketing and customer outreach strategies. “Social media and content marketing are linked very closely together. I don’t think one works super well without the other,” says Nelson.
Many industries, including the utility industry, use social media not just for content marketing but also as a customer service channel. For effective customer service, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Facebook were recommended by Nelson, as they are ubiquitous and have robust direct messaging services.
TikTok and Instagram reels, centered around videos, offer an ideal platform for sharing educational and entertaining content. “Utility companies might not necessarily think that they are out there to entertain always, but they absolutely are,” says Nelson. “When people are on social media they’re looking for something to make their day better.”
In fact, businesses that are not traditionally associated with social media are succeeding. Nelson provided an example from the Milwaukee Public Library, which is effectively creating entertaining content on TikTok and encouraging engagement. The library’s efforts are enticing more visitors to the library, a substantial win for digital marketing tactics. With the rise in TikTok and Instagram Reels, vertical videos have become common and Nelson doesn’t see this changing anytime soon.
Another popular social media platform, LinkedIn, had a major algorithm update to their feed this past June, which now works similarly to the EEAT framework. This means that the more that content follows EEAT — experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness — the more likely it is to show up on LinkedIn users’ feeds, therefore increasing engagement.
While many usages of social media from X to TikTok are rapidly increasing, organic social media reach for companies has been declining and is continuing to do so. Nelson advises utilities not to be discouraged. He explains, “It’s just how the system works.”
Artificial Intelligence Trends for 2024
It’s widely recognized that artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an important tool and widely discussed topic for marketers. “Something is new with AI every day,” says Nelson. “Don’t wait to start using it. Get comfortable through trial and error and give it a shot.”
AI signifies a transformative change in technology, reshaping the functioning of various industries, and carries the potential to revolutionize the landscape of digital marketing. Nelson mentioned that AI has streamlined workflows and made it easier to solve marketing challenges, without replacing digital creators.
There are concerns with the accuracy and security of AI, but Nelson and Lindamood both recommend that these concerns can be mitigated with human oversight. While AI has not reached the stage of surpassing human capabilities, it stands as a highly valuable resource to make humans more efficient and effective in their work.
“It’s here to stay,” says Nelson. “This is going to be the next internet, the next smartphone. This is something that is going to change how everything functions.”
Overall Best Practices for 2024 Digital Marketing Trends
Go where your audience is, not just where you want to be.
Use personalization and segmentation to make sure your messages are relevant to customers’ interests.
Don’t get bogged down in other people’s best practices; do what is right for your utility.
Make sure your marketing strategy is driven by business goals, not the other way around. You should be communicating with customers for a reason.
All of these best practices are driven by consumers interests, preferences and needs. “Everything you do should have a purpose,” says Nelson. “Meet your customers where they are.”
An example from AEP Ohio highlighted the importance of providing relevant content to customers. The utility sought to increase engagement among business customers. To do so, the utility implemented monthly newsletters that were segmented by industry type, including healthcare, education and manufacturing. The results of this segmentation campaign were substantial, driving up to an 84% increase in customer engagement.
“AEP Ohio’ success underscores the point that customers will engage with content that they’re interested in, that’s relevant to them,” says Lindamood, “and a segmented content strategy is a good way to achieve that.”
An effective digital marketing strategy is critical for utilities to meet customer’s expectations and engage with them in their preferred channels. Incorporate the latest trends and strategies into your utility’s strategy and reinvigorate your digital marketing efforts for 2024.
Learn how Questline Digital can enhance your utility’s digital marketing strategy and build stronger relationships with your customers.
Energy utilities are making strides to improve grid resilience, increase renewable energy sources and give customers more rate plan options than ever before. As a result, utility time-of-use promotions are ramping up across the country.
According to Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) research, only 28% of customers are aware they have rate plan options and less than 50% of customers know what kind of rate plan they have. Promoting time-of-use rates (TOU) requires a strategic approach to help customers understand the “how,” “what” and “why” of alternative rate plans. Yet, the message is often not getting through to customers.
This leads to an important question: Why aren’t your TOU promotionsworking? The reality is that it’s not easy to encourage customers to switch to a new rate plan. It requires a solid foundation of information and education before you can even launch the adoption campaign to get customers to convert. Here are four reasons why your utility time-of-use promotions might not be successful — and how you can improve them.
4 Reasons Your Utility Time-of-Use Promotions Might Not Be Successful
You aren’t equipping customers with TOU education
You aren’t segmenting your TOU promotions
You aren’t focusing on the right TOU benefits
You aren’t helping customers maximize savings on TOU
Reason #1: You aren’t equipping customers with TOU education
First and foremost, customers are looking for trustworthy and transparent information on alternative rate plans. Residential time-of-use rates are a brand-new concept for most customers, and they are looking for a trusted energy advisor to help them understand their options. That’s why utilities need to create a variety of TOU educational resources and make them easily accessible to customers.
“That’s the one thing we always see in our research — their utility is the first place a customer goes to find energy-related information,” says Nathan Shannon, President and CEO of SECC. “Utilities need to make their websites more intuitive and consumer-friendly so customers can easily find TOU information. Once customers know they have rate plan options, 70% said they would be interested in signing up for one of them.”
SECC recommends creating an array of TOU educational materials for customers, including videos, fact sheets, articles, infographics, email campaigns, direct mail and social media posts. Utilities are more likely to reach younger generations through videos and social media, while older customers may be more reachable through direct mail and articles.
“There is always a move toward more digital communications, whether video, infographics or social media,” Shannon says. “But the reality is customers are still opening their mail and looking at their bill inserts, even millennials. That’s why it’s essential to have a multichannel approach in utility time-of-use promotions.”
Reason #2: You aren’t segmenting your TOU promotions
To connect with customers, utility time-of-use promotions must be relevant to their needs, and interests. Instead of sending one marketing email to a mass audience, segmentation is a must in today’s world of hyper-personalization, allowing you to address the preferences of different groups of customers. Think of any streaming service, ecommerce website or mobile app — they are designed to be as personalized and relevant to the individual as possible.
Utilities need to take advantage of the customer data available to them, notably smart meter data. With this information, TOU promotions can be segmented by groups of customers, like homeowners, renters, EV owners, customers with high energy usage, and more. You can even segment based on how engaged a customer is with utility programs and services. Those with greater engagement are more likely to try new services, like TOU rate plans.
“With smart meter data, you can tell if a customer owns an electric vehicle based on if they consistently have peak demand at night while they are charging,” Shannon says. “With this knowledge, you can send information on TOU rates and EV charger rebates. Utilities must use the data they do have to customize promotions to specific groups of customers.”
For its TOU promotions, Fayetteville Public Works Commission utilized targeted messaging to reach customers who were EV owners or potential adopters. The utility took advantage of analytics to identify residential customers who showed a propensity for EV adoption. Fayetteville PWC also reached out to EV clubs and car dealerships in its service territory.
“Try to keep it as simple as possible,” explains Lamont Hinson, Community Relations Associate at Fayetteville PWC, in a Questline Digital webinar. “We try to break down those ‘journalistic W’s’ so explaining what’s happening, why it’s happening, when it’s happening, and how the customer could potentially benefit from it.”
Reason #3: You aren’t focusing on the right TOU benefits
TOU marketing messages should focus on the benefits that resonate most with customer values. SECC found that most customers care first and foremost about energy costs.
According to SECC’s survey “Alleviating Americans’ Energy Burdens,” a quarter of all Americans — and 34% of those earning under $50,000 per year — report having struggled to pay their electric bills over the past 12 months.
To encourage participation, utility time-of-use promotions should illustrate the potential savings offered by an alternative rate plan. Customers are very literal and want to know exactly how much they could save if they make the switch.
“We’ve seen throughout our consumer research that consumers highly value personalized, concrete benefits that they will receive, and tools like bill calculators with the customer’s energy usage data included can help with this,” Shannon says. “Further, utilities can help mitigate high bills through bill protection for the first six months or year.”
Saving money isn’t the only thing that matters to customers. Being in control of their energy usage is extremely important, especially with the rise of smart meters and smart home technology. With the ability to control when they use large amounts of energy, a TOU rate plan means customers are also in control of how much they can save.
“Control, cost and comfort are the three words that resonate very well with customers,” Shannon says. “Saving money and being a good steward of energy is important, but there are times when customers want to have that control to be comfortable in their home.”
Many consumers also want to know about the environmental benefits of participating in a new rate plan or utility program. According to Shannon, “clean energy” and “renewable energy” are terms that resonate well with most customers in utility time-of-use promotions.
“Our Simply Sustainable and Green Pioneers customer segments are highly motivated by environmental benefits and would be encouraged to enroll in a TOU plan if these are made clear,” he explains.
Reason #4: You aren’t helping customers maximize savings on TOU
Getting a customer to switch to an alternative rate plan isn’t the end of your TOU campaign — it’s just the beginning. To ensure success, utilities need to communicate with customers to make sure they understand their new rate plan and that they are making the most of it.
For example, utility time-of-use promotions should educate customers on common high energy-consuming appliances to avoid during peak demand times. A large Northeast energy utility provides a helpful infographic in TOU marketing emails highlighting home appliances that consume the most energy. This gives customers a visual reminder of what appliances to pay attention to when making energy usage choices.
You should also provide advice to help customers change their energy behaviors, like doing a load of laundry with your morning coffee or running the dishwasher before you go to bed. These simple tips can make a tremendous difference for customers who need to make small swaps in their daily routine.
Educate and Build Trust with Utility Time-of-Use Promotions
Marketing time-of-use rates can be a challenge for energy utilities, requiring ongoing communications with customers. However, improving utility time-of-use promotions is possible with the right strategy. By serving as a trusted energy advisor, utilities can help customers reduce energy usage — and save money — on TOU plans. By sharing helpful educational resources, segmented messages and detailed savings information, utilities can go a long way to encourage TOU participation.
“In general, I would say keep it simple for most consumers,” Shannon says. “Customers are really interested more in the concrete benefits to them and their communities, and since this is a new area for many people, communications should focus on what actions customers need to take and what benefits they’ll receive.”
Improve your utility’s time-of-use promotions with educational content and a strategic engagement campaign from Questline Digital.
