Capturing customer attention has become more important than ever for utility marketers. With high customer expectations and the vast array of digital media and communication channels available, it’s not easy to cut through the clutter and connect with customers. One powerful solution is video marketing for utility companies.
Why does your utility need video marketing? Personalized video marketing can:
Capture and hold customers’ attention
Educate customers about complex topics
Personalize the customer experience
Increase program enrollments
Boost customer trust and loyalty
The Value of Video Marketing for Utility Companies
The fact is, people prefer video content. A staggering 73% of consumers prefer learning about a brand through video. It’s one of the most successful ways to get your utility’s message in front of customers.
Video makes your marketing messages easy to digest in a memorable and sharable format. By conveying information in a visually compelling manner, video is an invaluable tool to connect with utility customers.
Videos for educational content
Whether it’s to educate customers about water conservation or explain a new rate plan, videos are an effective way to address the specific needs and concerns of utility customers.
Utility marketers have a lot of information to share, and it can be difficult to communicate without overwhelming customers or resorting to technical jargon. When it comes to educating customers about complex topics like time-of-use rate plans (TOU) or demand response programs, videos can deliver detailed information in an easy-to-understand and accessible format.
For example, the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) wanted to engage its customers in a fun and educational way. Questline Digital helped SECC develop a video series, “The Evolving World of Energy,” to illustrate the industry’s dramatic transformation with real-world examples.
Questline Digital developed the creative concept of Professor Energy, a lively animated character to serve as the guide and narrator. In each video, Professor Energy educated and entertained viewers with captivating storytelling and eye-catching animation. SECC shared its videos on various channels, and as a result, generated nearly 62,500 views.
Personalized video marketing
One facet of video marketing that’s gaining widespread popularity is personalization.
According to McKinsey and Company, 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions and 76% of consumers get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. Utilities can leverage personalized customer videos to make each customer feel valued and recognized.
The effectiveness of personalized video marketing lies in its ability to address individual customer needs and concerns. For utilities, this could include offering personalized program recommendations based on an individual’s energy or water usage, providing customized bill comparisons to help them save money and educating customers about relevant topics based on their interests.
Personalized video marketing combines the impact of personalization with the entertainment value of video, making it a highly powerful tool. It creates meaningful experiences that resonate with each viewer, building customer trust and loyalty as it drives programs participation.
Increase in program enrollments
Video marketing for utility companies is crucial for driving participation in programs and services.
Customers will engage with a program or service when they have a clear understanding of how it works and how it will help them, so prioritizing customer education is crucial. Videos are emerging as the most effective way to do so, as a staggering 96% of marketers found that videos have helped them increase customer understanding of their product or service.
A well-produced video will simplify complex concepts, making it easier for customers to understand how your utility’s offerings could benefit them. When customers are well-informed, they have the confidence to select programs and services that best suit their needs. This not only benefits the customers but also strengthens their relationship with your utility.
PSEG Long Islandused video marketing to educate its 680,000 residential customers about energy use and saving opportunities in their homes. The campaign included information about beneficial electrification, energy efficiency, smart technology and safety.
Questline Digital created an interactive microsite simulating a family’s home, featuring 29 animated videos demonstrating energy-saving behaviors and products. A text call-out and CTA connected each video to a related program, product or more information on the utility website. In just four months, the utility’s Smart Energy website garnered over 66,000 video views. Because customers were well-informed about PSEG Long Island’s offerings, they were able to choose programs and products suited for them.
Sharing videos on social channels
Video marketing is a versatile means of communication for utility companies. It’s easily accessible and sharable on social sites, amplifying customer engagement across many digital platforms. Videos posted on social channels generate up to 1,200% more shares than text and images combined.
With the surge in popularity of TikTok and Instagram Reels, it’s evident that quick, entertaining videos are here to stay. Even industries not typically associated with social media entertainment, such as utilities, are finding success in this space.
In a recent webinar, Jonathan Nelson, Senior Marketing Manager, Acquisition and Engagement with the American Marketing Association observed, “Utility companies might not necessarily think that they are out there to entertain, but they absolutely are.”
Utilities should take advantage of video marketing on social media and connect with customers in an entertaining format. “When people are on social media, they’re looking for something to make their day better,” says Nelson.
Leverage the Advantages of Video Marketing for Your Utility
In 2024, videos will make up for 82% of internet traffic, so your utility’s content needs to stand out. The rise in popularity of video content has raised customer expectations — viewers are quick to tune out a poorly made or uninteresting video. To succeed, utility marketers must follow best practices to create video content that is both appealing and impactful.
Videos should help customers solve a problem, answer a question or bring value to their lives. When done correctly, video marketing is extremely valuable in connecting with customers. It can capture their attention, educate them on relevant topics and programs, and ultimately improve customer engagement and satisfaction.
Learn about how Questline Digital’s video solutions can improve your utility’s customer engagement.
Marketers in all industries face a constant struggle of managing a heavy workload with limited resources. In the utility space, working on billing updates, program promotions, marketing services and assisting with daily customer questions can feel like it takes an army to accomplish. In the public power sector, that army is typically made up of one person.
It’s no secret that municipal utilities typically have smaller marketing teams, while still trying to accomplish the tasks of large investor-owned utilities (IOUs). It’s a difficult space to maneuver in, but it’s not impossible. In fact, despite being small, these municipality marketing teams play a profound role in enhancing customer satisfaction, building community engagement, and driving overall success.
Regardless of team size, it’s imperative for municipal utilities to fine-tune their marketing strategies. A carefully planned and well-executed marketing initiative can dramatically boost customer engagement, enrich service offerings and make a substantial contribution to the utility’s bottom line. Small municipality marketing teams face many challenges, but there are ways to navigate these hurdles with a strategy that drives meaningful results.
The Challenges for Municipality Marketing Teams
Small marketing teams often grapple with several common challenges. The top two? Time and money.
Time is always at a premium, with countless tasks demanding attention. There’s never enough time in a day to accomplish everything on a to-do list, so priorities must be made.
Budget constraints can limit the scope of marketing initiatives, making it difficult to keep up with larger utilities that have more resources. With little or no budget, marketing initiatives can falter, missing the intended mark.
However, these challenges are not insurmountable. With the right approach, even a “team of one” can achieve impressive results.
Meeting Marketing Hurdles Head-On
Smaller municipality marketing teams don’t have the luxury of assigning tasks to various teammates or picking and choosing the projects they work on. Instead, they’re all-in on anything and everything. It can be difficult at times, but with the right strategy in place, smaller marketing teams can thrive.
Developing a marketing strategy
As a team of one, efficiency is of the upmost importance. To empower your municipality marketing team, it’s essential to first establish an effective strategy and clear goals. In doing so, the marketer will better be able to maximize both their time and energy.
When developing an effective marketing strategy:
Establish clear goals: Understand what the team wants to achieve with your marketing efforts and what the utility’s overarching goals are. Whether it’s increasing customer engagement, promoting conservation or driving program participation, having clear objectives will guide your strategy.
Understand your audience: Know who your customers are, what they want and how you can provide value to them. Use data-driven insights to create messages that resonate with your audience.
Create quality content: Focus on creating content that is informative, engaging and provides value to your audience. This could be blog posts, infographics, webinars or social media updates.
Leverage digital tools: There are numerous digital tools available that can streamline your marketing process. Tools like Canva for designing visuals, Hootsuite for managing social media, and Google Analytics for tracking website performance can make the team’s job much easier.
Measure and adjust: Regularly measure your marketing efforts against your goals. Use the insights gained to adjust your strategy as needed.
Social media marketing
Social media is a powerful tool to use to your municipality marketing team’s advantage. Connecting with utility customers on Facebook, Instagram or X (formally Twitter) is an easy way to reach customers with important information and receive their feedback in real-time. Although not always positive, it’s important to allow your customers to express their feelings and respond accordingly when appropriate.
For a small team, however, the thought of managing multiple social media accounts can be daunting. It can be hard to find time to post on all the platforms, plus keep up with the constant changes in algorithms. There’s a learning curve to social media. Still, there are many tools to assist small teams in developing social media content.
Scheduling tools: An easy way to have posts ready for the week is to schedule them in advance. Many platforms offer their own scheduling tools that teams can use directly. There are also paid tools like Sprout Social and Hootsuite that offer advanced scheduling and reporting capabilities.
Design tools: Small teams typically don’t have in-house designers available for projects. Luckily, platforms like Canva and Adobe Express allow anyone to create images and graphics for social media. Both tools include ready-to-use templates in various social media sizes, and both have free or paid versions.
Agency partners, like Questline Digital, can even provide images and copy for social media that are available for anytime use. A simple “copy and paste” and you’re on your way to building social engagement.
Community engagement
A major way for municipality marketing teams to make an impact is through community engagement. A marketing team may be small, but that doesn’t mean it can’t lean on partners who can help. In fact, collaborating with community partners like the local government, schools or non-profit organizations is a surefire way to spread the message about your utility’s programs and services.
For example, in an interview with Rochester Public Utilities (RPU) in Minnesota, Patty Hanson, Manager of Utility Programs and Services, discussed how important community is to their organization. They have a multitude of community events throughout the year to connect with local organizations and share important information with customers about their electric and water programs and services.
“We have coming up our 21st Annual Arbor Day Celebration. That’s a huge community event. We engage the school district and do a poster contest through the school district, we invite students, third through fifth, and bring in live music,” says Hanson. “We have partnerships with nurseries, the Boys and Girls Club, Minnesota Energy Resources, all these different vendors.”
Sustainability and conservation are important topics within the Rochester community, as well as weatherization and energy efficiency. Connecting with different types of customers in the community about these topics is an important goal for RPU, including those who may be lower income or who speak different languages.
“We actually did a partnership with Minnesota Energy Resources [the local natural gas provider] where we did weatherization events at trailer parks and we handed out LED bulbs. We talked about how to read your bill and conservation measures that people can take,” says Hanson. “We also have our Neighborhood Energy Challenge where we provide free workshops and offer a discounted energy audit, only charging customers $50 or providing it free of charge for low-income customers. We sent out 867 multi-language postcards promoting the event to low-income customers receiving financial assistance. We have a very diverse, multicultural base in Rochester.”
By working with the local community and holding different events, RPU is able to effectively connect with customers. For all small municipality marketing teams, community involvement is an important tactic to reach as many customers as possible.
Small Marketing Team Success Stories
Success means different things to different people. When it comes to small teams versus large teams, success also takes on a different meaning. While there are many similar measures of success among IOUs and public power, there are some things a smaller team might want to additionally focus on.
What does success look like?
Measuring the success of a municipality marketing team’s initiatives can be different than measuring the success of a team of 10 or 20 from a large utility. Since one person can’t accomplish as much as a large team, it’s important to pick and choose what metrics of success to focus on.
For any sized team, measuring success in terms of key performance indicators (KPIs) is important. Some of these KPIs include:
Open rate
Click-through rate
Follower growth
Social media engagement
Website traffic
Event attendance
However, while the numbers from each of these metrics speak loudly, sometimes success needs to be measured more qualitatively than quantitatively. These metrics come down to the goals and expectations your team set at the beginning of an initiative.
Some qualitative metrics that are less tangible, but just as important to consider, include:
Credibility: Are customers turning to your municipal utility for answers and resources?
Awareness: Is your municipal utility becoming more recognized online or in the community?
Customer education: Are your customers showing more interest and knowledge in the topics or programs you’re sharing with them?
Customer feedback: Is your utility receiving positive feedback from its customers about the initiatives you’re working on?
These qualitative metrics are just as impactful as the analytics following an email deployment or social media post. It’s important to reflect on all aspects of success when it comes to a smaller team.
Small Marketing Team Success Stories
Remember, despite being small, you’re not alone. There are a vast number of resources available to assist with your municipality marketing team’s goals. For example, one Southeast utility’s marketing team wanted to increase training opportunities for its account managers. However, as a team of one, the utility didn’t have the resources or time to produce quality training materials.
Instead of stretching its bandwidth to a breaking point, the utility partnered with Questline Digital to produce and host monthly training webinars. Through live webinars and on-demand recordings, the utility was able to build up a robust library of training resources without exhausting its internal team.
The presentation’s focus was on humanizing your utility’s brand. Torrado shared examples of successful customer engagement tactics, including hosting a calendar drawing competition for schools, planning bucket truck rides for the community, sharing lineworker day-in-the-life photos on social media and more.
As Torrado shared these examples, he asked the following questions to the audience:
Are your communications friendly? Approachable? Easy to understand?
Are your outreach efforts as reliable as your power system?
Are you visible on both sunny and cloudy days?
Do you showcase a wide cross-section of employees from varied fields, or do you keep using the same faces?
Are you the first place a customer turns for information?
Although Torrado has worked as a team of one, he reinforced connecting with outside partners to assist with various initiatives. Collaboration, whether within the organization or outside, is imperative to producing work that resonates with customers.
For example, Torrado has specific lineworkers he can call or text to ask for photos in the field. He also has strong relationships with local school districts to help promote calendar contests and other community events. By partnering with the community, Keys Energy Services saw some of the largest engagement with a Facebook post reaching over 220,000 views.
Small Team, Big Impact
Being a team of one in utility marketing doesn’t mean you can’t achieve big results. By building a clear strategy, leveraging data-driven insights, getting involved in the community and making use of digital tools, you can drive significant results even with a small municipality marketing team. Remember, it’s not about the size of your team but the impact of your efforts.
Learn how to empower your small marketing team with turnkey digital tools from Questline Digital.
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.
