Customer Engagement Archives - Page 3 of 16

Why Your Time-of-Use Promotions Aren’t Working

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 promotions working? 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.

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Why Consistency Matters in Utility Customer Communications

Effective communication has become more important than ever for utility marketers. To truly connect with customers, water and energy providers must adopt an outreach strategy that goes beyond a simple, one-time approach.

In fact, it takes five to seven interactions for a customer just to remember a brand. An effective communications strategy requires a consistent series of touchpoints that work together to build trust, loyalty and familiarity over time.

The key to success lies in maintaining consistency in utility customer communications. By establishing regular and reliable interactions, utilities can cultivate trust and loyalty. This forms the foundation of a genuine digital relationship, leading to a multitude of benefits.

The Benefits of Enhanced Communication with Utility Customers

Consistency in utility customer communications cannot be overlooked. The benefits of such an approach are substantial, including:

Stronger digital customer relationships
Increased customer control in decision-making
Enhanced operational efficiencies and reduced costs
Increased customer retention and loyalty
Boost in brand awareness and reputation

Chart listing the benefits of consistent utility communications

Building strong digital customer relationships

Prioritizing consistent utility customer communication is essential for fostering a strong digital relationship. By regularly sharing relevant information, your utility can keep customers informed and engaged on your utility’s services and operations.

Brian Lindamood, VP of Marketing and Content Strategy at Questline Digital, emphasizes the importance of maintaining consistency in order to build strong digital relationships with customers. “Merely reaching out to customers when there is a need does not constitute a true relationship,” says Lindamood. “To form strong digital relationships, utility companies must consistently deliver proactive messages that align with customers’ interests and needs.”

Ensuring regular delivery of relevant and personalized content is vital for building and maintaining a strong digital relationship with customers. By consistently providing valuable information, you establish yourself as a reliable source they can turn to. This not only keeps your utility’s audience engaged but also allows them to foster a deeper connection with your brand.

One way to foster engagement is through consistent touchpoints like newsletters. Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) achieved increased engagement and participation in its energy efficiency programs by doing just this. The utility established a monthly residential email newsletter that included educational content for customers, plus information on the utility’s programs. By maintaining this consistent digital relationship, SWEPCO saw a substantial increase in customer engagement and satisfaction.

Increased customer control in decision-making

When it comes to utility services, the complexity and unfamiliarity of industry jargon can often leave customers feeling confused and frustrated.

Regular communication with utility customers is crucial in helping educate them and improve understanding of programs and new technologies. As customer education increases, the more empowered they’ll feel to take control of their energy and water usage. This can be achieved by providing educational resources that allow customers to stay updated with the latest trends, important news, billing updates, rate options, program promotions and more.

When customers are well-informed about their utility’s offerings, they have the confidence to select programs and services that best suit their needs and goals. This not only benefits the customers but also strengthens the relationship between the utility and its customers, fostering trust and loyalty.

Enhanced operational efficiencies and reduced costs

By streamlining communication channels and processes, utilities can eliminate inefficiencies and minimize the risk of miscommunication. This not only saves time but also reduces operational costs, allowing utilities to allocate resources more effectively.

Sarah Sharp, Business Development Consultant with Questline Digital, says, “There is a lot of information to communicate for utility customers, so it is important to minimize jargon and send information when it is most relevant.”

Well-informed customers are less likely to phone a call center, and when they do have questions they will know where to find answers using digital resources. A consistent digital relationship also drives adoption of programs like paperless billing and autopay, further reducing operational costs for utilities.

Pull quote about the importance of consistency in utility customer communications

Increased customer retention and loyalty

Maintaining consistent communication with utility customers enables utilities to position themselves as trusted community resources. “Building trust is the most crucial element in customer communications,” says Sharp.” If people don’t trust you, they won’t listen to you.”

In building trust, customers will know that they can turn to their utilities for guidance on their energy and water usage, cost-saving tips, programs to participate in, and more.

Consistent outreach also raises the visibility of the utility across different touchpoints. “Customers are receiving information in many different channels. When it comes to omnichannel communication, it is crucial to be consistent between channels,” says Sharp. This means ensuring your messages are consistent in tone and language, as well as being delivered in the channels customers expect to receive communications in.

Boost in brand awareness and reputation

Through consistent messaging across channels, utilities can reach a wider audience and showcase their commitment to customer satisfaction. This increased visibility and positive reputation can build new customer relationships and strengthen existing ones.

One way to demonstrate this commitment is to focus on proactive communications versus reactive communications. For example, informing customers about potential outages during storm season can help them be better prepared, even if an outage doesn’t occur. This proactive approach not only builds trust but also highlights the utility’s dedication to keeping customers informed and supported.

One major investor-owned utility in the Northeast focused on these types of communications to ensure customers received timely updates ahead of forecasted storms. By leveraging pre-built email templates, the utility was able to quickly deploy messages with information regarding the projection of the storm, as well as highlighting self-service resources customers could use to stay connected.

Best Practices to Ensure Consistent Communications with Utility Customers

Consistency in customer communication plays a pivotal role in a utility’s outreach strategy, but it can come with challenges as well. Here are two ways to foster success.

Conduct regular training and upskilling programs for employees

Providing regular training and upskilling programs for employees helps them develop strong communication skills and stay updated with industry trends. This ensures that all customer-facing employees are equipped to effectively communicate with customers.

For example, with limited resources and a small training team, one Southeast utility faced challenges in educating its customer-facing employees to address customer questions. To combat this challenge, the utility leveraged monthly training webinars that were customized to meet the needs of the account managers, who were then better prepared to engage with customers.

Leverage marketing automation tools

Customers want a seamless experience from start to finish, and that’s not possible unless employees have the resources they need to quickly and easily communicate with them. By managing their customer interactions with automation tools, utilities can ensure timely outreach that meets customer expectations from beginning to end.

A Midwest energy utility integrated a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to replace their traditional way of deploying emails. Questline Digital’s Engage platform enabled the utility to manage and send quick-turn communications to its customers, using pre-approved templates and centralized customer lists. As a result, the utility successfully sent nearly 3.7 million operational emails, facilitating a seamless and timely customer experience.

Harness the Power of Consistency in Utility Customer Communications

Consistent communication with utility customers brings numerous benefits, such as improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, enhanced operational efficiency and increased brand awareness. By implementing consistent communication strategies and leveraging appropriate tools, energy utilities can establish themselves as trusted advisors while delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Learn how Questline Digital can help your utility deliver consistent customer communications and build stronger digital relationships.

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Webinar: Proven Ways Utilities are Improving Business Customer Satisfaction

We know from recent J.D. Power studies that as energy rates have increased, business customer satisfaction has taken a hit. But rising rates don’t have to equate to low customer satisfaction.

“In fact, the handful of electric utilities that are getting the business customer engagement formula right are able to maintain or even drive higher levels of satisfaction and affordability perceptions,” says Adrian Chung, Director of Utilities Intelligence at J.D. Power.

From sharing transparent communications to educating customers about programs and energy-saving technologies, there are many ways utilities can increase business customer satisfaction.

Our recent webinar, “Proven Ways Utilities are Improving Business Customer Satisfaction,” provided takeaways and insights into achieving increased CSAT from Derek Rahn with Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU), Ammanuel Moore with Baltimore Gas and Electric (BG&E) and Sarah Sharp, Business Development Consultant with Questline Digital (previously with Entergy.)

“Go Beyond” with LG&E and KU

LG&E and KU serves over 1.3 million customers, with 35% of its total customer base being business customers. Additionally, 60% of the utility’s revenue comes from business customers. This means that the utility puts an extensive focus on ensuring it communicates consistently and proactively with this group of customers.

Rahn shared that LG&E and KU aspire to be the best utilities in the United States and the initiatives they run are all in support of this goal. In addition to providing safe, affordable, reliable and sustainable energy, LG&E and KU strives to be a utility that customers can turn to and rely on.

“To meet these needs of our customers, as well as the company as a whole, we try to push for customer satisfaction and customer experience at the forefront — going beyond and enhancing every interaction we have with customers and the communities that we work with,” says Rahn.

LG&E and KU rank higher than other similarly sized utilities within their regions for the clarity, functionality and navigation of its website and mobile app. Additionally, Rahn says they use a multitude of tools to reach and connect with customers outside of the website, including:

Vehicle wraps
Web postings
Sponsored facility signage
Face-to-face interactions

“It’s not just while we’re on the clock, doing these particular actions, it’s even in the off-clock type scenarios where we’re making phone calls with customers or just having sidebar conversations as to how their day-to-day activities are going and what is working for them and what is not,” says Rahn. “Our goal is to go beyond and enhance every interaction we have with those customers and the communities that we’re servicing on a day-by-day basis.”

LG&E and KU also focus on interacting with customers face-to-face to continue relationship-building and extend communications past video screens or phone calls.

“It’s the face-to-face time to answer not just their day-to-day questions, such as billing related concerns or power usage concerns, but also questions along the lines of, how can we better provide you service or better your own operations at your particular plant or facility,” says Rahn. “It’s those types of relationships that have helped us build on and go into the future.”

Shifting Mindsets with BG&E

BG&E is one of six utilities spearheaded by Exelon, which is the largest utility company in the United States and services 10.6 million electric and gas customers. BG&E specifically services 1.3 million customers, with 10% of this group being business customers.

BG&E’s Large Customer Services team is designed to be a trusted energy advisor to customers, meeting and exceeding their needs through strategic partnership, proactive assistance, meaningful innovation and relevant communications.

The team’s purpose is to identify how to make commercial customers’ experience better with BG&E. The team consistently asks themselves questions like,

How do we improve the ease to do business with BG&E?
How do we improve the customer experience?
How do we leverage our internal and external networks to improve our customer’s operational performance?
How do we better anticipate customer needs such that we can avoid problems and create efficiency.
How do we effectively inform customers of important BG&E programs and services?
How do we generate program interest?

Moore explains that servicing large business customers comes with common issues that the team tries to solve in the present and for the future.

“When you work in a large customer organization, you’re going to always have incoming calls about some very routine issues that customers bring to our attention. And that centers on reliability, billing, technology, construction challenges,” says Moore. “So, when a customer calls or emails us about any one of these matters, we try to solve that issue straightforward, but then we gather as a team to talk about how to solve this issue from a long-term standpoint. We shift our mindset that if one customer is experiencing a challenge, it’s more than likely that other customers are also experiencing that same challenge.”

As a result of the team’s input and sharing of customer concerns, they are able to help influence and shape programs and guide customer to new solutions. It’s how they were able to launch the utility’s EVsmart program in 2023, to educate business customers and help them understand the potential of fleet electrification. Additionally, the team’s proactive approach to helping customers is also how the utility’s “Empower Maryland” program resulted in $454 million in commercial rebates since 2009.

BG&E encourages continuous business customer engagement beyond programs through a multitude of ways, including:

Monthly newsletters
Customer visits and executive team member visits
Quarterly webinars
Event participation and sponsorships
Quarterly meetings with the utility’s Smart Energy Council

“Outside of just addressing customer concerns, we’re always looking for ways to engage our customers from a proactive standpoint,” says Moore. “If we really want to influence customer satisfaction, it can’t just be through taking reliability and billing calls and solving problems. We have to engage our customers proactively. We have to be top of mind.”

A key element of improving its business customer satisfaction, BG&E surveys its customers and reviews the findings for areas to improve upon. In the past seven years, BG&E has been in the 90th percentile for large commercial customer satisfaction. The utility just began surveying its SMB customers on a monthly basis and have thus received an 8.23 out of 10 in satisfaction for 2022.

“There’s opportunities to improve,” says Moore. “But the facts remain that the outreach that we’re providing and the face-to-face interactions are causing our customers to have strong trust for us, advocate for us when they’re asked to, and they appreciate all that we’re putting into making sure that we understand their business and creating that relationship.”

As BG&E continues to reflect on its business customer satisfaction initiatives and prepares for challenges ahead, such as nationwide energy policy changes, Moore explains that they’ll continue to review, become more analytical and make changes where necessary.

“In order to get over those challenges, we need to make sure that it’s fun to do this job, we have to reward our employees for the innovations and ideas that they’re bringing, as well as making sure that we keep the customer top of mind,” says Moore. “If we’re able to take care of all of these things, not only will we have strong customer relationships, but we’ll also be able to build advocacies and partners with our commercial customers that will help guide us forward in our success as we help them continue to receive the energy that they need.”

Boosting Business Customer Satisfaction with Digital Relationships

“Both Derek and Ammanuel discussed the importance of account management and continuous engagement with customers,” says Sharp. “A key element of this is to leverage digital engagement for relationship building.”

As Sharp began her discussion, she was keen to share the importance of focusing on proactive digital customer relationships, sharing that those utilities who don’t initiate a digital strategy risk a multitude of challenges, including:

A utility’s only touchpoint with customers is monthly billing
It’s harder to reach customers during times of crisis
Utilities are unable to capture customer data
Energy utilities receive lower satisfaction and customer loyalty

“It’s important to establish ongoing touchpoints to be seen as a trusted advisor, to help foster positive relationships and to educate customers,” says Sharp.

Once a digital strategy is in place, it’s important to develop a multichannel communications strategy to ensure your utility is reaching business customers where they are. To achieve business customer satisfaction, Sharp shared advice on honing an effective communications strategy, including:

Keep open and transparent communications
Understand business customer needs
Provide economic development opportunities
Be an electrification resource
Support small businesses
Ensure a customer-centric strategy

Sharp’s experience as a long-time marketing manager at Entergy provided insights and advice for utilities to develop segmented email campaigns that target individual customers’ interests and needs. For business customers in particular, it’s important to deliver messages and content that will resonate with them, such as energy efficiency rebates or incentives.

Proactive communications are a huge element to an effective strategy, especially in times of difficulty or uncertainty, such as storm communications. Even sending storm communications to business customers shows that your utility is keeping the customers top of mind. It helps build that relationship with them and reinforces that you are their trusted energy advisor.

“My main takeaway is that digital communications is a very cost-effective method for ongoing relationship-building with your customers,” says Sharp. “When you connect with your business customers where they are and with messages that they care about it results in improved customer satisfaction. And you do this through awareness, education and action.”

A Future of Improved Business Customer Satisfaction

Developing and maintaining business customer relationships is just as important and necessary as developing relationships with residential customers. Our speakers shared innovative and tactful strategies other utilities can use to reach their own satisfaction goals. By adopting these strategies, utilities can not only meet customer expectations but also build long-lasting relationships with their business customers.

Learn how Questline Digital can help utilities build digital relationships and improve business customer satisfaction.

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5 Reasons Your Utility Needs Personalized Energy Customer Videos

Personalized energy customer videos cannot be overlooked as a tool to reach, educate and engage with your customers. Videos play a key role in attracting and capturing attention, as well as delivering information in a fun, easy-to-understand format.

These benefits are magnified for utilities that need to communicate complex program and energy-use information in a way that’s compelling and actionable. Using personalized energy customer videos in your outreach strategy can elevate program promotions, smart home technologies, rate plan communications and more.

Why your energy utility needs personalized energy customer videos:

Capture and hold customers’ attention
Entertain and educate customers about complex topics that are relevant to them
Drive traffic to your utility’s website or program landing pages
Encourage social media shares and engagement
Build brand trust and loyalty

The Value of Personalized Energy Customer Videos for Marketing

It’s no secret that videos have been a common way to consume content, whether for entertainment or educational purposes. According to Statista, U.S. adults spend 103 minutes every day watching digital videos on various devices. That’s nearly two hours’ worth of video content consumed per day. Questline Digital’s own performance metrics show that video is consistently one of the most popular formats for educational utility content.

In the current digital landscape, personalization has become increasingly important. Customers now expect unique digital experiences, and a one-size-fits-all approach is no longer effective. More than 98% of marketers say personalization improves customer relationships, and personalized energy customer videos are a perfect way to achieve this.

Why should your utility take advantage of personalized energy customer videos?

Just as consumers are inundated with emails and ads from brands around the world, they are also inundated with video content. That’s why your utility’s video content needs to stand out. Videos should be created with the customer in mind to help them solve a problem, answer a question or otherwise bring value to their daily lives.

Relationship-building emails that include a video can boost click-through rates by 200% to 300%. In addition, including videos in emails has the potential to reduce email unsubscribe rates by 26%.

It’s also important to deliver content that is personalized to each customer. Videos tailored to individuals have a higher click-to-open rate and a unique click-through rate that’s 4.5 times higher.

According to Questline Digital’s Benchmarks Report, the top 10 most popular residential customer videos achieved an impressive nearly 100,000 combined page views. The types of video content marketing included topics that helped customers save money, DIY solutions for energy-efficiency and informational videos on other energy equipment.

Chart listing the most popular types of video content marketing

Top Reasons to Use Personalized Energy Customer Videos

Including personalized energy customer videos as part of your utility’s communications plan is a highly effective way to increase customer engagement and satisfaction. Read on to learn the five specific reasons why video content adds value to a marketing strategy.

1. Capture customer attention and drive conversion

Customers are bombarded by hundreds of marketing campaigns each day, but a personalized video provides an individualized experience, capturing attention in a unique and powerful way.

Personalized energy customer videos drive higher engagement and more conversions. In fact, a personalized call to action results in 202% more conversions than one that isn’t. Customers like to feel cared about, and they are more likely to engage in content that is tailored specifically for them.

2. Entertain and educate customers about relevant topics

Personalized energy customer videos are especially useful when needing to explain complex topics to utility customers, like demand response programs or new rate plan options. Additionally, it is an easy way to provide relevant videos to each customer. Rather than writing a wordy text article about a time-of-use rate plan, a personalized video can quickly show the impact of the rate plan using the customer’s actual energy use in a relevant example.

The visual elements of a video are also helpful tools to help customers understand how something works, like in the case of a bill redesign. When PSEG Long Island introduced a new bill design to customers, it worked with Questline Digital to develop an engaging and educational video to help customers understand the changes to their monthly bills.

3. Drive traffic to your utility’s website or program landing pages

One key advantage of personalized energy customer videos is their ability to drive traffic to your utility’s website. Personalization not only captures customers’ attention but also positions your utility’s website as a valuable resource for further exploration. Plus, when you include a call-to-action that drives customers to a particular program or service, you’re making the video actionable and directly driving enrollment.

By delivering highly relevant and targeted content, these videos create a compelling reason for customers to visit your website and take action.

4. Encourage social shares and engagement

Whether on social media or a website, customers expect to see video content. In fact, consumers say that videos are their favorite type of content to see on social media. When customers love what they see, they will often share their good experiences with friends and family, expanding the reach of your utility’s audience. After receiving a personalized energy customer video, many customers may want to share their experiences on their own social media, furthering the reach of your utility’s message.

Videos on social media also feature rich storytelling capabilities in an easy-to-digest format, making it well-suited for busy, on-the-go audiences. Make the visuals eye-catching and keep the video to one minute or less. Make sure you add captions to all your videos so that viewers don’t have to turn on the sound when watching.

5. Build brand trust and loyalty

From fun, animated videos to live-action stories, personalized energy customer videos can show off your company’s unique personality and brand voice. In turn, this helps build trust and loyalty among your customers.

Be authentic in your utility’s creation of video content. Consider a video marketing strategy that includes not just products or programs, but content that demonstrates the human side of your utility as well. Interview employees or show behind-the-scenes moments. These human-centric videos are a welcoming sight to customers and help balance your utility’s marketing strategy.

Adding testimonials into your personalized energy customer videos is another great way to not only promote a product or service but to continue showing the human side of your utility. By showing reviews from real-life customers, others will get to know your utility as a trusted source.

Types of Video Content Marketing

Before your utility can jump into video content marketing, it first needs to decide on the purpose and direction of the video. When choosing the type of video content marketing, consider:

Goals: What is your utility trying to accomplish with this video? To educate or entertain customers, or to explain a program or service?
Audience: Who is your utility trying to reach with this video? Does it include a range of residential and business customers or one or the other?
Metrics: What key performance indicators does your utility want to track? Video views or shares?

Chart listing different types of video content marketing

When these questions are answered, it’s time to choose a video format.

Explainer videos

These types of video content marketing help customers more easily understand how your product or service works and why they should purchase or enroll. Many utilities will host explainer videos on their website landing pages or feature them on a homepage of a website.

Key attributes of a good explainer video:

Short in length, roughly 1 to 2 minutes long
Includes a strong call-to-action (CTA) that clearly states what a customer should do after watching
Focuses on a specific challenge and how to overcome it

Educational or how-to videos

Instructional videos help teach something new to your audience. Whether it’s a new industry term you want customers to know or it’s a DIY video about energy efficiency, these types of videos provide value by:

Encouraging continual learning for customers
Bringing customers “into the fold” so they understand more about the industry
Provide customers with the confidence to complete energy-efficient tasks on their own

Animated videos

Animated videos can be a good format for topics that are difficult to grasp and need strong visuals and direction to clearly explain the concept.

Animation can be less expensive and more flexible compared to live-action videos. If changes need to be made, a designer or animator can easily make the changes in the file versus needing to reshoot live video scenes.

Other benefits of animated videos include:

Easy to demonstrate abstract concepts
Any idea can be brought to life even if it doesn’t exist in the real world
Has a longer shelf life and is easier to make edits or updates

Live-action videos

Live-action videos simply mean that the video includes real people versus computer-generated or animated characters. Some benefits of live-action videos include:

Captures real human emotion and reactions
Live footage can create an immersive setting for viewers
Camera and environmental effects, like the sun’s shadow, can more easily be created in real-time versus in animation

Case study and testimonial videos

These types of videos feature real-life, satisfied customers or employees discussing the positive experiences they had with your utility or the products or services that have brought value to their daily lives.

Great testimonial videos often:

Tell a story from a first-hand perspective
Are authentic and feature real customers or employees
Focus on the “why” or the solution that was provided

Product or service overview videos

Often, the best way to promote a program or service to customers is to show them the value it provides. In fact, consumers are four times more likely to watch a video about a product than to read about it. A good product/service overview video should:

Easily explain a product’s key features and benefits
Highlight the main components of a product customers should know about
Provide a clear CTA of what customers should do after watching the video

Video Content Connects with Utility Customers

Personalized energy customer videos are a critical way to engage with customers. Survey results show that 25% of consumers lose interest in a company if they don’t use videos. Don’t let this be your utility. Include different types of video content marketing and personalized energy customer videos to achieve program enrollments and increase customer engagement and satisfaction.

Learn how personalized energy customer videos from Questline Digital will help your utility build engagement and inspire customers to take action.

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How to Distribute Video Content to Utility Customers

You created the perfect video to promote your utility program or service — now what? The next step is finding the ideal places, from short clips on social media to personalized video emails, to share your video to reach the right customers. That’s why understanding how to distribute video content is key to achieving success for your engagement strategy.

Your utility can create the best video in the world, but if it’s not shared on the right channels, it won’t reach the intended audience or accomplish its engagement goals. Plus, you’ll lose valuable time and money. To reach your program promotion goals, the right video distribution strategy is just as important as producing the best video content.

What Are the Best Channels to Distribute Video Content?

When choosing the right platforms to distribute your video content, energy utilities should assess how each platform works with the video’s message. For example, an in-depth video explaining your demand response program would be completely out-of-place on TikTok, but it would a helpful resource on a website landing page where customers can sign up for your demand response program.

“Different videos do better in different forums,” says Matt Irving, Creative Director of Video Content for Questline Digital. “It’s not just about having people see your video, but they need to see it at a time and place that makes sense. In other words, how you deliver the message depends greatly on the message.”

For example, sharing a billing video would be a great option within a personalized video email versus being posted on YouTube. According to Irving, energy utilities should always be thinking of their video’s message and what platform is best to deliver it.

With your message in mind, here are the best places for energy utilities to distribute video content.

Channel #1: Website Landing Pages

For energy utilities, learning how to distribute video content can make a tremendous impact on your program promotion goals. The first, and perhaps most obvious, channel to share your video content is on your utility’s website.

Video has a powerful impact on website engagement. In fact, consumers stay 60% longer on website landing pages with video compared to those with just text and images. Video can also increase organic traffic, as websites with video content rank higher on Google’s search results. According to the latest research, landing pages with at least one video are 45 times more likely to achieve high rankings.

Compared to other industries, utility programs and services can be technically complicated and difficult for customers to understand. By adding videos to your landing pages, you can educate customers about a complex topic, such as time-of-use rates, demand response or beneficial electrification. In fact, 94% of marketers believe video plays a vital role in increasing customer understanding about a product or service.

PSEG Long Island utilizes video on their Time-of-Use (TOU) landing page to encourage customers to make the switch. The video explains how a TOU rate plan works and the main benefits for customers. This landing page is a great example of how to distribute video content to educate customers who would benefit from TOU.

Example of how to distribute video content on website

To help customers understand their monthly bill, Duquesne Light Company provides a helpful video on its residential bill landing page. This animated video provides a quick overview of the recent bill changes and where to find important information. The video is embedded on the page so viewers can easily watch it from the utility’s website.

Channel #2: Social Media Platforms

When planning how to distribute video content to utility customers, social media is likely one of your go-to tools. Your utility’s social media channels are a great opportunity to reach a wide audience, including residential and business customers.

Your utility’s YouTube page is the perfect place to both host and share your videos. Currently, YouTube has more than 122 million active users in the U.S. each day. Utilities can host their videos on the site and then use the video link in various marketing communications. Since YouTube is owned by Google, which prioritizes content from the site, your energy utility will also boost search rankings for web pages with embedded videos.

Keep in mind, your utility’s video is competing with a ton of other content on social media. In order to get customers to watch it, you’ll need to use videos that are short, fun and lighthearted. The reality is not all videos posted to social media will give you the desired views.

For example, an animated video with tips on how customers can take advantage of smart home technology is ideal for Facebook and Instagram. However, a long webinar with in-depth information would be better suited for your utility’s website or LinkedIn page.

A great example of how to distribute video content on social media, Duke Energy shares videos of their employees in the field to help humanize the utility and showcase their work in the community.

Since 80% of social media browsing is now from a smartphone, your utility should include text and captions in your videos to make them mobile-friendly. This is becoming a must-have on social media for consumers who want to watch videos without audio while in public. We Energies utilizes videos with captions on their Facebook page to ensure all customers can get important outage restoration updates.

Channel #3: Newsletters

Monthly email newsletters are a powerful educational tool for utilities, so it only makes sense to share your video in this effective communication channel.

Your utility customers look to your eNewsletter for helpful education, advice and resources; adding video gives them the information they want in the format they prefer. In fact, visuals, like video, have the power to improve the learning and processing of information by up to 400%.

Video is also more engaging than other content types, leading to higher click-to-open rates. Questline Digital data finds that email newsletters with video have a 7.1% average click-to-open rate versus a 5.7% average click-to-open rate for email newsletters without video.

For utility marketers, exactly how to distribute video content in newsletters can be a challenge. Unfortunately, you can’t embed a video into your newsletter; instead, you’ll need to add a “play button” graphic on top of a static image and link to YouTube, Vimeo or another web page with the video. This makes it clear to customers that they need to take action to watch the video.

This newsletter example from one of Questline Digital’s utility clients features a video with tips to help business customers adapt to a hybrid work environment. The video includes a large play button to make it clear that it’s a playable piece of content.

Channel #4: Banner Ads

Another recommended channel to share your videos is banner ads. A potentially unexpected channel, banner ads are a great way to generate brand awareness and click-throughs. With less text and more visuals, banner ads capture attention and invite customers to learn more about your utility’s programs and services.

Just like emails and newsletters, you’ll want to link directly to your video on YouTube, Vimeo or a website landing page. You can include a play button on a static image or use a GIF to illustrate movement in the banner ad. Your utility can also take advantage of outstream video advertising that plays the video without sound (unless the viewer chooses to unmute it). When using video for banner ads, be sure to use captions and text to effectively communicate the message.

An example of how to distribute video content, PSEG Long Island took advantage of banner ads to promote the Smarter Home, an interactive video experience to educate customers on energy efficiency. The banner ads linked directly to the animated microsite.

Example of how to distribute video content with banner ad

Channel #5: Personalized Video Emails

Personalized video emails are a powerful tool for energy utility marketers looking to distribute video content and increase program enrollments.

With an average of 16x higher click-to-open rates and a 4.5x increase in unique click-throughs compared to non-personalized content, it’s clear that personalized videos capture the attention of customers and drive engagement.

Unlike most platforms that don’t allow individual targeting, personalized video emails enable marketers to create unique experiences tailored to each customer. By using personalized video emails as part of communication strategies, energy utilities can effectively encourage customers to take action, whether to enroll in a program, sign up for a service or purchase a product.

These videos provide additional information that customers need to make informed decisions, enhancing the overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns. With personalized video emails, energy utility marketers can deliver engaging and impactful content directly to their target audience.

Facebook utilizes personalized video emails that are tailored to each customer. By using their back-end consumer data, they can deliver personalized video emails for users’ birthdays, anniversaries and more. The videos make users feel seen and special and, in the long run, encourage them to continue visiting Facebook and sharing on their profile.

By using a similar strategy and delivering highly relevant and targeted content through personalized video emails, your utility’s customers will also have a compelling reason to visit your website or program landing pages. It allows your utility to stand out and create a memorable experience.

Right Fit, Right Format, Right Channel

Keep in mind that videos can be shot or edited in any number of formats to fit your needs. The distribution channel you plan to use will determine what aspect ratio (or shape) you will use, such as horizontal videos for laptop or TV screens or vertical videos intended for smartphone screens.

According to Irving, the standard HD aspect ratio of 16:9 works in most digital environments. Videos designed for social platforms such as TikTok or Instagram stories should use the inverse aspect ratio: 9:16 for vertical viewing on a phone. Square videos (with a 1:1 aspect ratio) will also work well on many social platforms and can also be adapted for use in video display ads.

Distribute Video Content to Reach Program Goals

Creating a great video is only one piece of the puzzle. The next step is deciding how to distribute video content and finding the right channels to get as many eyes on your video as possible. The challenge is choosing the platforms that work best with your message, whether it’s a fun clip for social media or a relevant, personalized video email for a program promotion.

“Make sure the people in the space you’re jumping into want or care about your video,” Irving says. “It’s important for energy utilities to understand how the video is going to resonate with people. The platform has to fit the message.”

Learn how a video content strategy from Quetline Digital will help your energy utility build customer engagement.

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