Tag: Customer Engagement

Illustration of webinar about the resurgence of eNewsletters

Webinar: The Resurgence of eNewsletters

Newsletters have been around for a very long time — building relationships with readers since the 16th century. In the 1990s, the rise of email started the modern eNewsletter and delivery of curated content to inboxes. While email newsletters have been around a long time, they are still as effective as ever. In fact, eNewsletters have experienced a resurgence in recent years as customers increasingly look to personalized communications and relevant information from the brands they trust.

In Questline Digital’s Plugged In webinar, “The Resurgence of eNewsletters and What It Means for Your Utility,” Bethany Farchione and Ashley Guttuso shared best practices to help your energy utility’s eNewsletter stand out from the rest.

eNewsletters: The No.-1 customer engagement tool

In recent years, there has been a resurgence in eNewsletter popularity. Today’s digital landscape has transformed into a “creator economy” with over 50 million independent content creators, curators and community builders (i.e. social media influencers). With this shift, consumers are looking for useful information and a little bit of personality from the brands they know and love.

A powerful customer engagement tool, eNewsletters help turn one-time or prospective customers into repeat buyers or clients. For energy utilities in particular, eNewsletters are a consistent touchpoint that builds loyalty and stronger customer relationships over time.

“eNewsletters provide energy utilities with the ability to send information directly to a particular audience and deliver value over time to make a good impression,” said Ashley Guttuso, Director of Marketing at Simple Focus. “Through regular eNewsletter touchpoints, customers begin to trust your brand when they want to make a purchasing decision.”

Your customers want curated content

Customers appreciate that eNewsletter content is delivered directly to them based on their unique needs and interests — compared to being bombarded with content on social media that isn’t relevant. In fact, eNewsletters have 40 times the effectiveness of social media.

A successful eNewsletter can also help your energy utility achieve greater engagement with other types of communications. According to Questline Digital’s Energy Utility Benchmarks Report, eNewsletter subscribers open promotional emails at a 16% higher rate. “If your newsletter content continually helps your readers, they’ll be more receptive to future promotional content,” noted Bethany Farchione, Marketing Director of Questline Digital. “Quality editorial content earns brands the right to be promotional.”

While eNewsletters are a welcomed and popular form of customer communications, not all eNewsletters are created equal. To be successful and benefit from this resurgence in popularity, energy utility marketers need to think of their eNewsletters as editorial products or publications.

Here are 7 best practices to create a great eNewsletter for your energy utility customers:

  1. Position your newsletter like a product: Inbox attention is hard to get and keep. Think about what content would be most valuable to your audience and what your competitive advantage will be. Farchione and Guttuso recommend creating an experience for your readers that becomes a part of their routine. Figure out how to differentiate your eNewsletter from the competition — perhaps it will have a different voice or a unique format such as a top 10 list.
  2. Create an opt-in experience that works for your customers: An important aspect of your eNewsletter is deciding if a double or single opt-in is best. For example, in a double opt-in approach, after a customer signs up for an eNewsletter they receive another email asking them to confirm that they want to subscribe. According to Guttuso, your energy utility may want to consider mixing both opt-ins, which the experts at Litmus do.
  3. Stop focusing on the ideal length and readability: There is varying data on the best format and length — that’s why you should focus on readability, not word count. Your eNewsletter should have short sentences and paragraphs for easy reading on mobile devices. Use bulleted lists, bold headlines and line breaks to make your content skimmable. Your customers are accustomed to scrolling on their phones, so they are willing to go deeper in your emails, Guttuso noted.
  4. Use a combination of curated and original content: Content development is a time-intensive task. In fact, blog articles can take an average of three weeks to write. Consider working with partners to curate quality content for you, and don’t be afraid to share links to credible sources. Think of your energy utility as a curator of the best industry news and advice for your subscribers.
  5. Talk like this isn’t the first time you two have met: Think about the inbox experience and what your energy utility can do to make it feel more like a message from a friend, not a company. This might include using an individual’s name as the sender (versus just your company name). For example, your key accounts eNewsletter could include a personalized message from an account manager that works with these business customers. This approach is refreshing for customers, as they want the companies they interact with to show personality.
  6. Make the content engaging: Your eNewsletter content should include a mix of imagery, articles, infographics and videos. Quality visuals increase engagement, and videos always perform well compared to other types of content. According to Questline Digital Benchmarks data, there were 90,000+ video views from eNewsletters in 2020 and customers spend an average of 96.3 seconds on each video. Questline Digital’s research has found that residential and small business customers prefer quick-hitting, skimmable content, while key accounts customers gravitate to more technical, in-depth articles.
  7. Use a simplistic design: Design is more important than ever before. More than 40% of emails are opened on mobile devices, so readability on small screens is key. Keep the number of sections in your eNewsletter to under five with one main idea. Your eNewsletter should feature high-quality images and a simple design that is great for scrolling.

eNewsletter sends and segmentation

To maximize engagement, it’s important to be consistent with your eNewsletter by sending on a regular cadence (weekly, monthly, etc.). Remember, if you’re delivering valuable content to your customers, frequency is not a nuisance. For a majority of energy utilities, a monthly send is both effective and manageable.

Farchione and Guttuso also suggested segmenting your eNewsletter based on audience interests. For example, AEP Ohio increased their business eNewsletter engagement by 84% through segmentation. The energy utility segmented their general eNewsletter by multiple industries, including healthcare, education and manufacturing, to achieve success.

Every successful eNewsletter has a mix of these best practices. Think of your energy utility’s eNewsletter in an editorial approach to serve your audience. Perhaps you’re providing helpful advice that customers can use in their daily lives, or you’re curating the best industry news they need to know.

According to Guttuso, eNewsletters that fail have one thing in common — they are focused on the company, not the people receiving them. For your eNewsletter to be a success, focus on creating high-quality content that customers can’t wait to receive in their inboxes.

Questline Digital’s eNewsletter solution can build lasting digital relationships with your energy utility’s customers.

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Illustration of time-of-use rates for residential utility customers

Time-of-Use Rates: Encouraging Residential Customers to Make the Switch

Just as AMI replaced analog electric meters, the old-fashioned flat-rate bill will soon give way to a more dynamic and variable way for residential customers to pay for their energy use. An increasing number of energy utilities are introducing time-of-use (TOU) rates.

But are customers ready for the change? Those of us in the utility industry have been thinking about AMI and TOU for so long now it’s easy to forget that this idea will be brand new (and probably quite unexpected) for most customers.

In fact, TOU options represent a major paradigm shift for consumers, not just in how they pay their bills but in how they think about their energy use.

To ensure the successful rollout of these rate programs, energy utilities will need to educate customers, explaining how time-of-use electricity rates work and demonstrating how customers can benefit from taking control of their energy use.

What Are Time-of-Use Rates?

Time-of-use rates (TOU rates) refer to energy metering plans that charge a utility customer based on when they use energy. Rates can vary according to the time of day, season and day (weekday, weekend or holiday). Energy utility companies charge more when electricity demand is higher to encourage customers to spread out energy consumption to off-peak times and promote a more efficient and sustainable electric grid.

Educating Residential Customers on TOU Rates

Getting customers on board with TOU rates may sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be.

To encourage customer enrollment, the first step is awareness, then education and finally action. You can’t expect program enrollment without the first two steps.

Infographic showing how to promote enrollment in time-of-use rates for residential customers

A study from the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) found that fewer than 40% of customers are aware that any kind of alternative rate plan even exists and many people don’t fully understand how their electric bills work. Utility marketers have their work cut out for them.

Indeed, the SECC study found that nearly half of residential consumers do not know what type of electricity rate plan they currently have. Of those who are aware, nearly all of them said they have a flat-rate plan with static kWh pricing.

But there’s hope. The right content can help educate residential customers about TOU rates.

In fact, 70% of consumers say they prefer to learn about a product or service through content rather than an advertisement. So, promotional emails, ad buys and bill inserts won’t always do the trick, but content can.

Include educational articles, videos, calculators and infographics in emails, eNewsletters, social media and on your energy utility’s website. Provide an FAQ page and resources that help customers answer the question, “When is the best time to use electricity to save money?”

The same SECC survey showed that most customers are open to trying time-of-use rates, especially if they offered the potential to save money. These customers just need some help understanding their options. Use education to lead customers toward TOU rate programs.

Benefits & Messaging for Time-of-Use Rates

Your customers are now aware of TOU billing, and you’ve educated them on your different rate programs. How do you bring them toward action?

To reach customers more effectively, it is important for energy utilities to understand the unique needs of customers and communicate how new rate structures can benefit them specifically.

The advantages of TOU billing are obvious for energy providers: By charging higher rates when energy is more expensive, utilities can either recover the cost of peak generation or prompt customers to shift their use to off-peak hours. With fewer peaks to manage, renewable energy sources can be utilized more consistently, making the grid cleaner and more stable.

That all sounds great for utilities. However, a reliable energy supply isn’t really seen as a benefit by customers. It’s an expectation.

When a customer flips a switch, they expect the lights to go on; at the end of the month, they pay a bill. They don’t spend a lot of time thinking about all the steps in between or even how much it costs. Electricity just happens.

So, how do you get them to care? Researchers have found a few main factors are driving customer enrollment in TOU rate programs:

  • The opportunity to save money
  • Environmental impacts
  • Taking control of energy use

When it comes to savings, the incentive must be big enough. Mark Nabong, a senior attorney and transportation specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, explains, “Generally, the savings a customer gets from charging off-peak must be two to three times what they might save if they charged during peak hours.”

Customers are also more likely to enroll when they don’t have to pay extra fees for metering or green power premiums. Added fees erase the feeling of savings, even if the final cost is still lower.

Maybe your customers aren’t responding to your messages about supporting a clean and stable energy supply or the potential for savings. Instead, they may be intrigued with the idea of taking control of their energy use.

For the first time, residential customers will have the power to decide how much they pay for energy with TOU rates.

In the past, customers could save energy through behavioral changes or home improvements that reduced their overall consumption, but they paid the same for energy no matter when they used it. There was no benefit for, say, running the dishwasher overnight instead of during the day.

With TOU billing, customers can save money by simply shifting the same energy use to a different time of day — or benefit even more when their efficiency efforts reduce energy use during peak hours. Customers can control when and how they save, making a real impact on their bills.

Effective Program Promotions for TOU Rates

Alright, you’ve boosted awareness, educated customers and refined your message to talk about benefits. How do you handle program promotions?

Segment your TOU communications.

You could try to reach everyone at once, but we’ve found segmentation to be much more effective. Luckily, you can leverage research that shows who is more likely to enroll in TOU rate programs. Focus your attention on those groups instead of exhausting unlikely customers with mass marketing messages.

  1. Electric vehicle owners tend to be more willing to try alternative rate structures like TOU billing. Get in front of customers when they’re purchasing an EV or charger and are most engaged. Another idea is targeting customers who are known EV drivers with personalized messaging around TOU rates.
  2. Those who indicate they care about savings potential over absolute comfort are also more likely to enroll. When onboarding new customers, ask them to rate what’s more important. Those who are interested in savings will be more interested in the benefits of TOU. If you don’t have this level of data, look at demographics to determine lower-income groups who are likely to respond to savings opportunities.
  3. Customers who have taken zero action on their rate plan and remain enrolled in default programming are primed for TOU communications. They are likely unaware of the options that exist and need to be educated on what’s available. Send them a personalized message and boost awareness.
  4. Smart thermostat users and utility marketplace customers are also hot targets. SECC’s research found that nearly half (44%) of residential respondents indicated that they would be willing to participate in a time-based pricing program if automation technologies were deployed in their home to shift electricity use to off-peak times. Smart home technology can do just that. Customers can set their thermostats to save during peak hours and never think about it again. When a customer buys a smart home product from your utility marketplace, consider talking to them about TOU rates and how their new purchase plays a role.
  5. Customers already enrolled in energy efficiency (EE) programs are also more likely to be interested in TOU rates. They have shown actionable interest in reducing their bill and energy footprint. Targeting these individuals with a savings message is likely to increase conversions.

Try a TOU opt-out campaign.

More utilities are choosing to automatically enroll customers in TOU rate programs with the option to opt-out. Pilot programs have shown increased customer satisfaction scores, mostly due to savings. But keep in mind, opt-out campaigns require an extra level of communication and education.

Multi-channel marketing for TOU rates.

You can’t rely on just one marketing tool to reach program enrollment goals. You must reach customers where they are. During a webinar with SECC about TOU programs, Karen McCord, Marketing Specialist at SMUD, shared her TOU promotions and said her team found success with educating residential customers through:

  • Media relations
  • Digital and search display ads
  • Print ads
  • Billboard and bus ads
  • Social media
  • Mobile alerts
  • eNewsletters
  • Bill inserts
  • T.V. and radio
  • Door hangers
  • Web content
    • Videos with TOU tips
    • TOU cost estimator tool
    • Program landing page
    • Interactive energy-efficient home

Show don’t just tell.

Shadow billing is a strategy that can help energy utilities show customers exactly how time-of-use rates would affect​ their monthly bill. With usage data from smart meters, utilities can look at a customer’s electricity use patterns and determine how they would fare on an alternative rate. Utilities can then show this information to customers on their monthly bill to encourage them to make the switch.

Education Will Boost Time-of-Use Rate Adoption

Time-of-use billing will revolutionize the way utilities distribute energy — and the way customers pay for it. By boosting awareness and educating customers on how TOU benefits match their unique motivations, energy utility marketers can boost the adoption and acceptance of new rate options.

Rachel Gold, Senior Manager of the utilities program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, says it best: “Pairing automated technology with customer education on the value of off-peak electricity use will help customers understand why this is important while also allowing them to save money more easily.”

Educate your customers about time-of-use rate options with a digital engagement strategy from Questline Digital.

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Illustration of energy utility marketers using customer segmentation

Webinar: How to Segment Customer Communications

Segmentation. What is it and why does it matter? Before we get there, let’s talk about movies.

Brian Lindamood, VP of Marketing & Content Strategy, shared this example to begin the conversation during Questline Digital’s webinar. “If we were to put up a poll asking all of us what our favorite movie is, I bet we would get 100 different answers. And that would be interesting, but not really that useful.”

However, if we instead polled 100 people on their favorite movie genres, we might end up with a response like so:

  • 10% romantic comedies
  • 10% dramas
  • 5% vampire movies  
  • 75% science fiction

By polling genres, Lindamood explains, “We can see the trends, we can see the meaning in this seemingly random group of 100 people. That’s what customer segmentation is. By identifying the interests of your customers, by identifying their motivation and then organizing them into groups or segments, we can act on that information.”

Who? What? Why?

By definition, segmentation is the process of dividing something into parts or segments. As it relates to energy utilities, segmentation is a best-practice solution to maximize the impact of program promotions, eNewsletters and other communications. By utilizing segmentation strategies, your energy utility focuses on sending relevant messages to targeted groups based on the motivations and interests of your customers.

During the webinar, we asked the audience to share their energy utility’s primary goal with segmentation. Responses showed that 36% wanted to increase customer engagement, followed by a tie of 24% to increase customer satisfaction and increase program conversions.

Luckily, segmentation can accomplish all of these goals. As Lindamood shared, segmentation can lead to:

  • More effective marketing messages
  • Higher engagement rates
  • Increased program conversions
  • Building customer satisfaction through stronger digital relationships

More importantly, it also meets customer expectations. As tech giants Netflix, Amazon and Google continue to segment and personalize communications to their customers, these same customers begin expecting this from all of their brands, including their energy provider.

Lindamood reinforced that segmentation is not to be confused with personalization, although the two sometimes go hand-in-hand. Whereas segmentation sends different messages to specified groups, personalization sends a unique message to each individual customer.

Behavioral messages may also be part of a segmentation strategy but differ slightly. These are messages that are automatically triggered by customer actions. Behavioral emails allow you to identify what your customer is interested in and follow up with related information, such as providing relevant program information after a customer reads a related newsletter article.

For energy utilities, segmentation opportunities are boundless. A few campaigns to begin experimenting with a segmentation strategy include:

  • Paperless billing campaigns: Address the motivations of each segment and the benefits of switching to e-Bill
  • Energy utility marketplaces: Target users with specific items or offer related products
  • Welcome Series: Segment communications by residential, business or new and moving customers
  • eNewsletters: Residential newsletters based on interests like EV or smart homes; business newsletters segmented by industry

Artificial Intelligence-Driven Personas

Alison Alvarez, CEO & Cofounder of BlastPoint, joined the conversation to share advanced tactics in creating a segmentation strategy, including using AI-driven personas. These predictive models learn from past behavior and anticipate what’s going to happen in the future, helping utilities to better engage with their customers.

“The whole idea of AI-driven personas is to take advantage of the data that you have and find new sources of value in them and make them work smarter, not harder,” Alvarez says. “You can engage with your customers as they grow and change throughout their lifetime.” A key point in Alvarez’s discussion was that you don’t need perfect data to get started. AI helps to simplify the data you have and identify trends you otherwise may be missing.

When it comes to segmentation, she was also clear in sharing that segmentation can be as broad as your entire customer base or as narrow as groups that are best fit for a particular product, service or program.

To create and utilize data-driven personas, Alvarez shared BlastPoint’s process:

  1. Establish goals: What does your energy utility need to accomplish? What benchmarks do you want to surpass?
  2. Unlock the power of data: AI-driven analysis to discover what data can be unlocked to reach your specific customers.
  3. Meet your personas: Utilize custom reports to meet and understand your audience personas.  
  4. Supercharge your initiatives: Learn how to best utilize the data and personas across your organization, whether with marketing, sales or product operations teams.
  5. Win big: Understand the journey your customers are on and be ready to talk to them where they are in their journey. In turn, you’ll boost engagement and optimize the use of your data.
  6. Refresh and repeat: Never stop learning and continue engaging customers effectively as their circumstances change.

Segmentation Builds Customer Relationships

Segmentation allows your energy utility to develop a long-lasting personal relationship with customers. “You’re not just going to talk to them one time. You’re not just going to have one touchpoint,” Alvarez says. “If you’re really successful at what you’re doing, you’re going to have a relationship with customers and they are going to come back to you continuously. It’s about taking every point of contact with that customer and making it the best point of contact.”

Segmentation doesn’t have to be as complicated as it may sound. With the right technology, tools and experts, your energy utility can create a segmentation strategy to reach and engage with customers from every audience.

Reach the right customers with the right content with a segmentation strategy from Questline Digital.

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Illustration of common mistakes made with eNewsletters

5 Common eNewsletter Mistakes to Avoid

Newsletters: we read them, we write them, we live them. What started out as society publications (think Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers from Netflix’s “Bridgerton”), quickly turned into print newspapers. Then, as the digital age began, print publications turned to email and the eNewsletter was born.

Today, we can find eNewsletters for nearly any topic of interest. Do a quick search on Google and you’ll be overwhelmed with what to read in a matter of minutes.

But just because it seems like everyone is doing a newsletter doesn’t mean everyone is doing it well. Whether inside the energy utility industry or outside of it, here are five common eNewsletter mistakes you don’t want to make.

1. Putting Important Content Last

What is the purpose of an eNewsletter? According to Brafton, an eNewsletter is used “to share relevant and valuable information with a network of customers, prospects and subscribers…allowing you to share engaging content, promote sales and drive traffic to your website.”

With this definition in mind, it simply makes no sense to put important content last. According to Chartbeat, 35% of desktop users leave a page without scrolling down at all and the most viewed area of the page is just above the fold (typical height of a browser window) with 80% of viewership.

Today’s consumers don’t always have time or aren’t engaged enough to read a full newsletter, so put the most important takeaways at the top, whether encouraging your energy utility’s customers to watch the latest video in a popular series or educating them about new energy efficiency rebates.

2. No Call-to-Action

Newsletters are a great opportunity to encourage readers to take action after reading. A clear CTA gives readers direction for what to do during or after reading your content. Without a specific CTA, customer engagement ends before it really began. They act as a tool to increase program conversions or enrollments and without one this isn’t possible — it may even persuade customers to reevaluate why they subscribe, potentially leading to increased opt-out rates.

For energy utilities, a CTA could guide customers to your latest programs, incentives or rebates. You can include a CTA within the copy or at the beginning or end (or both) of the newsletter. This gives readers multiple opportunities to click through to more content or resources. For some tips to create CTAs that lead to conversions, Campaign Monitor suggests:

  • Using actionable language
  • Making the CTA easily identifiable
  • Keeping CTAs short, while still showcasing the required action
  • Changing the point of view to address readers
  • Creating a sense of urgency

3. Including Overly Promotional Material

While newsletters offer a valuable opportunity to promote services and programs, there is a thin line between sharing helpful resources and marketing your energy utility too much. Remember: Customers subscribe to newsletters for valuable content that will help make their lives better in some way. They expect content that meets their interests and needs. Promotional material puts focus on your energy utility rather than the customer.

When reviewing your eNewsletter, ensure you do so from a customer’s perspective. Answer these three questions:

  • Does this content help my customers solve a problem?
  • Is the content focused on the customers’ needs or my utilities’ goals?
  • What value is this eNewsletter providing to my customers?

If you can answer these questions and assess that the content is customer-centric then move forward to hit the send button!   

4. Trying to Reach Everyone

We already know customer segmentation is one of the smartest marketing tactics for any industry. According to Campaign Monitor, 56% of people unsubscribe from emails due to content that’s no longer relevant to them. For eNewsletters, it’s imperative your energy utility understands that your customers have different needs.

Business customers versus residential customers, homeowners versus renters — each audience is unique. Decide how many segments makes sense for your energy utility based on your customers’ interests and create personalized eNewsletters for those audiences.

Consider going further to segment your business customers into separate industries. When Questline Digital did this for AEP Ohio, the energy utility saw an engagement increase of 84% for their healthcare sector. In addition, engagement for their education and manufacturing segments increased by 54% and 43%, respectively.

Yes, you could reach all of your energy utility’s customers with a single newsletter, but it won’t serve your energy utility well. Segment content based on your customers’ wants and needs to see higher engagement and satisfaction.

5. Boring Subject Lines

How many emails do you receive a day that you simply discard based on subject line alone? Probably a lot. In fact, Invesp says that a staggering 69% of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line. Don’t let this happen to your energy utility. Invest time into the best practices that make a subject line stand out. For starters:

  • Be descriptive
  • Keep them short
  • Limit punctuation
  • Consider your message

The last bullet is especially important — what you want your energy utility’s customers to know will drive the direction for the subject line. Most importantly, craft a subject line that would make you stop scrolling and open the email.

BONUS: Not Optimizing for Mobile or Dark Mode

Finally,  make sure your energy utility’s eNewsletters are optimized for both mobile viewing  and dark mode. Mobile should be a given — most emails are now read on smartphones — but as customers continue to spend more time looking at screens, dark mode has become increasingly important. In order to encourage more engagement and longer reading times on your eNewsletter, it’s important to consider these two factors in the design process.  

Newsletters are Here to Stay

Newsletters are a popular, and important, way to engage with customers. By creating content that speaks to what they value, your energy utility is showing that you both listen and care about your customers. Continue to be a trusted resource for them by sharing newsletters full of helpful tips, insights and solutions. And don’t make the mistake of making these mistakes.

With an eNewsletter from Questline Digital your energy utility can deliver engaging content directly to customer inboxes.

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Illustration of enewsletter ideas for business customers

4 eNewsletter Content Ideas for Utility Business Customers

For energy utilities, eNewsletters are a vital tool to connect with hard-to-reach business customers. Whether you’re trying to reach large commercial and industrial (C&I) customers or small business owners on Main Street, eNewsletters are a consistent source of valuable information and a regular touchpoint in the digital customer relationship. But what type of eNewsletter content resonates most with business customers?

Read on to learn what topics are trending and learn simple strategies to maximize engagement with this important audience.

What eNewsletter Content Do Business Customers Want?

Businesses in your energy utility’s service territory have varying needs. For example, a hospital has very different energy needs than a manufacturing facility. The size of a business also has an impact on their familiarity and comfort level with energy efficiency. A large corporation likely has an energy manager on staff, but a small business with 50 or fewer employees may not.

The truth is there is no one-size-fits-all business customer — that’s why segmentation is an important strategy to reach different industries or types of businesses.

Segmentation is a best-practice solution to maximize the impact of your eNewsletters. Your energy utility can achieve greater customer engagement by tailoring content based on a particular audience’s needs and interests. For example, segment your eNewsletters based on the size of the business (such as C&I customers) or create eNewsletters focused around the top industries in your region.

Industry-Segmented eNewsletters Reach More Business Customers

AEP Ohio, an energy utility that serves 1.5 million customers in the state, experienced a dramatic increase in customer engagement with a segmented eNewsletter strategy. The energy utility partnered with Questline Digital to segment their business eNewsletter by multiple industries, including healthcare, education and manufacturing.

Each eNewsletter features industry-specific educational content, such as HVAC considerations, workplace safety, seasonal efficiency, electrification and building comfort. Compared to the non-segmented eNewsletter, the industry-specific eNewsletters achieved outstanding customer engagement (based on click-through rate).

  • 84% higher engagement for the healthcare segment
  • 54% higher engagement for the education segment
  • 43% higher engagement for the manufacturing segment

Trending eNewsletter Topics for Utility Business Customers

Once you’ve segmented your eNewsletter, the next step is deciding what topics to share with each group of business customers. These are some of the trending topics we’re seeing in energy utility eNewsletters in 2021:

1. Simple ways to save energy

Businesses of all shapes and sizes are looking for easy ways to save energy and improve their bottom line. In the past year, the top business content centered around simple energy-saving upgrades, how to save energy during business downtime, LED lighting upgrades and other quick fixes. The infographic “Low-Hanging Fruit: 5 Simple Energy-Saving Upgrades” was a popular piece in this category.

Example of enewsletter content for business customers about energy efficiency

Your SMB business customers are looking for simple solutions they can do themselves to improve energy efficiency, such as installing occupancy sensors, smart plugs or unplugging unnecessary “energy-guzzling” equipment. Larger business customers may be interested in upgrading their HVAC system or installing LED lighting throughout their facility (or multiple facilities). However, these projects are a major investment. Your eNewsletter content should focus on the benefits of these upgrades, such as long-term financial gain, a healthier work environment and more productive employees.

2. Renewable energy

Large corporations like Amazon, Starbucks and Walmart are making headlines for their commitment to renewable energy, reduced carbon emissions and other sustainability initiatives. Your business customers are also looking for opportunities to reduce their carbon footprint without breaking the bank. An article like “Solar Energy Can Power Savings at Your Facility” is an effective introduction to the topic.

Example of enewsletter content for business customers about solar energy

To help business customers invest in renewables, consider content that explores their renewable energy options. Popular topics for business customers include renewable energy credits, solar power, wind energy, geothermal systems and energy storage. Consider sharing news about your energy utility’s renewable energy offerings and initiatives, such as a new solar farm in operation or available renewable energy tariffs for easier access to clean power.

3. Smart technology

Your residential customers aren’t the only ones interested in smart technology. Business customers want to know about the latest technology available to them and how these gadgets can help them increase energy efficiency. Many business customers simply don’t understand the impact of smart technology when it comes to saving money and improving productivity. Questline Digital’s popular video “5 Ways to Save With Smart Technology” is a quick and engaging overview of the topic for business customers.

Example of enewsletter content for business customers about smart technology

We recommend sharing content about the advantages of smart thermostats to automate energy use in an office environment or the benefits of connected security cameras, smart locks and alarm systems to keep customers’ facilities safe. In addition to smart technology, keep your customers informed on hot topics in the industry like beneficial electrification, demand response and smart grid technology.

4. Electric vehicles and equipment

Both large and small business customers are thinking about electrifying their fleets and warehouse equipment. The benefits abound, from less maintenance to reduced noise levels. To meet the demand of employees and customers who are investing in electric vehicles, many companies are considering installing EV chargers at their facilities. Not only does an investment in electric vehicles and equipment save money long-term, but it also shows that your company is taking steps to reduce its carbon footprint. An infographic like “Electric Vehicle Charging at Businesses” is effective at illustrating these benefits and providing lots of information in a quick, digestible format.

Example of enewsletter content for business customers about electric vehicles

We recommend sharing educational, action-oriented EV content to help businesses in their decision-making process. For example, why should they consider EV workplace charging? What are the benefits of converting to electric warehouse equipment? Is an electric fleet the right fit for their business? Your business customers rely on your energy utility’s advice and resources to help them make the right decision.

Build Engagement With Business Customers Through eNewsletter Content

To maximize eNewsletter engagement, utilize segmentation strategies and share topics that will help businesses improve their operations. With the right content, your energy utility can help your business customers make smart investments in energy efficiency.

With Questline Digital’s eNewsletters for Business Customers, you can build more effective digital relationships and maintain long-term satisfaction.

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