Digital Marketing Archives - Page 10 of 13

3 Ways Performance Metrics Guide Your Content Strategy

Creating a content strategy without using performance metrics is like taking a road trip without a map — and without a destination in mind. You won’t know how to get there, and you won’t even know when you’ve arrived! Performance metrics are the roadmap that guide your content strategy and the signpost that tells you when you’ve achieved your goals. Without them, energy utility marketers would be lost.

What performance metrics should guide your content strategy? There are three major milestones that energy utility marketers should look for in their digital marketing KPIs:

Popularity
Engagement
Effectiveness

How to measure the popularity of content

Your content won’t achieve any of its goals if your customers don’t see it. The first performance milestone assesses the popularity of content by looking at the pageviews that measure how many times an article was clicked or the video views that indicate the number of times a customer started watching a video.

It’s important to understand that popularity metrics like pageviews only measure how many times a customer clicked on a piece of content — they do not tell you if that content is engaging or effective. But pageviews indicate that your content covers the right topics (or not) and if you’re doing a good job of conveying those topics with enticing headlines or links.

Depending on your content strategy, it may also be valuable to measure the source of these pageviews: Did these clicks come from social media, a newsletter or other email, or search engine results? This will help you understand if particular topics are more popular with customers on social media, for example, or if certain headlines generate traffic from search engines.

How to measure content engagement

This is where marketers can distinguish popular content from high-quality content. If an article generates a lot of pageviews, but customers don’t stay on the page long, you might have a good topic but a bad article. Your audience is looking, but they apparently don’t like what they see.

Engagement metrics like time on page for articles and infographics and percent completion for videos tell you if customers find your content to be interesting or valuable. When the average time on page is two minutes for a 500-word article — or close to one minute for a 60-second video — it’s a strong indication that customers think your content is useful and engaging and they’re spending quality time with it.

How to measure if your content strategy is effective

The most engaging content in the world won’t help you reach your marketing destination if customers don’t take action. That’s why the final milestone is so important: It measures if your content is effective at achieving your goals.

For many energy utilities, the primary goal of their content strategy is to build long-term engagement and strong digital customer relationships. The engagement metrics mentioned above will be your primary way to measure if that strategy is effective. In addition, you can measure the open reach of eNewsletters to see what percentage of your customers engage with your content over the course of a year. You can look at pages-per-visit or return visitors metrics on your website to see if customers are engaging with multiple content assets over time.

But what if your marketing goals are more specific, such as driving program participation or marketplace sales? To determine if your content strategy is effective, you can measure click-through rate to see what percentage of customers clicked on a link or CTA and conversion rate to see how many of them completed a signup or purchase on the landing page.

Performance metrics are critical to a successful content strategy

Don’t get lost on your marketing journey! Let performance metrics be your guide to a successful content strategy. By identifying popular topics and engaging content, and making sure that content supports your marketing goals, the right performance metrics will help you measure and optimize your energy utility’s content strategy.

Download the Energy Utility Benchmarks Report to see how your content strategy compares to industry performance metrics.

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How to Accelerate Digital Customer Relationships

Our world revolves around relationships — from romantic love to rapport with coworkers. For energy utilities, digital customer relationships are vital to grow customer engagement, increase program conversions and improve customer satisfaction scores. In fact, brands that lead in great digital customer experiences outperform the competition by nearly 80%.

How does your energy utility build stronger digital customer relationships?

Just like you need to join a club to make new friends or download a dating app to meet someone special, your energy utility needs the right tools to connect with customers. Questline Digital’s 2021 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report provides industry trends, insights and data to help energy utilities build digital relationships through consistent customer touchpoints. Read on for key takeaways from this year’s report.

Infographic showing how energy utilities accelerate digital customer relationships with performance metrics

Digital engagement is booming

The coronavirus pandemic has forever changed consumer behavior — and customers in 2021 expect to have a digital relationship with their energy utility.

This relationship goes beyond transactional messages like billing notices, outage alerts and other generic emails. Your customers are looking for ongoing touchpoints that address their unique needs and interests, such as relevant program promotions, educational eNewsletter content and behavioral emails based on their actions.

With record-high email open and engagement rates last year, it was clear that customers wanted to hear from their energy provider during the pandemic. In fact, the average open rate of 40.4% in March 2020 was 49% higher than Questline Digital’s previous benchmark rate. Even customers who are less digitally savvy opted for the convenience of digital communications. For example, paperless billing promotions experienced a 7.5% CTOR in 2020, more than 53% higher than the previous year.

In 2021, as life begins to return to normal, maintaining strong digital customer relationships will continue to be a driving force of energy utility communications.

Personalization is powerful

Today’s consumers are accustomed to a world of personalization and expect a similar experience from their energy provider. Personalization is a must-have marketing strategy to drive customer engagement and build stronger digital relationships.

The latest research finds that personalized emails deliver six times higher transaction rates, and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue for marketers.In 2020, energy utilities took advantage of personalization in virtually every touchpoint, including Welcome Series, eNewsletters, program promotions and ancillary messages. For example, many energy utilities now use abandoned cart emails, popular in the retail industry, to boost traffic to their marketplaces.

Segmentation is a popular tactic in the “personalization” bucket, especially when looking to capture attention with program promotions and eNewsletters. Instead of sending a generic message to an entire email list, many energy utilities are now sending relevant messages to a targeted segment. Whether creating marketing personas for paperless billing campaigns or industry-specific eNewsletters to reach business customers, energy utilities have successfully utilized segmentation to increase conversions and engagement.

Digital engagement: The gift that keeps on giving

Digital engagement with one customer touchpoint offers far-reaching benefits and extends to other types of energy utility communications.

For example, Welcome Series graduates — customers who have opened at least one Welcome Series email — engage with future email communications from their energy utility at a 29.8% higher rate compared to non-graduates. The higher engagement from relevant, consistent eNewsletters is another benefit of ongoing customer touchpoints. Our Benchmarks data finds residential eNewsletter readers open promotional emails at a 16.1% higher rate.

In 2020, energy utilities discovered the true value of digital customer relationships, in good times and in bad. Engaged customers with an established digital relationship with their energy utility were much easier to reach than unengaged customers. That’s why it’s essential for energy utilities to start building stronger digital relationships now, so they can easily connect with customers when the unexpected happens.

Accelerate your digital customer relationships

Two-way communication is key for any successful relationship, and this is especially true between energy utilities and their customers. It’s all too easy for customers to lose interest in their energy utility’s marketing messages if they aren’t relevant or don’t provide some benefit to their daily lives. To accelerate your utility’s digital customer relationships, start planning your engagement strategy for every touchpoint throughout the customer journey.

Download the Energy Utility Benchmarks Report to discover more industry trends, data and insights to build stronger digital customer relationships.

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5 Ways to Jumpstart Utility Program Promotions this Spring

Spring is quickly approaching — and that means warmer temperatures, flowers blooming and longer days. This time of year is also an opportunity for your energy utility to jumpstart program promotions and increase customer engagement.

Read on to learn about the top five programs and services to share with your customers to prepare them for the upcoming season and beyond.

1. Help with the honey-do list

For homeowners, spring is all about home improvements, spring cleaning and checking projects off their honey-do list. Your energy utility can help make these DIY projects easier by sharing educational content for home improvements, such as sealing windows and doors, replacing a furnace filter or insulating hot water pipes.

For example, share an entertaining video or eye-catching infographic detailing the steps to accomplish a specific home project. Questline Digital’s popular video series “You Can” is a great example of teaching customers how to take on easy DIY projects with the guidance of a friendly host like television personality Jeff Wilson.

A big motivator for starting home improvement projects is achieving greater savings. That’s why it behooves energy utilities to promote energy efficiency products available in your marketplace, such as smart thermostats, LED lighting and ENERGY STAR appliances. If your energy utility offers home energy assessments, encourage customers to analyze their energy usage before summer’s rising temperatures bring higher energy bills.

2. Step up before storm season

For many parts of the country, spring is a welcome relief from the frigid winter weather. However, this season also means an increased risk of severe storms. Prepare your customers before storms strike by promoting your energy utility’s outage email or text alerts. This is an opportunity for your customers to be proactive during storm season, ensuring they aren’t left in the dark when an outage occurs.

Your energy utility also benefits from sharing quick, easy ways to report an outage, such as through MyAccount or your utility’s mobile app. In these communications, be sure to share valuable resources like outage maps, storm preparedness tips and where to find restoration updates. Outages are a frustrating experience for everyone, but proactive outage communications can make a big impact on customer satisfaction scores.

3. Encourage EV adoption

Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer, is known as one of the best times to buy a new car. In the coming months, your customers will probably begin their research on electric vehicles before making a purchase during this deal-filled weekend. Help their research process by sharing available electric vehicle or EV charger rebates. The extra savings might be enough to encourage them to make the switch.

Similarly, reach out to business customers with rebates on electric warehouse equipment or electric vehicles for their fleets. By purchasing electric equipment now, businesses can help offset the higher energy demand in the summer.

4. Say “hello” to new customers

Spring is the start of moving season, which runs into the summer months. This is an opportunity for your energy utility to welcome new customers, as well as reintroduce your programs and services to existing customers moving within your service area.

A Welcome Series is a best-practice solution to connect with these customers at the start of service when they are most engaged. Our most recent Benchmarks data shows that more than half of all Welcome Series emails are opened, the start of a digital relationship that continues with higher email engagement throughout the customer’s journey with your utility.

Through a series of automated emails sent over a regular cadence, your energy utility can share important information like MyAccount and billing options, energy efficiency programs, outage resources and community initiatives.

We recommend segmenting your Welcome Series by new and moving customers to personalize this content to each audience. Additionally, consider personalizing your energy efficiency-focused message to homeowners and renters by sharing relevant products and programs. For example, renters are more interested in easy fixes like smart power strips and water-saving showerheads, while homeowners would be open to more expensive upgrades like energy efficient appliances and whole-house energy assessments.

5. Offer resources to reduce monthly bills

Rising temperatures means higher electric bills for your customers. Before the dog days of summer, help your customers take control of their energy use. Promote your high bill resources, energy usage tracking resources (such as through MyAccount or your energy utility’s mobile app) and smart meter information. Customers are often not aware of the steps they can take to improve energy savings and prepare for peak demand months.

In addition to high bill promotions, educate customers about the various payment assistance programs available if they experience unexpected financial hardship. Summer means rising energy bills, so you want to prepare them ahead of high bill season.

Program promotions are blooming this spring

Your customers are looking forward to spring — and your energy utility should be too. This season is an opportunity to connect with customers, whether to help with their honey-do lists or prepare them for severe storms and outages. Just like the flowering trees this season, your customer engagement can bloom with the right program promotions this spring.

Learn how Questline Digital can build customer engagement and boost participation with effective program promotions for your utility.

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Top 5 Email Marketing Trends for 2021

In digital marketing, continuous change is the one thing that will never change. After a tumultuous 2020 that showed us how critical it is to maintain strong customer relationships, it’s more important than ever to stay ahead of the latest email marketing trends. Sure, the tortilla wrap TikTok trend might not prove valuable for our work, but there are plenty other marketing trends that are important for energy utilities.

Let’s review some of the top email marketing trends we see for 2021. With these ideas in mind, your energy utility is sure to keep your brand ahead of the curve and on the path to greater customer engagement and satisfaction.

1. Personalization

Example of personalization used in email marketing trends

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again — customers expect communications that are tailored to their specific needs and interests. Customer segmentation has been proven to increase digital engagement, with research showing that personalized messages improve click-through rates by 14% and conversions by 10%.

Maureen Huss, Questline Digital Group Account Director, has seen exciting growth in customer engagement by using targeted, industry-specific content in solutions such as eNewsletters. “We’ve seen dramatic increases in engagement specifically from business audiences in education, healthcare and manufacturing by segmenting content that speaks directly to their needs,” she says. “When comparing these metrics to communications without targeted content, our clients are seeing the impact that personalization truly makes.”

We suggest:

Segmenting messages and promotions by audience
Recommending programs or products by audience
Sending automated, triggered emails based on user behaviors
Recommending content tailored to individuals

2. Automated campaigns

Example of anniversary email used in email marketing trends

Automated campaigns, also known as “drip” campaigns,go hand-in-hand with personalization as they are tailored to the actions of an individual. Emails in these campaigns are triggered when a customer performs a certain action, such as sending the customer product recommendations after they purchase a smart thermostat from your energy utility marketplace.

These emails give the customer a better sense of control over their overflowing inbox. When customers receive emails based on topics they’ve been looking for, they connect with the message, instead of feeling fatigued by one-off promotional emails.

We suggest:

An automated Welcome Series campaign to say hello to new or moving customers, triggered when they sign up for service. Our 2021 Energy Utility Benchmarks data shows 2020 had the highest engagement rates in Benchmarks history with a 51.3% open rate and 11.2% click-through rate.
Anniversary emails celebrating a year of service for your customers. These emails let customers know that their energy utility is thinking of them, and that they are more than just another bill payment.
Send recommended products or cart-reminder emails to customers depending on their behavior on your energy utility marketplace.

3. Interactive emails

Example of interactive content used in email marketing trends

Interactive elements within an email tend to boost customer engagement as customers can find exactly what they’re looking for within the email itself. They no longer have to go through numerous clicks to reach the right page — interactive elements create a seamless user experience right in the email itself. When you make it easier for customers to complete an action, you increase the likelihood of them actually doing so.

We suggest:

Animated buttons and CTAs
Rollover effects to show products or services
Interactive image carousels that can be controlled by the customer
Quizzes or games within the email

4. Email design trends

Example of colorful design used in email marketing trends

Example of dark mode used in email marketing trends

As fashion trends change each year, so does email design. In 2021, customers are looking for bold and bright colors that help your message stand out. Color attracts attention and is also a great way to evoke emotion and drive action — you can make a customer feel excited about a new product using a bright yellow or feel calm about a change in billing plans with a light blue.

Customers also want clear and concise copy that makes emails easier to read. As we all know, attention spans are shorter than ever, which means copy needs to be shorter as well. Get to the point quickly using bullet points or icons.

In addition, dark mode has stood out as a major trend this year, allowing customers to adjust the brightness of the content they’re consuming. Many customers use this feature for low-light or nighttime environments, as it is easier on the eyes and can improve content legibility. (Or they simply like the look of it better.)

“Users want to look at their phone or computers the way they choose,” explains Joe Pifher, Questline Digital Creative Director. “If we dictate how they see it, and not allow them to personalize it to their liking, it won’t be the best user experience.” Dark mode needs to be considered in the design of your emails to ensure copy and imagery can still be read easily no matter what mode they choose.

We suggest:

Using your brand colors in bold ways to make your content stand out, evoke emotions and drive action
Adjusting email design to be compatible with dark mode
Un-cluttering your copy with the use of bullet points or short paragraphs

5. Multichannel marketing

Example of multichannel marketing used in email marketing trends

Example of multichannel marketing for email marketing trends

Although digital marketing is critical, traditional marketing is still alive and well and should be utilized to expand your promotions beyond smartphones and laptops. Multichannel marketing works because it meets customers where they are, including through email, social media, video, direct mail and more. Through cross-channel engagement, you can feel confident that your energy utility’s message is reaching customers.

“It’s not only about deciding where to share and promote your content,” advises Alexandra Greenberg, Questline Digital Content Strategist, “you need to keep your strategy in mind as you plan and create, too. Consider your target audience as you write to ensure your content is relevant and accessible across multiple channels.”

We suggest:

Creating a strategy for each unique campaign that repurposes elements of the campaign to be used on multiple platforms

Email marketing trends get personal

What do personalization, automation, interactivity, design and multichannel marketing all have in common? People.

The main takeaway for this year is that it’s all about your customers. If the coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that people crave human interactions and connection. By focusing on a customer-centric experience and their needs, it will set up your energy utility for digital marketing success.

Download the 2021 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report to see how your email performance metrics compare to industry trends.

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3 Essential Steps to Sending Error Correction Emails

When sending out marketing emails to energy utility customers, errors can happen. Maybe a product name is misspelled or a call-to-action has the wrong link. Depending on the situation, you might need to send a correction to alert customers to the mistake. But how do you know if you need to send one? Read on to learn best practices for sending error correction emails.

A plan of action for error correction emails

No matter how many people are reviewing your marketing campaigns, errors can slip through the cracks. In fact, a recent study finds more than half of marketers made between two to five mistakes in their email promotions last year. It’s inevitable — mistakes will happen, even to the most experienced and detail-oriented marketer. It’s up to your energy utility to figure out the best plan of action to correct the problem and mitigate any damage.

Step 1: Decide if you need to send a correction

The first step is figuring out if the error is big enough to warrant sending a correction email. Some mistakes are more serious than others, so you’ll need to figure out what type of mistake necessitates an “oops” email.

Common mistakes in marketing emails:

A link is wrong or not working
Spelling or grammar errors
Recipient is addressed incorrectly
Secure information was leaked
Email was sent to the wrong recipient

For example, a missing or incorrect link prevents customers from enrolling for a particular program or service — potentially reducing revenue or conversions for your energy utility. In comparison, a minor grammar error does not have these ramifications and is likely to go unnoticed by a majority of customers. In fact, sending a correction email for a minor spelling mistake may only serve to highlight the error for customers who missed it the first time.

Keep in mind, you don’t want to make a habit out of sending correction emails. Customer satisfaction can be negatively impacted if customers keep receiving these type of emails. Sending a correction means sending two emails instead of one. This can be risky considering customers’ inboxes are already filled to the brim with promotions. That’s why your energy utility needs to be selective on what mistakes require a correction.

Step 2: Determine how to address the error

Now that you’ve decided a correction email is the best course of action, your next step is to address the error. It’s important to be prompt and send a correction email quickly. In some cases, your customers might only read the corrected version and skip over the original version. The longer you wait, the greater the chance for negative feedback from customers.

While nobody likes acknowledging an error, it’s important to be clear, straightforward and own up to the mistake. In other words, don’t sugarcoat it. A humble and honest response goes a long way in keeping customers satisfied with your energy utility.

Follow these four steps for writing effective error correction emails:

Explain the error in clear and concise language.
Let customers know what has been fixed and any action they need to take.
Provide a sincere apology.
Offer reassurance the issue will not happen again.

Step 3: Choose the right email subject line

Perhaps the most important part of the error correction email is the subject line. The right subject line increases your chances that customers will read the corrected version, not the original email. Your subject line should be short and sweet, while clearly explaining why your energy utility is sending another email.

When sending the same email with corrected information, consider adding “Correction” or “We Apologize” before the original subject line. Humor can also help to strengthen customer engagement. For example, using the word “Oops!” before the original subject line shows that your energy utility acknowledges the mistake with a touch of humor.

Subject line ideas for your error correction emails:

CORRECTION: [original subject line]
We apologize – link fixed!
Sorry, we fixed the link
Correction: What we meant to say
Oops! We made a mistake
We apologize for the error
Sorry about that! Here’s the correct information

Lessons learned from common marketing mistakes

After sending a correction message, be sure to track email performance to see the impact, including open rate, CTOR, delivery rate and opt-out rate (this one is important to watch). Sending a correction email is a learning experience, allowing you to take steps in the future to prevent a similar situation.

Looking for advice for your email marketing strategy? Learn how Questline Digital can help.

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