Benefits-Focused Email Campaign Drives Enrollment in My Alerts Program

Challenge

Duquesne Light Company (DLC) needed to increase enrollments in the company’s newly launched My Alerts program. Customers could enroll in up to eight customizable notifications, including bill reminders, late payment alerts, and electric supplier updates, and choose to be notified by voice, text, and/or email. The campaign needed to provide a simple way for customers to see the benefits of the program and be persuasive enough for customers to act. 

Solution

Questline Digital developed an email campaign with custom creative that focused on the specific benefits of the utility’s My Alerts program. The design used a dynamic, animated GIF which showed customers how quickly and easily they could choose which notifications they wanted to receive. 

The campaign targeted DLC’s customers who were not currently enrolled in My Alerts. Residential and commercial customers were divided into five segments to aid with deliverability and allow for targeted benefit messaging. 

Results

The initial email campaign drove 3,981 enrollments, including more than 900 in a single day. According to DLC, its website saw increases of more than 20 times higher hourly traffic and 30 times the average number of daily sign-ups for My Alerts when the emails were deployed. 

Overall, the emails achieved: 

• Open rate: 37.5% 
• Open reach: 63.5% 
• Click-to-open rate: 4.9% 
• Click-through rate: 1.8% 

Customers signed up to receive an average of two notifications with the most popular alerts being bill due date, bill past due, and payment received. 

Due to its success, DLC has established a cadence of deploying its My Alerts campaign every other month to new customer segments. Different subject lines, times, and days of the week have been utilized to test and determine deployments resulting in optimal customer engagement.

About Duquesne Light Company 

Duquesne Light Company (DLC) is committed to more than keeping the lights on; it powers the moments in its customers’ lives. As a next-generation energy company, DLC’s 1,700-plus employees are dedicated to delivering reliable and safe energy to more than half a million customers in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The average number of registrations per day doubled after the campaign launched. 

“We want as many customers as possible to participate in this program because it’s a better way to inform them using digital methods. Plus, it’s a way to make sure customers are informed and can utilize self-serve to get the information that they want when they want it. After we launched the campaign, the average amount of registrations per day doubled.”
—Morgan Kriley
Customer Experience Associate, Duquesne Light Company