With national power prices and inflation rates on the rise, the energy sector has seen new competitors emerging and customers looking for new solutions. In a market that is constantly growing and changing, generating new customer leads and customer retention strategies to grow your business requires more attention than ever.
As marketing experts focused on the renewable energy space, we understand it’s getting harder to connect with buyers on a personal level. Consumers are getting smarter and more perceptive as they are constantly flooded with advertisements everywhere they look. In an increasingly crowded market, using personalisation can help you show and guide consumers to products you know they are interested in.
When hearing the word personalisation in the creative industry, many marketers often think about tactics like including the first name of your contact in your marketing email, but it goes much further than that.
Think about how many marketing emails and advertisements your target market is exposed to every day. Do you know what they'd really like to see?
Personalised content addressing their ‘why’ or pain points.
How do you do it?
Get the right data. You don't need to overdo it and collect every piece of information available, but you do need to collect the right data. For many companies, finding and merging data is a big concern, but it doesn't have to be difficult.
Energy companies have less data available on their customers than other industries, so it makes sense to want to gather as much information as you possibly can.
If it all seems a little overwhelming, start with the basics.
- Demographics - Basic information such as name, age, sex, background, language etc.
- Behavioural - Customer behaviour such as heat mapping, clicks and interactions.
- Contextual - Analysing analytics such as the time of day a consumer opened your email, what device they were using, how long they stayed on your website etc.
Where do you go from there?
Identify the triggers that are going to result in successful contact with the customer.
Finding the right moment, and identifying and testing specific events for specific customers is a tactic that is new to the energy market. Triggers that can easily be used to increase your business can include web pages about energy products suggesting value-adds, including SEO keywords related to moving house in your content, FAQs with information about how to cancel your plan, or end-of-year blogs about how to reduce your spending with the cost of living at a high.
What do you need to change?
Personalisation doesn't necessarily mean addressing individuals in brand communication or altering your entire branding strategy. However, it could be something to consider if you have a particular demographic in mind and are thinking it's time for a brand refresh. This could be executed in the form of addressing masses of a look-alike audience based on their buying habits, cultural backgrounds, product usage patterns etc to further improve their journey.
In the case of energy companies, data based on consumers' energy consumption and geographical location can be the best approach to reach out to them for things like solar installations. Here, the pain is street-common but the solution is personalised and supported by the right facts and research.
Another way we like approaching personalisation is by adding questions to forms of the sales process that can help ‘sell’ to the consumer. The trick is to ask customers ‘why’ without really asking. Once these segments have been identified, it comes to content personalisation. Adjust your copy, design, time etc to match your consumer needs.
Get in touch with us today to find out about how you can use personalisation strategies to grow your energy business!
