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Minding the Marketers
What Utility Marketing Professionals Are Thinking
August 1, 2007
Do you know how your marketing efforts measure up against those of your peers? We discuss experiences common among utility marketers including working with limited budgets and unsupportive management.
Content type: Core Report, Service Report | Document ID: MS-3 | Author: Matthew Joyce and Chad Garrett
Me and My Big Mouth: Harnessing the Power of Person-to-Person Marketing
February 1, 2007
Some utilities are bucking the trend toward greater automation in marketing and customer service in favor of a practice called person-to-person marketing. The age-old technique of direct conversation is finding new respect alongside modern-day communications via bill stuffers, direct mail, and advertising ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: MS-1 | Author: Matthew Joyce
Corporate Energy Managers Speak Their Minds: Report on the 2006 E Source Energy Manager Survey
July 1, 2006
Each year we survey a diverse mix of Fortune 500 companies, government entities, and educational institutions to learn their opinions regarding energy prices, risk management, benchmarking, their relationships with their energy service providers, and the energy-related products and services they most ...
Content type: Core Report, Research | Document ID: ER-06-11 | Author: Matthew Joyce, Arthur Venables
To Blog or Not to Blog: Is It Right for Your Business?
March 1, 2006
Your residential customers have them. So do your business customers. Blogs may be the hottest ticket since e-mail. Is blogging right for your utility? We'll examine the growing number of blogs in the energy sector, consider the business case for blogging, and help you decide if this new technology fits ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-06-04 | Author: Matthew Joyce, Michael Reid
Making Peace with an Angry Public: Defusing Customer Anger over Sharp Price Increases and Other Negative Events
January 1, 2006
Company image and customer satisfaction scores are falling or are poised for a fall as utilities implement sharp price increases for electricity, natural gas, or both. In more than a few cases the current “energy price crisis” comes after utilities’ credibility has been sapped by perceived operational ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-06-01 | Author: John Egan
Boomers, Bohemians, and Big City Blues: Increasing Residential Marketing Effectiveness with Geodemographic Segmentation
October 1, 2005
With catchy names like “Big City Blues” and “Beltway Boomers,” segments in the PRIZM NE geodemographic segmentation system are groups of households with common attributes and behaviors. Geodemographic segmentation is a cost-effective and underutilized tool in the energy industry. Using an E source ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-05-17 | Author: Barry Friedman
Corporate Energy Managers Speak Their Minds: Report on the 2005 E Source Energy Manager Survey
August 1, 2005
Each year we survey a diverse mix of Fortune 500 companies, government entities, and educational institutions to learn their opinions regarding market restructuring, energy prices, risk management, benchmarking and the energy-related products and services they most want to purchase. The opinions of these ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-05-14 | Author: Matthew Joyce, Arthur Venables
Eliminating Guesswork and Improving Results with Direct Response Marketing
May 1, 2005
Marketers at utilities must increasingly justify not only the return on investment for their overall campaigns, but also the effectiveness of individual campaign elements. Many are turning to direct response marketing, which solicits a specific, measurable customer response. Direct marketing techniques ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-05-10 | Author: Matthew Joyce
Technologies for Guerrilla Marketers: Creative Tactics to Maximize Marketing Effectiveness
November 1, 2004
In our recent Guerrilla Marketing report (ER-04-6), we focused on low-cost marketing tactics. In this follow-up report, we consider technologies that can be used to increase marketing effectiveness, enhance customer take rates, cut marketing costs, and improve returns on investment. We review innovative ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-04-16 | Author: Matthew Joyce
Corporate Energy Managers Speak Their Minds: Report on the 2004 E Source Energy Manager Survey
July 1, 2004
Energy managers at large commercial and industrial companies are important leading indicators on a host of energy issues, including value creation, pricing programs, energy efficiency, future energy prices, ESP key account management practices, and their dynamic—and often unmet—energy services needs. ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-04-09 | Author: Matthew Joyce, Arthur Venables
Enhancing Business Strategy with Market Research
July 1, 2004
As retail electric and gas markets continue to evolve, utilities and competitive ESPs are changing both the type of market research they do and the amount of research they conduct. In this report, we explore these recent shifts and assess the benefits and risks of investing—or not investing—in primary ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-04-10 | Author: William LeBlanc
Guerrilla Marketing: Low-Cost Tactics Maximize Marketing ROI
May 1, 2004
In today’s strenuous economic environment, many ESPs are feeling the pressure of smaller marketing budgets and reduced staffing, while coping with customers and prospects that are less likely to spend money on products and services. What can a marketer do when traditional approaches are proving less ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-04-06 | Author: Matthew Joyce
Creating Compelling Customer Connections: A Fresh Look at ESP Branding
March 1, 2004
Utility companies embraced branding in the late 1990s as part of their transition to a more competitive business environment. But with utility restructuring stuck in neutral in the U.S., is branding relevant anymore? We’ve interviewed officials at energy service providers in the U.S. and the UK to ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-04-04 | Author: John Egan, Jon Slowe, Mary O'Driscoll
Profitable Product and Service Marketing: Insights from Successful Product Managers
November 1, 2003
Selling products and services to the residential sector retains a perpetual allure of profitability. But what does it take to be successful? In this report, we consider three common revenue-generating offerings that are closely aligned with utility core competencies and that offer a number of market-entry ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-03-19 | Author: Chad Salvadore
Corporate Energy Managers Speak Their Minds: Report on the 2003 E Source Energy Manager Survey
July 1, 2003
Our 2003 survey of corporate energy managers reveals mixed reviews of electric restructuring, widespread pessimism about future energy prices, and clear market opportunities for specific products and services. It reflects the opinions of some the most sophisticated large commercial, industrial, and institutional ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-03-13 | Author: Matthew Joyce, Arthur Venables
Just Say No: Energy Managers Go It Alone
March 1, 2003
A small but growing number of corporate energy managers are dictating the terms of their relationships with their energy service company (ESCO), forgoing outside assistance and meeting their own needs, or taking their newly developed expertise directly to the market and competing with the ESCOs that ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-03-04 | Author: Matthew Joyce
Reviving ESP Marketing Strategy with Experiential Marketing
March 1, 2003
Category leaders like Coca Cola, MasterCard, and Apple are using marketing strategies that are very different from traditional methods, and that fresh approach has generated significant amounts of revenue, profit, and loyalty. These leaders are using “experiential marketing” to design and deliver ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-03-05 | Author: John Egan, Anne Peters
The Strategic Value of Intelligence: Industry Turmoil Makes Intelligence Even More Vital
November 1, 2002
ESPs today are cutting their investment in competitive intelligence (CI) as rapidly as they were increasing spending on CI back in the late 1990s. We think the current cutbacks are ill advised and even potentially dangerous. Industry turmoil and events outside the industry have scrambled many ESPs’ ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-02-17 | Author: John Egan
Buying Power: Marketing Energy Services to an Ethnically Diverse Customer Base
September 1, 2002
Data from the U.S. Census released in 2000 show a rapidly diversifying population. Ethnic groups now wield increased buying power, and they want businesses to be culturally sensitive when marketing to them. Energy service providers (ESPs) that want to be successful in a more heterogeneous society must ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-02-14 | Author: Matthew Joyce
Corporate Energy Managers Speak Their Minds: Report on the 7th Annual E Source Energy Manager Survey
July 1, 2002
Corporate energy managers gathered in March, 2002, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the annual E source Energy Managers’ Roundtable. Top areas of discussion included energy-procurement strategies, controlling costs with energy information, and the latest energy-efficiency innovations, trends, and technologies. ...
Content type: Core Report, Research | Document ID: ER-02-12 | Author: Arthur Venables, John Egan
Pursuing Energy Services Excellence
May 1, 2002
E source identified a number of well-positioned energy services companies, conducted extensive interviews throughout those organizations, interviewed customers, and identified distinct competitive strengths and business processes of leading firms. Written in the spirit of In Search of Excellence and ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-02-09 | Author: Matthew Joyce, John Egan, Bill LeBlanc
Energy Managers Devise Post-Enron Strategies
March 1, 2002
E source spoke with more than a dozen of Enron’s larger customers for this report. All had at least made plans for covering their exposure, and some had begun to implement changes. Most were reluctant to jump into another long-term, comprehensive energy management or commodity agreement, but their ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-02-05 | Author: Matthew Joyce
Corporate Energy Managers Speak Their Minds:Report on the 6th Annual E SourceEnergy Manager Survey
July 1, 2001
Disappointment with restructuring is rising among corporate energy managers, according to an annual survey conducted at the E Source Energy Managers’ Roundtable. Nearly 30 percent of energy managers reported dissatisfaction with open access, whereas not one was dissatisfied last year. The breakdown ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-01-12 | Author: Matthew Joyce
Playing to Win: Sport Marketing for ESPs
April 1, 2001
Because sports evoke a passionate response across a wide spectrum of the population, some utilities are using sport marketing as a way to link their products and services with something customers care about. They believe it increases name recognition, improves sales, and demonstrates good corporate citizenship. ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-01-04 | Author: Matthew Joyce, Melissa Tuck
In Crisis Is Opportunity: Rising Utility Bills Create New Marketing Potential
April 1, 2001
When retail electric and gas prices soar, causing equally stratospheric energy bills, consumers are in no mood for PR and damage control. They want to know how they can save money on their energy bills. Using techniques from Marketing 101, some utilities were able to turn price spikes to their advantage ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-01-06 | Author: John Egan, Matthew Joyce
Driving Decisions and Shaping Strategy with Competitive Intelligence
November 1, 2000
As retail energy businesses go through restructuring, utilities and other energy service providers (ESPs) have boosted spending on competitive intelligence (CI) to support a variety of strategic initiatives, including product launches, mergers and acquisitions, and market-entry decisions. Interviews ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-00-17 | Author: John Egan
Madison Avenue Meets the Monopoly Advertising Approaches for Energy Companies
July 1, 2000
Advertising is a critical tool in the marketing kit of all energy service providers. Whether advertising messages and their execution are meant to persuade, inform, delight, or coerce, advertising must be carefully planned and well executed in service to clear goals in order to further both branding ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-00-11 | Author: Anne Peters
Corporate Energy Managers Speak Their Minds: Report on the 5th Annual E Source Energy Manager Survey
May 1, 2000
As in the past four years, the participants at the 7th Annual E Source Energy Managers’ Roundtable responded to a brief survey. This report provides an overview of their responses to questions about how their firms approach energy management, their expectations of how electricity industry restructuring ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-00-7 | Author: Tony Burnett
ESP Web Sites: Brands Under Construction
November 1, 1999
Energy service providers (ESPs) are finding that, as competition grows, Web site use and development is closely linked to building a brand. Driven by the interactive nature of a Web site visit, online branding can strengthen the positive emotional association between the customer and the company's ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-99-17 | Author: Anne Peters, Ron Davis
Marketing Performance Contracting
July 1, 1999
Success in selling many products and services in competitive retail markets hinges on effective marketing and communications. Energy performance contracting is no exception. Performance contracting has seen only limited growth, even as energy service providers (ESPs)—including utilities, utility ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-99-10 | Author: Adam Capage, William LeBlanc
