ATLANTA – Utilities are finding that newspaper and radio advertising is gaining in effectiveness while traditional bill stuffers are losing their punch, according to Chartwell’s latest report, Marketing Utility Products, Services & Programs 2006. Only 26% of utilities reported in 2006 that bill inserts were the marketing tool "most successful in generating leads or responses" from residential customers – a drop of 11 percentage points from 2004. At the same time, 22% of utilities Chartwell surveyed in 2006 reported that mass media advertising (print, radio, TV) was most effective in reaching residential customers, compared to only 14% in 2004. Print and radio doubled in reported success while TV remained flat.
Chartwell’s marketing survey includes responses from 95 North American utilities regarding their marketing budgets, staff size, strategies and challenges specific to both residential and commercial/industrial (C&I) markets. The report includes analysis of this data and 12 in-depth case studies on successful utility marketing programs including those at Alliant Energy, Salt River Project, KeySpan, NSTAR and Tucson Electric Power. Chartwell has been conducting utility surveys regarding marketing since 1997, allowing Chartwell analysts to report on trends in the growth or decline of budgets, staff sizes and strategies used.
In other findings reported in Marketing Utility Products, Services & Programs 2006, 26% of utilities said that their residential marketing budgets – though still smaller than desired – grew over the past year. Only 8% of respondents said their residential marketing budgets had decreased. Budgets for reaching C&I customers have remained flat. However, with the increased use of more expensive mass media advertising, budgets that are "too small" are among utilities’ most distressing marketing challenges.
The biggest challenge to utility marketers, however, is creating awareness. Several specifically mentioned the difficulty in reaching ethnically diverse populations. Others lamented trying to compete with other marketing messages for customers’ attention.
Marketing Utility Products, Services & Programs 2006 is available from Chartwell for $895. Also available to members only is a fully sortable Excel database including survey responses from all 95 surveyed utilities. Membership also includes survey findings regarding residential and C&I products, services and programs as well as regularly released topical reports on issues such as energy efficiency programs, sales of or rebates on green energy technologies like photovoltaics, and customer communications.
For information regarding membership, contact Bill Grist at (404) 237-9099, (800) 432-5879 or bgrist@chartwellinc.com. The report only is available online at www.energylibrary.com. A free table of contents of the report is also available online or by contacting Senior Research Analyst Jennifer Allen at jallen@chartwellinc.com.
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Chartwell Inc. seeks to provide a better understanding of technologies, issues and management practices in the utility and retail energy services industry through best practices case studies and quantitative research.
