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New digital marketing trends are constantly emerging. But how do you choose which techniques are best for your company’s marketing strategy? We’ve compiled research on the latest digital marketing technologies, platforms, and content types to help you decide if they’re worth adding to your marketing plan. We also share examples of each trend in action from inside and outside the utility industry.
Augmented reality
Augmented reality is a digital technology that lets users view and interact with virtual objects in their real-world environment. Utilities started using this technology to offer virtual home audits during the pandemic. You could also use augmented reality to show customers where solar panels could go on their roofs, how an electric vehicle charger would fit in their garages, or what a new energy-efficient appliance would look like in their kitchens.
This technology is an exciting way to share information with customers. But like most new technologies, it can be expensive. Decide whether the benefits of augmented reality are worth its cost and if it fits your overall goals.
Toyota’s car showroom in augmented reality
Toyota’s Google Play app Toyota AR Showroom uses augmented reality to let shoppers customize and interact with virtual 3D models of its vehicles (figure 1). It’s available in the European market. Customers can pick the vehicle model, trim level, engine, wheels, exterior color, interior material and color, and more. They can display and walk around their creation from anywhere—in a garage, on a table, at the office, or on the street.
Figure 1: Customers can personalize a vehicle in the Toyota AR Showroom app
The automaker partnered with augmented reality designer Vertebrae to create the 3D & AR Customer Experience. In the Forbes article Toyota Deploys AR To Give Mobile Shoppers 3-D, Up-Close And Personal Looks At Its Cars, Vertebrae CEO Vince Cacace said, “It personalizes the experience for the end consumer, giving them control over the experience to do what they want rather than being sand-boxed into whatever [generic] experience they can get now.”
IKEA’s decorating and planning tool
Furniture and home goods retailer IKEA offers customers IKEA Place, an Apple iOS app that uses augmented reality to show customers how its furniture will look and fit in their spaces. The experience gives customers more confidence in their furniture purchases by letting them interact with virtual versions of 2,200 realistic and true-to-scale pieces of furniture.
Nextdoor
Nextdoor is a social network that sorts users into private groups based on where they live. Utilities mainly use Nextdoor for targeted outage and safety communications. But utilities could also use the site to:
- Share emergency-preparedness information
- Market new products and services
- Gather feedback by using polls
- Educate customers about energy efficiency and other topics
- Advertise local utility events and trade allies
- Promote self-service channels
As with any social network, you should post consistently but only when you have something interesting to say. Posting irregularly, too often, or not often enough can overwhelm or confuse followers and hurt your reputation. Nextdoor offers a public agencies platform to make it easier for utilities and other public agencies and service providers to manage their presence in several neighborhoods. The partnership is free for publicly owned agencies, but privately owned utilities pay a fee.
Southern California Edison on Nextdoor
On the Southern California Edison Nextdoor page, the utility posts about:
- Outages and maintenance projects
- Ways to conserve energy during times of high energy demand, like heat waves
- Public Safety Power Shutoffs, the utility’s effort to reduce risk of wildfire
Jennifer Masterson, communications advisor on Southern California Edison’s Local Public Affairs and Corporate Communications team, explained in a statement on the Nextdoor Public Agency page that the utility uses Nextdoor because it can target small areas:
Often, our work impacts a very small area of a community and we don’t get the same targeting capabilities with Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. We could be replacing a pole in a neighborhood where 5–10 customers may lose power and there may be traffic impacts for 3–4 streets. We need to get safety and outage information out to that neighborhood only and Nextdoor allows for that.
CoServ Electric on Nextdoor
The Texas electric and gas distribution company CoServ Electric has an active CoServ Electric Nextdoor page (figure 2). Its posts have included:
- Targeted construction and outage announcements and updates
- Information about how to report an outage and get status updates and estimated restoration times
- Previews of and links to news articles on its website
- Holiday celebrations for National Donut Day, Memorial Day, Lineman Appreciation Day, and National Safe Digging Month
- Details about local meetings and charity clinics
- Scam awareness
Figure 2: CoServ Electric’s Nextdoor posts
Podcasts
Hosting a podcast can help you build trust with customers and educate them about topics like energy efficiency, the energy industry, and new programs and services. It can also help you reach customers who prefer to listen to their news rather than watch or read it. Podcast audiences are highly engaged and can choose when and where they listen to your show. Audience metrics are easy to track.
Podcasts grow in popularity every year. About 80 million people in the US (28% of the US population over 12 years old) are weekly podcast listeners. This is a 17% increase over 2020, according to The Infinite Dial 2021 survey from media research company Edison Research. But before you start a podcast, you should think about long-term strategies and goals. Producing a good podcast and building an engaged audience takes time, money, and consistency.
Con Edison’s Plugged In podcast
On its podcast Plugged In (figure 3), Con Edison discusses topics ranging from batteries and electric vehicles to safety and corporate issues. We spoke with Philip O’Brien, assistant director of media relations at Con Edison, who said the utility launched the podcast to create a new way for employees, industry professionals, and the public to hear about newsworthy and timely information from the utility. O’Brien and a cohost focus their episodes on new utility programs, hot topics, and the energy industry. The utility posts monthly or bimonthly episodes on Soundcloud, iTunes, and the employee intranet.
Figure 3: Con Edison’s Plugged In podcast episode “Con Edison Advances Diversity, Equity, Inclusion”
O’Brien described the key elements of the podcast production:
- Staff time. Two media relations employees spend 8 hours of work per one 8-to-10-minute episode for a total of two episodes per month.
- Budget. The podcast has no advertising budget, and the utility spent less than $500 for professional recording equipment.
- Content calendar. The podcast team plans episodes one month in advance.
- Promotion. The utility promotes the podcast on in-house screens within its facilities and includes it in the employee intranet newsletter. The podcast team also posts each episode on Twitter and LinkedIn.
- Topic selection. If you cover interesting topics, people will want to listen. It’s also a good way to praise employees and promote corporate initiatives.
Con Edison has received mostly positive feedback from employees, who are glad the utility celebrates workers and shares their experiences. Staff also feel like they’re learning more about the industry.
Advertising on popular podcasts is another, simpler way to access this market. Ads on podcasts are especially effective, according to the Stitcher press release Podcast advertising generates up to 4.4x better brand recall than other digital ads. You can reach small but targeted audiences by advertising on podcasts that relate to your topic. Listeners trust the host, who delivers your 15-to-60-second ad before, during, or after the podcast. But because listeners can choose to fast-forward through your ad, it’s hard to track metrics.
Austin Energy’s podcast ads
Austin Energy included podcast ads in its energy conservation marketing campaign to reach customers at home in a new, targeted way. The campaign is detailed in the utility’s submission in E Source Energy AdVision. The ads encouraged customers to Save Energy for What Matters with energy- and money-saving tips and rebates for smart thermostats, LED lights, and smart strips (figure 4).
Figure 4: Austin Energy’s Energy Conservation campaign podcast advertisement
The utility ran its geotargeted podcast ads across 11 local and national podcast shows for four months of the campaign, according to its submission in Energy AdVision (our database of more than 6,000 examples of utility marketing and advertising campaigns). The ads generated 1,934,731 total impressions.
Interactive content
Interactive digital content is anything you can click on, swipe, or interact with. Examples include quizzes, calculators, polls, surveys, 360-degree videos, and interactive stories and infographics. This kind of content attracts, engages, and educates your customers while letting them personalize the experience. It’s also easy to share on social media, which can increase your reach and drive traffic to your website. Outgrow, a company that creates interactive content templates, states in its article A Short Guide to Interactive Content For You that 93% of marketers believe that interactive content educates consumers better than static content. And 81% of marketers agree it’s more effective in grabbing and retaining attention.
Interactive content can be expensive to make, so be sure to give it purpose. Drive customers to a desired goal, action, or behavior. Or use interactive content like polls and quizzes to learn about your audience’s behaviors, interests, preferences, and goals.
East Bay Municipal Utility District’s virtual tour
In its virtual tour From the mountains to your tap, East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) explains the water filtration process by taking viewers on an interactive journey from the snowpack of the Sierra Nevada mountains to EBMUD’s local water treatment plant (figure 5). Different content appears as viewers scroll down the page:
- Clickable image and video carousels
- Interactive then-and-now photos
- Optional audio clips
- Interactive maps
Figure 5: EBMUD’s interactive story on the journey of water
thredUP’s educational calculator
Online retailer of secondhand clothing thredUP provides a Fashion Footprint Calculator for customers to learn how their shopping habits contribute to climate change (figure 6). The retailer encourages customers to help raise awareness by sharing the calculator’s results with a friend.
Figure 6: thredUP’s Fashion Footprint Calculator
User-generated content
User-generated content is created by customers without compensation for their contributions. Users typically provide photos, videos, and testimonials. This technique is another great way to increase your reach and engage customers by inviting them to participate with your brand. You can encourage customers to create content by hosting challenges or contests involving customer submissions. Or encourage customers to tag you in their posts. The Forbes article Why Authenticity in Marketing Matters Now More Than Ever explains that promoting user-generated content is an essential step in creating an authentic brand image.
User-generated content can save you time and money because you aren’t creating the content yourself. But you should monitor posts to make sure they represent your brand well. Some customers might create negative or inappropriate content or steal materials from another source, which can cause legal issues.
PECO’s collection of local photography on Instagram
PECO asks customers to submit photos on Instagram and tag @pecoconnect and #poweredbyPECO (figure 7). Followers are highly engaged with these posts, giving the utility above-average engagement rates compared to other utility accounts. We’ve featured some of PECO’s user-generated content in the report A weekly update on the top-performing utility social media posts.
Figure 7: PECO’s user-generated content
Adobe’s showcase of artwork made with its products
Software company Adobe frequently shares art that customers created using its programs. The marketing software vendor HubSpot features Adobe’s strategy for user-generated content in its article The 10 Best User-Generated Content Campaigns on Instagram. For Pride Month, Adobe asked customers to tag the company in their creations using the hashtag #CreateWithPride (figure 8).
Figure 8: Adobe shares user-generated content for Pride Month
More reports on marketing strategy and technology
The essentials for programmatic advertising shares ways to define, track, and manage your programmatic advertising.
Residential marketing automation in the energy industry explains how to use tools and data to personalize messaging, increase conversions, and improve customer experience.
Marketing virtual audits to residential customers provides the themes, target audience, and channels to use to market your virtual audit offering.
The essentials for marketing the smart home discusses the current market for smart home devices, what drives customers to purchase them, and how utilities successfully promote them.
The essentials for marketing EVs to residential customers examines who buys electric vehicles and why, and how to effectively market to them.
The E Source Digital Metrics Survey compares utility customers’ use of digital contact channels for key journeys and other digital activities.
Voice control changes everything: Why utilities should care about virtual assistants explains how you can use these devices to share information with customers, integrate with connected devices to manage demand, promote trade allies, and reduce call volumes in contact centers.
The E Source Marketing Automation Tools Study explores how the industry uses marketing automation software so that marketers can make informed decisions about automation vendors and tools.