Energy efficiency companies can draw lessons from political campaigns, and from tech giants like Amazon and Google, to apply data-driven analytics in their marketing strategies, Greentech reports.
“Displaying an ad in your search results is one thing,” Du Bois writes. “Displaying a perfectly targeted message at just the right time is another. Call it creepy if you will—but marketers call it ‘market segmentation.’”
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“Segmentation is underused in energy efficiency,” Jane Peters of Portland, Oregon-based Research Into Action told Greentech. But while “utilities talk about using segmentation,” noted Marketing Director Danielle Marquis at Ballston Lake, NY-based SmartWatt Energy, “they’re usually basing that segmentation on rate class, and not on more meaningful attributes.”
While sophisticated market segmentation is technically complex and expensive, “the future of segmentation is ever smaller segments and more personalization,” said Emily Bailard, Director of Energy Efficiency at Opower. And given the importance of energy efficiency in any low-carbon scenario, Du Bois asks, “why is an effective marketing technique being underutilized by energy efficiency marketers when so much is at stake?”
