Don’t Let Your Demand Flexibility Program Fizzle Out: Effective Marketing Strategies

A recent nationwide survey found that 73% of Americans are concerned about rising utility bills. These increases in billing costs are driven by supply chain challenges, policy changes, expensive infrastructure upgrades, and growing annual expenses associated with the extreme weather events and associated storm damage exacerbated by climate change. Fortunately, demand flexibility initiatives like virtual power plants, demand response, and EV charging have proven useful in mitigating rising costs while enhancing grid resiliency. For these programs to thrive, more customers are needed, which requires a carefully considered outreach strategy to foster the increased enrollment and participation necessary to scale your programs. 

DER Reliability Is Increasing

Not all DERMS are created the same. For many utility operations, these programs are managed using a Grid DERMS, which aggregates and controls utility-held DER assets like solar and battery installations. By contrast, a Grid-Edge DERMS manages behind-the-meter DER assets found at the edge of the grid in places like residential, commercial, and industrial properties. For some grid operators, behind-the-meter DERs represent an uncertain variable, as these assets are subject to customer decisions, weather events, and other mitigating factors.

Topline Demand Control removes this uncertainty. A novel combination of the Shift Grid-Edge DERMS, AI, model predictive control, and forecasting technologies, Topline Demand Control optimizes devices at a granular level to ensure that the behind-the-meter DERs used in customer demand flexibility programs reliably yield the requested result every time. Because of real-world pressures like supply chain issues and increased extreme weather events, securing customer buy-in for demand flexibility programs is progressively crucial to meeting rising demand while defraying high peak energy costs; a win-win for customers and utilities alike.

Email marketing

According to the popular SEO optimization site Semrush, email marketing “involves sending targeted messages to subscribers’ inboxes to inform them of new products or services, boost brand awareness, and increase sales.” Strategically, email marketing engages and educates customers while providing a path forward for anyone interested.

Developing an email marketing strategy begins with determining your target audience, which likely starts with identifying the device type that you are interested in controlling. Next, consider the type of messaging and outreach that works best for your operation: make sure to emphasize the benefits for enrollment and participation, which likely include incentives like monthly billing credits and/or device rebates, as well as community benefits like energy conservation and reducing the overall energy demand in an area.

Last, but not least, prioritize collecting and acting upon customer data whenever possible. This is necessary with emails to effectively deliver and communicate ideas; you can’t have any outreach if you don’t have effective contact information. Also, make sure to provide opt-in or opt-out opportunities for utilities. And remember: always manage your data to keep it healthy and clean.

Why It Works

Email marketing programs work as highly targeted, cost-effective solutions to customer outreach. This strategy helps build relationships while providing an easy path to customer education. Likewise, email marketing provides an opportunity to share promotional materials about programs, while creating a direct avenue to scalability and programmatic growth.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing meets the public where they are by leveraging social media sites to engage and educate customers. Social media marketing requires attention to detail to understand customer interests and behaviors. These strategies may include social listening, which looks at the bigger picture to help determine key phrases and ideas that capture the zeitgeist; through the use of analytics, this understanding can evolve to meet need, while demonstrating internally what does and does not work strategically.

Why It Works

Social media marketing is a powerful tool for building brand awareness. It’s a quick and direct connection to consumers and homeowners, all while meeting them where they are online. Likewise, social media marketing provides an avenue to share compelling visual content or success stories easily; people want to connect with great storytelling, and social media marketing is an excellent way to do just that.\

Personalization

According to the J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study, customers want to be seen and heard by their utility provider. This includes outage text alerts, infrastructure updates, and any kind of cost savings that utilities can help foster. Customer outreach initiatives were particularly well-received by utility customers, many of whom reported satisfaction as a result of utilities working with them to help reduce billing costs.

Just a few years ago, Forbes reported that 74% of consumers feel frustrated by an impersonal digital experience. For utilities, this means anything from personalization tokens in correspondence to taking the time to stop and listen to customer needs. Unsurprisingly, 88% of surveyed marketers attribute personalization as integral to delivering a better customer experience, an outcome that I can personally confirm.

Why It Works

In short, people want to know that you understand their needs, challenges, and desires. Again, customers are worried about rising electric bills, and they want help, including learning about available demand flexibility programs. Personalization offers a highly targeted opportunity that allows for tailoring content to the specific needs of your customers, and is great for building relationships and enhancing customer satisfaction. What I’ve found time and again is that highly engaged folks are always more likely to participate, enroll, and engage.

Appealing to Altruism

An appeal to altruism is calling upon your audience to do things to help the community, which is often coupled with a personal benefit in marketing. For example, both behavioral demand response and energy efficiency programs call upon customers to voluntarily decrease usage, while in turn demonstrating the benefits of conservation for individuals. In fact, as of 2024, 63% of surveyed Americans stated that they support U.S. decarbonization goals. While climate change mitigations are part of and shaped by the national energy policy conversation, it’s worth noting that, irrespective of partisanship, many Americans agree they want affordable, clean energy whenever possible.

Why It Works

Cause marketing is an effective way to connect with consumers: it’s always a big hit! You can see this in a recent survey, which found that 81% of consumers believe that brands must earn their trust, while 70% of companies reported an increase in customer demand for environmentally-friendly solutions. Ultimately, people want to feel good about their decision-making and purchases, and this applies to the demand flexibility initiatives that defray high peak energy market costs and enhance grid resiliency.

Effective Demand Flexibility Program Marketing Strategies Conclusion

The electric utility industry is at a crossroads, challenged by the pressures of the supply chain, shifting energy policies, long interconnection queues, and more, and demand flexibility initiatives have proven crucial to affordably meeting rising demand. While upgrading the grid may be cost-prohibitive, demand flexibility programs leverage the DER assets already in your communities.

As such, leveraging these existing assets is more important than ever, and that means fostering customer enrollment and participation. Fortunately, with the right marketing strategies and outreach tools, utilities can find their target audience and educate them about their opportunities.

About The Author

With almost two decades of leadership, growth marketing, and communication experience, Amber Mullaney drives the strategy behind Virtual Peaker's marketing initiatives. A proud Texan native, she graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Public Relations and Interpersonal Communication. She is passionate and experienced in managing brands, product lines, marketing programs, and driving cross-functional teams.

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