Utility and energy marketers, like most marketers, are constantly considering how to find the optimal balance between traditional and new media forms. With the shift from traditional forms of media, digital marketing budgets have increased. According to Gartner, 25% of the average marketing budget is spent on digital marketing, with almost half of the budget dollars going toward content creation and management.1
Many utility and energy companies are contemplating utilizing content marketing as support for energy management, energy efficiency and other education-based initiatives. Considering so much money is being put into content marketing, it's vital for that content to be effective. One question many utilities face is how technical content marketing copy should be written. This article will explore this challenge and provide some guidance for utility and energy marketers.
Many utility and energy companies have goals to improve their thought leadership position. They may understand that content marketing for utilities can be effective for targeting the small and medium-sized businesses they want to reach and, when done correctly, can be a useful tool for:
While many marketers know that utility marketing copy should be comprehensive in order to be valuable to their target businesses, if the content is too technical, they run the risk of alienating those businesses. The key to success lies in finding the perfect balance.
Educational benefits of content marketing drive the tone.
One of the functions content for utility marketing should provide is education. It can be a way to inform residential customers, as well as businesses, about efficient energy management solutions and related topics. Additionally, many small and medium-sized businesses (as well as residential customers) work with contractors to put energy efficiency actions into practice. For that reason, including technical terms in utility marketing content is often required. A certain level of technical terminology can be useful to help reach the educational objective and facilitate informed communication between contractors and decision-makers.
Attention should be taken, however, to ensure that the copy doesn't talk over the target audience's heads. Most small and medium-sized business decision-makers aren’t engineers and might not have a technical background. Instead, utility content marketing should briefly break down and explain specialized, industry-specific words and phrases. The keyword here is "brief." It's easy to lose the reader's attention if the copy gets caught up in explaining technical terms.
Keep it business-friendly and straightforward.
When producing utility content marketing for small and medium-sized businesses, the target audience must be kept in mind. Decision-makers for small to medium-sized utility and energy companies aren't likely to have a broad understanding of energy management equipment, energy efficiency and the factors that can affect their utility bills. Their mindsets are likely to be around fixing a problem, repairing or purchasing equipment or something fairly specific.
Small and medium-sized businesses, as well as residential customers, are likely to deal with contractors and possibly even engineers from time to time.
The customers, however, aren't contractors and engineers themselves, so overly technical copy may be lost on them. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, it's best to keep it simple by avoiding buzzwords, excessively technical language and industry jargon.2 Its advice is to communicate like real human beings, even when the topic is complicated. Utility content marketing content will be more likely to be read and to engage readers if it includes clear, easy-to-understand terms.
It’s all about balance.
When using technical terminology in content marketing for utility and energy marketers, the question becomes: What degree of technical writing should be included?
The bottom-line goal for utility content marketing is that it be simple enough to engage, yet technical enough to establish expert status. On the upside, content marketing naturally showcases a business in an authoritative light, but it is most effective when it's written in a balanced manner. Unfortunately, there's no easy formula for ensuring just the right amount of technical content. There's more to it than writing copy that has a word-count of "X" and is X% technical terminology. Often the technical level of the copy is altered across articles to ensure some more technically oriented content, along with more business-oriented content.
As utility and energy marketers embark on a content marketing strategy, they should begin by developing an effective strategy that is tailored to the individual energy or utility provider and its customers. Our process starts with understanding the mindsets of various audiences the content marketing will be targeted against. The mindsets, search behavior, brand voice and specific objectives generally help guide the right allocation of technical writing each individual utility and energy marketer should employ.
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Sources:
1. Gartner
2. Entrepreneur
Topics: Content Marketing
