Updated on 09/01/2023
The digital revolution in Utilities is reality
Utilities and energy companies are facing new challenges, imposed by the digital revolution. The main one is to address its users with new communication technologies tailored. All this is possible thanks to personalized videos.
In recent years, in the utility and energy industry everything has changed radically and deeply, at a great speed. In Italy, as well as abroad. A real revolution, which started from two main thrusts: on the one hand there was liberalisation and a great opening of the market to competition, on the other the digital revolution.
Change can create fears, or it can open up new opportunities, in life, as well as in business. You can watch it or you can ride it. Marketers know perfectly well that to remain inert is to lose market positions and finally succumb.
Personalization and customization: An opportunity for the Utility sector
For the suppliers of light, gas, water, internet, and telephony the customer is front and center in their focus.
The old concept of a distant, uninformed user who is unknown to the company is gone. Today’s customer is smart, knowledgeable, and used to engaging with technologies that know who they are and what they’re interested in. Today’s customer pays attention to the environment and to a company’s sustainability efforts and its ability to use personalization and customization. These are customers in a complex and hyper-competitive market and companies will want to tailor their communications with them as much as possible, based on the fundamental pillars of clarity, simplicity, transparency and of course personalization and customization.
Doxee works with utilities companies to help them bring personalized video and other customized communication tools to their marketing campaigns. CIOReview recently included Doxee in its list of the “20 Most Promising Technology Solutions Providers for Utilities”. Doxee provides interactive services, such as personalized videos, that can be tailored to the needs of each user.
The main tool of marketing: video
Those who deal with marketing today – in any sector, but even more in that of Utilities – know well that in front of him has a fluid scenario, constantly evolving, without fixed points. Except one: that the digital revolution is no longer coming, it is now reality and has changed the cards on the table, opening new opportunities, unthinkable until recently and has brought new communication technologies.
Today, talking about marketing means, above all, talking about digital marketing and new communication technologies. In this area there is a tool that has no rivals in terms of effectiveness: it is the video. The figures below show this clearly, without the need for too many comments.
78% of online users watch at least one video every week. And 55% watch one every day (source: hubspot). In total, on YouTube alone, more than 500 million videos are displayed every day. (source: Business Insider). YouTube, thanks to this data, turns out to be the site that records the most traffic, second only to Google (source: Kinsta).
And in a few years?
If instead you take a look at the future, it turns out that by 2023, online videos will make up over 82% of all consumer internet traffic, which is 15 times higher than 2017 (source: oblivionproduction.com). And if you try to go even deeper with the analysis, you can find that 55% of people pay more attention when you approach videos than any other type of content (source: hubspot). And when you see one, the average user retains as much as 95% of the message it contains; if you talk about texts, this percentage stops at 10% (source: Wirebuzz).
In the struggle for attention – perhaps the main challenge for those involved in marketing today – videos are therefore the main allies of a brand and those involved in marketing within it.
Let’s move on to the social field, and we realize that the trend remains the same: there are in fact about 100 million hours of video watched every day on Facebook (source: techcrunch). 82% of Twitter subscribers consume video content consistently. Instagram, finally, has based much of its overwhelming success, especially in recent years, precisely on the videos and Stories created by its users in continuous and constant growth. Not to mention TikTok.
All these data point, therefore, towards a single and very clear direction: the effectiveness of video is indisputable. People consume a huge amount of videos and always want more. Every good marketer has to keep this in mind.
Above all, then, if you think that now more than 50% of online users, view videos of a product before proceeding to purchase (source: Google). Or, again: including a video on a landing page increases the conversion rate by 80%. (source: Unbounce).
It is no coincidence – and this concludes our roundup of data – that 52% of marketers said that video is the type of content with the best ROI (source: Adobe); and that companies that use video in their marketing strategies have – on average – a CTR rate 27% higher and a conversion rate 34% higher than those that do not yet use them (source: Buffer).
At this point one could say: “It’s clear, what my company needs is to have a good video marketing strategy. Of course, everything is right. But you can go further. Especially if we deal with the Utility and Energy sector, whose services impact in a daily way on the life of individual people, often with characteristic needs and very different profiles.
In this sense there is a frontier to explore, which is already producing excellent and unbeatable results: it is personalization. The one that guarantees, for example, the personalized videos of Doxee.
Personalization and customization: the main features of personalized videos
There is no more effective marketing strategy than that of addressing each customer in a differentiated way, to modulate their message according to the characteristics of the recipient to intercept requests and even anticipate their needs. It is the simplest and oldest method in the world.
Today – for the first time – it can also be applied to large numbers. Thanks to new communication technologies and the most advanced technologies of data analysis and transformation, today it is possible to launch video campaigns that are aimed at each user in a diversified, dynamic and customized way. The results, needless to say, are striking.
Customized videos have been experimented with by the giants of the industry, always at the forefront of marketing and communication: an example of all, Nike, which in 2014 launched a campaign of personalized videos dedicated to its Nike+ members. The same thing happened to Barclay’s who decided to turn to their customers, and to each in a different way, again with customized videos. Or, to cite another very successful example, easyjet, as part of a campaign celebrating its 20 years of activity.
Enel, for example, has chosen Doxee, for a partnership in continuous evolution. And he did so in a decisive phase of change for his brand identity: no longer the distant and impersonal image of the past, but one closer to the environment and the customer. And the same choice of collaboration with Doxee was made by Engie, French energy company, which in the ranking of Fortune 500 was the fourth world group in the energy sector and decided to adopt these new communication technologies.
There is a fact that must be kept in high consideration, known as NPS (Net Promoter Score): it is an index that measures the level according to which customers are led to recommend the services of a company to other people, acquaintances and friends (a network that can be very wide, especially if evaluated in its online dimension). Well, the data shows that Utility Industry companies that use custom videos in their marketing and customer care strategies have an NPS level 24% higher than those that don’t. With 79% of video recipients claiming to have an improved brand perception.
That’s why personalization is the ultimate boost to enhance video marketing, loyalty, engagement and customer care strategies. Especially in the sector – in great turmoil – of utilities.