January 10 is National Cut Your Energy Costs Day. As a power provider, how are you regularly helping your customers to reduce their energy bills?

I have to say that I missed this holiday, which actually typifies one of the persistent challenges customers and their utilities face related to customer engagement.  Why don't I know about it from my utility?  Chances are that my bill may have included an insert with a message, or the website had a reminder, but I'm better engaged via email or SMS, and my utility didn't highlight the day.

"National Cut Your Energy Costs Day" should be a major event for every utility to amplify their customer engagement programs.   Who better than the utility to embrace this event annually with a multi-part multi-channel campaign to connect with customers about efficiency and the personal benefits of saving on utility bills?  

Approaching it like a marketing event (as all holidays should), utilities can easily build a playbook with a cool holiday slogan and some high-production creative elements for email, bill inserts, print and social messages to make customers aware of the available energy efficiency or money savings programs.  Take a look at the website to be sure it hosts that information in an easy to digest form with great visuals and calls to action.  Then blend the creative with links and QR codes to bring customers to the website to learn more.

If that customer outreach can link customers to a marketplace where they can find special offers or take advantage of special rebates, even better.  And, be sure that the customer service team gets a brief training and knowledge base update directing customers to the right website pages to learn more and enroll in these money savings programs.

And, don't limit efforts to a one-part campaign the week before the "holiday."  A multi-part campaign developing awareness and interest in EE and energy cost control can be a full January staple of a utility customer outreach program.  That's especially important for utilities with a marketplace, as it takes more than one touch or invitation to develop traffic that converts to a sale.  Campaigns with two or three developing touch points that build on the message and include calls to action to drive traffic generally increase over time and likely remain in the customer inbox for later engagement, too.  

All holidays are marketing events.  There's no excuse for utilities not to treat "National Cut Your Energy Costs Day" as an annual outreach campaign that builds EE and money savings awareness among their customers and remains a staple of their customer communication plan.  An easy playbook and a little campaign creative helps customers and utilities get and remain connected.