New Customer Video: Renewables, the Environment, and Aspiration

All decision making is emotional. 

As marketers, we know that to get someone to act, you must inspire a feeling.

Even for B2B marketing.

And yet, so often we see marketing, particularly in the energy category, that is hyper-rational, fact-focused, and often loaded down with product or program details.

Does 0% financing inspire a feeling in you?

We didn't think so.

No matter how impenetrable your facts are or how logical your reasoning, you make decisions with your gut. So how do we tap into people’s emotions and make them care about something they would otherwise ignore?

By talking about the things that matter to them.

You might not care about process or product details, but as a CFO you would care about return on investment. Your job depends on it. You are personally measured by the success you can deliver. 

And that, my friends, is emotional. 

As a homeowner, you probably don't care about a few dollars here or there, but you do care about the comfort and health of your family. The security of your investment in your home. 

So: there is an obvious disconnect between the emotional connection potential of energy efficiency and the way it is normally marketed.

But, and here's the interesting part: when we talk to people (in our research surveys and out in the world), we see a lot of interest, and clear emotional cues, when we talk to them about renewables and the future of energy.

Listen to people talking about renewable energy and what they want for their future here.

It's aspirational. They are attaching meaning, goals, personal success to the ability to go solar. To monitor usage remotely. To have a connected home. 

To being a part of the future.

So: what do we do with this intelligence?

Well, we can start by capitalizing on what excited people and figuring out how to connect our products, services, and brands to those topics.

We can consider re-framing the conversation around energy, energy efficiency, and utilities to be one not of necessity, but of emotional investment.

Creating a conversation around someone’s personal investment in energy, like the responsibility they feel about encouraging a more sustainable future for their kids, rather than something like rebate opportunities is more likely to illicit a lasting response.  Once you’ve gotten them on an emotional level it’s harder for people to let go. 

You hit ‘em right in the heart.  They’re attached.

Instead of forgetting about energy until the bill shows up in their mailboxes, people will have a reason to care about it everyday.  Because we've given them great, inspiring content, in a context that is relevant, through a connection that captured them in a moment they could hear.