How do you drive awareness and engagement of a complex product in one of the worlds most expensive and crowded media markets?
National Grid, an electricity and natural gas delivery company that connects nearly 7 million customers to vital energy sources through its networks in NY, MA and RI, has long known that segmentation in marketing can help to create relevancy for customers.
But in 2015, there was an opportunity to take segmentation much deeper.
And yesterday, we co-presented on this topic with our partner from National Grid at AESPs Brown Bag webinar "Learn How Hyper-Targeting Drives Business Results". We specifically presented on a test we did in Brooklyn and Staten Island, the lessons we learned, and how we are deploying those insights into a new demonstration project in MA: demand response.
@ashKSV: Michelle, thanks so much for this Q&A. So as a primer for those who weren't a part of the webinar yesterday, we focused on this very successful pilot program in NYC. In fact, KSV created a brand new KSV Brief on it for people who want an executive summary.
@MichelleNG: It was a really successful case study, and now we're taking what we learned and putting those insights to work on demand response. And we've even stepped it up a level and are being more strategic with the targeting. And early results are really exciting. We've had a 60% increase in participation since we launched the hyper-targeted portion of our demand response campaign.
@ashKSV: Yes, so exciting. So yesterday, we heard a lot of questions about how we worked through the hyper-targeting process and one of the biggest insights that you shared was that this had to be "big enough to get noticed".
@MichelleNG: Yes. In this media market in particular, but really in any effort, we're trying to balance the need to be smart and strategic and manage limited budgets with the need to create something that is big enough to get noticed. For us, that meant that simply doing a digital campaign was not enough. It was the combination of hyper-targeted digital PLUS the targeted out of home that made this successful.
@ashKSV: We also got a question that was specific to how we targeted people.
@MichelleNG: Yes. And the answer is that this was a big job with a lot of legwork. For the Brooklyn piece, we looked at our propensity models, at customer behavior insights (when will they feel the discomfort most dearly? How can we add value to their experience? who is most likely to engage with us and where are they hanging out online, what is a part of their everyday life?), and then together with you guys at KSV we developed a plan that would capitalize on all of those opportunities.
@ashKSV: And for demand response, it was even more legwork.
@MichelleNG: Yup. KSV helped us develop a really strategic and comprehensive plan to the table with a lot of "if/then" possibilities. And it isn't just emails and direct mails. This is hyper-targeted advertising, cross-screens. That's what makes it so valuable and so different from what many others are doing. It was a ton of work, but the results are speaking for themselves.
Want to hear more about this case study and what we, and National Grid, learned?
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Want to hear how hyper-targeting can work for non-residential audiences?
Take a look at our Hyper-Targeting and the C&I Customer Brief.
