npower Business Solutions (nBS) is the UK’s leading provider of business energy solutions. Serving more than 22,000 I&C customers across more than 100,000 sites, they help organisations buy and use energy more efficiently, supporting businesses in their path to net zero. The brief: When nBS joined the E.ON group and expanded their capabilities, they needed to develop a net zero offering that could cut through the noise. With sustainability becoming a hot topic for businesses, nBS recognised an opportunity to move into new markets and become the energy partner of choice for carbon-conscious firms. To achieve this, they reached out to The Marketing Pod for support in creating a powerful net zero proposition.
Our approach:
In the first stage of this campaign, we developed a simple and clear proposition – ‘Visualise, Optimise, Decarbonise’ – and used it as the base for a variety of collaterals, including:
- Sales enablement collateral and comms
- Internal comms
- A whitepaper presenting the views of 100+ businesses
Our primary research took a desk-based approach. This showed us that the net zero conversation rarely addressed practical challenges. There was a lot of information about how confused businesses were, but little on how to get started – it was clear that there was a gap for action-focused, accessible knowledge.
The Pod identified nBS’ target audience as the C-suite, senior sustainability or procurement professionals, and those responsible for buying and/or managing energy at medium and large businesses.
In order to create new, deeper insights, we surveyed 100+ businesses across various sectors, interviewed key industry stakeholders, and held a closed virtual round table, featuring eight delegates, facilitated by Solar Power Portal.
The resulting whitepaper, ‘Your Business Blueprint – the road to net zero’, gathered the opinions of business leaders across several industry sectors on the challenges of achieving net zero, providing nBS with valuable information on the kind of support organisations needed. It was then delivered to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), giving UK businesses a voice in the net zero conversation and empowering them to influence new energy policies.
The success of the whitepaper led nBS to extend their collaboration with us in order to develop an integrated marketing and PR campaign. The main goal of the campaign was to drill down further into the customer issues highlighted in the primary research. We wanted to provide tangible solutions and support, as well as create engaging and genuinely useful content, in line with nBS’s ethos of being on the customer’s side in the net zero debate.
In 2021, thanks to the information gathered from businesses in the previous stage of the campaign, we created a suite of assets to educate customers on topics such as implementing net zero, on-site generation and funding options.
Using the new insight, the “Road to Net Zero” Knowledge Hub was created on nBS’ website. It consisted of:
- Three informative, eye-catching guides, each covering a challenge to net zero
- Sector variations of the guides to make the content more relevant for the public sector, manufacturing, transport and logistics, and retail
- Three games to educate businesses in a fun and engaging way
- Animated video and infographics
- Four topic-led blog posts
- Dedicated landing pages on nBS’s website
The new insights gained were also used to create articles and spread knowledge among identified trade and vertical titles read by the audience. We also run two webinars, one for businesses and one specifically for the NHS.
Finally, we created the Net Zero Calculator, an interactive platform that guides businesses in calculating their current levels of carbon emissions, and allows them to visualise the environmental and financial impact of green initiatives they might want to implement. The platform was entirely designed and created in house by The Marketing Pod’s digital team.
Pod services used:
- Martech consultancy
- Proposition development
- Research
- Content strategy
- Copywriting
- Web development
- Website optimisation
- Webinar development
- Gamification
- Video
- Design
- PR
The results:
The PR campaign around the ‘Your Business Blueprint’ whitepaper achieved 24 quality thought-leadership articles in influential titles including edie, Solar Power Portal, NHS, The Energyst and Energy Manager – with a total reach of more than 1.2 million readers.
The whitepaper had more than 370 downloads, of which 154 were Marketing Qualified Leads. There were also more than 1,700 visits and game plays on the Road to net Zero Knowledge Hub.
The webinars were attended by 136 engaged members of our target audiences.
At the moment, the Net Zero Calculator has achieved 1,050 page views, and has already helped many businesses to assess their carbon footprint and plot a realistic path to reduce it.
Most importantly, business customers are now on their way to net zero – with carbon savings identified and action plans underway.
TESTIMONIAL
“The Marketing Pod is one of the best marketing agencies I have worked with. There really isn’t anything that they cannot deliver, and words can’t even begin to describe how they perform in a crisis. They love a deadline, and they never fail.”
Laura Watts, Social Media and Content Lead, npower Business Solutions
N.B. The information contained in this entry is provided by the above supplier, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher
