Briding the gap. [Marketing by electric utilities]
Like the telephone and natural gas industries before them, electric utilities are restaffing, rebuilding, and revitalizing their marketing departments to deal with emerging and often unknown competition. Until the 1970s, the electric utility industry was a marketer's dream, consisting principally of closing and counting sales. Strategy, if it existed, was little more than a sales plan. Understanding and selling to customers was a simple task, with customers secondary to sales. In the late 70s, the sales orientation changed. Faced with rising costs and rigid regulators, many utilities disbanded their marketing departments. For those that remained, saving-not selling-energy became the order. Many utilities became adept at marketing load management and conservation. But instead of focusing on customer needs, their actions were largely driven by the goals of rate, regulatory, and forecasting departments. Rather than researching and influencing customers, marketers studied load shapes and supplies. As the process became more of a regulatory chore than a competitive choice, many marketers admitted they knew less about marketing (and their customers) than ever before. That admission-the recognition that marketing starts with customers and drives corporate strategy-was an important turning point for electric utility marketers. Now they must use their own evolving mindset to change the image of marketing in the minds of colleagues, executives, and regulators. They must position marketing as an opportunity to help their companies as well as their customers.
- OSTI ID:
- 5098451
- Journal Information:
- Fortnightly; (United States), Vol. 132:3
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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