British Gas details content marketing shift
British Gas is exploring how content marketing can bring consistency between its campaign and customer service activity as it looks to pull away from product-based marketing.
The energy firm is working with marketing strategy experts Institute Consultancy Services (ICS) to map out the customer journey across all its communications channels.
The map will use content to understand how effectively channels such as email work in harmony with its service engineers rather than using them isolation to broadcast unrelated promotions. This includes integrating all inbound and outbound marketing operations alongside defining a new set of reputation management, sales uplift and brand engagement goals.
The energy firm is currently trialing the plan on the customers of one of its products with a view to having a scalable blueprint in place within four months. Decisions will be made on whether to introduce new editorial and social media teams once the content map has been finalised. Ultimately, the plan will extend beyond retail to all parts of the British Gas business.
British Gas has utilised an integrated approach to marketing in the past, however, those efforts were split between product and brand. Upcoming activity will be more reflective of topics its customers are interested in such as cost-savings and green energy. The company believes traditional product-based campaigns are not enough to deliver sustained growth at a time of competition reforms for the sector following recent price hikes.
British Gas lost nearly 400,000 customers last year after coming under fire from politicians and consumer groups, putting pressure on upcoming plans to spark a turnaround in 2014. It previously said it is reviewing the structure of its marketing and communications setup to reach customers in the changing media landscape.
