ARTICLE | 6 MIN READ
Marketing to Modern Propane & Heating Oil Consumers
Learn about the five Ps of modern energy marketing.
Marketing can feel overwhelming for most fuel companies. After all, without a full-time marketing role, how can a propane and heating oil dealer add marketing tasks to their already-full plates?
The reality is, marketing can’t be ignored—billboards, newspaper ads, and radio placements no longer attract your target audience. The modern fuel consumer has moved to the web, and they’re getting referrals not just from friends and family, but also from Google, YouTube, and Bing.
If you want to target the right demographics based on how they shop, what attracts them, and what values they want in a company, then you need to change how you market your products and services.
This article is your crash course for modern fuel delivery and HVAC service marketing. We’ll cover the five Ps of modern energy marketing, and in future articles, we’ll explore each in depth to prepare you and your team for the changes already impacting your bottom line.
1: Plan
Sporadic spending without a cohesive plan is the opposite of intentional. And, when it comes to marketing, it’s easy to waste dollars on the wrong campaign, demographic, or message.
Marketing might not be a priority for you right now, but perhaps that’s because you don’t have a solid plan of attack. And the best way to remedy that and get started with marketing is something you can do right now—figure out your audience, goals, budget, channels, and activities.
Who is your ideal customer? Is it a young, budding family that just moved into their first home? Is it the mom-and-pop shop that’s been on Main Street for as long as your fuel company has been around? Whoever you’re selling to, it’s vital to understand who they are, how they shop, and what they like and dislike in a company and advertising message.
OKRs, or Objectives & Key Results, are collaborative goal-setting metrics that help teams achieve ambitious goals with measurable results. You establish the Objective you want to reach, then plan out the Key Results that pave the way to accomplishing your goal. OKRs help your team start small with marketing rather than spreading yourself thin trying to check every box.
How much money will you allocate to marketing initiatives? While marketing strategies such as outsourcing a commercial to a professional production company can be expensive endeavors, there are plenty of free and inexpensive options out there—like building social media profiles and updating your web presence.
Once you understand who you’re marketing to, it gets much easier to figure out how to market to them. Younger audiences thrive on social media and other digital channels, so a strong web presence draws them in. But older audiences still prefer TV and radio ads, which means a commercial spot on the local evening news could be more beneficial.
The channels you use to reach your target audience influence the activities that will bring the most value to your fuel delivery organization. For instance, younger customers prefer companies with a digital footprint. That could mean engaging with industry experts and your community on social media. It could also mean engaging with reviews on Google—the good and the bad.
2: Platforms
Platforms are channels or tools that you can leverage in your marketing efforts. While traditional platforms like newspapers and billboards aren’t entirely obsolete, consumers increasingly favor digital platforms. These come in four different categories.
A website is the digital version of your brick-and-mortar storefront. Customers can go online, visit your website, and compare it to what your competitors offer. If your website suffers from outdated information, weird wording, and sluggishness, it’s time for a facelift. Remember—a bad website is worse than not having a website at all.
Social media channels include Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok, among countless others. While your website is your digital storefront, social media profiles help share your company’s voice and brand. These channels let you share company events, promotions, and behind-the-scenes looks at how your company does what it does.
Google Reviews are business reviews left by your customers on Google. When someone searches for your company, these reviews are among the first things they see. You can take control of these reviews by registering your business with Google, encouraging customers to write reviews, and responding to all reviews—even negative ones—with an open mind and positive attitude.
Advanced platform strategies include search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), and email and SMS marketing. But for now, a website and a few social media pages are a great way to start engaging with your digitally inclined customers.
3: Persistence
So, you’ve planned out your strategies, channels, and activities. The first quarter wraps up, and you’re no closer to your OKRs than before.
Deep breaths—that’s totally normal.
Most folks would panic at those results, but seasoned marketers know that great strategies take time. You don’t grow a tree just days after planting an acorn. It takes time to nurture a strategy and patience to see it through. Remember, what you put out today might take six months or a year to show results.
4: Personalization
Personalization is the key to a good customer experience—it’s probably part of your sales team’s strategy already. But as you experiment with new marketing techniques, it’s critical to analyze what you’re already doing to personalize interactions and build on that to make each touchpoint truly remarkable.
This might mean your sales reps take more notes, such as personal and professional details that customers share during interactions. But more broadly, personalization in marketing is accomplished by developing and utilizing buyer personas.
Personas are a means of categorizing customers with similar interests or demographics. For example, customers who have not yet agreed to automatic deliveries can be grouped under the “will call” persona. You can design a journey for each defined persona that includes related emails and other messages fine-tuned to their interests.
Personalization is made easy with software that offers customer data tools, whether that’s a fuel delivery portal or a marketing automation system. If those systems are integrated, you have even more data to group customers and personalize their experience with your company.
5: People
Providing top-tier customer care and experience is one of the best marketing moves. People talk about what they remember and how their experiences make them feel. Energy marketing requires you to look at your processes from a customer’s point of view and ensure that everything is driven by their needs, not your bottom line.
Consider customers who want to know your company values. “Family-owned” is a popular tagline in the energy industry, but it doesn’t really communicate what those values are. One family’s values might be centered on the community, while another family might value timeliness, accuracy, or any number of selling points.
Customers don’t want to hear sales pitches—they want to hear stories, whether those are the stories of the folks who drive bobtails and get elbow-deep in HVAC systems, or the stories of the people you serve. Dig deep into the background of how your company got started, and why you offer the products and services you offer. Something sets you apart from the other propane dealers in your area—get specific about what you’re doing because that’s what customers want to hear.
The Next Steps for the Five Ps
Now that you know the five Ps of marketing, it’s time to get your hands dirty. Not sure where to start? Here are our top three suggestions that you can do right now:
- 1
Talk to your customers. Get to know them beyond the services they require. Why did they come to you in the first place? Why have they stuck around?
- 2
Establish your OKRs. Look at the metrics that matter most to your business and chart your growth, as well as where you want to be.
- 3
Update your channels. Make sure your website is inviting and user-friendly, get some pictures on social media, and look at your Google reviews.
Are you hungry for more marketing strategies? Stay tuned as we dive into the five Ps of modern energy marketing and help you discover how you can grow your customer base with a sustainable long-term strategy that doesn’t break the bank or waste your time.