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One of the coolest things I learned when writing for power systems engineers was just how glacial their procurement and implementation processes are. Getting an engineer interested in a new type of product or solution is a herculean task in itself: the US power grid is built from components that are decades older than anyone working on it, and hundreds of thousands of power customers (including hospitals, schools, and other critical services) rely on those components to keep their electricity flowing.
Introducing a new type of Thing into that mix means introducing uncertainty. Does it add value over what we currently have in place? Is it more likely to fail? When it fails, how easy is it to replace or fix?
Getting that same audience to procure a product or solution is another long process, just because we are talking about publicly-controlled funding processes for most energy companies.
Finally, getting those engineers to implement the thing they purchased requires hundreds of hours (sometimes several years) of testing as backups or disconnected tertiary systems to ensure that the new product will do what they want it to do, the first time, every time.
Substation Automation is B2B, SaaS, and More
Automating an electric substation requires quite a few hoops, so it’s not quite as simple as getting a product key and distributing executables over the network.
B2B: Automation requires a business case
Marketing substation automation solutions requires a strong business case for the adoption, especially for power companies and industrial engineers who are using older, electromechanical equipment for protection, automation, and control (PAC). It is a significant expense, and it doesn’t necessarily pay for itself quickly.
However, if this quarter’s bottom line is not the most important issue at hand, then the value prop is clear: automation improves safety, it makes expansion easier, and it allows engineers to design a reusable PAC scheme for every substation or transformer box in a system.
SaaS, Hardware Included
At the core, automation is a software-based solution. The software typically runs on specialized hardware, but this is a similar issue to running a crypto-mining operation or a video editing studio: the hardware has to be designed to accommodate the software’s needs. Some hardware products (like the RTAC series in this campaign) are now old enough that they could be replaced by other machines, so long as the user is running the software at a level appropriate for their device.
That said, what is it? Substation automation software, regardless of vendor, is a specialized operating system and set of tools designed to take inputs from measurement instruments and issue commands to control devices. As user-account controls and other authentication and access management needs have become necessary in power infrastructure, automation software has expanded to include centralized access control, so a substation’s critical devices are no longer accessible to anyone with the right key (or a crowbar). Now, they require a username and password, each of which can be randomized or revoked at specific times.
And More
Automation in any field is complex. In the electric power system, automation includes hundreds or thousands of devices, all of which need to work in harmony to avoid catastrophe.
So, for customers who do not have the manpower or budget to support this process, the campaign includes pitches for additional support from the company’s Engineering Services division. Typically, this is a turnkey solution: Engineering Services will create the full set of algorithms and install them on every device in the customer’s system, and they will ensure that the customer has all of the education they need to manage (and customize) it at hand-off. SEL also prides itself on providing excellent customer support for decades after a purchase. That same team of engineers is ready to assist by phone or in person at any time.
The Campaign
This engagement campaign went live in the Fall of 2022. It has had a few revisions to individual emails and landing pages over the past eight months, largely to address underperforming emails. However, these emails outperform most single, direct emails, with a click-through rate of 10% or more on nearly every email and an audience in the thousands.
The campaign itself is largely linear, with one “shortcut” offered in the middle for audiences who don’t engage with one message. The assumption is that these audiences are not interested in a particular kind of automation solution, so rather than make them sit through a few narrative components that don’t affect them, we skip directly to a more general thread before the conclusion of the campaign.
Welcome Email
The campaign opens with a simple thank you message and a note about what’s coming up. This provides recipients a chance to opt out before getting more email (in case they thought it was something different or didn’t realize they were signing up for emails). The list experienced very few unsubscribes from this message.
Narrative Arc 1: Building Common Ground
Early emails emphasize that the sender has the same goals and values as the recipient. In this case, we want to show that the company offers solutions to the recipient’s problems, and that the solutions are appropriate for the recipient’s application.
Emails indicate a link to content that shows a different customer with similar needs…
…while landing pages frame the content (typically flyers or technical papers) in a way that primes the reader to more easily find details that interest them.
This seems impossible at first. How can we predict an email recipient’s needs when designing the email script months or years before they sign up?
That’s the purpose of building rapport early on. In this campaign, we show that customers can improve substation automation (very valuable for electric utilities) while saving money and improving security (also very valuable).
Consistent language and images from email to landing page—as well as consistent phrasing of benefits throughout the campaign—create a narrative where the email sender is a proven, trustworthy partner to support the recipient on their journey.
Narrative Arc 2: Fostering Commitment
The middle section of an engagement campaign creates a sense of commitment from the audience by providing more “nuts and bolts” detail of the subject.
Emails provide more technical language and specificity about how technologies are applied…
…while landing pages continue to frame assets by telling readers what specific benefit is demonstrated in the linked paper or flyer.
At this point, users are given a chance for a shortcut: if they do not engage with a paper describing how to design a process bus (a specific application of substation automation), they will skip the next few emails.
First, they will skip a free webinar about process bus solutions. If they didn’t want to read about design considerations, it is unlikely they will want to watch a webinar about the benefits of several process bus designs.
Next, they will skip a detailed technical paper that describes several utilities’ approaches to process bus solutions. Again, if they didn’t want to read about design considerations, this is probably not for them.
If they do engage with the design considerations paper, however, they are given this material to help steer them towards specific questions or documents to help them determine if the solution fits their needs.
Narrative Arc 3: Take Action
The closing arc of an engagement campaign asks for some kind of action. Here, we offer a sort of “half step” towards a typical process bus, something that provides greater automation advantages than a system without communications without demanding as much complexity as the process bus designs from previous emails.
And, we highlight the additional automation benefits of devices a recipient is likely to already have in their substations (or is going to purchase in the next upgrade), showing additional value without much additional investment.
Why wouldn’t we provide this content earlier in the campaign? Much of it relies on the recipient already understanding the value of increased data collection or automation processes, something that is covered in the primer material up front.
But once that is in place, the engagement campaign can provide very specific, “nuts and bolts” guidance on getting greater benefits from automation systems, solving problems that can seem very complex from the outside.
At this stage, it is important to always frame large or complex problems as a series of small issues with well-known solutions. It may be difficult to solve them all, but there is a recipe to follow.
And, more important than the recipe and the tools provided in these emails…
…is the reassurance that the sender of the emails is not merely hawking a widget to solve these problems.
The sender is here as a partner, ready to provide more proof points that they can and will assist with any problem.
In the end, it’s not necessarily about making a sale for each recipient. An engagement campaign is not an infomercial.
In the end, it’s about providing the recipient with the tools, language, and knowledge necessary to see that the sender can be a partner in solving problems if that’s what the recipient wants. And, if they’ve made it this far, then they are probably ready to have that conversation.
