An energy management platform gets empowered by data

The words that work

The company asked Grant Thornton to provide advice, research and reasoning on how to represent the platform, with validation to support the approach. 

“The challenge was that this was a sophisticated, multi-module product, purchased in multiple industries by buyers at different levels of tech maturity,” Bowen said.

“We felt the only way to know the most powerful way to position this product, and speak about it, was to truly understand the needs of the people who were going to buy it," Bowen said. "So, rather than just take a surface-level approach of generating a series of value propositions, we took the time to talk to buyers and go deep on those need-states, because that’s where we were going to find the insights necessary to create a compelling go-to-market message plan.”

To identify and analyze buyer needs, behaviors and target personas, the Grant Thornton team recruited energy solution buyers from across 10 industry verticals, including energy managers, facilities operators and chief sustainability officers.

Bowen explained, “We did research up front to understand why the individuals who buy these types of solutions buy them. What are they looking for? What are the problems that they’re trying to solve in their organization or on their facility floor? We also took the time to speak to their competitors, to understand how they position their energy management solutions.” These discussions were the beginning of a four-stage process:

1. Interviews and panels

The Grant Thornton team worked with subject matter experts to uncover insights from buyers, former employees and sellers across the energy industry. Respondents didn’t share trade secrets, but they did talk about the market positioning and core strengths of competitive products. “Our job was to document these strengths, and then do the strategic analysis to understand how the product compared to competitive products and identify the positioning white space to highlight crucial points of differentiation,” Bowen said. “Once we knew that, then we knew how to position the product, with key areas to bring to life in marketing and communications.” 

2. Message creation

“After we gathered all of that information, the next step was to start developing messaging frameworks,” Bowen said. Rather than just a mirror of buyer needs, the team created messages that reflected perspectives on buyer need-states while also differentiating the new platform from its competitors. Once the Grant Thornton team developed these messaging frameworks, it held workshops with the company’s business leaders to refine the technical nomenclature for messages that would resonate with buyers.

3. Message testing

Next, the team applied research again. “We developed a series of quantitative survey instruments, using different methodologies, to test the framing language and verify that the primary and secondary messages were not only effective, but also differentiated from their competitors,” Bowen said. Then, the team ran a factor analysis on the survey results for each message, to test its credibility, differentiation, ease of use, partnership and security. 

The team used the testing to determine the overall “level of influence” for primary and secondary messages about each of the platform’s components, finding that 86% of the messages scored four or more on a five-point scale.

“That gave us more robust insight,” Bowen said. “We make a point of going several steps further to understand not only how and what people think, but why they think that way.”

4. Expanded materials

Once the team had researched, developed and validated the messaging frameworks, it created a messaging architecture of value propositions and differentiators, with solution-specific messaging about the platform’s highest-performing features, actions and solutions. “We created a whole host of go-to-market materials which, when implemented through their marketing team, led to significant increases in site traffic, lead generation and other marketing metrics,” Bowen said.

Bowen explained, “The current website reflects market-validated messaging, for a positioning and powerful product differentiations that resonate with the buyer audience. These go-to-market materials were then translated into sales enablement playbooks to enable the highly effective marketing and sales handoffs.”