How PowerMarket saved thousands on marketing incentives

The highlight reel

—> PowerMarket is a software solution that connects people and businesses with clean energy projects in their communities so they can save on their electric bills and adopt greener habits.

—> The energy company offers incentives to new customers for signing up. They also send customer appeasements to customers who run into an issue.

—> Before Tremendous, PowerMarket used a different platform to send incentives. They had to pay a fee for each incentive they sent.

—> After switching to Tremendous, they saved over $8K on incentives. All while delivering a much better experience for customers: “We receive positive feedback all the time.”

The problem

PowerMarket has a vision for a more eco-friendly future. The company connects people and businesses with clean energy projects in their communities. Everybody wins: PowerMarket’s customers see lower electric bills, and their clean energy partners see wider adoption.

But people are hardwired to resist change. Many need a nudge to take the leap from fossil fuels to renewables. So Leland Gohl, PowerMarket’s Director of Marketing and Customer Experience (CX) launched an initiative to offer incentives to new customers for signing up, and another for referring their friends.

Before Tremendous, PowerMarket used a different platform to send incentives. Tracking incentives was onerous, and the customization options were thin.

“It was really hard to audit and figure out what was sent,” said Leland. “And then, they didn’t have a lot of customization options as far as white labeling is concerned.”

Leland wanted to customize each incentive with PowerMarket’s logo and colors to give new customers a fully branded experience. He wanted the incentive itself to feel like an extension of PowerMarket’s platform.

But most of all, he wanted to spend as little time as possible sending incentives. As the head of both marketing and CX, Leland has a lot of competing priorities. He can’t afford to spend too much time on admin work.

“Each time I sent incentives, I’d have to relearn how to use the platform,” he said. “And that, to me, is indicative of bad design. You should be able to hop right back in the driver’s seat, and pick things right up if you’ve already done it once.”

That’s to say nothing of the $1.50 price tag the vendor tacked onto each incentive. A nominal fee, but it adds up.

“They were charging fees no matter what, on top of the actual dollar amount we were sending to people.”

One afternoon, an incentive landed in Leland’s inbox. It was his payout for participating in a research study.

“I saw the incentive and thought, ‘This looks 1,000 times better’,” he said. “It was clean, and it had the company’s branding. And then when I saw the few steps I had to go through, with very clear terms, and all the options to select, I immediately knew there was a good chance Tremendous checked all the boxes.”

The fix

Options for everyone

The clean energy developers, projects, and clients PowerMarket works with often hold strong values: some, like Community Power Long Island, are associated with labor unions.

When a new customer signs on to use Community Power Long Island’s services, PowerMarket doesn’t want to offer gift cards to any retailers who publicly oppose union drives.

With Tremendous, they can easily toggle off gift cards for specific businesses so recipients don’t see them as redemption options. Instead, they can offer gift cards to over 2,000 other retailers.

“We carefully considered which of the redemption options we wanted to offer, in terms of whether we wanted to send them physically or via email, which charities we wanted to use, et cetera,” said Leland. “With the charities, I wanted to make sure they were brand-aligned.”

A differentiating customer experience

In addition to sending sign-up incentives to new customers, PowerMarket also sends customer appeasements to delight users who reach out after experiencing issues.

“In the case where the utility gets information wrong or they have limited ability to report accurately to us and we need to reconcile charges, we’ll use Tremendous to pay that out,” said Leland.

“It’s a good way to address any customer complaints,” he added.

Customers appreciate the apology, and the swift incentive that comes with it.

“We receive positive feedback about it all the time,” said Leland. “It really helps to be able to give them money through PayPal, Venmo, or direct transfers.”

However, since switching to Tremendous, PowerMarket sends considerably fewer appeasements.

“We just don’t see as many customer complaints on a percentage basis, which is really nice.”

The outcome

PowerMarket hasn't just saved money by switching. They've also added a new value prop to their business.

“We white label incentives with our own brand, but we also use our clean energy developer’s brands when it’s requested,” said Leland. “That’s part of why some organizations will work with us.”

Leland also spends a lot less time sending incentives, and more time on the dozens of other projects on his plate.

“If you’ve sent a reward once, you can easily do it anytime thereafter,” he said. “Tremendous gets a 10 out of 10 in that regard.”

Knowing that he doesn’t have to worry about poor branding, a shoddy customer experience, or exorbitant costs also gives Leland a sense of relief.

He doesn’t have to agonize over the details at that last-mile stretch, when it’s time to actually deliver the payout. So he has more mental bandwidth to focus on other things.

“The biggest benefit to Tremendous has been my peace of mind.”

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