The Challenge

Enabling targeted marketing for service expansion.

A leading residential solar energy provider aimed to double the average number of services per customer from 3.5 to 7. To achieve this, they needed to develop a targeted marketing strategy that would:

• Provide precise visibility into customer preferences and behaviors.

• Promote personalized engagement to increase service adoption.

• Facilitate the creation of tailored marketing campaigns that resonate with individual customers.

The keys to this transformation included leveraging advanced data analytics and machine learning to overcome the challenges they faced with their previous marketing efforts, which included:

• A one-size-fits-all approach to customer messaging.

• Limited ability to track and measure campaign performance.

• Lack of detailed customer segmentation.

The Solution

Enhancing marketing with an AI-driven upsell model.

The project began with a comprehensive analysis of the provider’s customer, product, and engagement data stored in Salesforce Data Cloud. By refining the problem statement and conducting user research, we identified the key requirements and priority users whose needs would shape the solution.

The development phase involved several critical steps, including data consolidation within Salesforce Data Cloud, data integration using AWS Data Wrangler, model development using AWS SageMaker, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud for segmentation and campaign tracking.

• Data integration: Consolidating customer, product, and engagement data from various sources into Salesforce Data Cloud to create a unified data repository.

• Model development: Building a machine learning model to predict upsell opportunities by calculating propensity scores for each customer and service location.

• Segmentation: Implementing advanced segmentation techniques to identify high-propensity customers, ensuring targeted and effective marketing campaigns.

• Campaign tracking: Developing tools to monitor and evaluate the performance of marketing campaigns, providing insights for continuous improvement.

The iterative development process included creating prototypes and refining the front-end experience to ensure usability and functionality. Once the minimum viable product (MVP) was launched, we continued to collaborate with the provider to mature the upsell model, incorporating user feedback and expanding its capabilities.

By following a product-focused approach, we ensured the project was user-centric and aligned with our client’s business goals. Credera's expertise in product management facilitated the prioritization of key features and alignment with our client’s objectives. This approach enabled quick adaptation to new requirements, effective communication, collaboration across cross-functional teams, and the identification and mitigation of risks to ensure continuous and timely feature delivery.

The Results

Driving service adoption and marketing efficiency.

The result of this initiative was a modern, scalable solution that significantly enhanced the solar energy provider’s marketing capabilities, enabling them to craft targeted campaigns and drive business growth through effective upsell strategies. Areas of improvement included:

• Enhanced customer insights: Better segmentation and propensity scoring provided deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences.

• Improved campaign performance: The ability to track and measure campaign effectiveness led to more informed decision-making and optimized marketing strategies.

  • Within 30 days of leveraging recommended audiences based on propensity and engagement scores, our client saw a 130% increase in open rates and a 403% increase in click-through rates.

• Operational efficiency: Streamlined data integration and analysis processes reduced operational overhead and improved overall efficiency of audience creation and campaign tracking.

The energy provider is now better equipped to deliver personalized marketing messages and achieve their service expansion goals, ultimately providing more customized and reliable energy solutions to their customers.