This is a story about a coconut and a hammer.
And the story begins with the market and the dilemma for small and medium sized business.
The market for energy efficiency in industry covers products, services, IT and financing of various kinds. In principle, this is a brilliant market. Big in size, growing and politically supported. In case you are interested in the details, check for example the IEA Energy Efficiency Market Report 2014 referring to Energy Efficiency as the "first fuel". Or just think of the Paris Climate Change Agreement signed end 2015.
But there is a hard (coco)nut to crack for SMEs: how to find the customers? Or likely better, how can potential customer find them?
Until today, the usual approach was to either use advertising in business magazines, exhibit on a trade fair or maybe using some GoogleAds. Whatever the choice is, it always costs a lot of money and time - especially what the typical SME does not have for marketing purposes! And here comes the hammer.
Back in 2011, we founded a global, neutral, not-for-profit industry network focussing on energy efficiency in industry, called EEIP (Energy Efficiency in Industrial Processes). The intention was to connect people from all industries, company sizes and functions to exchange information. To do so, this network was set-up in every channel you can think of at the same time, from social media to online, from apps to newsletters, from magazines to events. This should allow everyone to connect and receive information wherever and however they want.
And then it exploded.
Today there are more than 100.000 connected to EEIP and more than 100 connect every day! EEIP has become the biggest and fastest growing industry network for energy efficiency worldwide with connections in basically every country around the globe.
What this has to do with the hammer?
This network is the perfect target group as they are looking for information, the reason why they are connected. And the EEIP network itself consists out of 20 different communication channels already.
From here it was just a small step.
- The network is looking for information
- Content Marketing uses case studies or whitepapers as this is seen as valuable information while at the same time introducing the capabilities and offerings of a company.
A perfect fit.
On top of this we have developed a smart IT platform - called EnergyPages - being capable to manage the entire marketing process.
The result.
In 15 minutes to a 12-month global marketing campaign with communication every 2 weeks into the network - for just EUR 120/month.
The combination of a dedicated business network with a content marketing solution is cracking the nut for SMEs: A solution which costs nearly no time and at very low cost. That is allowing many SMEs for the first time to benefit from global marketing access.
That´s why it is the next generation marketing. And that´s also the reason EEIPs content marketing solution has been nominated for German Energyefficiency Award 2016 "Perpetuum".
