Marketing utility involves discovering how to integrate a product into a customer’s lifestyle by emphasizing how it can solve a problem related to the consumer’s needs. A good marketing utility strategy can help identify what factors influence consumer buying habits and integrate those elements into advertising campaigns.

Businesses use marketing utility on a product level by highlighting the different ways each product can enhance a consumer’s life and on a brand level by associating the company itself with certain types of usefulness.

When developing a marketing strategy, it’s important to understand the type of utility your brand or product can give to customers. To appropriately market a product to an audience, you need to be able to develop a value proposition, which explains the unique benefits a product can provide to consumers. Utility in marketing helps businesses and  guide their marketing plans based on how customers use their products.

• Directors (Government & Private Sector in utilities)
• Senior managers
• Heads of departments
• Credit managers
• Sales and marketing professionals
• HR professionals
• Legal professionals
• Entrepreneurs
• Investors
• Supervisory and regulatory officers
• Operations managers and executives who need to use financial statements for better decision making and to read in-between the lines for greater insights to accounting numbers.

After attending this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Strengthening customer relationships: When you provide value to a customer, you create an opportunity to develop a mutually beneficial business relationship.
• Developing a brand identity: Using marketing utility to drive product development and advertising can help you strengthen your brand based on the service it provides.
• Reaching new audiences: An important part of utility marketing is finding alternative uses for a product and repurposing its functions to meet various needs.
• Guiding repeat purchases: Because marketing utility involves showing customers how they can improve their lives with a product, it can help secure repeat purchases.

Primary Components
The Ten Attributes of Effectively Managed Sector for Utilities (Attributes).
Five Keys to Management Success. Success into their workplace culture, utilities create a robust foundation for strong, ongoing performance in the Ten Attribute areas.

Self-Assessment Tools.

The rigorous and systematic self-assessment tool for utility managers and staff evaluate their operations and identify where to begin improvement efforts.
Implementation of Effective Utility Management. The Implementation section is a central connecting point between multiple elements of Effective

Utility Management.

It focuses on an overall continual improvement cycle (the “EUM cycle”), and describes how a utility’s self-assessment results can lead into a cycle of planning, implementation of effective practices,
measuring performance, and making adjustments over time. It includes the following components:
A description of the essential components of the EUM cycle;
A guide for measuring performance;
Resources to support Effective Utility Management implementation; and
Steps for creating an Improvement Plan.

• What are the main types of marketing utility?
• What are the main types of marketing utility?
• Form Utility
• Time Utility
• Place Utility
• Possession utility
• Information
• Marketing in Cycle
• Water Conservation Cycle
• Electric Conservation  Cycle
• Gas Conservation
• Measurements and decision making
• Lagging: At the end of the day, stepping on a scale and recording your weight.
• Leading: Tracking the number of calories consumed and the number of calories expended through exercise.
• Coincidental: Analyzing the two measurements, calories consumed and calories expended holistically

Utility Measures & Product Quality
1. Regulatory compliance
2. Service delivery

Customer Satisfaction
1. Customer complaints
2. Customer service delivery
3. Customer satisfaction

Employee and Leadership Development
1. Employee retention and satisfaction
2. Management of core competencies
3. Workforce development

Operational Optimization
1. Resource optimization
2. Water management efficiency

Utility Measures

• Financial Viability
• Budget management effectiveness
• Financial procedure integrity
• Bond ratings
• Rate adequacy

Infrastructure Stability

• Asset inventory
• Asset (system) renewal/replacement
• Water distribution/collection system integrity
• Infrastructure planning and maintenance

Enterprise Resiliency

• Recordable incidents of injury or illnesses
• Insurance claims
• Risk assessment and response preparedness
• Ongoing operational resiliency
• Operational resiliency under emergency conditions

Effective management of Utilities
Leadership

• Stakeholder understanding
• Quality of the Product
• Customer Satisfaction

Strategic business Planning

• Employee and leadership development
• Operational optimization
• Financial Viability
• Infrastructure strategy and Performance

Monitoring & Evaluation

• Enterprise resilience
• Community Sustainability
• Water Resource Sustainability
• Continual Improvements
• Setting standards & Benchmarking

Using reports

• Typical reports – month, year to date and full year

Keys for Utility Management Success

• Leadership
• Strategic Business Planning
• Assessing current conditions and conducting a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• (SWOT analysis);
• Characterizing a continuum of possible and likely future conditions;
• Assessing underlying causes and effects of future conditions; and
• Establishing vision, objectives, strategies, and underlying organizational values.

Continual Improvement Management

• honest and comprehensive self- assessment
• Identify improvement opportunities
• Establishing and implementing performance measures and specific internal targets
• Implementing related operational requirements, practices, and procedures;

ASSESSMENT TOOL

• Assessing Current Level of Achievement
• Effective, systematic approach and implementation; to consistently achieve goals.
• Workable systems in place; to achieve goals.
• Understanding partial systems in place with moderate achievement, but could improve.
• Periodic automated addressing when specific need arises.

Rank Importance of Attributes

• Product Quality (PQ)
• Customer Satisfaction (CS) Data collection & Analysis
• Employee and Leadership Development (ED)
• Operational Optimization (OO)
• Financial Viability (FV)
• Infrastructure Strategy and  Performance (IS)
• Enterprise Resiliency (ER)
• Community Sustainability (SU)

CASE STUDIES

•  Argentine system
• Japanese systems
• Dubai Systems
• Cape Town
• London Systems
• New York Model