Login or sign up to subscribe and save content.

Residential Program Solution Center

Resource Library

Adapt messages to your primary target audience’s needs

Adapt your business model to fit your external environment

Aim for early wins that give the program experience and showcase upgrades as a way to attract customers

Ask customers about their program experience and for feedback on how your program can improve—and listen to their responses

Communicate with audiences at least three times; once is not enough

Conduct one-on-one outreach where people gather and help them take action right away

Connect home performance professionals to trainings focused on the skills that employers want and the community needs

Consider a diversity of funding and revenue sources and make selections based on local opportunities when planning for long-term program sustainability

Consider tiered financing or rebates to encourage deeper upgrades

Contractors are your sales team – educate and empower them with the skills to sell home energy upgrades

Design a program that provides value for contractors and considers their seasonal business cycles

Design your financing activities to enable long-term sustainability

Develop data collection and evaluation plans in conjunction with program design

Develop partnerships based on an alignment of goals, strong collaboration, and consistent communication

Develop routine reports or dashboards to help monitor the collected data

Directly install measures during the assessment

Engage media to garner attention and credibility

Engage with potential lending partners early, and make a clear business case for their involvement

Establish a clear system and process for ensuring quality work

Establish collaborative partnerships with contractors and communicate with them early and often

Establish data sharing relationships as early as possible

Follow through with customers

Foster “word of mouth” communication from satisfied customers

Good news is addictive – spread news about program accomplishments widely and often

Have clear rules and systems for identifying and remedying contractor problems

Help contractors enter the home performance market by lowering barriers to entry

Help contractors understand the program’s financing options and benefits, so they can communicate to homeowners

Hire staff with financing skills and knowledge

Incentivize the action you want your customer to take

Invest in information and communications technology

Keep program participation simple for your contractors

Keep the program simple for your customers

Language matters – use words that resonate with your target audience

Leverage financial sector marketing channels

Leverage the many complementary benefits of energy efficiency programs to broaden your organization’s reach and partnership opportunities

Maintain a sufficient workforce from program launch into program maturity

Make sure there are enough customers in your target market to meet your goals and attract partners

Make upgrade benefits visible by showcasing completed projects and actual results

Make upgrade options clear and concise for customers

Measure and evaluate performance at key points in the process

Motivate action through financial incentives and time-limited offers

Offer customers a range of upgrade paths, including single measures and staging upgrades over time

Offer homeowners multiple types of assessments

Partner with organizations or individuals that customers already trust

Promote existing loan products when possible before developing new ones

Promote financing as part of energy efficiency sales transactions

Provide adequate time for data system development and testing

Provide customers with a single point of contact to help them through the upgrade process

Provide information to help customers pick the right contractor

Provide materials and training to ensure data quality, consistency, and accuracy

Recognize customers who make improvements

Recognize and reward good contractor performance

Set realistic expectations for launching and scaling up your program

Speak about financing in ways that resonate with homeowners

Streamline the financing process with easy loan applications and quick approvals

Tap into secondary market investors to provide lending capital

Use compatible formats for data sharing and reporting, and work with partners to implement standard data exchange protocols

When partnering with lenders through a request for proposal (RFP), establish a clear process and remain flexible