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Evaluation & Data Collection – Communicate Impacts

Communicate pertinent results of evaluations to program staff, partners, and stakeholders.
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Communicate Impacts

Publicize benefits and lessons learned resulting from your organization’s success in the market.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Make Design Decisions

Solidify your program strategy and decide which customers you will focus on; what products, services, and support you will provide; and how you will partner with contractors and others to deliver services to your customers.
Handbook

Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development – Develop Evaluation Plans

Determine processes for collecting and sharing data about key contractor metrics and workforce development activities.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Identify Partners

Establish relationships with organizations that can help deliver your program by enhancing your knowledge, resources, capabilities and access to customers and contractors.
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Create a Business Plan

Create your organization’s business plan, which describes how your operational and financial structure will support the delivery of energy efficiency services.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Assess & Improve Processes

Monitor the effectiveness of marketing and outreach strategies and adapt as needed.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Communicate Impacts

Communicate marketing and outreach results internally and to partners.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Deliver Program

Implement marketing and outreach activities in coordination with other program components to generate demand for your program's services.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Develop Resources

Create your program's branding guidelines and materials to elevate program visibility and support your marketing and outreach efforts.
Handbook

Financing – Make Design Decisions

Determine if enhancements to existing financing products or the development of new products are necessary to allow you to achieve your goals and objectives.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Develop Implementation Plans

Develop a marketing and outreach plan that details your strategies and tactics, workflows and timelines, staff roles and responsibilities, and budget.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Make Design Decisions

Decide on priority target audience segments, messages, and incentives that will motivate customers.
Handbook

Financing – Identify Partners

Identify and partner with financial institutions that can provide capital, underwriting, and other functions to enable your customers to access financing.
Handbook

Financing – Set Goals & Objectives

Establish goals, objectives, and timeframes for your financing activities.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Identify Partners

Establish relationships with organizations that will assist with program marketing and outreach.
Handbook

Financing – Assess the Market

Determine how your target audience currently funds energy efficiency services, to what extent upfront cost is a barrier, and whether improvements to their financing options would increase the uptake of energy efficiency measures.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Assess the Market

Identify and prioritize potential target audiences based on their likely receptivity to your program's services.
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Assess the Market

Survey existing and potential demand for energy efficiency products and services based on an understanding of policies, housing and energy characteristics, demographics, related initiatives and other market actors.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Set Goals & Objectives

Establish specific marketing and outreach goals, objectives, targets, and timeframes.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Overview

Design a residential energy efficiency program that integrates marketing and outreach, contractor coordination, incentives, financing, and program evaluation to provide customers with the products and services they want through a customer-centric process.
Handbook

Financing – Overview

Ensure that your program’s customers will have access to affordable financing, so they can pay for the services you offer.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Overview

Spur consumer demand for your program's services by understanding your target audience and motivating them to act using effective messaging, marketing and outreach tactics, and attractive program offers.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Develop Resources

Develop the necessary materials, tools, and staff capacity to effectively deliver and manage your program.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Communicate Impacts

Develop a strategy for communicating program impacts and benefits to key audiences to create and sustain support and engagement.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Assess the Market

Research and analyze the specific barriers, needs, and opportunities for a residential energy efficiency program in your community.
Handbook

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

Many programs that focused on a specific neighborhood or other small geographic areas have found it difficult to generate enough customer interest, partner interest, and upgrade activity to meet program goals. Regional or statewide approaches are often more attractive to contractors, lenders...
Tips for Success

Promote existing loan products when possible before developing new ones

Developing new energy efficiency loan products requires financial expertise and resources that not every program has available or that might not even be necessary. Finding and promoting existing energy efficiency loan products, such as loans that may be offered by a local credit union, your state...
Tips for Success

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

All residential energy efficiency programs have found that outreach needs to be repeated to connect with and remind potential participants about program offerings. As marketing gurus note, the majority of people need to be exposed to a product message at least three times (on separate occasions) to...
Tips for Success

Adapt messages to your primary target audience’s needs

Many programs found that market research can help identify, segment, and characterize audiences to understand how to prioritize them. A comprehensive evaluation of over 140 programs across the United States found that programs had greater success when they identified specific target populations...
Tips for Success

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

Programs that conducted one-on-one outreach found that community events provided good opportunities for the program and its partners to connect and build credibility with potential customers. Particularly successful events were ones that attracted the program’s target audience and aligned with their...
Tips for Success

Language matters – use words that resonate with your target audience

Words have power, so many programs decided to use language with positive associations. For example, the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program encouraged use of the term "assessment" instead of "audit" to avoid the negative connotation of a tax audit. "Home energy upgrade" sounds more positive than...
Tips for Success

Bullseye: Top Strategies for Targeted Marketing (101)

Author(s)
U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date
2016

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on targeted marketing strategies that can be used to craft successful outreach initiatives and communications. It also covered challenges and best practices for engaging specific demographics, including hard-to-reach market segments such as Hispanics, and provided insights into Hispanics relationship with energy.

Resource - Topical Presentations

Stakeholder Mapping: Learn How to Identify Leaders, Target Audiences, and Gaps in Your Outreach

Author(s)
U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date
2014

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to identify stakeholders and map them to determine the best engagement strategy.

Resource - Topical Presentations

California Public Utilities Commission Market Segmentation Findings and Ethnographic Research Findings

Author(s)
Opinion Dynamics Corporation
Publication Date
2009
This presentation shares the findings of research conducted to determine a customer base for energy efficiency improvements developed by the California Public Utilities Commission.
Resource - Topical Presentations

Audience Brainstorm and Categorization Worksheet

Author(s)
U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date
2011
This audience brainstorming and categorization worksheet assists programs in determining their target audiences and which audiences to prioritize.
Resource - Templates & Forms

Why It's Essential for Home Improvement Companies to Use Digital Marketing: A Quick and Easy Guide to Digital Advertising for Local Businesses

Author(s)
G/O Digital
Publication Date
2014

Home improvement companies have to understand how to connect their services to their target audience’s typical purchase cycle. They have to think about how customers find them, where customers are researching specific program services, and what prompts them to call one business versus another. This guide highlights the state of home improvement marketing today, the benefits of going digital, and the five best digital marketing services for home improvement organizations.

Resource - Publications

Enhancing State Energy Efficiency Efforts Through Information and Outreach to Consumers

Author(s)
National Governors Association
Publication Date
2012
Organizations or Programs
TakeCharge! Challenge,
Enhabit,
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)

Many states have adopted policies intended to overcome the barriers that limit the more efficient use of electricity. Yet because such efforts have not addressed the lack of consumer information and motivation to improve efficiency, many opportunities for energy efficiency remain untapped. To help address that problem, states, utilities, and other energy efficiency service providers have begun to develop new approaches to informing and motivating customers based on behavioral economics and psychology research. This report describes three broad strategies that states can use to engage consumers' participation in energy efficiency programs: provide direct consumer information and feedback on energy use, influence social norms; and match messages and messengers to target audiences. Recommendations for actions that governors can take within the context of each of those three strategies are provided.

Resource - Publications

Building Retrofit Industry and Market (BRIM) Market Research Scan

Author(s)
Innovation Network for Communities (Prepared for the Rockefeller Foundation)
Publication Date
2011

This research report and slides provide a detailed segmentation of the building energy upgrade market and summarize market research on each segment. Market segments include single-family homes, multi-family homes, and several types of commercial and institutional buildings.

Resource - Publications

Market Segmentation and Energy Efficiency Program Design

Author(s)
California Institute for Energy and Environment
Publication Date
2008
This report provides an overview of market segmentation purpose, examples and methodologies.
Resource - Publications

California Public Utilities Commission Joint Consumer Action Plan

Author(s)
California Public Utilities Commission
Publication Date
2017
Organizations or Programs
Energy Upgrade California

This document reflects what the California Public Utilities Commission’s customer engagement campaign will accomplish from April 1, 2017 through March 31, 2018. It also includes goals and objectives, target audiences, high-level approaches and strategies, metrics, and implementation roles and responsibilities for each strategy.

Resource - Program Presentations & Reports

Energy Efficiency Residential Marketing Keep it Simple. Keep it Focused.

Author(s)
Nancy L. Hohns, EnergyWorks
Publication Date
2012
Organizations or Programs
EnergyWorks
This presentation describes the brand, messaging strategy, and campaign tactics used by Philadelphia EnergyWorks to reach its target audience.
Resource - Program Presentations & Reports

Information on Consumer Segmentation

Author(s)
Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit)
Publication Date
2010
Organizations or Programs
Enhabit

Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) developed consumer profiles based on research the program conducted on its target audience.

Resource - Program Presentations & Reports

EnergySmart 2014 Marketing Plan and Implementation Guide

Author(s)
EnergySmart
Publication Date
2014
Organizations or Programs
EnergySmart Colorado

This marketing plan describes a social mobilization approach that leverages social networking, including social media, and word-of-mouth marketing to raise awareness and drive customers to program services. It provides strategies and tactics to target audiences most likely to participate, building on market research and audience segmentation to develop a message platform specifically designed to address their key motivating factors and barriers.

Resource - Program Materials

Assessing Community Readiness

Author(s)
U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date
2012

In this video interview segment, Mary Templeton with BetterBuildings for Michigan discusses developing a readiness scale to determine if target audiences are ready to hear a program’s messages and take advantage of its offerings.

Resource - Case Studies

Benefits of Market Segmentation

Author(s)
U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date
2012

In this video interview segment, Bruce Doeuck of JEA ShopSmart in Jacksonville, Florida,  discusses the market segmentation methodology his program used to better understand its audience.

Resource - Case Studies

Trusting Neighbors

Author(s)
U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date
2011

Through its target audience research, Rutland, Vermont's NeighborWorks H.E.A.T. Squad learned that neighbors are the most trusted messengers of energy efficiency upgrade information, rather than governments or utilities.

Resource - Case Studies

Testing Program Messages

Author(s)
U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date
2013
Organizations or Programs
Energy Impact Illinois
Energy Impact Illinois (EI2) conducted 1,600 phone surveys of mid- to high-income households. Its aim was to test program messaging and gauge attitudes toward home improvements and energy efficiency upgrades. The surveys provided a number of insights on the target audience's decision process.
Resource - Case Studies

Content Type

  • Handbook (26)
  • Resource (16)
  • Tips for Success (6)

Resource Type

Program Components

  • Market Position & Business Model (7)
  • Program Design & Customer Experience (10)
  • Evaluation & Data Collection (3)
  • Marketing & Outreach (26)
  • Financing (7)
  • Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development (2)

Program Design Phases

  • Overview (5)
  • Strategy Development (27)
  • Planning (17)
  • Implementation (12)
  • Evaluation (8)

States or Territories

  • Arizona (2)
  • California (6)
  • Colorado (2)
  • Florida (1)
  • Illinois (2)
  • Kansas (1)
  • Louisiana (1)
  • Maine (1)
  • Maryland (1)
  • Massachusetts (1)
  • Michigan (2)
  • Minnesota (1)
  • New Hampshire (1)
  • New York (1)
  • Oregon (2)
  • Pennsylvania (4)
  • Washington (2)

Organizations or Programs

  • EnergyWorks (4)
  • Community Power Works (2)
  • Energize Phoenix (2)
  • Enhabit (2)
  • Beacon Communities Project (1)
  • Be SMART (1)
  • Efficiency Maine (1)
  • Energy Impact Illinois (1)
  • EnergySmart Colorado (1)
  • Energy Upgrade California (1)
  • Michigan Saves (1)
  • New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) (1)
  • NOLA WISE (1)
  • RePower Bainbridge (1)
  • RePower Bremerton (1)
  • Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s Neighborhood Program (1)
  • ShopSmart with JEA (1)
  • TakeCharge! Challenge (1)
  • Xcel Energy (1)
Residential Program Guide is a resource of the U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office.
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