Community education is essential to a successful aggregation program. A robust education and outreach effort helps electricity customers in your community to understand your program and embrace its benefits, and to separate it from the noise of commercial electricity supply offers in the marketplace.
Massachusetts state regulators agree. A thoughtful education and outreach plan is required as a part of each community’s aggregation plan.
The typical things to keep in mind when creating an education and outreach plan include:
Branding and visual style
Using a consistent and recognizable visual style makes it easier for the public to distinguish your program from other electricity supply offers in the marketplace. That could mean keeping the focus on city or town branding, using a specific visual style or colors, or even creating a program logo.
Messages and timing
Engaging the community requires different messages at different times. For example, this could mean building general awareness about aggregation during the regulatory approval process, then educating the community about program details immediately before launch, and then keeping the program visible to the community after launch through an opt-up campaign or other publicity.
Materials and efforts
Some education efforts, such as a letter and public information sessions, are required. Others, such as handouts, signs and banners, videos, and social media, are optional and can be determined by each community.
Community partners
Community partnerships can significantly amplify the reach of your program outreach:
- Environmental advocates can help build support for your program’s renewable energy strategy.
- Agencies, organizations, and faith-based communities can help connect with hard-to-reach neighborhoods and individuals.
Opportunities to do more
An aggregation launch presents an opportunity to provide broader electricity bill support to the most vulnerable members within the community. Additional efforts might include:
- Creating materials to build awareness about commercial electricity supply offers and how to protect your electricity account number
- Help reviewing electricity bills to ensure customers are on the lowest price possible
- The use of translators and interpreters to ensure non-native speakers of English have equal access to all information