Industry
Energy
Company Goals
To help companies improve energy resiliency and grid stability while achieving a positive return on investment for its customers and for society.
The Company: A Provider of Innovative Energy Solutions
e2Companies is the first vertically integrated Virtual Utility® for power generation, distribution and energy economics in the marketplace. Its patented R3Di® System provides continuous on-site power and seamless resiliency for commercial facilities including manufacturing companies, retailers, healthcare organizations, and data centers.
The Challenge: Developing a New Digital Brand Identity
As a company debuting innovative technology in an increasingly competitive marketplace, e2Companies faced a brand identity crisis.
It began in 2009 as an engineering consulting organization with a focus on helping companies comply with EPA emissions regulations for diesel generators. They had since evolved to provide much more comprehensive, turnkey solutions for on-site power generation.
e2 consisted of three separate companies with different logos, websites and value propositions, although each of these verticals worked together to deliver power reliability, energy management and energy compliance solutions for clients. This led to a confusing experience for prospects and a lack of brand awareness in the marketplace.
e2Companies Marketing Director Neil Cowan partnered with branding agency Ptarmak, a company that specializes in packaging and design for consumer products, to develop the foundation for its new brand guidelines. Recognizing the need to debut the new look as part of an overarching brand strategy and digital marketing plan, he hired Kuno Creative to design and develop a new website and full library of brand assets, including educational resources, sales sheets and materials for a major trade show, where e2 planned to debut the latest version of its R3Di® System to energy management leaders.
Partnership With Kuno
With a full team of digital marketing experts, Kuno had the knowledge and resources to introduce e2Companies’ new brand strategy to the world.
This included a team of veteran designers with experience creating modern, mobile-first websites optimized for search and designed for exceptional user experience. The team also had prior experience working with other brands in highly technical and highly regulated industries, including energy, manufacturing and healthcare.
Because e2Companies operates with a lean marketing team, Kuno’s ability to work closely with internal subject matter experts and translate their knowledge into compelling web pages and resources proved to be a significant advantage when it came to accelerating speed to market.
As a HubSpot Diamond partner agency, Kuno also has deep expertise in revenue operations, which was important to e2Companies as they worked toward empowering their sales team with faster lead qualification, timely follow-up and more automated lead nurturing.
The Strategy
The partnership began with buyer discovery and a website redesign to more clearly showcase the problems e2Companies solves for specific buyer types and industries, while highlighting the brand’s new look and feel.
Kuno’s design team also focused on making the brand more tangible with photos of its solutions in the field, quick statistics at a glance, a strong brand video and a timeline illustrating key milestones. These elements underscored the company’s long history and helped establish its credibility for new visitors unfamiliar with its origins.
Smaller interactive elements, such as custom designed motion graphics and shorter video snippets, helped the users stay engaged.
From there, the Kuno team began creating a library of content resources, including:
- Industry pages and sales sheets focused on specific solutions
- A technical video about e2Companies’ patented R3Di® System
- A technical whitepaper about the advantages of lithium iron phosphate batteries used in the system
- An interactive resource about the importance of grid modernization and emerging trends helping to accelerate the transition
- A resource about microgrid solutions and specific incentives for Texas businesses
- A glossary section defining important industry terms
They also began posting regularly on LinkedIn, providing custom graphics, videos and resources showing practical ways e2Companies lives out its tagline, “Make Things Work.”
In partnership with event company Rockway Exhibits, Kuno provided extensive support for DISTRIBUTECH, a major trade show where e2Companies debuted its R3Di® System and Virtual Utility® with a 40-by-50-foot booth designed by the Kuno team and an interactive demo featuring two Kuno-produced videos. The booth design, combined with a barista team from that served over 1900 cups of coffee during the event, attracted thousands of people during the three-day show. Visitors who stopped by the booth could participate in a demo that included a simulation and walk-through of the R3Di® System and connect with Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Thurman Thomas, whose 34 Group is a partner of e2Companies.
In total, e2Companies met with more than 400 people they consider qualified leads during the event.
With Kuno’s RevOps support, they built out lead scoring to prioritize outreach, email workflows for follow up, and dashboards showing how leads are progressing through the sales process.
Results/Key Wins
After more than a year of working with Kuno on branding and working in HubSpot, e2Companies has seen significant website traffic growth, improved engagement on LinkedIn, and an increase in deals in its pipeline.
The company now has a clear picture of where each deal is in the sales process, from initial consultation requests to requests for proposals and projects in progress.
This visibility was not possible before and has been crucial to helping the sales and marketing team identify barriers to overcome during the company’s lengthy sales cycle.
