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Every two years we survey Utility Pioneers to find out if we’re meeting shared needs and to identify how we can better serve members. Respondents to the 2023 Pioneer Pulse this spring made a few things clear:
- Members are increasingly thinking of Pioneer as one unified brand with multiple solutions to help them.
- They love our StoryConnect conference.
- They see digital communication as becoming increasingly important.
- Members remain satisfied with the quality of our work — even though costs are a bit of a concern.
Thank you to everyone who participated, as this will help give immediate feedback for our staff, as well as excellent benchmarks for our board’s strategic-planning process.
As a utility-owned and led co-op, we always try to improve transparency. Since we asked you to share feedback, we thought it only fair that we share your thoughts — and how you’re guiding our co-op’s growth!
Building the Brand
The top strategic goal from our planning process was to increase the awareness of our Pioneer brand, while methodically sunsetting the Ruralite Services (2019), ARC Media (2021), and WordSouth (2022) brands.
While there is still more work to do, we saw an 18% increase in respondents primarily referring to us as Pioneer and drops of 16% and 13% in folks still thinking of us as ARC and Ruralite Services. The brand recognition of WordSouth remained high, so there’s still work to do.
Magazines remain a growing part of our work. A dozen new magazine editions from the Washington Coast to the Smoky Mountains were added since the 2021 survey! But one of the biggest swings on the entire survey was a 10% drop in the people who think of us as only a magazine publisher and as much as a 14% increase in folks thinking of us as marketing agency or communications partner.
“Thanks Pioneer for taking hold of the premiere market position in energy-related communications and marketing,” wrote one member on the survey. “Great organization.”
Scoring Satisfaction
Overall satisfaction with Pioneer stayed the same between the 2021 and 2023 surveys: 9.1 out of 10. Most questions that dealt with quality or satisfaction remained relatively the same as 2021, while questions dealing with value dipped a small bit.
“I know we have some less-expensive options available to us, but I feel the quality and level of service from the other options does not meet the needs we have,” wrote a survey respondent.
“I don’t mind paying for quality services,” wrote another.
I believe this has to do with some of the inflation-related and postage-related price increases we recently had to pass along. It was a good reminder to us of the importance of doing everything we can to keep costs down for our members. This includes things like negotiating the best possible rates with our printers or digital platforms, optimizing mailing lists or market segments to avoid waste and joining groups like the Alliance of Non-Profit Mailers to advocate against more postage hikes.
“Pioneer strives to keep costs down” one person wrote on the survey.
It also includes things like our upcoming Pioneer Studio 2.0 relaunch that I think will save our members significant time and money over fully custom campaigns.
“Pioneer and the suite of services you provide is the biggest bang-for-the-buck in the public power world,” wrote one respondent. “We have used Ruralite magazine for 20 years. The increase in cost over that time has been minimal, yet the quality of the content is constantly improving. Not sure how you do it, but please never stop!”
Satisfaction and value on our Pioneer Social (8.7 to 9.0) and Powerfulsites (9.1 to 9.4) increased from 2021 to 2023 while our marketing services remained a steady 9.1.
“With two of our largest communication platforms, Ruralite magazine and our website, Pioneer Utility Resources is behind each one providing support and guidance all the way from ideation, to deliverables,” wrote another respondent. “We have been so pleased with the account managers we have been gifted with and think they are amazing!”
The biggest increase in member satisfaction came from our training, conferences and workshop, a rise of more than a full point to 9.3 and 9.4. Our StoryConnect conference trailed only our focus groups as Pioneer’s highest-rated member solution.
“Although my interaction with Pioneer has been relatively limited, I found your work to be intentional and well thought out,” wrote one respondent. “The StoryConnect Conference was amazing.”
Notably, our quoting and proposal work went from being our lowest-rated support category in 2021 to our second-highest in 2023. I was glad to see this because I know how much work Member Solutions Executive Jackie Enlow and Sales Administrator Melanie Phillips have put into smoothing out this process.
Proofing and editing — while still rated as a 9.0 out of 10 — was our lowest-rated support service, showing us an area where we can improve.
“(Editing and proofing) has been inconsistent,” wrote one respondent. “We continue to give feedback, make changes on our end and your end and still struggle with challenges (errors, design issues, not meeting our deadlines, etc.). We’ll continue to work through these issues, but just providing candid feedback.”
I often say the best feedback is the kind that helps you find and fix problems. We have already added staff and started changing processes to improve turnaround times and accuracy in the proofing phase.
Looking Ahead
One of the more interesting results of the survey came in a pair of survey questions that Assistant Editor Victoria Hampton and Director of Accounts Sarah Lancaster asked us to include.
We asked:
- How broadband and utility communicators value certain marketing channels now, and
- How they anticipate the value of those channels in five years.
While none of us knows where things will be in five years (who would have guessed fanny packs and mullets would be back in style?), survey responses show a clear shift toward digital channels, even though print remains relevant.
I was pleasantly surprised to see podcasts leapfrog several other channels. In fact, the overall response suggests that podcasts will be a more valuable channel in 2028 than traditional media advertising, blogs and even print member magazines.
Aside from podcasts, respondents see significant growth in the importance of digital advertising, blogs, email newsletters and digitally formatted magazines over the next five years. Social media was ranked as the most valuable channel in 2023 and respondents ranked it as number one in 2028 — with an even higher average score of 9.3 out of 10.
It was good to see that whatever the future holds, members trust us to help them navigate it.
“Pioneer is like an extension of our own staff,” one person wrote. “You are so in tune with the industry and are always on the forefront of any trends that may affect our business.”
Surveys Serve our Community
One of the seven cooperative principles is “concern for community.” While for most of our members that usually means a geographic community in their service territory, for Pioneer, our community is the one we’ve built nationwide with Utility Pioneers like you. It’s that concern for our community — along with making good business sense — that compels us to reach out and listen.
And as one respondent said, it’s that listening that has helped us become experts. “You know your market. You don’t pretend.”
Thank you for participating in this year’s Pioneer Pulse survey to help us better serve you.
Need Help?
That’s why our co-op was created. Reach out to hello@pioneer.coop or schedule a meeting with our member solutions team.
