Theo Reichgelt on how to market e-Mobility

Well, I've grown up in a kind of an entrepreneurial environment.

I would say my father had a printing company.

And so I always learned like he was always working when needed.

And sometimes during the weekends and whatever was happening.

So that's where I grew up and I always wanted to be like an entrepreneur myself.

And I actually went to school to kind of learn how to take over my father's business.

But long story short, that never happened.

He passed away and we decided to sell the company, my mother and myself.

And that was it.

So I was working in IT at that time.

And from there, I sort of turned into a marketer at some point where social media

was really getting some substance like everyone was using Facebook on their

mobile phones on Blackberries at the time.

And clients were asking me like, how can we use that for our business?

What should we do with this?

So I actually started offering workshops on social media to clients like insurance

companies, some banks, like all kinds of companies that I helped setting up their

social media strategy, explained how things worked.

All of that we also ran community management for some big clients.

And that's how I actually got into marketing.

So I always with that entrepreneurial mindset had marketing back in the back of

my mind and worked on my own marketing.

But this is how I turned that into an agency business.

And that started with the social media agency and well, long term short, I'm

now running next industry, which is a marketing agency completely focusing on

the immobility and energy transition sector.

And yeah, still applying some of those tactics I learned at the time today,

but obviously the market has changed a lot.

And I can see with the focus we have on immobility, we understand that industry

very well and that really makes a difference for us.

Like with any new client, we almost instantly know what to do and what their

position is in the market and fully understand what it is that they're

selling and the audiences that they're selling to.

And before when we didn't have that experience, it was always like testing

a lot of A-B testing and let's be honest, it'll take about six months or so

before you really understand the market that you're in.

So yeah, with that experience that we bring, it makes a huge difference for

our clients and it's really nice to work that way.

So yeah, that's a little bit of my background to Danny.

And I've been marketing now for about 20 years or so, or maybe even a little

longer like Time Flies, but yeah, I really enjoy building my agency business.

And I always say to people, I really love marketing and I like what we're doing,

but I feel I'm more like an entrepreneur building the business, building our team.

Like basically a lot of work that we do for our clients, we're also doing for

our own agency and growing the business.

So yeah, that's the space I'm in and that's how I got there.

Where did the mobility come into it then and the whole transition?

At what point did that become an interest for you?

Yeah, I started working for ALEGO, the CPO in Europe and that was about seven,

eight years ago, that was my first experience with immobility.

And I saw already at the time, like these companies are a very complex

technology that they're selling to people that don't understand that

technology and don't know about the needs from it.

So I quickly learned working with ALEGO that it's really hard to kind of

reach those audiences and to explain in a clear way what it is that you're doing,

why it's relevant to them, how things work.

Like there's a lot of education to be done, especially in the beginning at that time,

but still today, like there's so many companies with complex technical solutions

that have a really hard time explaining this to their audiences.

And that also means it's hard to sell to your audiences.

If they don't understand what it is that you do, or maybe they don't even

know about you while they have the need for a solution, you're never going to sell.

So that's why I decided to focus completely on immobility and to take

that experience that we've built over the years and bring that to other

companies in the industry.

So that's really interesting.

You talk a lot about brand.

So I'm interested in the EV charging sector and what's going on there.

Yeah, that's kind of my primary interest around the transition and what's going on

with grid connection and EV charging in terms of public charging.

So I'm interested to ask you how you feel about building brand,

especially here in the UK, what you're seeing and how the how how the charging

companies are doing with building their brand and how important that becomes

in a marketing perspective for you in your mind.

Well, Brent, what I always say, like a lot of companies talk about

like lead generation or demand generation, but brand is equally important

because brand builds trust.

So if you're successfully building a brand, that also means that EV drivers,

if you're talking about CPOs, they get trust in your in your company

and in your solution.

So the brand indeed is really important.

And of course, if the product is not right, and that's an issue

that many CPOs had over the years, like if your chargers are not functioning

properly, you can build a super nice brand, but it still won't help

because if an EV driver has a bad experience once they'll never come back

or it will be really hard to get them back to your station.

So that's one part of the business.

Obviously, your product needs to be perfect.

You need to make sure the experience is smoothly and smooth.

And yeah, you know, the product, but obviously the product needs to be perfect.

But if that's the case, then your brand is equally important

as the demand generation that you're running.

So again, building trust, that's where brand comes in.

And some CPOs are doing that really well.

Some can definitely improve.

But yeah, as you said, it's an important part of marketing these days.

Yeah, so so so consumer trust is kind of key in your mind.

That's that's what they need to build.

So it starts with trust.

It starts with having a customer that begins to trust you as a supplier

that you will always have it.

You'll turn up, you'll be regular and it will be an OK price.

Is it something like that?

Absolutely. If you if you look at CPOs,

like the first touch point is always super important.

So if an EV driver has to charge, they find your charger and it's not working.

You'll never get them back.

Like that's going to be really hard.

So make sure that that initial experience is perfect.

That already builds a lot of trust.

That's the most important part for an EV driver.

Like you want to have an experience that you can trust.

You want to know the CPO.

So if there's like proper branding on site,

you'll go back or to a different site from the same CPO

because you'll recognize it.

You'll know that it was a smooth experience that that already builds trust.

And if that's not the situation, then you're lost.

I mean, and that happened a lot with CPOs in the past.

The technology was not there yet.

So sometimes it's not working properly.

And there are issues with roaming or whatever is going on.

And that really breaks trust.

So it's important that things run properly.

And again, like the brand comes into play

to make sure that people recognize your stations at other locations as well.

And they'll if there's trust in your brand,

then they'll also start charging at those locations.

And if not, they'll skip you.

And these days at many charging locations, there are options.

There are many.

There might be two or three CPOs with chargers at the location.

So who are you going to pick?

And that's also where brand comes in.

So the experience is super important, build trust there.

But also the brand is very important.

That builds trust towards your audiences.

Nice. Good.

That's that's really interesting that that trust plays such a big part of this.

From my experience with.

So where I've been is playing with organic social yet in a big way,

because this is what I do for my work, I run a production company.

We do loads across all industries.

But my weird fascination is EV charging and EV generally,

which has been the case for years.

So I kind of apply my methodology to it and try and understand it.

What I find with a very highly engaged audience is that they are.

They're almost not.

They don't really care about anything to do with brand.

All they care about is price.

And it's not about reliability that only ever talking about price.

It might be that it's very high price in the UK.

I don't know. But what's your feeling on where price exists in in this kind of infrastructure?

Yeah, so this comes up in many conversations.

And the result of those conversations always like, yes, price is of course a factor.

But the most important thing is reliability.

So that first time experience that should be smooth, like it should be reliable.

That's what builds trust.

Like you said, it varies across markets like the UK.

Yes, it's a little expensive market.

It's a different market compared to the mainland in Europe, for example, compared to the US.

But in all those markets, you see that reliability is number one.

Number two, like maybe price comes in there.

I always find it difficult because we see some CPOs.

They're really advertising with pricing.

Well, I feel a lot of EV drivers don't really care about the price.

Of course, it shouldn't be too crazy.

But if it's a reasonable price, like it doesn't really matter as long as it's reliable,

you get the power that you expect, like you charge fast enough and have that proper experience.

So experience first, I would say, well, location first, that's where it starts.

If I need to charge, I find your location because I'm there and I need to charge.

So that's number one, then reliability and the third would be priced in my opinion.

That's what we see in most markets across Europe.

Okay, and of course, this is a joke.

I've raised 12 million in the Series A.

I've come to Theo and I've said, what do I do?

Where do I start with this whole business in terms of building trust and so on?

Yeah, that's a great question.

We have what we call the E-Mobility Marketing Operating System.

It's a framework on how you should be running marketing in E-Mobility.

It has six layers and that's where we always start.

Like those six layers define the success of your marketing.

So for example, the first layer is about the market context you're in,

like really understanding the business, the sales cycles, like the business model,

the market that you're in, the audiences that you're selling to.

Because if that's not clear, the rest of your marketing doesn't make sense.

Like that's where it starts.

It's building that foundation and there are more layers there.

Like I don't want to go into all the details, but we have that framework built based on our

experience over the years, over the past years.

And if you don't do this, marketing is just a set of activities.

Like it's very tempting to go out there to create some nice content on social media,

to do some campaigns, it will get you some awareness.

But if there's no foundation underneath that on the long term,

it's not going to get you any more business.

So that's why we always start building that foundation.

And once it's there, once the first layers are done,

then you can think about the strategy because you know who your audience is.

You know all the details, their pains, everything.

Your messaging has been done properly.

Then you can think about, okay, where do we reach them?

What's going to be our strategy to create demand, to build the brand, to become more successful.

But if that initial foundation is not there, it's going to be really hard because it's based on

assumptions.

Like a lot of companies think inside out, they think they know what EV drivers want,

but they don't actually know it.

And that's why this is so important.

And so start with that foundation, then you can come up with the activities.

And if there's a proper foundation underneath it, it'll bring you a lot more results.

So that would always be my advice.

Are the foundations different for every EV charging company?

Yes.

So the things you do, that's why we have this model.

Because the things you do, of course, are similar, but every business is different,

even with CPOs.

Like some are all about fast charging, targeting those specific audiences.

Some are about like AC, like regular charging.

Some others might be a combination of both.

Like it really, there's so many use cases and immobility and charging,

that it's important to identify exactly like who you are, where you're in this space.

Like even within companies, you see a lot that if you ask someone in, I don't know,

in admin, they cannot explain what it is that the company does.

If you ask someone in the operations team, they might tell a different story than someone in sales.

So you want to make sure that all of that is aligned,

that everyone understands the exact context of the business.

Then you'll be much more successful.

So it's just an example of what's commonly missing.

And it's really important to have that in place before you get out there and start your marketing

activities.

And again, it's really a waste of time and money if marketing is just a set of activities,

because a lot of time goes in there.

But if there's no foundation underneath it, you'll never see that long term success that you expect from it.

Yeah, so you're like a strategist in my world.

You're an agency strategist or you're someone who builds strategy from the outset.

Once you get to the stage where you think, okay, we can start our activity, our foundations are in

place, where are you going to apply budget?

How are you going to figure that out?

Are you going to go, let's go a bit more telly, a bit more press, a bit more see outdoor, a bit more

social, how do you start to apply that methodology to build brand or build customer base?

So once you know who your audiences are and you have all those details, you can build your message.

We always build what we call a messaging framework first.

So that means that it's an overview of each audience that you're targeting, the pain of those audiences,

the way your company or your product or your service is solving those pains with proof points.

Like how can you prove that you actually have this experience or the ability to solve that pain?

Once you have that, you can build a message specific for each audience.

And with that, you can decide, okay, if we know that the audience isn't built in a certain way,

where can we find that?

Is that online?

Are they visiting trade shows?

Are they reading any magazines?

Are they reading the newspaper?

Are they visiting specific websites?

So that's where you can decide based on the input that you have,

where to kind of put your marketing budget to get the best results.

And you already talked about organic social, that's always a good way to build your brand,

to be out there, make sure you're visible to all your audiences.

But specific audiences have specific options to target them.

Like we've been working with a truck brand, for example.

And a lot of truckers are reading magazines, so that's also a good way to reach them.

They might not be online all the time.

So that's like online budget would be less for those kind of audiences.

So really knowing the details of your audiences helps you define your marketing strategy

and where to put your marketing budget.

And that's how we always handle that.

And then you can decide, is television relevant, or magazines, or online,

or whatever you want to do to reach those audiences.

And one of the other important things, pretty obvious,

but not a lot of the companies are doing this, is to have that feedback loop.

So once you advertise, even if you would go to a trade show,

you want to have a plan there.

So who do we want to talk to?

What's the booth going to look like?

What's the result?

We want to get out of this show.

How many leads do we have?

How much business should come from that?

Once you have that plan in place,

then it will get you much more results

in compared to just going there and saying hi to everyone

and having any regular conversation.

So always think about things strategically.

Have a plan before you spend money on it.

And then afterwards, also analyze what the results have been from those activities.

So for online campaigns, that's much more easy

because you have all the data.

But if you visit the trade show, it's going to be different.

So always have that in mind,

because that'll give you the best results

and analyze and optimize all the time.

So the next time you would go to a trade show,

you have the learnings from the previous one,

apply those learnings, like get better all the time.

And that's how you grow the results from your marketing.

How do you identify where the audience are lying then?

What tools would you use to discover that truck drivers read magazines?

How do you do that?

Yeah, so a lot of situations with research,

it will get you a lot of insights.

Like you could even interview truck drivers in this situation.

And for example, what we've done for a big CPO in Europe

early last year is interview EV drivers at the charging sites.

Like that'll get you insights from what they actually think

about your location, competitor locations,

why they come to you instead of others,

what they're missing at those locations,

what they like about you, what not.

So those kind of face-to-face interviews

really help to understand the market that you're in.

If you want to advertise to truck drivers,

go talk to some truck drivers.

Like you can always reach some or through their employers

or whatever way you should,

you can find out to get in touch and ask them,

like what are you reading?

Like if this is a brand,

like if they want to get your attention,

what would be the best way to get that from you?

Ask the questions that a lot of companies are overlooking.

Like go there.

Like everybody's willing to share ideas and experiences.

So ask for it and they will tell you.

There's a lot of stuff around synthetic audience.

Have you tried it?

Have you tried building synthetic audiences

and looked at that using AI?

Because everyone talks about these things,

but you're right, actual real personal human time

out talking to people and drivers is key, isn't it?

Yeah, of course.

And you can do a lot of testing.

Like in marketing, we do a lot of A-B testing

with different messages to different audiences.

And that's also a way to find,

like for example, with paid media, with online campaigns,

it's a great way to test audiences

and to find what resonates most with them.

Like you can do a lot of A-B testing

and the data will show you.

So that's a great way.

But in the end, like regular conversations

with your audiences are always great

to get a better understanding of their needs

and how to find them.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of my conversation

is happening online,

but I think probably time in the field

when you're out filming is really useful

if you discover a driver and you talk to them.

It's like you get immediate response

and experience from someone and that goes on tape

and out to the internet.

And actually people are listening then.

That probably helps build trust enormously for a CPO,

I imagine.

Yeah, absolutely.

And also the fact that you're asking them

is already good for trust and for building your brand

because you actually ask them what they need.

So that builds trust on its own, right?

So yeah, it's always a good idea

to get out there and do it.

Okay, brilliant.

What do you think about the subscription model

for EV charging companies and apps

and all that kind of stuff?

But they're always trying to lock people in.

What's the situation with that?

Yeah, and I believe they mainly do this

to get a relationship with the EV driver.

Like if you pay 10 euros a month for a subscription

in an app from a CPO,

that means they have your data,

they know a little bit about what you're doing,

where you're charging, all those kind of things.

So in most of those situations,

it's all about getting that data

and getting closer to your audiences.

I believe personally, as an EV driver,

I don't care about subscriptions.

Like I don't want to get a subscription

for a specific CPO to get a small discount.

Like if the price is fair and okay,

I will get there anyway.

They don't need to convince me with a subscription.

And I think a lot of EV drivers feel the same.

You just want to drive up to a charging station and charge.

That's what it should be about

and not about getting a subscription for specific CPOs

because that'll get you a small discount.

We all want a fair price

and then we don't need those kind of subscriptions.

So it makes things a little bit complicated.

I hear it a lot in the US, for example,

that people complain that if I want to charge

at a certain CPO, I need to download that app first.

It's complicated, it's a hassle,

and then I need to sign up and then I can charge.

You don't want that.

You want to provide a smooth experience.

You should just be able to drive up to the charger,

tap your payment card or whatever you're using and charge.

And I know in Europe and also the UK,

in a lot of situations, it works that way.

So that's fine.

But yeah, I don't know, offering subscriptions,

it's super valuable for a CPO.

I get that.

I know why they do it.

But for an EV driver, honestly,

I don't know if many EV drivers like it.

If you get a good price without a subscription,

that's always preferred.

Yeah, great stuff.

Okay, here in the UK, there's lots of blame on the grid connection.

We have a very slow wait list for grid connection.

So for a new supplier, it's always always difficult.

Is the grid really the villain?

Yeah, well, it's horrible, right?

If you secure the great location

where you know there's a big need for charging

and then you have to wait two years before you can build,

that's horrible.

So yeah, in that sense, it is blocking.

But at the same time, I think there are also options

to build locations anyway,

like working together with retail companies,

for example, that already have sites with enough power available

to build charging stations there

or to install charging stations there.

So I think there are other options.

But in general, of course, if there is a high traffic location

where you need to build charters because there's a need,

and it's been blocked by availability of power in the grid,

that's frustrating.

And yeah, a lot of CPOs are dealing with that at the moment.

There are also other solutions.

Like the technical solutions

that will still give you a higher power

than the grid is able to deliver.

So I also strongly believe that if CPOs look into those solutions

more actively, you might still be able to build

that charging location on a site

that doesn't have enough power at this moment.

So there are solutions to this as well.

Yeah, that sounds...

There's a good future in batteries, isn't there?

And even huge battery storage areas

where you can fly in a block and actually charge

from this huge storage battery,

which is really exciting.

And the way it's going with V2L, V2G and stuff like that

will be really, really interesting

to see these cars as portable storage units.

Yeah, I strongly believe in that future as well, Danny.

Like if you can use your car to store energy,

like for example, in the Netherlands, you hear this a lot,

like if you have solar panels on your roof

and you generate more power than you use yourself,

you deliver it back to the grid,

you have to pay for that or start paying for that soon.

So people are looking into ways like,

where can I store that energy?

And getting batteries is still pretty expensive.

And you don't have all sunshine all year.

So during the winter, like the use of a battery

is not so efficient.

So if you can use your EV to store that energy

during the day that you're generating

and use it during night, that's perfect.

And even if you can deliver this back to the grid

through an EV at a charging station,

like there are some pilots going on

that show the success of this.

So I really believe that EVs can be an important part

of the ecosystem in terms of grid and all of that.

So I think there's a nice future for EV there as well.

Yeah, nice.

Do you think EV charging companies, the CPOs,

do you think the CPOs are overfunded

and over supplied by government?

That's a difficult question.

No, honestly, I don't think so

because a lot of CPOs, you know,

it's very financial heavy what they're doing.

Like it's an upfront investment.

A lot of money goes in there.

If you build a charging location,

like it's up to like a million euros or more

for a location with fast charges, right?

So you need a lot of money to invest

and it's pretty unsure what the ROI is going to be.

Like we have more data available these days

because the market is maturing,

but still you can see that a lot of CPOs

are struggling with the ROI.

And that's also actually where marketing

can play a big role,

but maybe that's a different conversation.

But if you market your locations very well,

you'll get more traffic there.

Like your uptime will be much higher

than it is without it,

but not many CPOs seem to realize that.

But anyway, like it's very financially intensive.

You need a lot of money.

So I wouldn't say CPOs are overfunded

because without that funding,

you're not able to build those sites.

So you definitely need that.

So there's a disconnect

between what the consumer thinks

is sky-high rip-off rocketing prices

and what the charging companies

actually need to survive in terms of revenue.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's really sad actually.

I honestly believe that for most CPOs,

they would have to charge an even higher price

to become profitable.

I mean, they invested a lot of money

and they need to earn that money back

to become profitable at some point.

And even with the current rates,

I mean, a lot of EV drivers feel they're high,

but still those are fair rates

if you look into the investment that has been done.

So yeah, it's finding that balance.

I think that's mostly happening in the market.

And as an EV driver,

one of the problems might be

that EV drivers have been convinced

about like switching to EV because it's cheaper.

Like the lifetime cost of a vehicle is obviously lower,

but also in terms of charging,

like compared to fueling or getting gas at a gas station,

it's always been told to them that this is much cheaper.

Well, now they start to realize

that it's not that much cheaper anymore.

Like it's going up to that same price

that you pay for gasoline as well.

So that might be where the biggest part

of the frustration is coming from,

but just keep in mind that CPOs are making large investments.

A lot of money is going in there

and they need to earn that back at some point.

And they're making these investments for you

so you can charge.

So yeah, it's not nice if you have to pay a high price,

but there is a reason for it.

I strongly believe,

like they're not just charging you a high rate.

Like a CPO would be more successful

if they are offering lower rates,

but they just cannot do it

because at some point they need to become profitable.

It's a business, right?

So you need to earn some money in the end.

And I think that's the balance

what they're all trying to find now.

So how do we do our job telling the customer

or the audience or building a marketing plan

that allows a bit more trust in the pricing

that for them to survive, this needs to happen?

Yeah, there's a lot of education that has to be done

and that's also where marketing and communications comes in.

So by just telling that story,

like honestly explaining the business model,

like you can create,

well, you're a marketer creating social media content.

Like you can create so much nice content

explaining why, how things work,

why price is built up like in a certain way,

what are the different components of the price,

making people understand why the price is what it is today.

Like that's just plain communication and marketing.

And in a lot of situations, if you explain it,

people accept it

because then they know why it is what it is today.

But now they just see a high price or they feel as high,

but they have no idea why that price is that high,

you know, why, how it's built up,

like what are the different components?

Like, yeah, just there's a lot of explaining to do,

a lot of education to do.

And that's where I feel, especially with CPOs,

marketing is really, really important.

And they should use part of their marketing budget

for that education part,

because also that one, that education builds trust in your brand.

Like if people learn from you how things work,

they will recognize your brand when they need to charge

and they will go there because you built that trust already.

And there's so much opportunity there.

That's really a big gap, I believe, in marketing.

Yeah, there's been a lot of chat around edutainment,

because we know that when we create content,

it needs to be entertaining in some way,

as well as educating or reformative.

Otherwise, you don't get the audiences.

So edutainment will be, I think, a useful kind of tool

for marketers going forwards in this space,

because it's a dry space.

It's not very interesting.

You've got to do something that makes it a little bit more lively.

Right.

And a bit silly, at times, if you want to get reach.

Anyway, certainly in social media.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Who's doing it well?

Well, that's always difficult to tell you.

There are some examples.

Maybe that's the best approach.

Like, for example, in the UK with BEV,

I really like what they're doing.

I'm not saying their marketing is the best,

but they go out there.

Like, they share a lot of content

of visiting their own charging sites, even their CEO.

Like, he's always visiting charging locations

and being out there, being visible,

learning from EV drivers what they actually need.

That's what I really like.

And they're doing that really, really well.

So that's an example, like, who's doing it well.

Like, if you look at other, like, bigger CPOs,

like Fastnet, for example,

they've been working on brands from day one.

It's all built on the brand.

They have these nice rooftops

that you recognize immediately.

It's the logo sign, right, that comes back there.

So if you talk about branding,

like, this is a great example of how to do things.

But there are many others.

Like, obviously, Alego is one that is now working on their price

with the new app and becoming more transparent about pricing,

which is really important that we just talked about.

So it's an example of a CPO that's doing well on that end.

I really like what Electra is doing across Europe

with their new location design.

Like, there are these LED parts of the,

like, on top of the charges,

where you can see the state of charge

and all those kind of things.

And this is also a very nice way

to kind of connect with your audiences and build trust,

because it will show your name.

Like, you can make a reservation.

So when you get there, it will show you like,

hey, this one was reserved for you.

And again, when you're charging,

it shows the price, the state of charge, things like that.

So it's a very nice way to connect with the audience

with the EV driver.

So those are some examples of CPOs

that are doing a great job, in my opinion.

Great.

Look, my 30 minutes are up.

I said I'd do this in 30 minutes.

So I'm going to let you go,

especially as it's early morning where you are.

So thank you for that.

Right.

Theo, I'm going to end the stream.

When I end the stream, I'm just going to do that now.

Thanks, everyone.

Thanks.

It was a nice discussion, Danny.

Thanks for having me.

When you finish, Theo, just let the computer run out.

So I'm just sending the stream now.

But OK.

End stream.

Yeah, we can stay here.

V2L

V2G

About this episode

Original notes