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While selling propane can feel like second nature to many in the industry, the truth is that propane marketing is currently shifting in significant ways. The “common sense” approaches that have defined how to run a propane marketing strategy, while still valid in many ways, need to be met with the ingenious innovations being developed by tech wizzes across the industry.
Enter: Mike Procopio. Since joining Blue Cow Software in 2018, Procopio has drawn on his background in “geomarketing” — an approach that uses customers’ specific location data to personalize and tailor marketing messages — to change the way propane is being branded and sold.
“I had asked, ‘Show of hands: How many of you guys map out your customers?’” Procopio said, speaking about an experience leading a geomarketing webinar session. “There wasn’t one person.”
This gap between available technology and current propane marketing practices is part of what fuels Procopio’s drive to streamline solutions for the entire industry. One way he has done this is by hosting training webinars.
“There’s so many bells and whistles with it that it can be ‘brain overload,’” Procopio said. “If you can just piece it out and say ‘OK, here are the things you want to think about and here’s how the software can get you there,’ it helps.”
Speaking on the way the webinar series has transformed over the years, Procopio emphasized the importance of providing a value offering to customers that extends beyond content that is focused strictly on PDI Technologies products. “We wanted to balance it out,” Procopio said. “We didn’t want the webinar series to be ‘salesy’ every week. So, we focused on content geared toward efficiency and operational improvements. I fine-tuned and tweaked it into a well-oiled machine.”
The webinar series is a testament to an essential truth in any business: If customers feel that you are genuinely interested in bettering their lives rather than simply making a profit, they will flock to your brand. The webinar numbers back this up; Procopio’s brainchild webinar series has had over 12,000 attendees in the past five years.
In addition to planning and implementing tailor-made solutions for propane marketers, Procopio also prioritizes creating an inclusive culture within a workplace environment that is now fully remote. One inventive way Procopio has done this is through a company-wide Ping-Pong tournament. The tournament gathered 120 employees from the company’s various offices across the globe — from Boston to Bengaluru, to Bratislava to Bangkok and more.
Being an Industry Innovator — including cultivating a robust, adaptable culture and developing effective solutions — begins with the willingness to listen and learn. “One of the things that I learned is the importance of ‘being a sponge,’” Procopio said. “I’ve tried to immerse myself in as many areas as possible starting at day one with Blue Cow Software, then with Bill Tree and REPAY, and continued it with PDI. You can give value to any department if you at least have some knowledge of what’s going on there.”
