What Power Sector Suppliers Get Wrong When Marketing to Utilities - 2026 Survey Insights

You asked 51 utility professionals what suppliers do wrong. They told you. Most of it will sting.

PTR's Utility-OEM Engagement Survey gathered candid, open-ended responses from utility engineers, procurement leads, and asset managers across the power infrastructure sector. When asked what suppliers consistently get wrong in their marketing and outreach, they didn't mince words. The answers cluster into five recurring mistakes that reveal a fundamental gap between how suppliers think about utility buyers and how those buyers actually think.

This is Article 3 of PTR's three-part survey series. If you've read Articles 1 and 2, you know that utilities do far more independent research than suppliers assume - and that your buyers' journey starts long before a sales rep makes contact. This article covers what that means for your marketing in practice, and what utilities say would actually make a supplier stand out.

The 5 Mistakes Suppliers Make - In Utilities' Own Words

Mistake 1: Leading With Product, Not Outcome

The most common complaint in the survey is also the most fundamental. Utilities aren't buying transformers, relays, or switchgear for their own sake - they're managing grid reliability, regulatory compliance, and capital expenditure over decades-long asset lifecycles.

When suppliers lead with product features, they're answering a question the utility wasn't asking.

Survey respondents put it bluntly:

"Focusing too much on product features and not catering to specific utilities outcomes."

"Losing focus on the problem solved or value added and instead focusing on new trends that may not bring actual value."

"They try to sell product without understanding the utility need and impact."

The phrase "new trends that may not bring actual value" is worth sitting with. Utilities are not early adopters. They operate under strict regulatory frameworks, and their procurement decisions must withstand engineering scrutiny for 20-40 years. Chasing the latest marketing narrative around digitalization or AI without grounding it in operational relevance doesn't build credibility - it erodes it.

What to do instead: Reframe every piece of marketing content around utility outcomes. Not "our transformer has a 99.2% efficiency rating" - but "here's how our transformer reduced total losses by X% for a utility managing a similar load profile in a comparable grid environment." Outcome first, product second.

Mistake 2: Generic Outreach to Audiences You Haven't Researched

The second mistake is closely related but cuts deeper. It's not just that suppliers pitch product instead of value. It's that they pitch the same message to every utility, regardless of geography, grid architecture, load profile, or procurement priorities.

Utilities notice. And they're unimpressed.

"They try to market with general arguments without knowing us enough. Know the needs of the customer."

"Not knowing exactly the business I'm working at."

One response stands out for its specificity: "Where the equipment is manufactured is more important than how quickly it is manufactured. Know your audience."

That's a utility professional telling you, directly, that origin of manufacture matters to their specification and procurement process - and suppliers are pitching delivery timelines instead. That's not a messaging failure. It's a research failure.

The power sector has deep regional procurement preferences, local content requirements, and long-standing supplier relationships built on geographic and regulatory alignment. If you're entering a new utility market without understanding those dynamics, you're not competing - you're sending noise.

What to do instead: Before any outreach - digital or direct - research the utility. What grid segments do they operate? What are their capital investment priorities this year? Are they subject to local content requirements? What vendors are currently on their approved specification lists in your product category? This isn't optional due diligence; it's the minimum baseline for credible engagement. PTR's market intelligence services exist precisely to answer these questions before you go to market.

Mistake 3: Pushing Sales Before Building Trust

This one should end the debate about cold email prospecting in the utility sector.

"Sending cold emails is the worst. They want to sell something without even knowing me. Let's meet first, build trust, then we start talking about sales."

"Extreme salesy pitch, long articles."

"Too pushy. Too salesman types."

"Consider as spammer."

That last response - "Consider as spammer" - is how a utility procurement professional describes unsolicited supplier outreach. Not "mildly annoying." Spam.

This is a sector built on trust, long-term relationships, and engineering credibility. Buying cycles are long. The approvals process for getting onto a utility's approved vendor list can take years. Aggressive sales tactics don't accelerate that timeline - they disqualify you from it.

The utility professional who said "let's meet first, build trust, then start talking about sales" is describing a sequencing logic that should define your entire go-to-market approach. Presence and credibility come before contact. Content and visibility come before meetings. Meetings come before proposals.

Hassan Zaheer, COO, PTR Inc.: "You need a proper media plan. Don't just wing it. Understand what audience the media outlet has, what kind of views they get, and make decisions aligned with your goals."

What to do instead: Invest in building your presence where utility engineers go to learn - technical publications, industry events, webinars, LinkedIn. Make sure your content demonstrates understanding of their world before your sales team requests a meeting. The goal is to be recognized, not to be a stranger with a pitch.

Mistake 4: Competing on Price in a Reliability-First Industry

In a sector where a power outage can cascade into widespread economic and social disruption, leading with low upfront cost is a credibility risk, not a competitive advantage.

"Suppliers consistently fail by focusing narrowly on upfront price rather than Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and long-term asset reliability."

"Some times suppliers make tall claims and in reality they are far from truth."

"Make up data which is not related to actual operational conditions."

That last point - fabricated or decontextualized data - is damaging in ways that go beyond a single lost bid. Utilities share information. Procurement networks talk. A reputation for misleading performance claims is extraordinarily difficult to recover from in a sector where your buyer's entire value proposition rests on grid reliability.

The TCO framing matters not just as a sales tactic but as proof that you understand the utility's operating context. A utility buying a transformer budgets for installation, commissioning, maintenance contracts, spares, and eventual decommissioning - not just purchase price. When your marketing ignores that reality, it signals your company hasn't operated close enough to the sector to understand it.

What to do instead: Build TCO calculators, lifecycle cost comparisons, and long-term reliability data into your marketing materials. Reference operational data from real deployments - with specifics. If your relay protection system has operated in X substations for Y years with Z fault record, say so. That's the kind of evidence that builds specification-list candidacy.

Mistake 5: Selling the Product, Ignoring the Partnership

The fifth mistake is one even technically strong suppliers make: they market the product in isolation and ignore everything that happens after the purchase order is signed.

"Utilities take time to adapt. It is a long-term process whereas some suppliers focus on short-term achievements."

"They often ignore the utility's emphasis on long-term reliability and strict regulatory compliance."

"They only focus on technology but very minimum focus on support services, reliability data validation."

Utility infrastructure assets operate for decades. A power transformer doesn't get replaced every five years. The supplier relationship that matters to a utility isn't "who sold us the equipment" - it's "who supports us when we have a problem in year 12."

When your marketing is silent on your service network, response times, spare parts availability, or engineering support capabilities, you're leaving a significant gap in the procurement evaluation. In a sector where the technical evaluation committee includes asset managers thinking about 20-year operational risk, that gap matters.

Hassan Zaheer, COO, PTR Inc.: "In your marketing, don't just talk about product, product, product. Talk about the entire lifecycle - how you support customers in understanding the product fit, what their need is, what impact your product can have. Also talk about what happens afterwards - customer service, your service network, your expert team."

What to do instead: Make post-sale support a first-class element of your marketing narrative. Publish content about your service organization. Highlight your technical support team's credentials. Share case studies that include post-installation outcomes, not just delivery metrics.

The Summary Table: Mistakes vs. What Actually Works

What Actually Makes a Supplier Stand Out

The same survey asked utilities what makes a vendor stand out during selection (Q13). The answers are the positive counterpart to the five mistakes - and they're specific enough to act on.

• Transparency and accessible information. "Updated webpage with transparent and accessible technical information." If your product specs, compliance documentation, and test certificates require a sales call to obtain, you've already lost ground to a supplier that publishes them.

• References and proven track record. Projects completed in comparable grid environments, with verifiable outcomes, are the currency of utility vendor credibility. No references means no prior evidence. No prior evidence means elevated risk.

• Problem/solution framing, not product features. "Clear messaging with focus on the problem/solution." This is the positive version of Mistake 1 - utilities respond to suppliers who demonstrate they understand the operating challenge.

• Content that proves expertise. "If they have content that proves their expertise and teach their customers how to use their products." This is a utility professional describing the exact content type that builds approved-vendor-list candidacy: educational, expert, and grounded in real operational knowledge.

• Understanding of project requirements. "A supplier stands out when they demonstrate a clear understanding of project requirements." This comes before the first meeting. It comes through the content and messaging a utility engineer encounters during independent research - often months before sales contact occurs.

How Utilities Prefer to Be Reached

Beyond what you say, there's the question of how and when utilities want to hear from you.

Survey data on preferred communication styles (Q17) reflects a clear sequencing logic:

1. Email first - acceptable for initial contact, but only if it's relevant and non-generic
2. LinkedIn - increasingly used for professional discovery and content consumption
3. Physical/online meetings - the preferred format for real engagement, once trust is established

Specific format preferences cited by respondents:

• "Short case studies and short videos." - not whitepapers, not lengthy brochures
• "Online Demo/Meetings or Onsite Presentation." - when the relationship is ready for it
• "Technical details and test certificates expected." - not optional, expected as standard

The channel preference hierarchy validates the content-before-contact strategy. Email and LinkedIn build initial recognition. In-person and online meetings convert that recognition into procurement conversations. Trying to skip the first two steps doesn't accelerate the process - it breaks it.

The Credibility-Before-Contact Imperative

The five mistakes utilities identified aren't random. They describe a single underlying failure: suppliers trying to sell before they've earned the right to be heard.

In a sector where getting onto an approved vendor list is a multi-year process and a single unreliable component can trigger an outage affecting thousands of customers, utility procurement professionals apply a conservative, evidence-first evaluation process. They won't take a chance on a supplier whose marketing consists of cold emails, product brochures, and price competitiveness.

What they respond to - based on their own words:

• Demonstrated understanding of their operating environment
• Evidence of field performance in comparable applications
• Transparency about products, specifications, and limitations
• Content that teaches, not just sells
• A relationship timeline that respects the utility's pace

This isn't a radical reimagining of B2B marketing. It's applying the fundamentals correctly in a sector that punishes those who don't.

For solution providers entering utility markets - whether you're a transformer manufacturer, a relay vendor, a substation automation software firm, or a newer entrant from EV charging or energy storage - the path to specification-list candidacy runs through credibility, not cold outreach.

Audit Your Own Marketing Approach

Before your next campaign, product launch, or trade show investment, run your marketing against the five mistakes above. Ask:

• Are we leading with utility outcomes or product features?
• Have we researched this utility's specific priorities, grid context, and procurement history?
• Are we building presence and credibility before requesting meetings?
• Does our content include TCO framing and verifiable operational data?
• Are we marketing our post-sale service capability, or just the product?

If the answer to any of those is "no" or "not really," you're leaving the door open for a competitor who has done the work.

PTR's market intelligence and advisory services are built around exactly these questions - drawing on primary research with utilities to give solution providers the buyer intelligence they need to close those gaps.

Get the Full Picture

The findings above represent a fraction of what PTR's Utility-OEM Engagement Survey uncovered across 51 utility professionals. The full report covers how utilities discover vendors, which information sources they trust most, how specification decisions are made, and what content types drive the strongest engagement during procurement evaluation.

Download the full survey report for the complete dataset, methodology, and actionable framework for aligning your marketing to how utilities actually evaluate and specify vendors.

And if you want to go deeper - PTR's upcoming State of Marketing in the Power Sector survey will be the most comprehensive primary research yet on how solution providers are (and aren't) adapting to the way utilities research, evaluate, and buy today. Sign up to be notified when results are published.

This is Article 3 of 3 in PTR's "How Utilities Want to Be Marketed To - 2026 Survey Insights" series, based on the PTR Utility-OEM Engagement Survey (51 respondents). For questions about the research methodology or to speak with PTR's advisory team, contact us.