Due to its high ROI and relatively low costs, your solar company probably already has a robust inbound marketing plan that includes SEO, social media and blogging.
If, however, your marketing strategy doesn’t include some vital outbound marketing techniques such as direct mail, email blasts and targeted banner ads, you are missing out on potential sales.
Generating brand awareness about solar energy is an effective marketing approach to get your company the solar leads and customers it wants. However, the best approach to this cannot be found in traditional outbound or inbound marketing alone.
At Palmer, creating a custom marketing and advertising strategy is part of our perfected process. To learn more about this Palmer Process, click the link below:
The key challenges your solar company faces can best be resolved with a combined inbound and outbound marketing plan that focuses on the following:
- Brand recognition—Although enthusiastic solar consumers may know one or two of the major players in the industry, the vast majority of the markets have no knowledge of even the largest solar companies. A recent study by Solar Tech found that almost 63 percent of 163 single family home owners in California could not recall the name of a single solar company. This illustrates the enormous hill most solar companies must climb to even make an impression on the public. The most effective way to produce brand awareness is to initiate a relationship through a direct mail, targeted banner advertisements and/or PPC campaigns.
- Lead generation—While the industry as a whole is eager to make a greater impact on consumers, your company needs paying customersn and that starts with obtaining leads. Solar is a young industry with little mainstream recognition, so it's important to initiate the conversation by sending out emails and direct mail as well as creating quality blog posts and posting relevant, informative content on social media. Many home owners and business executives are happy to entertain offers on cutting power costs, but few know where to begin when it comes to solar.
- Educating consumers—An enormous challenge for marketing solar is the common perception that solar products are expensive. Furthermore, as solar energy is a relatively new concept in the history of energy, many people don’t know enough about it. Where’s the first place they will turn to learn more? Google. Your solar company cannot afford to slack on the inbound marketing techniques. Creating content search engine optimized content be it in a blog and/or on social media will help your search ranking and ultimately get you found by consumers searching the web for solar answers.
Marketing solar shouldn’t be about choosing between inbound and outbound; both methodologies have their benefits.
While your company should be using an inbound marketing plan for the majority of your marketing solar initiatives, using some carefully selected outbound techniques may widen your customer base and even open up some new markets.
What tactics do you use for marketing your Solar company?
