Whether you started your solar company to make a positive impact on the environment or because you understand that solar is the gold rush of our time, everyone in business is in business to turn a profit.
Solar is as competitive as it is lucrative; right now, everyone is clamoring for their piece of the billion dollar pie that is the solar industry.
You were savvy enough to get in on the solar business while the iron is still hot. Keeping that iron hot is an entirely different story.
Marketing your solar business is becoming a necessity. With hundreds of both residential and commercial solar installers cropping up every year, your company needs to remain competitive if you want to maintain your position in that market––or, if you’re gunning for that top spot.
Let’s take a deep dive into marketing your solar company using both traditional and digital avenues.
Digital Marketing for Solar Companies
Consumers interested in solar energy are typically tech-savvy. That means that the majority of people looking for solar panels are searching online.
Your online presence needs to be powerful, positioning your company as a credible authority, showing prospective customers that doing business with you is a good investment.
Remember, solar is becoming a commodity. You can use digital marketing tactics for your solar company to de-commoditize your company and make your name synonymous with solar energy.
Build an Search Optimized (and User Optimized) Website
First, recognize the power your website holds. Your website is the digital equivalent of the front door of your business. You need to have a professional website that reflects the value of their investment.
For example, if you’re selling a million dollar commercial solar deal, your website needs to look like you sell million dollar deals.
Invest in Content Marketing for Your Solar Company
Content marketing is arguable one of the most powerful marketing tactics you can use for your solar company, for a number of reasons:
- Content marketing positions you as an authority in your industry.
- Providing educational, informational content builds credibility and trust
- Content marketing is a MASSIVE ranking factor in search engine optimization
- Your content can be distributed across multiple channels, creating omnipresence in your agency
- Content marketing is part of organic lead generation for your solar company.
Solar companies that implement an airtight content marketing strategy are performing far better in search engines, collecting higher quality leads, and winning more installs than solar companies that ignore their content marketing.
And the best part?
Not many solar companies are utilizing content marketing, giving your company the perfect opportunity to slide into the top spots and stay there.
Now that you understand the importance of content marketing in your overall marketing plan, let’s talk about how to create and distribute content.
Create Pillar Content
First, you need to start with your solar company’s pillar content. Pillar content is the most extensive, most important content on your website.
Pillar content can be created in form of ultimate guides, complete guides, tutorials, studies, and other high-value content that addresses any potential search queries someone is conducting.
Choose your pillar content based on keyword ranking difficulty, traffic, and relevance to your audience.
You can repurpose your pillar content for other platforms, which we’ll dive into later in this guide.
Implement a Blog Writing Strategy
Your content strategy doesn’t stop at pillar content. You need to publish consistent, relevant blogs on your website to signal to Google that your website is “fresh” and provide constant value to your audience.
A blog strategy also involves interlinked content, which means including hyperlinks to other relevant content on your website. This helps Google navigate your website as well as keeps users on your site for longer, which is a significant ranking factor in SEO.
Repurpose Your Blog Content for Omnichannel Marketing
Once you’ve created your pillar content and blogging strategy for your solar company’s content marketing plan, you can repurpose the content for other platforms and achieve digital omnipresence.
Let’s talk about what omnipresence is and what that might look like for your solar company.
Marketing omnipresence means creating content that meets your audience where they are, wherever that happens to be. Consumers interested in solar panels are spread across multiple platforms, from LinkedIn for commercial solar deals to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest for residential deals.
If you want to get the most eyes possible on your content, you can repurpose your content for each of these channels.
Want a killer strategy for repurposing content and achieving omnipresence for your solar company? Download our Eclipse Your Competition Solar Content Marketing Guide for FREE.
Invest in Solar SEO
Search engine optimization is reaching critical levels for solar companies. With the sheer amount of solar companies competing for space in your market, your company needs to show up in search results––and show up as close to the top as possible.
SEO combines high-impact content, internal linking strategies, and on page optimization with technical SEO such as sitemaps, backlinking, meta information, schermas, and more.
SEO is hard to do and easy to mess up. The wrong move could send you down the Google blackhole forever. It’s highly recommended that if you want to increase your search engine visibility that you enlist the help of a company that specializes in SEO for solar companies.
Run Paid Traffic Campaigns
Paid traffic offers a way to generate leads quickly, collect data from your web traffic, and get more eyeballs on your website.
While paid traffic can be a significant investment, depending on the scope of your services and how competitive your market is, if you need to generate more solar leads while you’re building up your organic traffic, paid traffic is the way to go.
Let’s look at a couple different options for running paid traffic campaigns as part of your solar marketing strategy:
Social Media Ads for Solar Companies
Another form of paid traffic, social media advertising can be highly effective, especially for residential solar companies.
Your potential customers are online, and they are on social media. Social media ads collects leads for your solar business right where your ideal client is already looking.
Search Ads for Solar Companies
If you’ve ever seen the websites that show up at the top of your Google search with the word “Ad” next to it, you’ve seen a search ad (see the example below).
Search ads are served to users who type in specific keywords or queries. You can also use negative keywords in your search ad campaigns, meaning that you won’t show up for certain keywords.
Paid traffic is another one of those marketing tactics that’s easy to mess up. If you don’t have the right keywords, the right ad creative, the right copy, or the right tracking installed on your website, you’ll be sinking money into ads that don’t yield results.
If you’re not familiar with paid traffic, consult a professional. It’s well worth the investment.
Create Lead Magnets
Another way to market your solar company and collect leads to create a lead magnet.
A lead magnet is something a potential customer gets in exchange for their contact information.
I’ll use one of the AJC Group’s lead magnets as an example:
Our company offers SEO and marketing for solar companies. Our lead magnet is our Eclipse Your Competition Solar Content Marketing Guide. The guide provides our audience something of high-value: the behind-the-scenes information on how to repurpose content for multiple channels and streamline their content creation process.
In exchange, we get an email address.
That email address then goes into our email drip campaign.
The email drip campaign provides more useful, practical information to the subscriber before sending an exclusive offer only available to email subscribers.
You can do the same thing for your solar company. We’ll go deeper into how to use email marketing for your solar company next.
Want to see how a lead magnet and drip campaign works in action (plus get our free solar content marketing guide)? You can download it below.
Utilize Email Marketing
If you downloaded our content marketing lead magnet above, you’ll have an opportunity to see how email marketing works in action.
And best of all, you can automate the entire process, collapsing time and generating leads while you sleep.
Email marketing is still extremely powerful, and if your solar company uses email marketing in a smart way (providing the right balance of value and promotion), you will see excellent results from email marketing.
Partner With Solar Quote Sites
You know those solar quote sites that serve only as lead generation?
Those leads need to go somewhere. Seek them out and partner with them.
Invest in Thought Leadership & PR
Thought leadership is a high-impact way to build authority for your website as well as your brand as a whole.
Thought leadership is the process of positioning yourself as an expert in your industry through creating high-value content pieces. When these pieces of content are published on high-authority sites and link back to your website, you not only drive traffic, but get a backlink, which is important in SEO.
What Kind of Content Should You Create For Your Solar Company?
Digital marketing for your solar company is content based, meaning you need to create captivating, interesting content that’s worth engaging with.
Understand the Desires of Your Target Market
You need to know who you’re creating content for before you start churning out articles, social media posts,podcasts, or videos.
If your content isn’t getting in front of the right people, what’s the point?
Become intimately familiar with your target audience:
- What questions do they have? What questions are you most commonly asked?
- What are their pain points when it comes to solar?
- How much does your target audience understand about your product?
- Where is your audience located and how can you localize your content?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions––without thinking––you need to conduct further research before your content creation process begins.
Promote Finance Options
A popular question among potential solar buyers is financing options.
A lot of people want solar. But, not everyone thinks they can afford it.
And, some people think they can’t afford it, but they can.
Create content explaining solar finance options. Include the monterey benefits of solar within this content as well.
Educate, Inform, and Entertain
The large majority of your content should aim to educate, inform, or entertain your audience.
Remember: People love to buy, but they don’t like to be sold to.
Creating content that is of high-value to your audience means that once they feel educated enough, and trust you (because you come from a place of value), you’ll be the go-to when they’re ready to buy.
Balance Promotion and Information
It’s important to strike the right balance between informational and promotional content.
As valuable as informational content is, you need to talk about your services and your offers. Otherwise, your target audience won’t know what they are.
Traditional vs. Digital Marketing for Solar Companies
Digital marketing consists of a mixture of social media management, article writing, digital PR, paid advertising, link building, directory marketing, creating a conversion-ready website, and search engine optimization for solar companies, among many other modern marketing strategies.
But often, the tried-and-true tactics of traditional marketing are left by the wayside, leaving money on the table.
Let’s look at traditional marketing tactics and how they can benefit your solar company.
Traditional Marketing for Solar Companies
Traditional marketing can help you laser-focus your marketing efforts in your market and create omnipresence for your brand.
Often, people associate more “tangible” forms of marketing with trustworthiness, meaning that you need a combination of both digital and traditional marketing for your solar business.
Does Traditional Marketing Work for the Solar Industry?
Traditional marketing is by no means dead.
And, if you landed on this page, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re a solar professional looking to edge out your competition.
Think: how did you become aware of your competition?
Are you seeing their advertisements in the yards of residential homes? Do you see their trucks driving around? What kind of presence do they have in your market?
Your competition is beating you because they’ve taken an omnipresent approach to their marketing.
And you can do the same.
Make Your Mark on the Market with Traditional Marketing Traditional Marketing For Solar Companies
Try some of these time-tested marketing strategies for your solar company in conjunction with your digital marketing strategy and watch the leads roll in.
- Vehicle Wraps
Seeing a company vehicle in your neighborhood is effective in two main ways: first, it’s a form of social proof. If your customer’s neighbors see a truck with your logo on it, it shows them that their neighbors are reaping the benefits of solar energy. Secondly, even if you park your wrapped vehicle at community events, you’ll get eyes on your brand from people directly in your market.
- Billboards
Billboard ads ARE still effective! Done strategically, not only does a billboard give the perception of a successful company, you can rent billboard space right in the areas your target customers live.
- Direct Mail
Yes, direct mail still works (if you take the time to do it right!). Sending a laminated postcard with a limited time offer can help get your phone ringing. Plus, this method of advertising is highly targeted and going directly to the customers you want to serve.
- Co-Promotion
Co-promo is a great way to get more eyes on your business.
Think of businesses with a similar ideal customer, such as roofing companies or new home builders and network with them. See how you can work in tandem to help grow both of your businesses.
- Seminars
Putting a face to a brand is powerful. Attending a green energy conference or a similar event gives your company the opportunity to build rapport in real time with potential customers.
- Sponsor a Community Event
By nature, consumers buy from brands they trust, and a great way to build that trust is to become involved in your community. Whether it’s sponsoring a little league baseball team or adopting a highway, name recognition goes a long way in the solar industry.
- Run a Referral Program
Word of mouth is arguably the most powerful marketing tool in your toolbox. And, it’s even more effective if you incentivize it. Let your customers know that the more they talk about you and the more referrals they send your way, the more they’ll get a cash kickback. You’d be surprised how many referrals you’ll get this way.
- Run a Radio Ad
Radio ads are highly targeted and massively effective. Working with an ad buyer to select the best time slots for you can get the right people listening to your commercial at exactly the right time.
- Yard Signage
This is a fantastic traditional marketing strategy. Yard signage for your customers bragging about their new investment in a better environmental future both boosts your customer’s morale and helps to affirm that they made a good choice and offers a low-cost advertisement for you.
Ignite Your Solar Business with Traditional Marketing Tactics
If you already invest in digital marketing and SEO for your solar company and you’re seeing great results, don’t stop there! Putting traditional marketing strategies into action helps your solar business achieve omnipresence and helps you absolutely dominate your market.
Frequently Asked Questions About Marketing Your Solar Company
Do I Need Both Traditional and Digital Marketing?
In my professional opinion, absolutely. Both traditional and digital marketing tactics help you reach your ideal customers, and by utilizing both, you create omnipresence and become the go-to solar provider in your market.
How Can My Solar Company Become the Go-To in My Market?
Marketing isn’t the only factor in becoming the go-to solar installer in your market. You must also build credibility and trust through your customer service. This includes your sales process. Good customer experiences breed referrals, and word-of-mouth is the most powerful marketing tool of them all.
How Can I Generate Leads for My Solar Company Online?
With a combination of content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, directory marketing, lead magnets, email marketing, paid traffic, and a fully optimized website, your solar company can generate leads even while you sleep.
Is Social Media Important for Solar Companies?
Social media marketing is important for your company in a number of ways. First, it allows you to expand your reach by getting in front of more potential customers, especially if your social media strategy includes localization.
Secondly, social media is meant to be just that: social. Building rapport with potential clients helps build the know, like, and trust factor that is crucial to solar sales.
Marketing Your Solar Company: Play to Win or Don’t Play at All
Operating a solar company is one of the most lucrative business ventures there is, especially in 2022. But, solar is competitive. With the right solar marketing strategies, you CAN compete and you CAN win.