You might remember getting an inside peek of your favorite celebrity’s house on “MTV Cribs” in the early 2000s. One California contractor is trying to create the same excitement around homes with solar.

 

David Boylan and Kent Harle of SunPower by Stellar Solar (No. 127) were looking for a way to market to a customer base that was all over the map.

 

“We’ve talked about a lot of different marketing campaigns, but it was hard to identify one significant customer segment,” Harle said. 

 

Stellar Solar has installed solar for teachers, firefighters, bands, CEOs and even nuns.

 

“We’ve advertised on conservative talk radio as well as NPR, and get as many leads from each,” Boylan said. “That’s the beauty of it.”

 

Harle and Boylan saw an opportunity to reach different demographics by telling a variety of customer stories in a video series they named “Solar Cribs.”

 

“Everyone does customer testimonials,” Boylan said. “We wanted to go a little deeper than that—tell their story as well as the story of going solar.” 

 

“When David first mentioned it, I thought of ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous,’” Harle said. “We kind of realized it’s not about big fancy houses, it’s more about the people in the houses.” 

 

While the first episode featured an eclectic, well-to-do couple, the next will feature a group of firefighters. Other future editions may include an auto-repair shop and a band with a solar-powered recording studio. The plan is to do one or two videos each month as the company’s sales team keeps ideas coming.

 

“We want to speak to as many different demographics as we can so people in each group can see the videos and say, ‘Oh wow, that looks like me or someone I know,’” Boylan said.

 

Stellar Solar does most of its marketing in-house, and it’s been able to produce its own videos too.

“David’s good at getting stories out of people—how they came to California, how they live, why they went solar,” Harle said. “It’s not hard to come up with five or 10 minutes of content for each.”

 

Boylan has a background in radio and another coworker is a self-taught photographer who shoots the videos on his DSLR camera. They’ve even used drones to take aerial shots of projects.

 

“It’s not hard to edit these up and make them look pretty professional for not that big of a budget,” Harle said.

 

The team enjoys shooting the videos and getting to know their customers along the way. They’ve enjoyed wine samples after shooting a vineyard solar installation, and they plan to have a barbeque with the firefighters.

 

The company promotes these videos through boosted Facebook posts and ads, as runs a trailer as YouTube pre-roll ads.

 

“Our No. 1 lead source is referrals,” Boylan said. “The people we feature put the videos on their Facebook page. It’s something for them to show off and, indirectly, that’s a business development tool for us.” 

 

Boylan realized there’s been backlash against solar marketing in the last couple of years and feels his company’s approach is different.

 

“We’ve always tried to take the high road as far as being educational rather than hard sales pitches, or knocking on people’s doors,” he said. “I think people appreciate that.”