By Debra Friday Scarpa, owner of Solar Energy Marketing
This blog was originally published here.
Are you a B2C solar company struggling to consistently generate enough high quality leads? If so, you’ve probably dealt with the frustration of trying to get the type and amount of leads you want.
If you’re tired of tactics that aren’t working, your answer could be content marketing. This post will educate you on content marketing and solutions that could consistently generate high quality leads for your B2C solar business.
There are many approaches to content marketing, but it takes some time to strategize and decide which ones are the best options for your business. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
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- FAQs: Write helpful answers to some of the most common questions potential solar customers might have and feature them on your website and in blog posts.
- Educational Content: Publish in-depth articles, how-to guides (videos), and other educational content that can help users easily navigate the complex solar landscape. Infographics are especially effective at helping visualize and simplify complex ideas.
- SEO: Implement search engine optimization to rank higher in Google and Bing. Techniques include:
- On-site SEO: Research SEO keywords and phrases you’d like to rank for and optimize your website pages.
- Off-site SEO: Complete and optimize your business listing pages, publish press releases, get featured articles on other websites and more.
- Email Marketing: Both prospects and customers should be nurtured through email marketing automation. This is the perfect opportunity to send out your latest blog post, infographic, successful project, a new award and more.
- Social Media: Leverage social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram and YouTube to further promote your content.
- Photo Galleries: Add high-quality photo galleries that feature your best solar projects to your website. You can also add pictures to business directories, social media profiles and anywhere else your “brand” appears.
- Project Map: Feature a project map on your website where prospective customers can search for other projects in their neighborhood which makes it easier for fence-sitters.
- Awards, Certifications, & Memberships: Just as with online reviews, you can use awards, certifications and memberships to leverage the power of “social proof.” After all – if others already trust you, then you must be trustworthy.
- Events: Workshops, home shows, speaking engagements and open houses allow you to meet with prospective buyers in person where you can hand out brochures and collect their contact information to follow up later.
So if you implement all these tactics the sales should start rolling in at this point, right?
Not necessarily.
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), there were 1.4 million photovoltaic (PV) installers throughout the United States back in 2016. And by 2022, that number is expected to nearly triple to 4 million.
So how do prospects even find you?
Well, remember that solar isn’t an impulse purchase. And just as prospects will research you online after making first contact – they’ll also do a lot of research before they ever get to know you.
So you need to position your company (and brand) at key positions throughout the buying cycle.
The point is, prospective buyers will always search for answers to their questions online. And someone will eventually answer them.
Through effective content marketing, you can make sure that “someone” is you. By creating and promoting quality content, you become the go-to expert for all the diverse concerns prospects have throughout the solar buying cycle.
And that authority and expertise help to generate trust—even before prospects ever meet you face-to-face.
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