Lead generation for your solar business is a must to be successful in today’s age. To have a steady influx of solar leads, whether your business focuses on selling solar panels or solar energy, you have to learn what works today. And not use outdated strategies that are unfortunately being used by small minded business owners.
There is no way to succeed in this business unless you take your time learning about it and track your success and efforts in this part of the company that, usually, will be managed by your sales team once you expand.
The only way to achieve high sales, more installations, and satisfied customers are to establish a marketing plan that comprehends more than one lead generation strategy focused on a target audience you should determine before anything else.
So far, we know it takes a lot of work, but getting prospects doesn’t have to be as difficult as you may be thinking. Just like you, no one wants to be subjected to cold calls or have doors shut in their face.
However, there’s a better way to attract marketing qualified leads. The guiding principle is learning the secrets of handling the basics before you decide to fly before walking.
With the right approach, you will find the lead generation process enjoyable, which will help you produce great results. Leads interested in solar services are ready to move on to the next stage in the sales funnel when targeting is properly executed.
By this point, we know you’re wondering: “How can I start generating leads but also convert them into clients?”
To ensure you’re successful, we figured the best approach would be to focus on the lead generation strategies that work for your business type, and we have compiled them below.
Basic Yet Crucial: Solar Keyword Research
Keywords form the basis of search engine optimization. Using high-ranking keywords will help you appear at the top of search engines results like Google and Bing, which means you’ll be the first option for most people looking for those words.
But before you start ranking and using those keywords, it’s natural to perform keyword research and determine which ones are the best for your company, more and less competitive and set your plan of action later to compete for them.
Once done, focus on content creation and pay close attention to keyword density to avoid overstuffing. Besides, make sure that you place the keywords naturally within the text.
These white SEO techniques will help your pages rank highly in the search engine, and compared to paid options, you will get long-lasting results.
To get the best results, you should know the words and phrases your ideal prospects use when searching for solar-related topics online.
You can get the best keyword suggestions from various SEO lead generation tools like SEM Rush. Once you know what your prospects are searching for, it will be easier to create content that grabs their attention and know-how to optimize your website overall.
Design a User-Friendly Website
You need a website with a professional design to help you get more sales leads. The site should be well-organized, visually pleasing, easy-to-use, fast loading, have a clear value proposition, and at least one call to action if visitors want to convert into leads.
A smooth user experience is critical in keeping prospects on your site.
Google will conclude that your content is valuable and move you up in search results if website visitors spend more time on your site and don’t exit it to go to the next one for whatever reason.
Once you invest in a user-friendly web design, collecting lead information for solar installations will be easy.
Although people consider websites to be the last element to integrate into their digital marketing strategy considering social media platforms exist, it is the main place to get your leads.
This is why you need to pay close attention to the design of your website and, first of all, focus on building it and setting it for your company.
Once you have people visiting your website, it will be easier to convert them into active customers.
Relevant & In-Depth Solar Content
You also need to provide clear and organized information about your solar products or services in order to build trust and show how knowledgeable you are while promoting your value for leads to buy or hire them.
The best way of doing this is through content marketing.
You should have an extensive website with a blog to help you generate high-quality solar leads. Google rewards websites that publish valuable content frequently and don’t stuff it with keywords only.
The judgment is partly by the number of visitors who read the entire post. Blog posts relevant for solar prospects will attract a high level of readership.
The demographic characteristics of your target audience, like their income level, location, interest, and age, will help you create relevant blog content.
You don’t have to create content focused on your panels alone or solar energy. Sometimes, variations or topics that can be related to your main niche are welcomed by your audience as long as they are informative and worth their time.
Email Campaigns Segmented for Residential & Business Solar Leads
If you’ve created your website, optimized it, and followed the previous lead generation strategies, that means your prospects have already looked at your website.
In this case, you don’t want to impress them once but not enough to make them come back, or maybe they just forget about your brand/company. This is when email marketing comes in handy.
Emails remain among the best lead management software that will help you stay in close contact with your potential customers and convert them over time.
Here are some top suggestions to help you achieve this objective generate leads:
- You can offer them an item worth value. As you strive to have clients give you their email addresses, you will discover that most people will not do so unless they receive something in return.
- Each webpage should end with a banner inviting visitors to sign up for a free consultation quote. Giving website visitors a valuable thing at no cost will help you grow your email list within no time.
- If visitors tick the box to accept email, they will initiate an email drip campaign by signing up. These should appear in your prospect’s inbox every other week after the initial welcome email.
But if you are going to focus on this strategy, what should these emails say?
First, don’t be too salesy. What does that mean? Although you may inform them about the financial benefits of solar systems and recommend your services or products, so they contact your sales team, most of your emails should focus on building trust and authority by providing helpful information.
Sometimes, a simple email is more effective than trying to stuff people with all the details about your company.
The email content could be as simple as a link to one of your most popular posts or as complex as sharing five of the most cost-effective ways to save money on A/C or other sources as they invest in solar panels.
It is best to have a drip campaign targeting commercial and residential organic solar leads separately. This marketing strategy should be tailored to the specific needs of each group.
Social Media Campaigns: They Work for Solar Leads
Your website is an integral part of inbound marketing. The primary goal of every sales team is to reach out to as many people as possible and send them to your site.
Social media platforms are a great way to build your company’s online presence and achieve this goal and generate leads independently.
First, find out if your ideal prospects spend more on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. If these platforms are not performing well, you should check whether they spend more time on LinkedIn or similar platforms.
While residential clients are more likely to use Instagram and Facebook, commercial clients prefer LinkedIn. The most important thing here is to understand where you can find most solar leads.
However, many installers have had success with Facebook, and they can reach both types of clients. In a nutshell, choosing the right platform is worth doing much research.
Once you have a clear idea of where to focus your efforts, you can revise your lead generation strategy accordingly.
Include your business’s videos, blog posts, testimonials, and shared content from local businesses. This strategy will establish your brand as an essential source of solar energy information.
Register on the Directory of Solar Companies
Customers often search online for “the best solar companies near me.” While you want prospects to find your business quickly, getting your website on the first page of Google search results can be difficult.
Google favors websites with a lot of traffic and a history of publishing content, such as directories.
They will most likely be the first to appear whenever customers search online.
Customers can still find a local business by including keywords like “near me” or the city name, but the competition is immense. To ensure prospects find you when they search, you must be listed in the top directories.
Only choose the directories that show up first in Google search results. Consumers seeking reliable information also prefer to turn to directories listed in industry association directories.
The Solar Energy Industry Association Directory has members from all fields in the solar industry like project developers, manufacturers, installers, and even financiers. If you are listed in these industries, you will most likely attract the best marketing leads in the industry.
Create a Strong Instagram Presence
Instagram is a great way to reach homeowners interested in solar energy, and we had to set it apart as a social media platform to ensure you approach this the right way.
Homeowners will remember you when they are ready to leap if you have a strong Instagram presence.
You can be posting solar photos at least once a week for a start. From there, you can gradually increase the posts to three times per week.
It is easier if you plan your content ahead of schedule. Many solar companies have found some great ideas for creating Instagram-worthy content. These include:
- Taken photos before and after each project.
- Taken Photos of projects currently in progress.
- Videos showing specific processes such as spray foam application.
- Picture taken at company events.
- Photographs, testimonials, and solar reviews from satisfied customers.
- Quotes, graphics, and memes about solar or green energy.
- Announcements about company awards.
It is of great importance to post at the correct hour. Research has shown that posting on Mondays and Fridays in the afternoon is the best practice when using this platform.
However, it’s a brilliant idea to experiment with different times and days of the week to find the best time for your business.
Customers vary from one place to another, and you need to find out what works best for your target audience.
You can also advertise your posts for free using hashtags. People use them to search for businesses and influencers that specialize in a specific topic. Many people use hashtags to follow their profiles on Instagram.
Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags per calendar month. But it would be best if you still chose wisely. Use hashtags that are relevant to your topic but not too competitive. It’s challenging to be noticed among 4,000,000 posts if you use a generic hashtag like #solar.
To find great ideas, you can search for hashtags on Instagram. Start by looking for medium competitiveness in hashtags that are used less than 500k times or community hashtags less than 20,000 times.
Participate In Homeowner Associations and Provide Free Advice
Participating in local homeowner associations is another excellent way to find solar leads. First, identify the communities within your service area. From here, figure out how you can contact them.
It is easy to drive around and take note of the names of your neighborhood, then search them online.
Websites of large communities often include the names and contact information for board members and sometimes staff members. These websites often contain information about sponsorship opportunities and business directories.
You can also have your business listed on the newsletter to sponsor events such as yard sales and concerts. Make sure you set up a booth or information desk at these more significant events.
Although smaller communities may not have websites, most groups on Facebook do provide information and contacts.
Advertise To People Who Are Looking for Solar Panels
People interested in buying solar panels right now are highly qualified leads because they’re past the information-gathering stage and are ready to purchase.
Running Google ads targeted at solar panel buyers is one of the best ways you can identify potential customers. Although this can be considered part of the whole process of identifying your target audience, the truth is it will take you more than just setting a schema of the actual clients you should aim for.
This is why you will need to display the first and take notes of how things work first.
Display ads to users who are searching for similar products or services as yours. Below are some tips to help you move through this process:
- Remarketing—yes, we discussed it earlier: Target users who have interacted with your app, website, or ads so that they can see your ads more often.
- Keywords: Display ads to users searching for specific keywords or phrases on Google (e.g., solar panel companies near me).
- Topics: You can target ads to multiple pages on specific issues (e.g., solar panels). Using topic targeting, you may also target a wide range of pages through the Display Network.
- Placement: Display ads on websites where potential customers are browsing (the best examples here are directories).
For homeowners interested in solar energy, you can create a Facebook group. This strategy is similar in concept to getting involved in homeowner communities.
This strategy is different because you are creating the group. The potential audience is also much more significant. After all, over 1.5 billion people worldwide use Facebook.
Clicking on the link will take the customer to your site through search, not via an ad. This is content marketing. Even though this process is simple, it is highly effective in lead generation.
Use Incentives to Refer Friends
Recommending clients to your business is a great way to get new leads. Referral prospects are more likely to be informed about your company and be ready to make a purchase sooner than other leads.
Existing clients are more likely to recommend expensive, high-end products such as solar panels. Current customers can build a long-lasting relationship with you, leading to multiple referrals if they feel it is worth their time.
Discounts or cash rewards are great motivators, especially when you offer tiered rewards to send multiple solar leads. Customers will send more referrals if they know they will get more for each one.
Develop Buyer Personas
This is the first step of any legit inbound marketing or solar lead generation campaign. The starting point is to know whom your marketing efforts are directed at.
A buyer persona refers to a profile of your ideal or typical customer. It allows you to put yourself in their shoes to help you understand what it takes to get them on board as a customer.
Write a few buyer personas using demographic information such as age, gender, and income. Once you are done, you will have a good idea of whom to target as potential leads for your residential or commercial solar business.
Make Content That Is Tailored To These People
Inbound marketing is all about creating a reason for customers and prospects to interact with your company. Ask yourself this question: What content do potential solar buyers want? These are some excellent places to start:
- Informational Blog Posting: These could include general information about solar energy or comparison between traditional and solar energy sources. They can also provide an insider’s view of how photovoltaic cells work.
- eBooks and Other Downloads: Select a specific area of solar to cover in a downloadable resource like “The homeowner’s guide for making the switch from electrical to solar.”
- Videos: Videos are great for solar installation companies as they offer a hands-on service many homeowners don’t know about. A video showing the whole process from start to finish educates homeowners and builds trust in your company.
Encourage potential solar leads to take the first step in the purchase journey. Remember, you’ve built trust and engaged potential customers through your excellent, accessible information and resources. Now you want them to convert into a sales qualified lead or an active customer.
Inbound marketing requires that you collect information. You could, for example, “gate” an eBook that you created so that visitors can only download it if you have their email address and name.
You might also want to create a “Free Quote” form on your website. Customers at the bottom of the sales funnel can give you more information than just their name.
No matter how you do it, your goal should be to get permission to contact potential leads in the solar industry. You can then give them to your marketing team representative for further communication.
Because they were willing to share their information, they won’t be offended by a phone call or email. This is the beauty of inbound lead generation.
You know that all the leads you receive are qualified leads. Except for a few hobbyists, who else will sign up for your weekly “solar panel” newsletter beside someone actively looking to purchase?
Use all these tips to get the best solar energy & solar panels leads for your business. Most people prefer to get these results organically, but you may also buy solar leads.
The quality of the lead is more critical than the number. It is wise to consider all these factors as you concentrate on generating leads.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Solar Energy Business & Solar Panel Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Solar Energy Business & Solar Panel Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Solar Energy Leads & Solar Panel Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.