Demand for solar energy by home owners is at an all-time high. Solar power marketing ideas are at a premium especially if you’re trying to reach electric vehicle (EV) owners. If you sell solar solutions, how do you reach home owners interested in solar?
Here are some free solar marketing ideas for you to try to help grow your solar business.
Reach qualified home owners interested in solar
The first step in solar marketing is to reach the right audience. That may seem obvious but we see a lot of marketing not reaching its intended audience. So, here are some cost-effective solar marketing ideas to use.
There is plenty of competition for solar energy solutions. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows over 12,000 people employed to install solar energy systems and equipment.
People want solar power for various reasons. They may want to go off the grid. They may be concerned for the environment. They may want to reduce energy costs. They may want “all the above!”
Solar marketing ideas: Target EV owners
One of the important solar marketing ideas is to look at owners of electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles.
A big reason people are interested in solar is because they drive an electric vehicle (EV). Driving an EV like a Tesla is attractive to many but charging a car does drive up electric bills. Home charging for EVs is usually based on speed of the charge and is classified into Level 1 (110-120 volts) and Level 2 (220 to 240 volts). The technical term for a charging station system is electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE).
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) require electric charging but not as much as EVs because they derive some of their power by burning gasoline.
There’s a growing interest in using solar to power a homeowner’s EVSE. Typically a home requires seven to nine solar panels. More panels are required in less-sunny areas and for cars requiring more of a charge like the Audi e-tron.
Often times the owner of an EV will have two EVs or one EV and one PHEV, requiring more charging capability.
Educate homeowners on solar
It’s important to educate homeowners on solar benefits. There are a lot of advantages to upgrading to a solar energy system.
Education is important because many homeowners who own an EV aren’t aware of potential cost savings with solar. Have a clear cost benefit or payback, which helps create interest in solar especially if they are new to owning an EV.
Some homeowners with an EV may be interested in the technical aspect to solar and want to know how it works. Others will be more interested in environmental benefits. Others are just going to be interested in saving money now that they have an EV in the garage that requires charging every night.
Check your website
Does your website educate potential customers on solar? If someone owns an Audi e-tron or Tesla can they easily find the benefit to installing an EVSE system?
Do a quick audit, or better yet, have someone with fresh eyes take a look at your website. Ask a friend or neighbor who is not in the solar energy business to look it over.
Send people to your website.
We’ve covered who some of the best prospects are, we’ve covered what your website should tell them, but how do you send traffic to your website to get leads?
Fortunately you have a lot of options.
Solar direct mail
One option is good old direct mail. Some marketers dismiss direct mail in the digital age but it still works. One reason direct mail is a good option is there is less volume of it than in past years. Anything in the mail box has less to compete with. We have good options for electric vehicle mailing lists. You can reach owners of EVs in your city, county, radius around your solar energy business, or you can go state-wide.
Programmatic advertising and online audiences
Another option is to use digital online audiences with programmatic marketing. These digital audiences display banner ads on over one million websites and apps and are highly targeted to specific audience profiles. These banner ads send visitors to your website once they click on the ad.
Using Google Ads for solar marketing
Google Ads can reach a very engaged and qualified audience interested in solar. It doesn’t need to be expensive, you can limit your costs by focusing on a small geographic area and by limiting your daily budget.
Solar email marketing
Another option is email marketing. This has advantages and disadvantages.
The advantages include the ability to quickly reach a highly qualified audience. The way we recommend deploying an email campaign is to have us set that up for you and deploy two emails, about a week apart.
It’s important to keep in mind, however, that email marketing is not a substitute for other marketing practices. If you’re familiar with the old adage that it takes seven impressions to make a sale it applies here, too. Sending two emails is not suddenly going to overwhelm you with opportunities to submit quotes for solar power. Your solar email marketing needs to be part of your “big picture.”
Social media marketing and solar
Facebook and Instagram can work for you. You have to have a compelling marketing message in order to break through the clutter on both social platforms. Test to know what message to send. Explore paid advertising in the form of boosted posts. Solar dealers can uses social as a cost-effective tool to generate solar leads.
More solar marketing ideas: Understand your local market
There are probably many different neighborhoods within your solar business service area, with many different demographics and zoning requirements.
Affluent suburbs may mean more discretionary income. People in affluent areas may be less concerned about price and more concerned about quality. They have also have more zoning requirements to comply with, too.
Newer neighborhoods are often a refuge for young families. These families may be more inclined to support solar for environmental reasons.
Younger families aren’t necessarily more open to solar power just because they’re young, however. We see people of all ages embracing solar energy and EVs.
Neighborhoods with an older demographic may be interested in reducing electricity costs.
Know your audience! Your message will probably need to be different depending on who you’re talking to.
The right message to the right audience in your direct mail, email, online marketing or social marketing will help produce more leads. It will make your marketing more cost-effective.
Create your free Google My Business listing
Make sure your solar installation company has an updated Google My Business listing. It’s free. To create your listing, go to Google My Business. Follow the directions to create your listing or claim an existing listing. You’ll be asked to type your business name.
Google My Business powers local search activity so a complete listing will help your visibility to potential customers in your service area.
