Really? In the current market? Everyone says they want cheap leads? Cheap leads equals cheap clients right? And agency performance is based on leads generated? What if I told you this is going to lead to more work for less profit? Lets break this down… Cost per lead is important, and can be reduced using the right copy, eye-catching creatives and a strong offer. All crucial to success. But theres some caveats. Lets say we wanted to generate cheap leads and recreate that screenshot… 1. A no brainer offer 2. Attention grabbing copy/creative Claim Your FREE Car Charger NOW! 🚗⚡ No Hidden Costs, No Hassle! Thinking about solar? Act TODAY and get a FREE car charger with every install. No upfront payments, no obligations—anyone qualifies! 🏡☀️ Don't wait, this offer won't last! 👇 Click to see if you're eligible! 3. Now lets make it easy to register interest… Here's the problem:You now have someone looking for a free EV charger…Who's signed up for 10 of those exact offers whilst doom scrolling on Instagram.And doesn't know anything about your company, not even your name, your reputation or why he should go with you. There's another factor at play here. Wasted time. Lets do some maths: Campaign A (Cheap leads) Campaign B (Expensive leads) £1000 ad spend £1000 ad spend 100 leads (£10 CPL) 20 leads (£50 CPL) 25 phone calls 15 phone calls 10 surveys 10 surveys 3 deals 3 deals "Campaign A was better, the leads were cheaper, you had 100 of them!" "The problem is clearly the backend sales process" "You're not going to get £3 leads anywhere else, we are the best in the market" Campaign A = 5x more leads in your CRM5X more calls attempted10x completed calls with time-wasters Time = money So Campaign A was actually more expensive. *This is assuming you still get some deals over the line, and doesn't factor in your margins being squeezed Who would you rather deal with? A) A price sensitive customer looking for the cheapest deal?B) A customer who prioritises quality, reliability and an all round premium customer experience? So what should you do instead? 🤔 Rapport Why you are the people to work with or even trust to prepare a quote / undertake a survey Education Social media advertising is interruptive, you may find that prospects need more education than those searching for solutions Clarity Leads should always know what the next step in the process is, and should have as much mystery taken out of that step as possible Urgency A light touch of urgency to incite action is often useful 1. Grab attention with creativity, your face and not a clickbait offer! Make Your Energy Example Nightingale Electrical Example v2 and once you've caught their eye turn your customers into your sales team… paul ad nina ad matt ali v3 2. Write copy which attracts your ideal customer As a local installer stop competing on price.You can't, and even if you do say goodbye to profit margins. What sets you apart? Reputation Customer service Trust 3. Send them somewhere unique and premium Landscape The result? More expensive leads But… Higher quality leadsLess time-wastersA memorable customer experienceDifferetiationHigher margins 8x ROAS £0 upfront cost£0 ongoing cost2hrs of filming time With average net margin of 41% from 6 installations Booked 2 surveys in 24h of launching Closed their first install in their first week Completely fresh ad account with no existing advertising data Solar on steroids

Really? In the current market? Everyone says they want cheap leads? Cheap leads equals cheap clients right? And agency performance is based on leads generated? What if I told you this is going to lead to more work for less profit? Lets break this down… Cost per lead is important, and can be reduced using the right copy, eye-catching creatives and a strong offer. All crucial to success. But theres some caveats. Lets say we wanted to generate cheap leads and recreate that screenshot… 1. A no brainer offer 2. Attention grabbing copy/creative Claim Your FREE Car Charger NOW! 🚗⚡ No Hidden Costs, No Hassle! Thinking about solar? Act TODAY and get a FREE car charger with every install. No upfront payments, no obligations—anyone qualifies! 🏡☀️ Don't wait, this offer won't last! 👇 Click to see if you're eligible! 3. Now lets make it easy to register interest… Here's the problem:You now have someone looking for a free EV charger…Who's signed up for 10 of those exact offers whilst doom scrolling on Instagram.And doesn't know anything about your company, not even your name, your reputation or why he should go with you. There's another factor at play here. Wasted time. Lets do some maths: Campaign A (Cheap leads) Campaign B (Expensive leads) £1000 ad spend £1000 ad spend 100 leads (£10 CPL) 20 leads (£50 CPL) 25 phone calls 15 phone calls 10 surveys 10 surveys 3 deals 3 deals "Campaign A was better, the leads were cheaper, you had 100 of them!" "The problem is clearly the backend sales process" "You're not going to get £3 leads anywhere else, we are the best in the market" Campaign A = 5x more leads in your CRM5X more calls attempted10x completed calls with time-wasters Time = money So Campaign A was actually more expensive. *This is assuming you still get some deals over the line, and doesn't factor in your margins being squeezed Who would you rather deal with? A) A price sensitive customer looking for the cheapest deal?B) A customer who prioritises quality, reliability and an all round premium customer experience? So what should you do instead? 🤔 Rapport Why you are the people to work with or even trust to prepare a quote / undertake a survey Education Social media advertising is interruptive, you may find that prospects need more education than those searching for solutions Clarity Leads should always know what the next step in the process is, and should have as much mystery taken out of that step as possible Urgency A light touch of urgency to incite action is often useful 1. Grab attention with creativity, your face and not a clickbait offer! Make Your Energy Example Nightingale Electrical Example v2 and once you've caught their eye turn your customers into your sales team… paul ad nina ad matt ali v3 2. Write copy which attracts your ideal customer As a local installer stop competing on price.You can't, and even if you do say goodbye to profit margins. What sets you apart? Reputation Customer service Trust 3. Send them somewhere unique and premium Landscape The result? More expensive leads But… Higher quality leadsLess time-wastersA memorable customer experienceDifferetiationHigher margins 8x ROAS £0 upfront cost£0 ongoing cost2hrs of filming time With average net margin of 41% from 6 installations Booked 2 surveys in 24h of launching Closed their first install in their first week Completely fresh ad account with no existing advertising data Solar on steroids

Quick one today. When advertising your solar business, you need to make sure that you are putting yourself in the shoes of the person that is going to be viewing your ads. Tailoring ad targeting for business intent I work with Assisted to run Sustain's digital campaigns. In this case, Sustain only want leads of a commercial nature. Assisted have a lot of experience in B2B advertising and did a lot of analysis into what indicates that a searcher has business intent rather than consumer intent. So far we're on a 47x ROAS. They know what they're doing. Mobile vs Desktop devices One of the big things they noticed was that Mobile devices had far less commercial intent than desktop. You can imagine how this might be the case. Days of the week? The next thing to trial was whether days of the week would have an impact on intent. I imagined that weekdays would have much higher business intent and weekends would be more consumer based. But when do business leaders and decision makers do work that isn't fire fighting and the day to day? Research on new strategies, investments, cost-saving measures? Weekends. Start with a hypothesis and then confirm with data If we'd have just taken the first assumption of weekdays working better than weekends, we would have missed out on 7 figures of pipeline. Infact, a massive 1-2MW lead with EV charging infrastructure came through at 12:10am on a Saturday morning. A lower cost per click is not always better Assisted and I have been INCREASING the cost per click as consumer intent traffic is progressively filtered out of the targeting. The Cost Per Click (CPC) has increased 400% since we started the campaigns. Over time we want to be decreasing the cost per lead and the cost per acquisition but we need to ensure that we're getting the right quality of commercial intent leads first. Do not use CPC as your north star Its not just targeting We initially used a multi step form on the website as the primary contact form. We did this to get more information from the lead without it feeling like a massive form on one page. We swapped this for a stripped back contact form and results basically doubled overnight. Where for residential intent enquiries, handholding through the process typically helps… For Commercial, you're dealing with business owners and decision makers that just want to start the conversation. You basically just need to get out of their way as much as possible. Their time is incredibly precious and you can get answers to questions like if they have multiple sites either by doing your own research or in the discovery phase of the sales process.

"I don't fancy it""I'm not any good on camera""People won't take me seriously""It will make us look unprofessional" tired of bill v1 Nightingale Electrical Example Make Your Energy Example sky tv ad 3 Trust!!! Who would you trust to come to your house, quote a fair and honest price, and do a brilliant job? Which of these installers has nowhere to hide if their service isn't up to scratch? Advert a) Advert b) Make Your Energy Example Differentiate your business There's countless solar companies a customer could opt for Other companies can emulate a lot of what you do What will always be unique?You as a person!Chris wins business, because people like Chris.The company down the road can't become Chris.Therefore Chris will always have an advantage vs the faceless installer. Attract customers who will resonate with you You probably want to deal with like minded customers.Customers who share your values and prioritise the same things your business wants to put first.Put that across in videos, and stop dealing with customers that won't align with you once you pick up the phone. Deliver more value 1) A stock image of solar panels on a roof2) A benefit list over the top of that image3) A 45 second video breaking down why to go solar, what your company stands for, and what the first step that the customer should take looks like.People don't want to read big blocks of text.Video content is consumed much more effectively. One step better, get your customers involved aswell… Record a video review Stan Paul Caroline paul ad nina ad matt ali v3 Get a copy Want a live copy of this doc as we build it out? Enter your information on the link featured somewhere on this post offer.solaronsteroids.com/magnum-opus If you want the implementation of everything shown Then answer a few questions once you've entered your details on that same link, and if you're qualified, you'll get the opportunity to book a call with our team. Form demo

We've shown you ads like this. You want to avoid these like the plague. How do I get my free EV charger? How do I get the free solar?? Even using "Free quote" is risky Even when you may feel that you have explicitly stated it is the quote or survey that is free, you will still get people thinking that this is a quote for "Free solar". You should offer some sort of value upfront in order to grab that click and conversion but you have to be ensure that there is a seamless path from that value offer to the next step. So the word free doesn't work. Bad leads, bad conversations, bad experience. What's a viable alternative? % off You can run percentage off campaigns effectively. E.g. 10% off installation for surveys booked in January Bonus panels We've seen buy 10 panels and get an additional 5 on the house work well. "We'll cover the cost of every 2nd panel." Notice how we carefully avoid the word free. Bonus scaffolding Book a survey for January and if you go ahead, we'll cover the cost of scaffolding. When to deploy these Ad styles In our experience, these ad styles are best utilised when someone has already been exposed to your 'rapport building' ad creatives. They are already familiar with you. It doesn't feel like a pitch slap. They may just need something with a strong offer to get them to convert as a lead.

Quick one today on how important it is to just be yourself throughout your marketing efforts A big part of our offer is that we come to film advertising creatives with you, that we then use as part of our Meta Ads strategy A lot of prospects and clients find this really nerveracking. For many of our clients, it is the first time they have been on camera Tom Loom Edit Infinite Bills Clip Barney Bills Clip Martin Bills Edited for Loom chair We could tell them that they have to be "Jack the lad" in the ads "Act up for the camera" "Be overly exaggerated" "Just do anything to get the click" But no. While its tempting as engagement is definitely a large element to a successful advertising creative, it falls flat on its face beyond that For a few main reasons: 1) Being anything but yourself is uncomfortable This uncomfortability comes off on camera People can feel it They feel that you aren't being true to yourself and are trying to play up to a role 2) You have to uphold that approach throughout the process If you play a certain character in your ads, you have to uphold that character on the first call, at the survey, on site at the installation If people didn't spot that you weren't being true to yourself and your company's approach in the ad itself, they will sooner or later in the process 3) People engage with different types of materials Some people will find the "Jack the lad" approach really jarring They'll find it salesy and uncomfortable Many of your target demographic would actually PREFER to hear from someone that is a bit more measured in their approach, that doesn't riff off the puns and slightly out there jokes At the end of the day, ads are just getting you infront of more people If once you're infront of people at the survey, they like you and they buy from you, you just need to present that same person in the ad When recording, we always start with, "Why you?" We have scripts that are tried and tested that are good to get from the client to ensure we have a batch of creatives that are surefire converters They can be said in the client's own words but the general topic/statements have to be the same as we know they work When we arrive on site, we don't start with them We start with a simple "Why you?" We've found time and time again that by starting with this simple question, our clients are very easily able to talk to the camera, as if talking to a prospect or a friend, about why someone should choose them. Choose them over local or national competition. This warms clients up for the more playful stuff we plan out for them It comes back to the idea that cheaper leads aren't always better Yes, if we had you jumping off the roof of an install, we'd probably get higher engagement Yes, if we had to make a crude joke at the start of the ad, we'd probably get higher engagement But what would it all be for? You'd attract a type of prospect that you don't feel comfortable or don't know how to sell to Once the cameras are off, you're out of your depth We'd rather get more expensive leads that want you for you Rather than the person you're playing up to be

When hiring for a Framer designer & developer, our first move was LinkedIn. Why? Its LinkedIn, the platform that is designed from the ground up for Jobs. No brainer right? Results were looking good. 14 applicants from LinkedIn's free £40 in spend Okay. Great, lets keep doing that. But then, we thought well where are these designers actually hanging out? As a designer myself, I don't remember ever really showing my designs on LinkedIn. It was always Twitter/X. So I went and pasted my LinkedIn post onto X/Twitter 53 applications, 58% of which came from Twitter/X With no advertising spend. Imagine if we put some money behind the post. It would've gone wild. Unfortunately this means that Joe is hammering away trying to whittle down a total of over 80 applicants in the last 3 days. But it has given us a lot of choice and great talent to choose from. How does this relate to Solar lead gen? Well, it couldn't be more relevant. You need to understand where your ideal customer is already hanging out. Lets take Meta for example. Facebook caters towards the older generation but even Instagram is leaning that way too. Making it great for not only Residential but also Commercial solar. A lot of people say that Meta doesn't work for B2B. Thats just because you don't have the right filtering and qualification mechanisms in place. Its not the platform, its how you're utilising the platform. Just because the platform isn't entirely B2B like LinkedIn is, doesn't mean that there aren't business decision makers browsing and engaging with B2B ads. You can very easily foresee older business owners and decision makers browsing Meta's platforms on their Saturday evening. Which ironically may also be a time when they have more time to consider long term cost saving initiatives etc. You need to put yourself in your buyers shoes and try to understand their buying and consumption habits.

Would this many ads run unprofitably?Especially those which have been running for over 12 months?It's not a question of whether Facebook ads work, or whether you can use it to reach your target audience, it's what needs to be done to make them work for you? 1. Did you give your ads enough time? Meta has an indication of who you want to target through:1. Your targeting2. Your copy3. Your creativeHowever, the best signal is actual conversions.People who have genuinely completed the task you want them to complete.Each conversion is a signal, which starts to paint a picture of exactly who will convert.Which means more effectiveness over time.And a stronger ROAS.Did you give up before Meta has any indication of whats working? 2. Did you test enough angles? We constantly are testing new angles and creatives to improve performance.1. Angle (your biggest lever) 2. New creative's (used to improve upon an angle which is working) Make Your Energy Example Nightingale Electrical Example v2 Step 1 is to find the angles which resonates: Step 2 is optimising the creative used: 1. Format (Image, Carousel, Video)2. Hook 3. Style 4. Copy It's actually about spend, not time! £20/day £100/day Conversion every £25 Conversion every £25 50 conversions = 63 days 50 conversions = 13 days (This is where leverage = faster learnings!)

This change took 5 minutes to implement and essentially halved our clients' lead cost while maintaining quality. Doubled conversion rate & halved lead cost Zero impact on quality of leads 5 minutes implementation time Quiz funnels vs lead forms For all of our clients, we use quiz funnels over lead forms. Higher intent Qualifies leads & more brand exposure Mobile first funnel demo Changing the first question we asked We noticed that a lot of visitors were hitting "Help me decide" when they landed on the first question, which asked "What are you looking for?" Now, you might think oh well its good that there is an option for help me decide but we knew this could be a major problem Even with the option of "Help me decide", having a question first that people didn't instinctively know the answer too was almost guaranteed to hurt conversions So we set about testing that theory We used Perspective's A/B testing feature We thought, what is the easiest possible question for someone we are targeting to answer? Well they need to be a homeowner. Do people know if they own their home? Yes. Without a doubt yes. Service 3.33% Home (new) 6.45% So, we rolled the change out across all clients That is the power of working in one niche, we give clients 10x the data they would otherwise have access to Enabling small local installers to compete head to head with lead aggregators that would otherwise bully them out of the market with the data that they are able to collect and speed in which they are able to iterate Once one test reaches significance, we go again Progressively increasing the conversion rate over time at a rate far quicker than any individual installer could The next test we're running is whether a long form landing page that is more media heavy will convert better Start rate will likely be lower because the visitor can: scroll get distracted doesn't have one core thing to do BUT we imagine the conversion rate will be higher because the user has: better connection between the ads and the page been exposed to more of the brand consumed more material has higher buy in The only way to know for sure is to run the test. We will let this one run for longer because we want to know if there is any uptick in quality of the leads (measured through pipeline progression) Try Perspective If you want to try out Perspective, then give us a shout and we'll help get you set up or go try it for yourself perspective.partnerlinks.io/e1xwie8tyn8f ​

These buzzwords get thrown around a lot. Especially when you are working on a Solar website with someone that likes to flex their capabilities. A conversion driver is something that encourages someone to take an action A conversion mechanism is something that takes that intent and converts it to a lead Example of conversion drivers An example of a conversion driver would be having really strong trust signals on your website. A team page with nice headshots. Showing that you are a legitimate business with a long standing team. Or a really strong case studies area Or maybe a wall of love, of customer reviews Examples of conversion mechanisms This is where the problem arises People confuse Conversion Drivers with Conversion Mechanisms I had a discovery call recently "I'm not getting enough leads through my Solar website" "I'm spending £2,000/month on Google Ads and a £4 cost per click, so I'm getting 500 high intent visitors on the website every month but I'm getting no leads?" "I've added a chatbot and its really cool and automatic and stuff" You don't need a new chatbot!! You need a reason for people to use the chatbot you have One of our clients gets 4% conversion rate on visitors from Google Ads and the only conversion mechanisms they have are a phone number and a contact form Focus on the WHY a visitor should get in touch, rather than the how

When advertising for Solar, most of the time you are looking for active buyers For most businesses this is the right approach. Especially if you don't have the strongest cashflow, you want to recoup your advertising spend as quickly as possible. However Only 3% of the market is actively ready to buy at any one time. 3% Active buyers 7% Intent to change 30% Have a need but not ready to act 60% Do not have a need or not interested Not only is that a very small portion of what is available but the competition is also at its absolute peak for those few prospects. If you move your targeting slightly further up the funnel Suddenly, you're appealing to another 7% of the market. 3% Active buyers 7% Intent to change 30% Have a need but not ready to act 60% Do not have a need or not interested Slightly further still and you have 37% you previously disregarded 3% Active buyers 7% Intent to change 30% Have a need but not ready to act 60% Do not have a need or not interested They aren't the same quality of lead or even really the same time. They will need: Nurturing Education Prolonged communications & of course, time But you might be able to purchase these leads at 10% of the price of a ready to buy lead. When you run the numbers, over a long enough time horizon, it checks out. Only targeting ready to buy leads £10,000 spent 250 leads (assuming £40 per lead) 30 deals (assuming 12% opportunity to close rate) Assuming £8 average deal value £240,000 rev Targeting TOF leads £10,000 spent 2,500 leads (assuming £4 CPL) 20% engage with core service over 6 months (500 opportunities) 60 deals (assuming 12% opportunity to close rate) Assuming £8k average deal value £480,000 revenue Putting this into practice How do you attract these 'less ready' buyers and what do you do with them? Decrease the barrier to entry Attract these kinds of leads with content like "Free energy saving guides" or non buy intent specific ads. Ensure immediate ability to move into core service pipeline The resource, content or material that you send to these TOF leads, should include a high volume of easily accessible call to actions to move into the process for your core service. Automated nurturing process These cheaper leads are going to take much more information to engage. However, that doesn't mean they should take more effort. You should have automated systems in place to nurture these leads over time and move them into your core service pipeline. Do this via email, WhatsApp, SMS etc. Always feature high value resources when you make contact, it should never feel as though the only reason for the contact is to get the prospect to move into the sales pipeline for the core service. There should be genuine value every time you share something. When should you do this? Do this once you have a steady flow of ready to buy leads. You need to be able to take the hit on the outgoing of the ad spend while these leads take longer to close and develop. I would only consider this approach on an ad spend of over £3k per month.

I was doing a quick check up on our client's analytics accounts. When we produce websites we always set up tracking and analytics so that we can monitor conversion rates and continually optimise our client's websites to reap the most juice out of the traffic they get as possible. How many leads would you expect to get from 38 visitors? 0? 1 max? Try 3, high quality, ready to buy leads that have SELF SERVED and booked in for a survey. Entirely hands off with no contribution from the client's team. Graphy Chart 38 visitors, 3 leads, 2 surveys booked 8% CVR Conversion rate from cold traffic This is what is possible with a website that communicates effectively with visitors and showcases why you are the business to work with. Building rapport as effectively as your best sales rep on his best day, every day, without ever taking a day off or costing you anything on an ongoing basis. How does this even happen? What does the customer journey look like? First, the visitor lands on a well designed, well structured, organised, trust focused website We've designed and built out websites with over 100 unique pages, not including dynamic pages. chilternsolar.co.uk​ 20 Full Site Demo sustaincommercialsolar.com Sustain Commercial Solar site demo solaronsteroids.com Export-1729175624396 infiniteenergy.io Infinite Energy - Solar & battery installation based in Swanley Brand New Website Showcase solar.evanselectricalltd.co.uk Evans Electrical Landing Page Demo myerenewables.co.uk MYE Renewables | Installation experts in Derby & Nottingham Then, the visitor consumes evidence as to why they should choose you Case studies Resources Your team Individual team member overviews Location pages showing where you have installed Service pages showcasing warranties etc Accreditation pages with downloadable documentation Once convinced, they decide to take an action Lots of routes here. Contact form Phone number (of course) But the main one I want to focus on today is Quote tool Quote tool demo Resulting in £30,014 in deal value Generated completely organically Without investing in SEO With two entirely self served surveys booked Just by focusing on giving visitors what they want And actually providing value Want these results for yourself? You need to work with a specialist Someone that actually understands Solar and has done this before Someone that has built double figure Solar websites specifically, and is constantly optimising, testing and collecting data on what works best for converting visitors into £££. Thats us. solaronsteroids.com

Why you never close social media leads What is speed to lead? Speed to lead simply means the time it takes you to make contact with a lead after they enter their contact information and opt in. Why is it so important? When advertising on social media, there are two scenarios: Your ad WAS the first solar ad they engaged Your ad WAS NOT the first solar ad they engaged If you're first, thats great, it likely means you did something different. The way that Meta's targeting works is that now the lead has engaged with one Solar ad, they are going to get absolutely bombarded with a relentless barage of them. Classic Solar This is a huge problem, especially if you lack differentiation If you didn't stand out in your ad, you're now pretty screwed. This is why you're getting: I don't remember filling that out Which one are you guys again? What price was it that you stated in the ad, I forgot? I'm not interested anymore I already went with someone else It isn't as much of an issue for our clients Their ads are unique, personable and memorable. So even if more come later, they will at least remain different to the rest. Tom Loom Edit Infinite Bills Clip Barney Bills Clip Martin Bills Edited for Loom chair Correlation Even with our clients' unique ad style, there is STRONG correlation between speed to lead and results. If you research this topic you'll see stuff like this: How about real Solar demand generation data? Lead progression What can you do to increase speed to lead? Now that you're sold on why you must be looking to reach prospects sooner. Call faster Simple as that, ensure you are getting notifications for new leads Automate Automate an initial touchpoint, we use warm WhatsApp videos(WhatsApp has a far higher engagement rate than SMS) Out of hours strategy Consider your approach out of hours as that is when a large portion of social media leads are generated Use a good CRM Nothing worse than knowing you have to log into some slow, buggy platform just to call a lead Ensure your approach is memorable This nullifies the importance of speed to lead (but not by much!!) 1205

You're not a machine… And you also can't do 5 things at once… So an automated first touch point is crucial! Rapid response Give the right impression from the offset! What they should expect Let them know they will receive a call from you and what its for! This already puts you ahead 99% of installers don't do this (we've tested it) Provide even more value Show them 'why you' before even getting on the phone 1205 Whatsapp SMS ✅ Differentiate yourself ❌ Sit amongst all the spam ✅ Embed rich content ❌ Send them to external links they don't trust ✅ Show your brand and personality ❌ Text only and an unknown number I know what you're thinking….."Not everyone has Whatsapp" 🤔 Fallback if Whatsapp can't deliver Message depending on during hours vs outside of hours 3 part follow-up (Initial contact, killer case study, nudge)

A huge element of marketing that isn't talked about enough is the idea of touchpoints. You could have the best Meta Ads agency in the world, but they can only go so far without any other marketing activity. Example We're running a cold email campaign to get demand for our offer. The cold email campaigns were performing pretty well. 6-8% reply rates. Most of which were positive. Low volume of emails but still great. Then we started posting content Guess what happened A large number of the cold email recipients would 'conveniently' follow us on LinkedIn with days of receiving our email. Even if they didn't reply, they are constantly seeing what we're putting out and becoming more and more familiar with what we do by the day. We're constantly top of mind because its almost as if we have unlimited email followups with them. Without being intrusive or spammy. Graphy Chart As an installer You may have a primary marketing / lead generation channel. That might already be working. But you should be thinking of what you can do to supplement that channel. If you're running Google Ads Retarget that high intent high quality traffic with Meta Ads Direct people to a newsletter that you are consistently sending long form emails to Post organic content, guides, videos, installation breakdowns. What can you do to increase the effectiveness of the channel without actually focusing efforts on the channel itself. Apply the 80/20 rule With content, doing 1 post per week would likely align with the 80/20 rule. You'll get 80% of the results (being top of mind, nurturing prospects, forming familiarity) with 20% of the effort. Try to adopt an omnichannel marketing approach Focus on getting one channel performing at a strong cost per acquisition consistently. Then supplement it with other channels, other activity. Activity that can drive results on its own but will also boost the effectiveness of your already successful channel.

I'm going to take you through four options. 1 Use the OpenSolar or EasyPV export Fast Look the same as everyone else Generally don't look very professional, intentional or bespoke to the customer 2 Use PowerPoint or Keynote (we don't recommend this) More on brand VERY time consuming One of our clients was using this approach but it was taking them 3 HOURS per proposal. Thats fine if leads are hard to come by for you. You want to ensure every lead has the highest possible chance of closing. These proposals looked fantastic But there is a huge problem. As soon as you start working with us Its not gonna work MYE Renewables booked 2 surveys in the first 24h of turning the ads on Has to be shared as a file, may not even be opened due to poor accessibility on mobile etc Especially with the amount of detail that is common with solar proposals, viewing on a mobile device and having to pinch to zoom every time you want to read something just isn't a good experience. Taking into account the demographic of most Solar customers, who may need reading glasses, its even worse. Difficult to scale, automate and ensure consistency Together with Andy Fox, we overhauled Sustain Commercial Solar's branding We made a really nice deck template for Sustain Commercial Solar 3 Gamma (we recommend) Gamma is an AI powered PowerPoint creation tool that will MASSIVELY increase your efficiency in getting unique proposals out. 100% on brand no matter who creates the deck You create a theme once and no matter who creates a deck, will adhere to that theme. Create a template once and customise it per recipient in minutes Beyond themes, you can create templates that will form the structure of your proposal deck. So you basically just have to copy and paste imagery in, change stats etc, dead easy. Super easy editor (intentionally restrictive) You can empower your team without worrying that they're going to make everything look crap. Publish to a custom domain This means you can create a proposal for someone on XYZSolar.com And give them a unique, trackable link to view the presentation on any device, e.g. XYZSolar.com/jude-cornish or XYZSolar.com/108-Stick-Close Giving them a super personalised proposal that looks far higher effort than it actually was. Analytics to empower your sales team Ever find yourself wondering if the hot lead has looked at your proposal? Or you want to be sure that the decision maker for the big commercial saw a specific slide that was super important? If you're using PowerPoint you're going to be stuck guessing. Using Gamma, you have that info at your fingertips. Strong user permission abilities You can have a system designer in there and your sales team Full version history, folders etc Ability to add comments You can allow viewers to add comments to specific sections of the proposal Be careful though, as this opens the flow to extreme nitpicking and paralysis by analysis so we've stopped doing that now 4 Automation with Google Slides or Microsoft Power Automate Best approach for teams sending out several proposals per day If you're an installer doing more than 20 installations per month, anything manual starts to cause problems. Which is why you're probably just sending out boilerplate OpenSolar or EasyPV proposals. The thought of doing anything manually is a nightmare. But you still want to stand out? Fine, we can help. Create an advanced, on brand deck template within Google Sheets. Then use automation tools like Make.com to populate variables within the deck from the information within the design export If you want to find out more on how to do that then drop me a message

Sales assets are your best friend as a salesperson and Solar installer. They're applicable to both residential & commercial but come in different formats. Customer interviews Where you actually go to visit the customer or record an interview over a video call. More polished and structured You can guide the customer into certain statements You can guide the customer into certain statements mye interview ad revision Handheld customer video reviews Send a link to a customer to record their own video review Super natural and authentic Doesn't require fulfilment time from your team Less structured so what you get is what you get Stan Paul Caroline Sara - Nightingale Paul Ben - Joltify Lisa - MYE Nina David - Joltify Brent - Joltify Shelagh - Joltify Paul - Rudge Paul Record a video review Full case study production pieces More tailored towards commercial Can be baked in as a value add within your offer Requires videography experience etc for best results Baltic Apprenticeships are saving over £18,000 per year with commercial solar Moss Electrical Co Cut Their Electricity Bills To Zero With Solar Custodian Capital save over £4.8m with their installation from Sustain Commercial Solar Cold Move Ltd make significant savings on their energy bills with Sustain Commercial Solar Walk through and explanation videos Can be regularly posted to social media Share with customers to handle objections or better explain ideas Utilise on your website Solar 101 by Infinite Energy How do you utilise these assets? Its no good just having them around not knowing how to deploy them. Weave them throughout public materials Social media, website, ads, email footers etc. paul ad Our best converting creative yet! nina ad mye interview ad revision Send the most relevant video review to the customer Mark Hughes Send a video to explain complicated topics Check out this fantastic example from Mark Brown. What assets should you collect first? So where do you start? Note down objections Then create assets to overcome them What do you take people through at the survey? This is a good indicator of what might be too difficult or complicated to explain over text or on the phone, make an asset to cover this like Infinite Energy did for Solar 101. This will increase likelihood of landing the survey. Where do you gain a competitive edge? Try to get your customers to share that information rather than you, it means so much more. How can you incentivise customers? Maybe one of your commercial clients is doing a big push on ESG marketing activity. Tell them if they do a video interview with you you will give them all of the assets collected and prepare some social media posts for them to use without any input on their end. For residential customers, offer a free system health check or some gift cards etc. RECC says that you can't incentivise reviews with gifts £50 in value, be careful Ask your customers or prospects What do they find complex to understand? What resources would they benefit from or would they have benefited from during the process? What did they use to inform their decision, maybe from other sources?

Really quick one today. Everyone has heard of using EV charger installations as an upsell. Thats why we see so many of these ads. But I don't think that enough people are utilising EV Chargers and Battery installations as foot in the door sales. EV charger Start with the cheapest, lowest margin installation and go above and beyond for the customer Battery installation Then encourage a battery to make immediate savings from off peak power, especially powerful in Winter when Solar benefits are limited. Full Solar system Finally push for the full solar system. At the end the financial outlay feels far less daunting for the customer and at each step, the benefit for purchasing the next thing is greater. If they were just looking at the Solar system without having an EV charger or Battery, the benefits of that solar system wouldn't be so great. Data leverage Ensure that the customer goes for a smart EV charger and a connected Battery. Then, you can monitor their system and check in with them regularly on its performance. Intermittently, you can utilise real data from their own existing installations to aid your pitch for the next upgrade. You could investigate making a live dashboard or Excel sheet that would show their savings now vs their savings if they had Solar to continuous pitch the value proposition without you having to sell them yourself Psychological factors Overcoming fear of commitment Installing something to a wall or in the garage takes far less commitment than having a team up on your roof with scaffolding installed and ensuring that leaks aren't caused etc. Habit formation Sets the customer up to build a habit of investing in renewable energy solutions and utilising new tech. Anchoring If you originally presented a £10k system with Solar, Battery & an EV charger, suddenly saying yes to just a £1k installation feels like a no brainer. Bundling You could potentially charge more for the staged approach and grant a discount if someone goes ahead with everything. Ideas / summary You could gamify the journey between the products Mindset shift from one time sales to increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) Service packages also ties into this.

I was speaking with a commercial solar client of ours. We were working on a scale that could be used by the sales team to allocate a quality score to each lead. Digital leads Such as Google Ads or SEO. Interest capture based marketing Typically higher urgency Competitive as often at quoting stage Cold outreach leads Such as cold email outreach campaigns. Interruptive marketing Typically lower urgency Often at the very start of the conversation Decision-making authority (25% | Max 2.5 points) 10: Decision-maker (e.g., owner, ceo, facilities manager). 7: Strong influencer (e.g., senior staff with significant input). 4: Moderate influencer. 1-3: Gatekeeper. Energy usage and costs (20% | Max 2.0 points) 10: High energy usage or costs with great solar potential. 7: Moderate usage where solar could work but is less impactful. 4: Low usage where solar might not be cost-effective. 1-3: Minimal or unknown energy use. Property ownership (15% | Max 1.5 points) 10: Owns property outright. 7: Long-term lease with control over property decisions. 4: Moderate lease terms which may require permissions. 1-3: Short-term lease or no installation rights. Timing or project readiness (15% | Max 1.5 points) 10: Actively seeking solutions within 6 months. 7: Interested but plans extend beyond 6-12 months. 4: Low urgency with an unclear timeline. 1-3: Not ready or just gathering information. Budget or financing capacity (15% | Max 1.5 points) 10: Budget confirmed and open to financing options. 7: Some budget potential but uncertain. 4: Limited budget clarity and hesitant about financing. 1-3: No budget or unwilling to discuss financing. Site suitability (10% | Max 1.0 point) 10: Site is highly viable with proper space, shading, and zoning. 7: Likely viable but requires further investigation. 4: Questionable site suitability. 1-3: Poor site conditions and unlikely viable. Total score: sum of weighted points = [calculated total] Scoring interpretation 8-10: High-quality lead. Prioritise follow-up. 5-7: Medium-quality lead. Requires nurturing or further qualification. 1-4: Low-quality lead. Unlikely to convert without significant change. Characteristic Weighting Score Weighted Decision making authority 25% 10 2.5 Energy usage 20% 8 2 Property ownership 15% 10 1.5 Timing / urgency 15% 2 0.3 Budget / financial capacity 15% 10 1.5 Site suitability 10% 6 0.6 Total 100% 8.4

A concept that we are always looking to overcome with our clients is the idea of making the pie bigger, rather than just focusing on taking a bigger slice. Often we focus far too much on what our competition is doing and on protecting our ideas, rather than collectively improving. Thats why things like the Solar Nation are so great. The core idea The core idea is that by sharing your ideas with a small group of other ambitious installers throughout the UK… The 20 of you, 10 of you or even 2 of you can beat out the other 5,000 by multiplying your ideas. Not only this but there are potential direct benefits too from referrals etc. We would argue that this is a necessity If you are running paid advertisements, you need some sort of leg up to compete against the behemoths like Heatable. They will be deploying 10x, 20x or even 50x your monthly advertising spend. If you don't have others to share your insights, learnings and analytics with, you're going to get left behind. Out learned, our scaled and out performed. If you choose to cumulate your learnings as a group, you can iterate so much faster. Thats one of the benefits of working with us We're running ads for 10+ solar installers throughout the UK. Commercial and residential. We cumulate all of those learnings and all of that data through out reporting in a way that allows each of our individual clients to punch 10x above their weight. And actually have a chance against the energy companies and tech startups. Do we practice what we preach? Yes. Absolutely. We're constantly speaking to other marketing agencies, sharing ideas, bouncing concepts off each other, voicing ideas of how we could enhance each other's services.