While you can buy leads from hundreds of lead generation companies, anyone who has given this method a try for long enough knows that quality can fluctuate drastically between sources.
Consider taking matters into your own hands and start looking into ways to cut out the middleman and generate qualified leads for yourself.
To help take the stress out of the whole process, we’ve put together 5 surefire lead generation strategies to help you book more meetings and increase your conversion rate.
1) Create a lead magnet.
Often overlooked by solar salespeople, lead magnets are an extremely valuable tool any marketer should have in their arsenal.
Lead magnets are pieces of content offered up to people in exchange for their contact information and often result in extremely high quality leads. These come in the form of pieces of information that your clients are either actively seeking out or would appreciate having.
Some examples of lead magnets in terms of solar sales could be either a link to sign up for a free consultation or site assessment, or a download of a document or “whitepaper”.
Not sure where to start? Think about the things your clients want to know. Maybe write a guide for homeowners looking to install solar panels, or an article like “things to consider when choosing a solar installer”.
Use your lead magnet to provide valuable information and direct homeowners to a landing page with a link to access the content after they fill out a short contact form with their details.
Here’s an example of a landing page for one of our best performing lead magnets, a whitepaper guide to solar sales. Solar installers looking to make more sales come across our guide and land on this page. The content is valuable to them so they’re more likely to fill out our form to obtain it. The page is simple, to the point and contains a very clear CTA (call to action) at the bottom as well as a link to the Solargraf website on the top if they would like more information about us or our product.
2) Run ads with Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising.
Setting up campaigns through Google and Microsoft (Bing) ad services is a no-brainer when it comes to solar lead generation. These extremely targeted ads run through search engines and should be considered as answers to questions your future leads are asking.
Set up ads on these platforms for keywords you’d like to be found for. For example, if you want your leads to be people looking for your services in your state, you can create campaigns for keywords and phrases like “best solar company <state>” or “solar panel quotes” targeting people in your service area.
These campaigns will run for as long as you’d like and can be modified or paused at any time. Anyone clicking on your ad will be sent to your landing page to get more information about your company and services.
Good localized SEO (search engine optimization) is the key to finding leads you can actually sell to. Make sure you’re targeting all your ads to your service areas only. Ensure you have a Google My Business account so that your company shows up in local searches and homeowners can access your contact info, pictures of your installs and customer reviews straight through Google.
3) Take advantage of free and paid social media.
Once you have your landing page sorted, it’s time to start getting your name out there and gathering leads. Start by building a name for yourself through social media. There are two different ways to go about this:
Free: Create a company page and start posting/sharing.
There’s no denying that at this point in history, social media is a massive part of everyone’s day-to-day life. People aren’t just using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to connect with friends and family or to share important moments in their lives.
Nowadays, the average social media user is also using these platforms to follow artists and brands they enjoy, buy and sell products and participate in groups built around their interests.
Having a Facebook page set up and working for your company should be your top priority if you either don’t have one yet or you already do but haven’t been updating it as you should. Make sure your page is visually appealing with a profile picture and a captivating cover photo (we suggest your company logo or a photo of an install you’re particularly proud of).Respond to your company’s reviews, comments and messages regularly and make sure your page is up to date with your website link, office address and the best phone number to book a meeting.
Use this platform to share images of the work you do, interesting articles about the industry you come across and mentions of any deals, special offers or contests you’re running. You can also join local solar groups or more general ones like Solar Installers or Solar Installers Forum as your Facebook page to get your name out there and participate in the community. Just be mindful of any rules they may have about advertising and self-promotion.
Take some time to follow the leaders in the solar industry, influencers, educational institutions, blogs and magazines etc. Interact with their posts when you can. Introduce yourself to them and ask for them to follow back when appropriate. Your engagement with them can also build credibility for your company and put you in front of their audience as well.
Paid: Boost your posts and run ads.
If you’re looking for new business, get your name out in front of people who are looking for your services.
Nowadays, every major social media site can run targeted paid ads with only a small amount of set up. On Facebook, for example, you can choose to either “boost” a post made on your page and have it be seen by more eyes than your following, or you can create specific, targeted ads for anyone who may be interested in solar quotes, solar energy or the industry in general in any area you choose.
Select a budget that you’re comfortable with (you can start with as little as $5 a day), create an ad or a post that links to the landing page you’ve created and watch the leads and engagement roll in.
4) Set up a referral program.
An often overlooked but quite lucrative method of generating new potential customers is setting up a referral program.
A successful referral program runs on nothing but word of mouth and a good product or service. If you provide a service worth talking about and a good enough incentive, people will have no problem referring friends or family to your company.
Make sure your website is set up to receive Google reviews so you have somewhere to track word of mouth and look into referral programs like Get The Referral to track compensation.
Since solar is more of a one-time purchase than something people buy more frequently, you’ll want to consider either offering monetary compensation for referrals, either in the form of cash or gift cards. Another route you could take would be offering upgrades, if your company offers any, in the form of a system upgrade, rodent guard or storage.
Create a link on your website or landing page where your customers can send their referrals and a tier or two with different rewards, For example, any referrals installing a system under 4kW can get the customer a reward of $100 cash, while larger installs can receive a larger sum. Once you’ve decided on your program, sit back and watch the leads roll in!
5) Start a blog.
Blogs are one of the best ways to generate organic traffic to your website. A successful blog contains quality articles that answer the questions your clients are asking. They help to position you and your company as a thought leader in the industry and help to educate and build trust with your client base.
To start your blog, think of a few questions that you know the people you want coming to your site need answered and write blog posts around those topics. Some examples of topics could be “why every homeowner should consider solar panels”, “are solar panels worth the money?” or “how do solar panels work?”.
When writing, include keywords in your posts that help your future readers find your content in their searches and always include a CTA leading to your landing page at the bottom of each article.
If you’re a small company looking to grow, hiring a full or part-time content marketer might not be in the budget for you. In that case, you could always consider hiring a freelancer to write a few high-quality pieces of content for your site that are optimized for search engines to get started.
In closing.
While generating your own leads takes more effort than buying lists or purchasing them from a third party, the control you have over the quality will ultimately make them much more valuable in the long run.
Once the leads start pouring in, make sure you have somewhere to quickly input them and quote them! Request a demo of Solargraf today to learn how to create full, beautiful proposals in minutes and close more deals than ever.
This article appears in our Remote Sales Toolkit, access more articles here.
