Solar Fred's Top 5 Solar Marketing Wishes for 2011: Advocate and Take Risks

Tor 'Solar Fred' Valenza
January 06, 2011 | 5 Comments

It’s been a little over a year since I wrote my “Solar Fred’s Top 10 Solar Marketing Wishes for 2010.”

Many of my 2010 solar marketing wishes did come true: I’m seeing more solar companies on Twitter and starting their own blog and e-newsletters, and there are certainly more positive solar stories in the media.

Of course, solar is not main stream yet, and fossil fuel lobbyists spent gobs and gobs of money in 2010 to keep it that way. So, I hope that you and your solar company continue (or start) my 2010 marketing suggestions, and while you’re at it, you can add these 5 new marketing wishes (and benefits) for 2011:

1) Make at least one damn solar video, please. I just wrote a post about this, so I won’t go into any more tips here, photo:Flickr/i1suisse except to remind you to keep it entertaining, simple, visual, and educational. Also, anyone can do it in 2011, so what are you waiting for? Bottom line benefit: You visually reach out to the many consumers and business owners who have an increasingly short attentions span.

2) Be prepared to defend solar. It’s a new Republican Congress, and despite their jingoistic cry for energy independence, what the 112th Congress means is “Drill, baby, drill” and “Mine, baby, mine,” and "Burn, baby, burn." Already, the new Congress closed down an energy independence committee. My wish is that you prepare for the inevitable attacks on clean energy by these coal and oil and gas loving politicians. Educate yourself about energy politics, and be prepared to answer those who say we only import solar, solar is too expensive, or that solar doesn’t create jobs in the U.S. Bottom line benefit: You become an energy authority and a leader, gaining respect from customers with an open mind.

3) Start a solar advocacy initiative. Last year, I proposed several solar initiatives on this very blog. I called for giving away solar panels to the White House, making April National Solar Quote Month, and joining a campaign against Proposition 23. All were successful for their solar advocacy goals, and they were also successful promotions for the companies who courageously participated, most notably, Sungevity with the White House "Globama" campaign. Bottom line benefit: Solar advocacy campaigns build your brand and your trust with solar customers. Create your own local or national solar advocacy campaign this year.

4) Become a solar guerilla marketer. Take risks. However you decide to market your solar company in 2011, I beg you to give yourself or your marketing department the creative freedom (and financial resources) to take bold creative risks. Here’s a 2010 post about the basics of solar guerilla marketing. At least one company took me up on my suggestions and showed me their solar flash mob efforts. I loved it. Please join them in your own creative way. Bottom line benefit: Not only do you get brand awareness and possible media attention, you and your staff will have fun and be inspired to keep finding new ways to stand out and educate.

5) Find your own original marketing voice. I have to say that most current solar marketing bores the hell out of me. Your grassy, sunny, sunflowery web themes and dry technical descriptions make you look and feel like cold, uniform, solar widgets. I don’t care if you’re marketing to a utility, to a solar installer, or to the family down the block. Be different. It’s okay to be funny or outrageous. It’s okay to use colloquial language. It’s okay to twist the sun and the grass and the solar panel into something that reflects your unique perspective of the world. Bottom line benefit: Customers will remember you, feel less confused, and pick you out of a six-pack of boring solar brochures (or web sites).

2010 is over, and it was one of the best years ever for solar, in terms of installations. Yet the United States is still in the early adopter stage and solar has many doubters and enemies. As marketers, it’s up to us to stretch farther in 2011 and to inspire customers (and policy makers) ….to UnThink Solar.

Tor Valenza a.k.a. “Solar Fred” advises solar companies on marketing, communications, and public relations. Contact him through UnThink Solar or follow him on Twitter @SolarFred.

The information and views expressed in this blog post are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of RenewableEnergyWorld.com or the companies that advertise on this Web site and other publications. This blog was posted directly by the author and was not reviewed for accuracy, spelling or grammar.

5 Comments

Marvin Hamon, P.E.
January 10, 2011

Some great ideas Tor. I would be interested in hearing about the differences you see in marketing B2C vs. B2B. Being B2B myself I find that the target market is a lot more narrowly defined than the B2C market but on the other hand actually harder to reach.

I would caution folks about the down side to flash mobs. You also have little control of how the individuals will carry out their assigned tasks. If someone gets hurt during the mob they will be looking for someone with deep pockets to pay damages. In most social flash mobs it's impossible to trace back to the organizer to sue someone for something that happens but if your company's name and contact information are all over it then watch out.

We had a spat years ago around here of groups stenciling sidewalks with different symbols that represented underground websites and music download sites. The city works department did not like this but they could not prove the companies had anything to do with placing the stencils. After a while someone marketing for IBM got the great idea that they would use the stencil craze to market IBM. The end result was that the city sued IBM to clean off all their stencils. It's not cheap to remove paint from a sidewalk.

John Reger
January 7, 2011

Hi Tor, another excellent post! Your passion is admirable in helping others to step out of their comfort zone in creating truly effective and memorable marketing.

Jim Jenal
January 7, 2011

We have adopted many of your 2010 suggestions - highly active Twitter user, Facebook page for the company, blogging for the company (actually two blogs - including the world-famous Solar Kid's blog!) in a pretty distinctive voice and a monthly e-newsletter. As a result, traffic to our website - www.RunOnSun.com - has grown dramatically over the past year and we recently cracked the top 500k mark on Alexa.
We will look at these suggestions as well with an eye for adoption. For example, we have been planning on releasing a video (beyond our meter spinning backwards video) for sometime, so maybe we will now get that done. I also agree with Pam that it is extremely important to have metrics around what you are doing and to adapt accordingly.
Still marketing only gets you so far. We are finding the residential market to still be very sluggish and are starting to focus more of our attention on the commercial space where the economic case is more compelling.
But bottom line - all solar companies are going to need to do a better job of advocacy to protect our hard-earned policy gains over the next two years. We intend to be heavily involved in the policy/advocacy arena (especially in California) this year.

Tor 'Solar Fred' Valenza
January 7, 2011

Good thoughts, Pam, especially about working out a strategy and making sure there are metrics for success. Thanks for the shout out about #5. Most people seem to like that one best, perhaps because it's needed most.

Regarding videos, I really think you have to take videos on a case by case basis, regardless of B to C or B to B. Just like blogs and Twitter, some are very adept at video and visually telling a story and/or engaging customers. Others are not.

Naturally, a B to B (or any) customer is going to make a purchase based on the product more than the video. But in a very competitive market, especially with solar panels, you have to get the prospect's attention first, and I think video is one tool in the tool box that can lead to contacting a company for more information or further exploring a website.

I also agree that residential consumers ar far more responsive to good videos and more likely to share them with family and friends. B to B videos may be shared within the prospect's office--if it's worth sharing.

Thanks again on your thoughtful comments. Anybody else have any marketing wishes for 2011?

Pamela Cargill
January 6, 2011

Tor, this is some really interesting advice. I do like #5 a lot, which is my #1, and heartily stand by it: create your company's genuine personality and voice and forgo the green grass, sun, solar-panels-glinting-in-the-sun-with-lens-flare marketing of yore.

However, I find that a lot of solar companies are still missing the most important marketing wish that I would put on your list: Set goals for each marketing campaign and track the effectiveness of those initiatives. Without having clear goals in focus, infinite amounts of marketing money can be spent on developing cool and fun brand-related "stuff" that doesn't appeal to the right audiences. Marketing activities need to be about increasing brand awareness amongst key demographics in order to generate leads and thought leadership. I think a lot of people are losing sight of this in the excitement and confusion around the social media self-publishing landscape.

Because of this, I am skeptical of your Wish #1: Make a video. I am not convinced based on my experience and campaign tracking that the B2C side of solar is appropriate for videos. To appeal to the current demographic of solar consumers, do we know if they are viewing and passing around web-based videos anyway? Young demographics are, but are they solar consumers? Not yet. Are they influencing the decisions of those who are eventually solar consumers? That is hard to measure. Busy business owners and key decisions makers in B2B settings are not going to be watching short marketing videos either to sway their purchasing decisions. They care about what brands you have worked with in the past, the quality of your engineering, and the ROI on their specific project. The solar brands that are offering leases and solar home electricity services might be served by producing sharable video content, since their products have potential wider demographics availability.

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