This is the second article in our Commercial Solar Success series.
How do you target businesses when you’re looking for commercial solar customers? Do you use direct marketing? Google Adwords? Facebook advertising? Newspapers? TV? Radio? What about door-knocking? Have you ever wondered how you could find the types of businesses who buy solar quickly and easily? Imagine for a moment 2 scenarios:
Scenario 1: You target all businesses in your region with a big marketing campaign and spend $50k to get the word out. You might get 10 enquiries about your special offer and make 3 sales of 30kW solar systems (average) with a profit of $20k each ($60k total). So you made $10,000.
Scenario 2: You know which business types in your region have been buying solar. You launch a specific campaign directed at those business types, you invest $20k reaching key decision makers. You get 10 enquiries, make 6 sales of 30kW solar systems (average) with a profit of $30k each ($180k total). So you made $155,000.
Which scenario would you prefer?
Know which businesses are buyers
As you can see from the above example, it can pay huge dividends to know in advance which business types are buying solar. Simply by investing more effort where it can be most valuable, you could both increase your conversion rates and improve your profits. If you’re marketing a general message to a broad audience, you’re much less likely to see good results and your much more likely to be competing with many other solar companies for the sale.
Understand high-energy users
On top of knowing which types of businesses are buying solar, if you understand the energy use of different business types, it can help to understand a) why those businesses are buying solar and b) which other businesses may be prime candidates to contact.
For example, if you notice that flower producers in your region have had a high solar uptake in recent months, it should be clear that businesses with high refrigeration needs may benefit a lot from solar at the moment. You will also get an insight into how solar might work well to help offset refrigeration-based loads.
Combine strategy with your natural network
This is truly a key to success in marketing to the commercial sector. Once you know which types of businesses in your service region are buying solar and you understand (to some extent) their energy use, you can combine this with your natural network to get the best results possible. As part of our ProfitVoltaics service, SunWiz help you to identify your natural network for this exact reason. It’s easy to build rapport with business owners from an industry that you understand – and rapport is extremely powerful in selling!
Find out what a commercial consultation with SunWiz could do for your business
Previous article in this series: Hitting The Commercial Solar Sector
Next article in this series: Targeting the best regions for commercial solar
Check out our report on Commercial PV Success if you’re serious about the commercial sector