Leads for Solar Contractors: Getting Solar Leads for Your Business
Photo by Evgeniy Alyoshin from Unsplash
Getting leads for solar contractors is crucial. It helps grow your solar business steadily by efficiently acquiring new customers. Lead generation can be handled by your marketing team or by a third party specializing in generating leads for solar panel installers.
This article talks about solar leads: what they are, where to find them or get them, and how to nurture them for the best results.
A Bright Spot for the Solar Industry
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 aims to promote clean energy and address climate change. It includes “two dozen tax provisions that will save families money on their energy bills and accelerate the deployment of clean energy, clean vehicles, clean buildings, and clean manufacturing,” according to a guidebook for the IRA.
The law extends the Investment Tax Credit, the tax reduction for homeowners installing residential solar and applicable clean energy systems, and it expands the ITC to include storage devices. It also provides up to $250 billion in new loan authority for eligible energy infrastructure projects.
The IRA incentivizing the switch to, or adoption of solar is a bright spot for solar contractors, installers, EPC companies, and more, balancing this outlook with conditions at the local solar market level.
What Is a Solar Lead?
Finding property owners who are willing and ready to get solar PV systems is imperative for your company’s growth and success. Lead generation, done strategically, can direct you to these prospects, who will ultimately become your customers.
A solar lead is interested in solar panels, storage, or the whole system and has the potential to become a customer. The cost of a solar PV system in California varies depending on the installation company, so a potential customer will have to get at least three quotes and find the best deal to save money. The whole process of prospecting and getting quotes mostly happens online, through the installers’ websites or comparison-shopping sites.
A lead is generated organically when someone comes across your business or brand in search engine results. It’s assumed that they knew nothing about you before the query but were interested in the kind of product or service you were offering. Organic leads are proof of great site traffic, which in turn is built over time through relevant and useful content.
When a lead has been generated and evaluated to have met certain standards and criteria (by your team or by the company generating leads), it is considered a qualified lead. Qualified solar leads are high-quality leads because they undergo additional verification or validation for details like the level of interest and suitability of solar on the property.
The residential solar market is hot, particularly in these US states. Going for exclusive solar leads from a lead provider can be the answer. These leads are sold only to you, eliminating competition for at least every potential customer on the list. The pricing of acquiring these exclusive-for-you leads is expected to be higher too.
There are non-exclusive solar leads, or those sold to two or three other buyers. Sharing a lead with other buyers can push its acquisition cost down. The competition is surely there; still, using shared leads remains a popular model under the assumption that consumers are in contact with other companies during their solar research.
How Do You Get Solar Business Leads?
There are two major pathways to generating leads for your business, as follows:
1. Generate Leads on Your Own
Leads can come from your website or blog, social media, email marketing, advertisements, and other online assets. The main strategy for generating leads online is to attract people through information.
The tax incentives for going solar are appealing, but consumers still want to know if it’s a wise financial move to install solar panels, given their price. Position your blog as an authority on solar, offering expert advice, practical tips, case studies, and testimonials from existing customers.
Also, consider offline events and activities for lead generation. Conducting free classes and seminars on solar energy for homeowners is a good idea. Being visible and active in the community helps establish your roots as a local business. You’ll also get referrals this way.
2. Buy Leads from Lead Providers
Solar lead generation companies already have set up and built infrastructure for collecting leads. CEE has websites focused on solar education, such as solar power and solar efficiency. It bears repeating that content is always a good source of organic solar leads in response to homeowners doing their research. Another well-known solar lead company uses Google Ads and Facebook. Still, another supplier of solar leads utilizes cost comparison sites.
That’s one of the many marketing channels solar lead providers utilize to get leads. Those assets combine paid and organic traffic and reach, which explains why they can get the numbers.
Is Buying Solar Leads Worth It?
Buying solar leads is a strategy that can result in a success story. Keep these two things in mind when getting solar leads for your business using third-party services:
- Quality: Leads are people who are interested in getting solar. This interest is evident if they have looked up and come across the website and chosen to receive solar quotes, etc. The goal is to buy high-quality leads that will convert into sales. These leads entail vetting and qualifying processes with confirmed and key information needed to start the conversion.
- Quantity: Solar lead vendors use various channels that allow them to attract many leads. They have the expertise and experience to manage all these simultaneously and efficiently. Thus, the number of leads you want can be effortlessly provided by the solar lead generation company at any given time. Leads fuel your sales, so the need is always present, and you will most often need them right away.
Concerns with respect to buying leads from this third-party company center on quality. It is difficult to tell whether the leads are as promised until the sales team starts processing them. Working on low-quality leads can prove to be more expensive than generating them on your own. Due diligence is critical when choosing your lead provider.
Buying leads means not doing intense lead-generation activities. Because you are effectively using another entity’s marketing strategy to attract prospects, you have no control over it.
Generating leads organically is the ideal situation. It underlies the presence of an optimized website, effective social media campaigns, and other tactics. The conditions that allow you to produce more than enough leads to meet revenue targets are sometimes not present, so buying leads is the next best option.
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP from Unsplash
How Much Are Solar Leads Worth?
The price of a solar lead depends on how it was generated and screened. A lead can be filtered by location to make it more targeted and specific. Organic leads and exclusive leads are held at a premium. These will cost more because of their high potential to convert.
Lead generation companies vary in their pricing structures, so you’ll see differing figures. CEE’s pricing, for one, lets the buyer set the bid price for a lead.
The overall cost of generating leads is lower among solar lead suppliers than doing it yourself if you factor in the resources it takes to pull off the quality and quantity of leads at any given time. For example, lead generation companies selling qualified leads employ personnel to call or to verify raw leads. These would add to the cost of the solar lead, whose true price spans generation to closure.
Where to Buy High-Quality Solar Leads
Solar lead buying as a strategy is anchored on the quality of the leads and their success rate. The cost per lead in this arrangement is more predictable, so it is easier to calculate the ROI and lower costs if possible.
Start with companies specializing in solar leads for contractors. Then do your research and evaluate them—prepare questions you want to ask the lead provider. Contact them for more details on pricing, read reviews, and spot any signs of lead scams.
This also leads you to the other important aspect of solar leads, whether from a lead generation company or your own efforts. That is setting the appropriate follow-up or nurturing leads that result in solar installation.
What’s Next for You
You’ve got the leads that will hopefully result in sales. Consider these tips for keeping your prospective customers engaged as they move along their solar journey:
- Build connections with your potential customers.
- Understand the context of their situation and what they need at the moment to decide. Do they need guidance on getting solar financing, perhaps a more personalized pitch that will finally win them over? This is your time to shine.
- Closing the sale is not the end. You and the customer will be in contact for questions regarding the PV system, periodic maintenance, and so on. A satisfied customer will happily recommend your services to people they know.
Hopefully, this article will lead to the best lead generation strategy for your solar company. If you need help generating solar leads, let us know.