Solar company increased closed deals by 452% in 30 days!

Business was good, but the landscape was changing

A solar installation company had been serving Midwest customers since 2007. The company had installed solar systems for hundreds of businesses and homeowners.  The company employs general contractors, electricians, sales staff, solar design experts, and factory-trained solar installers. Their full-time service department handles service calls, warranty claims, and more.

Before Working with Marketing Monsoon

While the company had seen moderate success,  they knew that renewable incentives that had been driving some of that success were coming to an end.  They recognized that a new marketing plan was required to continue their growth trend, much less improve on it.  The company was depending on not only an increase in leads, but an increase in a specific customer category--high ROI commercial installations.   

The problem expands

In December 2019, Federal incentives for residential renewable energy projects were being reduced. This was a primary sales tool in the solar industry, so a new strategy to attract and retain residential customers was needed. With commercial incentives still in place, the company also needed a way to bring in more of those higher-profit jobs. 

An additional hurdle specific to the solar installation issue was the length of the sales cycle.  The average length of time between first contact and a completed sale was three months.  This contributed to the customer tracking and retention issues the company faced. But the biggest hurdle was something the company couldn't plan for.

In March of 2020, the company faced a global situation making it difficult for many businesses to think past mere survival--the COVID-19 pandemic.   As for many small businesses, any marketing strategy designed prior to the pandemic had to pivot.  The company turned to Marketing Monsoon for help. The company needed a systems and training upgrade that would take all of these internal and external factors into account.

How we worked together

With significant company research and deep knowledge of the industry, the Marketing Monsoon team developed a new customer-centric strategy, brand, and
messaging that emphasized their commercial projects. A content strategy was launched to attract commercial business.  Crucial to the plan was to monitor the marketing and sales KPIs so adjustments would be applied when necessary, keeping the strategy agile.  While the company had employed marketing technology, essential data such as pipeline status and sales activities was not being collected.  Because separate, non-integrated systems were being employed, marketing data and sales/revenue data were not connected, so there was no efficient way to determine ROI. No CRM was in use across the organization. This meant marketing, sales, installation, and service were not communicating,  and customers were not engaged.

As part of the overall marketing strategy,  Marketing Monsoon recommended and oversaw the implementation of HubSpot Marketing, Sales, and CMS (website) hubs.  This integrated system provided the needed market and sales automation, as well as more robust lead generation and data reporting.  The new martech stack provided the systems to cleanly implement an overall marketing plan that included a 52-week campaign of targeted content and lead capture offers of interest to commercial customers. 

The first improvements were internal.  The company's CEO and sales leaders now had dashboards and reports that provided a continuous view of marketing and sales activity and results.  Sales reps were trained on the new marketing and sales tools, which facilitated the successful shift to remote sales.  The external impact of entire package was visible within the first month and continued to grow despite the global economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.

The outcome

With this new plan, the technology and training that supported it in place, the results were remarkable.   As a result of this campaign, the company saw:

• 151% increase in leads generated
• 111% increase in website traffic
• 452% increase in deals closed in the first 30 days of using the system
• Sales cycle dropped from an average of 3 months to 3 weeks.
• Revenue doubled year over year
  
  

Moving forward

The successes realized during the pandemic have continued for the solar company, but marketing cannot be stagnant and remain successful. Today, the renewable energy sector has been turned on its ear by federal incentives and opportunities related to legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).  The landscape has changed once again, with new opportunities-- and new competition.  Marketing Monsoon is helping its client be agile, take advantage of new opportunities, and engage and delight a whole new customer base.