🤑 BatchLeads now includes FREE skip tracing! 🤑

batchleads logo

Your Complete Guide To Generating Solar Leads

BatchService
Written by BatchService 
Highlights

Share it

The home solar industry has been growing for more than a decade, with demand exploding in the last few years. That’s due largely to solar energy having never been so affordable. Tax incentives at the local, state and federal levels have drastically lowered costs. According to the Solar Energy Industries association, the average cost of a rooftop solar system was about $50,000 ten years ago. Today, that same system is closer to $25,000. 

With solar becoming more affordable, a lot more companies have entered the market. That level of competition has made solar lead generation more crucial than ever. Here are some tips for generating solar leads.

Purchasing solar lead lists

Businesses specializing in solar lead generation companies build lists of local solar companies and conduct marketing operations to find interested homeowners, matching them to member installers. Purchasing solar leads can be expensive, but it’s also a direct pathway to interested homeowners, so it is often worth the investment. If the leads are well-sourced, you could be on your way to a successful cold calling campaign.

If the cost of buying solar leads is cost-prohibitive, it’s worth considering a lead generation platform. A platform like BatchLeads can give you the data and tools you need to build custom lead lists, find contact information with skip tracing, and even contact property owners. With the ability to search across more than 300 property data points, you can quickly identify mid- to high-income neighborhoods or use geographic search criteria to target communities with solar incentives.

Social media strategy

Your social media outreach is probably the most crucial part of your marketing because of the massive number of people who use these platforms. You may also want to consider a few less well-known networking sites because of their appeal to those planning home renovation and improvement. Here are some key platforms that can boost your efforts to find solar leads:

  • Facebook is the largest social media platform, with over 243 million users in the US alone. Businesses can also advertise their products on Facebook marketplace.  
  • Instagram appeals to all things photographic, including home improvements and renovations.
  • Twitter still has tremendous reach, with about 77 million active users in the US. 
  • Nextdoor is a space for offering tips and information specific to a user’s neighborhood and businesses can create posts free of charge. 

Of course, social media marketing is about more than just reaching people. Like any other marketing campaign, you need clear goals and ways of measuring your ROI in both dollars and labor hours invested. Luckily the major platforms have ad services and other built-in business tools. From there, the next step is to create your funnel, and you do that with a mixture of additional digital marketing and SMS campaigns.

Targeted web content

As vital as social media marketing is, you also need to support it and your other marketing channels with digital marketing staples that can help funnel leads to you. A website featuring a regularly updated blog can drive engagement, especially when the content incorporates an SEO strategy. The blog should provide resources that customers and prospective customers can use, as well as special gated content that requires visitors to supply an email address or opt-in to an SMS campaign. 

SMS marketing

Opt-in text message marketing is the highest converting and lowest cost-per-participant way of reaching interested prospects and following up on leads. Still, it is only helpful on an opt-in strategy due to federal telecommunications law. Text messages are overwhelmingly opened by the recipient, even more so than emails or messages on social media platforms. Almost every working adult has a cellular phone with SMS capabilities.

Setting up social media marketing that gives interested parties a chance to learn more about solar installation, products, upgrades, or services by opting into an SMS campaign is a powerful way to keep customers engaged and informed, giving you active leads to follow up with. Lead management software like BatchLeads allows you to set automated follow-ups, create smart lists to stack or separate leads by interest, and even create timed communications, so you always keep your customers up to date on sales and seasonal promotions.

Networking and referrals

Professional referrals from contractors working in other niches also go a long way for finding solar leads, and to make the most of them; you will need to network. Make yourself known to real estate agents, roofing company owners, construction companies, electricians, and other professionals with related businesses by joining local professional organizations and getting involved with civic activities. Those referrals can also come from regular word of mouth if you invest in legacy media with the same funnel strategy you use online to bring even more people into your SMS lists.

Trade Shows

Trade shows are an excellent way to find solar leads. This is a place where you’ll be able to connect face to face with potential customers or other real estate and construction professionals who can refer you to their clients. Be mindful that not every trade show will necessarily be worth your time and money, so do some research first about the trade show. Some of the most important things to know are the cost of exhibiting, the number of attendees from year to year, and what types of people attend. It’s also worthwhile to ask any attendees or exhibitors you may know what their experience was like and how it impacted their sales. 

Make sure to establish quantifiable goals in advance for each trade show. This can be a plan such as “I plan on doing twenty one-minute product demos every day or getting at least thirty business cards per day.”  

Legacy media advertising

Legacy media refers to forms of communication that precede the rise of the internet. Some legacy media advertising is reasonably low cost in most areas, especially if you look beyond television and radio spots. Here are some types of legacy advertising that can reach tens of thousands of people in many markets.

  • Freeway billboards
  • Direct mail fliers or postcards
  • Local sports team program or field billboard sponsorship
  • Local youth sports league sponsorships
  • Newspaper ads
  • Pre-show slides at movie theaters
  • Vehicle wraps 

Many successful local contractors in various niches use all of these methods, along with targeted radio and local television ad buys. Consider your options and pick a starting point. You can continually reinvest returns from your increased lead volume in more opportunities. Direct mail campaigns are often the easiest to start with, and they can be run from inside lead management apps like BatchLeads.

Key takeaways

Successful marketing is a multi-front effort that unites your work across campaigns in different media. Being clear in your communications and using a variety of techniques will help you find more solar leads.

The best strategy is to funnel all your leads to one management system, which is why opt-in text messaging and website forms to collect information from interested parties are so popular. Don’t ever miss out on legacy strategies like direct mailing, though. You can either purchase lists from the USPS to canvas local addresses or use the lists you get from online lead generation companies to build your direct mailing list.

The right tools allow you to sort out all the lead sources and put them in the proper categories for follow-up. As you plan your next marketing investment, remember to make sure you are using the most effective tools for your goals. Lead management platforms like BatchLeads provide potent options, including multi-list lead management and accessible data importing and exporting. You can do more with your leads when you have the tools to make work easy.


Subscribe to our Newsletter

Tags for This Post

Join more than 10,000
real estate pros

Suggested Articles

Thank You

For subscribing to BatchService Newsletter!