Gaia Worldwide

Rhone Resch of SEIA talks 1603 Treasury Grant Program and other solar incentives. Spoiler alert: It’s not looking good.

jboyce — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:54:41 +0000

Here is a transcript of Rhone Resch being interviewed by OnPoint about the pending lapse of the Treasury Tax Grant Program 1603.

I guess the long and bumpy road for solar adoption in the U.S. isn’t getting any smoother. Good for the lawyers, good for the lobbyists, but a major blow to an industry growing faster than any other in the U.S. right now. *sigh* -Joe

Monica Trauzzi(of OnPoint): Hello and welcome to OnPoint. I’m Monica Trauzzi. Joining me today is Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association. Rhone, great to have you back on the show.

Rhone Resch: Thank you, Monica, for having me.

Monica Trauzzi: Rhone, it’s been a tough climb for the renewable energy industry on tax incentives this year. Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus says he plans to take up tax credits at the beginning of next year.

Rhone Resch: Right.

Monica Trauzzi: But the industry was really hoping to get this resolved sometime this month. What’s your take on this new timeline and the fact that we’re not going to see an extension this year?

Rhone Resch: We’re disappointed. I represent about 5000 businesses in the United States, most of them are small businesses who’ve been using the 1603 Treasury Program very effectively. This program has supported over 22,000 solar projects across 48 states and so we’ve gotten to a point where this is an effective job creating mechanism that’s about to expire. So, here you have one of the fastest growing industries in the country, we’re about to see a significant drop-off when this program expires at the end of the year, so we’re disappointed. But, obviously, we’re working within the Congress is timeline. We’ll be back here in the new year and hopefully it will get it extended.

Monica Trauzzi: Do you think that there is a majority of support in Congress for the renewables industry and these continued tax extensions?

Rhone Resch: You know, part of the problem, I think with the approach the Congress is taken towards renewables, is they’re giving these one year, two-year kinds of extensions rather than making them over a longer duration and then curtailing them after you don’t need them. The 1603 program was created to deal with a very tough economic climate where you didn’t have enough tax equity in the market to support growth of these industries. Well, this program is still needed today because you don’t see those tax equity players have come back into the market yet. So, here we have a very effective program that is absolutely critical that we keep going. I think, in the long run, what you see is that Congress understands this is good policy. This kind of program creates jobs. I’m seeing, you know, development in my district in rural Nevada or in Colorado or in Texas and I never thought the renewable industry would be in my home state. So, you know, here you have a program that’s effective and is really supporting job creation throughout United States. Again, difficult to deal with these short-term durations though.

Monica Trauzzi: 1603 brought some impressive numbers for Q3 for the industry. How do you think a lack of that program might affect future growth?

Rhone Resch: Well, it’s important to point out the good things that are happening in solar industry today. We grew by 140 percent year over year in the third quarter. We installed about 450 megawatts just in the third quarter. That’s more than we installed in the entire year of 2009. So those small businesses, who maybe they’re electricians or homebuilders who have gotten into the solar industry, are seeing their business grow and thrive. The big question is what happens January 1? What happens 12 days from now when this program expires? I think for small businesses they’re going to find it extremely difficult. If you’re a large business you can go to Wall Street and get some tax equity for a 100 million or a $200 million project, but if you’re a small developer who’s doing 100,000, $200,000 projects, you don’t have the ability to go to Wall Street. So they’re the ones who are going to be hurt most. We estimate that a one-year extension of this program will create 37,000 additional jobs in the solar industry alone. None of those jobs are going to be created unless 1603 is extended.

Monica Trauzzi: The industry performed at slightly lower than expectations for the year. How do you account for that? Is it the uncertainty that exists right now?

Rhone Resch: Well, growing at 140 percent year over year is pretty good. We’re the fastest growing industry in the United States today and I think the other great news is that we’ve seen the price of solar come down dramatically. As we have scaled up the industry, the cost of solar panels has come down by 40percent in the last year alone. So there’s almost no better time to go solar than today. And I think a lot of people are kind of looking at their energy bills going through the roof and saying, hey, solar has come down. It’s more cost effective. There’s new business models where I don’t have to pay them any money upfront. We’re going to invest in solar now. So, I would say actually we’ve done extremely well as an industry, even in these tough economic conditions, in order to grow all market sectors.

Monica Trauzzi: So, with all of this great progress then, why does the industry continue to need these incentives?

Rhone Resch: Well, as you know, Monica, every single sector of the energy industry is built on policy and built on some form of support. For the solar industry we have an underlying 30 percent tax credit that’s in place out through 2016. But if you can’t use those tax credits to develop your project, you have no ability to finance that project. So the 1603 program was created to address the inadequacies in the market. Those inadequacies still exist today unfortunately and so what I think ultimately is critical is that we create the policies for renewables that are similar to what you see for the oil and gas industry, which are permanent incentives. Or, you know, the kinds of policies that last long enough so you have business certainty, especially for proven job creators like solar.

Monica Trauzzi: Have you noticed a shift in tone in Congress towards renewables and just the outlook for the role that renewables will play in our energy policy?

Rhone Resch: There’s no doubt. I mean, you see congressmen starting to talk very positively about solar, not in the future, but today. New factories being opened up throughout the United States, large-scale projects that we couldn’t even dream of five years ago are now under construction and, frankly, almost everybody knows somebody working in solar today. That’s a big difference from where we were just a couple of years ago. So, we’ve made a very aggressive transition from being kind of a nice, cute, you know, technology or an issue really into an industry, an industry that employs over 100,000 people in the United States and, as I mentioned, is the fastest-growing industry in this country. And we expect to add another 30 to 40,000 this next year alone, if we have that policy certainty.

Monica Trauzzi: I want to shift gears slightly and talk about the role that China is playing in the U.S. solar industry. Do you think that the U.S. industry is disadvantaged because of China’s production of solar technology and its exportation of solar technology?

Rhone Resch: Well, we have a global marketplace for solar, meaning we export and import products here in the United States. In fact, in 2010 we were a net exporter of solar equipment, products and final-finish product, to the tune of having a trade surplus of over $2 billion with the rest of the world. In fact, we were a net exporter to China. Now, what we’re seeing is the major investment in new manufacturing of the finished product is occurring in China. And so they’ve scaled up their manufacturing and lowering their per-unit costs so that they are able to compete globally. Now, unfortunately, we haven’t made that same investment in the United States for a lot of companies and so competing with a lower cost product is proving very, very difficult. It’s exactly what we saw with Solyndra, where here you had a technology and a business model that was based on a price point in the market. That was good 2008 and 2009 numbers. Well, as I pointed out, the price of solar has come down 40 percent in this last year alone, so you have to be efficient in your manufacturing. You have to lower your costs in order to be cost competitive. And for some companies in the United States, they’re not able to do that. A the United States, they’re not able to do that. But the same holds true for some companies in China and in Europe and in other places. So, as the cost comes down for solar, there are going to be some companies that go out of business. But, in the long run, that’s healthy for us to expand the use of solar and ultimately deliver clean electricity to the customer.

Monica Trauzzi: All right, we’ll end it right there. Thank you for coming on the show.

Rhone Resch: Thank you for having me.

Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We’ll see you back here tomorrow.

My takeaway: With all of the negative press the solar industry has seen this past year (read:Solyndra) the Federal Government can no longer be depended on for support. Of course, there is a silver lining here that nobody seems to want to talk about. Prices have dropped much more than 30% in the past year, which more than offsets the incentives from the government. Meaning that if you were able to sell a solar PV rooftop system in 2010, you should be selling even more in 2012. The numbers don’t lie.

The industry is growing up. Manufacturers are consolidating and dying off, we expected this. We’ve had major tie-ups with policy, permitting, and execution of large scale project development – nothing new there. The lobbyists are calling for more support from Government – Let’s hope they have success but we can no longer count on it.

It’s time for the free market take over, and for solar integrators, developers, and installers who can’t survive without federal subsidies to start consolidating and dying, just like the manufacturers are. Distributed generation on the small to medium scale doesn’t need a tax-grant, and never did. There’s a lot of money to be made and an even larger opportunity given the negative sentiment out there.

For most, the changes ahead are going to require some retooling and a new emphasis on selling value and appealing to buyers in the same way that every major consumer electronics company does. The customer experience, sales process, equipment brands, and monitoring and display technology will be the main drivers of sales. If you’re an installer or integrator, start preparing now, the opportunity is huge and well hidden – yours for the taking. -Joe

Good News, Solar Grew over 140% Last Quarter. But…

jboyce — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:03:36 +0000

Amid all the skepticism, criticism, and uncertainty bubbling up in the solar industry, the numbers continue to give us reason to be optimistic.

Highlights of a report by GTM Research and SEIA released recently are cause for celebration.

Developers added 449.2 megawatts of solar-generating capacity in the quarter, up 140 percent from 187.3 megawatts in the same quarter last year. The installed capacity was more than the total U.S capacity installed in all of 2009.

Still room to run?

While the numbers are impressive and show signs that the U.S. is beginning to establish its self as a major market for solar equipment and services, almost half of the solar in Q3 came from a small number of large, Utility-scale projects. While utility scale momentum can continue in the current policy environment, there is risk that things will change in a hurry if Congress lets the 1603 Cash Grant Program expire at the end of the year.

The cash grant program is critical to project developers because it provides the bridge financing necessary to get from initial planning to completed construction, and is the key driver of growth in solar power for utilities.

Solar Power, Meet The American Public

jboyce — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 21:09:02 +0000

Lately I’ve been encouraged by the frequency and thought going into articles and research on solar electricity, as well as the coverage by mass market news media who are often unable to take a deep dive on any issue, forget something as low profile as solar power.

It was several months ago that I read an article in Scientific American which drew parallels between solar and computing technology. I was so excited to see SA make reference to Moore’s Law, which for our purposes can basically be boiled down as saying that computer chips get cheaper and more powerful at a rapid and sustained rate, essentially doubling in power every 18 months.

While this certainly has not held true for solar, there are components of Moore’s Law which do translate to the power of Photovoltaics, and which although not as rapidly as in computing, have brought us to a period of what look like absurdly low prices for solar in comparison to just 18-24 months ago.

With negative news about high profile solar failures, and the relentless bashing of the Obama Administration (mainly by right leaning media and individuals) for supporting Solyndra, I was, and remain concerned how the average person’s opinion may be affected. Could the talk of big time failures and “tax payer dollars being wasted” make them assume that there is something wrong with the technology, or feel less sure of it’s value?

While it’s not clear how exactly all the bad news is changing perceptions, it’s safe to assume that the failure of Solyndra and others such as Evergreen Solar, right here in my back yard, makes solar can easily become more debatable, and worst of all more complex. A moment of hesitation by, for example, a residential homeowner interested in solar panels on their roof, will result in a no-sale the vast majority of the time, costing the installer up to $300 per opportunity according to Sungevity, a major player in residential solar leasing.

Alas… I can take heart in what I’m seeing now.

So, seeing the Paul Krugman’s article in the New York Times, make reference Scientific American’s assessment gave me a feeling of reassurance. Perhaps the general population is starting to see beyond the noise and distorted data presented by the media, business, and government departments who have access to the general population on a regular basis, and starting to see the facts.

I’ve been blasting people with the idea of Moore’s Law as it relates to solar pv for years, and assuring them that the economics of solar vs. conventional dirty power would come into balance much faster than the politicians and pundits were suggesting. In many states, my state of Massachusetts being one of them, we’re already there.

So what now…?

Accelerating Solar Sales

jboyce — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:27:42 +0000

growth bar chart through 2012

It’s what we all think about more than anything else. . . sales.

What are the rules? How do we know if we’re successful? Why

are so many anxious customers suddenly hesitating and then stalling our deals?! The answers are there, and we can help you identify them.

It’s a new game with new rules…

Selling solar is a process that virtually no other industry can apply their rules to. Because of the diverse nature of the customers, the segments we sell to, what the perceived value of solar is, and how value can be applied from market to market, segment to segment, and individual to individual, the keys to success lie in areas that break most conventional rules. What’s more, the conventional rules are often being promoted by “gurus” from our very own industry. This is unacceptable. If someone doesn’t know how to sell across a wide swath of markets, technologies, and customer segments, you should not accept their advice without proper scrutiny. What’s more, if you’ve learned how to sell by someone who themselves is trying to sell you some kind of doohickey that they claim will improve your sales, you should be doubly skeptical.

What we do is different…

Our approach is ground-up. We focus on helping you develop the exact messaging that resonates best with what makes you the best possible choice for customers, regardless of whether your market is competitive, lacks aggressive subsidies, or is culturally unaffected by the prospect of building a solar infrastructure.

We give you the tools that work, and help you eliminate the ones that don’t…

Once you’ve established your message, your sales force will be empowered in a whole new way. Approaching customers will be a fun, exhilarating experience with potential for a closed sale every time.

We help you find your audience…

A very accomplished businessman once said it best… Sales is about time. As the head of a business in a rapidly growing technology industry like solar, you need to be responsible for your sales reps time if you want to hold them accountable for their productivity. What does this mean exactly? It means that in order to accelerate sales to a parabolic scale, you have to provide the tools and processes that keep your representatives engaged, enthusiastic, and deeply committed to the success of your company above even their own.

We live and breathe solar sales. We exist to accelerate the growth of solar businesses that are committed to doing great work, passionate about customer satisfaction, and willing to scale their businesses and hire more people to help them.

Is this you? Then we should talk…

Selling Solar : The 7 Elements of Great Online Marketing

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:52:09 +0000

Selling Solar and other blog posts by Joe Boyce can be found here as well on several syncicated sites such as RenewableEnergyWorld.com

Lately I’ve been hearing more and more from customers about “SEO and SEM”, which are short for “Search Engine Optimization” and “Search Engine Marketing” respectively. This topic is often misunderstood, and can be frustrating to business owners and marketing departmets in the solar industry. Our core business is not about understanding the nuances of meta-tags, Alt-Text, page rank, rich media, etc, it’s about selling solar, and most companies would rather be out selling, (which is music to my ears by the way).

With the growth of solar contrasting the overall backdrop of a slow economy, agencies are aggressively rushing to go after solar companies. Using lots of high-minded “agency speak” they set out to convince us that they hold the magic key to more leads, higher sales, and world class brand recognition.

Unfortunately, once a contract is signed the results often look the same. Yes, your website gets a makeover, maybe you rank a little higher on search engines, maybe your company even gets a Facebook page. Still, the highly qualified leads and increased inbound sales volume remain sluggish… Magically creating a need for more in-depth services and paid advertisements, which the agency is happy to provide.

Here’s the hard reality… Your website is only as good as the content you have on it. What’s more, very few agencies have the solar industry knowledge and expertise needed to take you much further than you can get using traditional advertising and lead-generation solutions that spare you the agency speak.

Although we all want to become the go-to solar company, it’s very important to use existing business sense before venturing into online marketing. It’s up to us to understand who we can best serve, what we have to offer, and why we are the best choice for customers. This often requires a little more thought and discipline than it would seem, and it is absolutely critical to your online marketing success.

Understanding and planning around the three points outlined above makes online marketing fluid and seamless. Your web presence becomes an additional sales person, creating more time for you to work with the most qualified leads. Unfortunately, for many companies, their online marketing exposes a half-baked effort to potential customers, it actually makes them look worse than simply not being there at all.

Before moving forward with an online strategy, consider the points above and build your strategy around them. Once you’re ready to take charge of your online presence, use these 7 relatively simple steps to produce quality results.

The 7 Elements of Great Online Marketing

1. Define a Keyword Strategy
Create a list of 3-5 keywords a qualified prospect would search with.
Think as a qualified prospect looking for your services. To attract customers, you need to think of the terms that they would use to find information as a layperson. Focus on getting to the core of what the customer is looking for and avoid terms well known by industry insiders as they could draw unqualified visitors.

The keywords you choose should be based on difficulty and relevance.Some very general words such as ‘solar’ or ‘green’ are very competitive, making it harder to rank well for them. As a small or medium-sized business, you probably want to choose less competitive keywords more specifically related to your business. The greater the volume of searches on a keyword, the more competitive it is.

Now that you’ve identified your keywords, you should incorporate them into your website. We will talk more about this in the upcoming section on website optimization.

*Note that keywords do not have to be perfect at first. You can test different keywords or phrases to see which get the best results. More on this in a later section.

2. Optimize Your Website
Once you’ve found your keywords, you can develop your website to rank highly in searches for them. This is what Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about. Being ranked highly on the right keywords will ensure that your company is found by the right audience.

While it has become common for businesses to build their sites specifically for high ranking on Google and other search engines, (creating a burgeoning SEO industry in the process) search engines like Google are constantly finding new ways to weed out sites that are designed solely for search engines and do not offer quality content to users. This makes sense when you think about it, the sites with the most useful and relevant information for the user should be the highest ranking. Still, understanding how search engines find relevant sites is an important component of great web development.

A quick side note on SEO: On-page vs Off-page ranking

On-page SEO has to do with how your website is read by search engines. What can be inferred from your page titles, meta descriptions, headlines, and copy, along with how often the site is updated. More and more search engines are measuring the quality of the hosting as well, as they believe that sites with more robust hosting, higher speeds, etc are run by more legitimate organizations. In general, any shortcomings with on-site SEO can be quickly revised for immediate improvement. About 25% of your ranking comes from on-page SEO.

Off-page SEO: measures your ‘authority’ on the web, which includes the number of links to your websites from other websites, and how highly ranked those sites are. This takes more time to develop as it is no longer simply a matter of getting a lot of inbound links to your site. About 75% of your ranking is determined by off-page SEO.

What affects On-Site SEO rankings?

MOZ Rank – MOZ Rank offers a general measure of your site’s authority overall. The process is a bit technical, but the best way to positively affect your MOZ rank is to keep fresh content going onto your site regularly. More on this later.

Page Titles – Page titles tell the search engines what the pages they’re indexing are about. You can see these titles at the top of your browser when looking at a webpage.

Meta Descriptions – Although not directly an influence on ranking, meta data is what a person see’s as the description of your site in search engine listings. They give the user the chance to evaluate whether the result is what they’re looking for before actually clicking on the link to your page.

Headings – In the HTML code of your website, you’ll see that some text will have tags like

,

, or

around it. Text in these tags is more often read as keywords than regular body text, and are weighted more heavily by the search engines. Therefore, it’s a good practice to put keywords in these headings when appropriate.

Images – Images are both positive and negative on your site. One the one hand, having too many images can slow down the load time of your page, negatively impacting your user experience as well as your search engine ranking. On the positive side, images that contain relevant ALT text in their descriptions add an additional weight on conventional search engine rankings, as well as making them available on image searches. Using high-quality, fast loading images with keywords in the ALT text can be a big enhancement to your site.

URL’s – The two most important things to know about URL structure without having to be a web-developer are first, to be sure that all of your pages have the appropriate 301 Redirects, and to avoid deeply nested URL’s.
301 Redirect – Enables users to get to the same page by typing www.abcsolar.com and http://abcsolar.com for example.
A Deeply Nested URL might look like this: www.abcsolar.com/aboutus/projects/photos/warehouse – It takes a developer to fix these, but it’s well worth it.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) – CSS puts your site layout data in a different file than your HTML code, which is where the content is stored. Having a CSS prevents the HTML code from being diluted, and therefore creates a higher ranking in the search engines when read. Using a CSS is extremely important in the current SEO landscape.

Your Domain – Very simply, when search engines look at a website, they check to see how long the domain name is valid. Sites with longer registrations are considered more serious and therefore have better authority.

3. Convert Visitors to Leads
Now that you’ve targeted your audience with keywords, optimized your site, and have been doing great things with off-site SEO you’re getting more traffic to your site than ever. Now we need to start turning these visitors into leads, and then into customers.
Conversion is the name of the game here. But how do we get them to convert?
First, make all your visitors, but particularly your new visitors an offer. Offer them something of high-value.
Next, create a call to action. Guide customers to a form in which they can register to receive the offer. Create a special landing page for this, so that results can be accurately measured and analyzed easily.
Lastly, use the results to make adjustments to the offer and the process of presenting it until you have the conversion rates you’re looking for. Repeat as necessary.

The offers you make will be the critical tool for converting your visitors. Make sure the offer is captivating and easily understood. Make it easy for customers to see value in so that you are starting the interaction with them on a basis of quality and authority. Some good examples of offers include e-books, white papers, or invitations to local educational events, but use your own ideas to create something that is valuable and really reflects what you want your customers to see. Design any offer to be the basis of an initial conversation with the customer.

4. Blogging and Content Creation
Publishing content on the web is easier than ever before. Still, it’s important to have the prior elements of your website completed before you begin your foray into the online publishing and content creation world. Once you have your site optimized, a high level of authority, and a process for turning visitors into customers it’s time to start ramping up your content.

Blogging, ebooks, and webinars are great ways to attract the right visitors to your site, and often the most powerful way to help them see the value that solar can bring to their lives, and your business can bring to them as a client. When thinking about what content to produce, it’s important to keep the customer’s perspective in your mind at all times, avoiding the temptation to use these channels as opportunities to directly market products or services, or “pitch” your company before establishing your validity and authority in the space. Focus on offering industry information, and market data as opposed to product or service information and you will make your viewers feel confident in you.

Getting Started:
The most important thing about blogging is to be sure your content is a part of your existing company website. In our industry, we see hundreds of company websites that are little more than an online brochure offering an outline of the products and services the company provides, and names of the industry associations, certifications and other credentials held by the company. While all of these things are valuable to customers at the right time, pushing them to the front of the page without offering any further information or insight from your company or executives leaves visitors without a basis for the initial trust needed to engage with you. By adding fresh content you not only engage your visitors on multiple platforms, promote your industry leadership and expertise, and create validity and trust, you also improve your ranking in search engines and your DMOZ scores, leading to even more visitors.

Choosing Your Topics:
Start with a specific purpose in mind. What do you feel is most important for anyone to know about solar in general? What piece of information do you have that if understood by your target market, would shift their perception of solar from being just an option to an opportunity, and how can you make these points in an educational and engaging way?

Start with the questions customers ask you most often right now. . . Write them down and then re-think the specific answer you would give to them in-person or over the phone. A great way to quickly create a great blog is to dictate this answer exactly as you would if asked in person into a recording device, then simply transcribe your recording onto your computer. There you go! You’ve just completed your first blog post.

Once you’ve completed your blog post, webinar, ebook, or any other kind of content, always be sure to include the call to action we discussed earlier in this paper at the end. This gives the consumer a chance to connect with you at a point where they have the maximum exposure to you as an expert.

5. Get Yourself “Out There”
The topic of social media is perhaps the biggest land mine I’ve encountered since dedicating myself to working with the solar integrator and installer community. That being said, I would be doing you all a disservice by ignoring, or tiptoeing around the topic, and I want you all to become the best in your industry. Social networking is real, it’s the most popular reason people use the internet, and it has become one of the most trusted and powerful applications for businesses to use in their marketing.

Having tripped over the land mine so many times, allow me to dive on it face first this time…

“Google (in it’s current form) is dead, it is being supplanted by people’s preference for information based on the opinions of their friends and trusted colleagues on their social networks”.

Social media helps identify the most proficient, passionate, and professional businesses to their most qualified buyers by offering pre-validated and approved content across networks that go several degrees deep into various affinity groups, while allowing clients and advocates to vouch for those businesses in a specific context. Social networks are formed within others, then expand to additional users who share the affinity of the group, creating exponential opportunities that are impossible in a single-user linear search environment. Social Media allows you to immediately identify these new members, and offers direct contact between you and your employees and new well-qualified prospects in a non-invasive, socially acceptable platform that does not exist anywhere else.

Now, the last thing any business executive or owner wants to hear is that they need to be spending time on social media sites in addition to their already overpacked schedule of responsibilities. I get it. In response to this, I’ll simply reiterate that there are ways to manage and shine in the world of social media that do not require significant time commitments, and are actually a pleasurable experience for most owners and executives. I get into some of these methods in another paper “An Executive’s Guide to Overcoming The Social Media Conundrum”. For now, the most important things to know is that although there are new social networks popping up every day, the three sites that matter in the U.S. are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN. These sites all offer unique value to businesses that produce additional sales, and all share one key ingredient – they can be managed passively and offer powerful connections with almost no time commitments.

6. Nurture and Develop Your Leads
Nobody buys solar on the spur of the moment. We know this already. So maintaining consistent contact and a positive relationship with your prospects pays. This should be done throughout their entire process of information gathering, evaluation, and decision-making, so that you remain top of mind once they reach the “moment of inspiration” when they decide to take action to move forward. Once this process is complete, prospects will self-select, engaging you with an invitation to start a sales process. As you’ve stayed with them throughout their info gathering and evaluation, you are in a position of knowing that almost all of their objections have been addressed and they’re simply looking for confirmation of their conclusions from you. All before ever making a proposal.

Much of the foundation for lead nurturing has been accomplished with your existing marketing efforts already. Now you just need to maintain relevance to your prospects amid all of the other responsibilities and interests they have. One of the best ways to do this is to use the opt-in information you gathered from them on their website visit to keep them informed of interesting and other informative topics as they develop in your industry and at your company. Email is a very good tool for doing this, and there are ways to make your email communications welcome every time.

The Golden Rule of Email Marketing: Stay relevant.

It’s necessary to track which of your high-value offerings your visitor was interested enough in to offer their contact information. Make sure that the emails you send are on a topic that correlates in some way with what the initial interest was, or else you run the risk of their opting out of future notifications.

Also…
Make sure every email you send has something in it for the reader. Maybe it’s another great whitepaper, or an invitation to a webinar. Maybe it’s a chance to meet with someone in the area who just put solar on their home or business
Include a call to action. Make sure the reader knows exactly who they can contact with questions or for more information on your topic or about buying a system.
Have a personality. Avoid canned looking emails that make readers feel like they’re being spammed. Write the copy off the cuff and make it interesting for the user to read. Entertain them as you educate them.
Measure your results. This is very important as over time you’ll find that certain email layouts, topics, and even delivery times get better results than others. You also want to watch out for any opt-outs. You want to nurture these prospects, not annoy them.

7. Analyze and Refine
Like so many things on the web today, it’s gotten easier than ever to track the movement of all your traffic and to analyze you site to reveal patterns that can get you much better results in the form of sales. Make sure all of your websites, and each page within them has the appropriate tracking code, and make sure you have a robust analytics tool that can help you understand your audience better. Most of these tools are either free online or have a nominal cost for particularly robust service.

Set metrics for traffic, conversions, leads, and any other specific items are important for you to measure based on your business model. If the metrics are not being met, make the refinements and test again. Changes in things like the position of content, conversion forms, and site content make a huge difference for users, and there is no consistent best-practice beyond what has become the standard for websites in any industry. Also, how often you send messages via email to prospects can get different responses, so again it’s important to have a system that monitors their response for you.

Without a doubt, opportunities to change, revise, and just generally improve on your existing site will crop up regularly. This is the greatest thing about online marketing. When you identify these opportunities, make the changes you need to improve your conversion rates, lead flow, contact and sales opportunities. Never be afraid to try new things, even if they seem a little too out of the box for your taste. Everyone is a little different out there, and will respond to your communication in different ways. By consistently trying out new ideas, formats, and styles, you’ll learn more about your audience than you ever thought you could, and in time will transform your website and web identity into a sales engine that delivers a very high percentage of targeted, qualified people. Buyers who have done their research and decided to engage with you in order to buy a system.

Happy selling!

Joe Boyce

Do you have questions or comments about this paper or another marketing topic? Call Joe Boyce at Gaia Worldwide (877) 331-4280 or (617) 312-3866, email at jboyce@gaiaworldwide.com