Benefits of Email Marketing for Solar Companies

Looking to boost business for your solar company? Email marketing is a relatively easy, cost-effective way to do so.

Email marketing allows solar companies like yours to:

• Get leads in a cost-effective way
• Target customers based on their stage in your sales funnel
• Customize content based on customer preferences
• Build relationships with new customers
• Stay top-of-mind with existing customers
• Automate campaigns
• Track engagement and results

We’ll go over each benefit in more detail.

Our team at Rocket Media has worked with home services companies just like yours for almost 20 years, so you can trust us to give your solar business a hand. Click below or call us at (800) 339-7305 to learn more about how we can help you stand apart from your competition and grow your business.

With minimal upfront costs for solar companies, email marketing can have an ROI as high as $36 for every $1 spent on your campaign.

Since you’re not paying to advertise anywhere or create physical marketing assets, your only costs are the email marketing platform (normally $10–$25 per month) and maybe the hours a designer or content creator creates the email. But most email marketing platforms have features that make it easy for even not-so-tech-savvy users to create great-looking emails.

Email marketing is so cost-effective because you can market to customers based on their stage in your sales funnel.

Email marketing allows you to target people interested in doing business with you. Since users in your audience have already given you their email address, you know they’re interested in your company—you just need to figure out where they are in the stage of your sales funnel.

The great thing about email marketing is that you can segment users into groups based on their stage in your funnel and send different content to groups (or even individuals).

For example, if the user:

• Signs up for your newsletter: They could be looking for informational content about converting their home to solar.
• Requests a quote: You could send them deals and special pricing to entice them to choose your solar company.

To more accurately segment users into groups and confirm what users want, you can send them an email asking them about their preferences.

Segmenting your customer base allows you to send different content to different email groups. This helps ensure you:

• Send relevant content at the right cadence.
• Funnel your audience down the sales funnel more effectively.
• Maximize your email marketing ROI.

For example, as a solar company, consider segmenting your audience by attributes like:

• Location
• Persona type (business vs. residential)
• Stage in the sales funnel
• Preferences
• Behavior (what they click, buy, etc.)

Customizing content also helps you build relationships with new customers.

Email marketing allows you to communicate with new customers regularly and helps customers:

• Become more familiar with your brand. Consistent exposure through regular emails helps new customers associate your brand with the solar products and services they may one day need.
• Feel more connected with your company. Personalizing emails with your customers’ names and the content or services they’re interested in will make your communications more relevant to them.

Once you’ve built a relationship with new customers, staying top of mind with them is important.

Being in the service industry, you know it costs significantly more to earn a new customer than to keep an existing one.

Email marketing is a budget-friendly way to help ensure existing customers think of you when you want them to. Consistent communication helps ensure existing customers remember you, so you’re the first company they think of when they need help with their solar system.

To help keep your solar company top of mind through email marketing, you can:

• Send a newsletter, holiday email, or anniversary email
• Provide helpful tips and resources
• Ask customers for feedback

The best part? You can do all of this automatically.

Email automation lets you create automated campaigns that send to customers without lifting a finger.

Platforms that have email automation let you choose “triggers” that determine what automation is sent to a customer. A trigger can be:

• A new subscriber gets a welcome email
• A quote request that sends a confirmation email
• A new promotion that sends a details email
• Unengaged subscribers get a feedback request email

You can also trigger email drip campaigns that “drip” useful information, resources, products, and more over time. These campaigns have been proven helpful in converting subscribers into customers who make a purchase.

Don’t forget to track your automated campaigns so that you know how well they’re doing!

Email marketing platforms allow you to track campaign engagement and results, helping you understand:

• What type and length of content resonate with your customers
• When customers engage most with your communications.
• What email frequency do your customers desire

We recommend tracking the following email marketing data:

• Open rate: Percentage of recipients who opened your email
• Click-through rate: Percentage of recipients who clicked a link in your email
• Conversion rate: Percentage of recipients who clicked a link and performed the desired action (filled out a form, downloaded a resource, etc.)
• Bounce rate: Percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered to a user’s inbox
• Unsubscribe rate: Percentage of subscribers who unsubscribed from your communications after opening an email
• Subscriber retention rate: Percentage of subscribers you’ve retained over a given time period

You can also experiment with your email campaigns, testing the performance of anything from button copy and color to whether residential customers engage more with content sent in spring or fall. Testing tells you which version performed better, so you can tweak your email marketing campaigns to make them more engaging and cost-efficient.

Rocket Media has nearly two decades of experience helping home services companies generate more leads with effective email marketing strategies. We’ll discuss your solar company’s unique marketing goals, the best digital marketing strategies for your needs, and how you can combine your email marketing efforts with other advertising strategies.

Just drop us a line or call us at (800) 339-7305 to chat with one of our email marketing specialists.