How do you increase leads for renewables when the market is becoming more competitive and many suppliers are in a race to the bottom? That’s a question I love to answer and the solution is often similar for many businesses.

So many businesses have a great product or service yet struggle with bringing in leads AND converting them into sales. Usually, this is down to concentrating on increasing leads and inadvertently having a leaky marketing and sales funnel.

What Is A Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is the process or “journey” that you take your prospective customers on, starting with a way to create awareness of your offer, followed by a means of retaining their attention and prompting them to take a basic level of action which supports the end of funnel action you wish them to take. The whole journey aims to capture the prospects’ attention, inform them of your offer and how it will meet their needs, build trust, and garner familiarity- all culminating in the prospect taking action. 

Effective sales funnels are great because they can be adapted easily (as they’re built out of a series of steps), and can be quite subtle too- they don’t come across as bullishly “salesy” or pushy, which can be a turn off for most prospects. 

The sales funnel can take a bit of effort to implement, and the customer journey can take a little while (depending on design, as you’ll see later); however, they’re very effective if executed properly. They usually consist of a mixture of social media/PPC campaigns, web content and, in many cases, email marketing. 

Sales Funnel Example

Once you’re aware of how sales funnels work, you’ll never see a social media ad or post in the same way again. With so many people using platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, they’re a natural place to begin to increase leads for renewables. 

Rather than give you individual examples of funnels, I’ll break down a single funnel into its key stages and provide examples of the ways that it might be altered or the forms it could take. 

Stage 1: Awareness

This stage is where your prospects are first introduced to your offer and is referred to as the discovery stage. This can involve social media posts or PPC ads, which you can produce and tailor to appeal to your target market. To increase leads for renewables, this could be homeowners who fall into a certain income bracket or those who are interested in green technology, for example. You can boost or sponsor your ads and posts, and while doing so, specify who you want to target, ensuring your content is seen by the right people. 

In these initial stages you’re ideally looking to build an awareness of your product or service. You could do this by recording a green tech installation, such as a solar panel array or heat pump, or a quick explainer giving an idea of how the tech works, or even just a focus on happy clients giving feedback on your service.  

Stage 2: Engagement

In this stage you have a simple aim: offer something of value to your prospect, in exchange for their contact details, which you can then add to your mailing lists. This something of value is the Lead Magnet, which I’ll explain in a moment. 

What you offer is up to you, however it’s good to offer something which is zero-risk, and free. You can offer the lead magnet via social media posts, sponsored ads, cold email, or any other means of reaching your audience. 

This is a great way to gather warm leads- i.e. potential clients who show a clear interest in your offer. When you contact them, they’re already open to hearing from you, and in fact will be eager to- in order to obtain their lead magnet. 

This then opens the door for future communication, for example an email sequence, or your regular broadcast emails. You could even contact your list of people interested in your product via direct message, phone call, text…the possibilities are vast and will definitely increase leads for renewables.

Stage 3: Lead magnet

Right, now you know how to offer a lead magnet and roughly what they are, you’ll want some examples right?

Perhaps the most common type of lead magnet is a simple discount offer, free product, etc. In order to increase leads for renewables and your business, you should look to offer things like free consultations, free surveys, a buying guide, free kit to accompany their new installation, free servicing for a limited period, that sort of thing. 

You could of course go down the route of producing an e-guide or other informational content that will assist your potential customer with their buying decision. 

This is a great opportunity for you to share the amazing features of your offer, as well as how they will benefit the customer. You can handle things like the reasons they may not want to commit to a purchase, or any concerns that they may have. You can also answer any frequently asked questions which may take someone from a fence-sitter to a committed buyer. 

All of this positions you as the industry expert, and gives you plenty of opportunity to show why you’re better than your competition!

Stage 4: Introduce offer

Within your lead magnet stage, you can strategically introduce your offer. Do this too early or obviously and you’ll immediately annoy your prospects; therefore, try these methods:

• Let’s say you’ve offered a free survey or consultation- within your summary report, you could explain the services or products that would solve their problems or otherwise meet the needs identified within the report. Try introducing some discounts or other incentives which are only available for people with a pre-survey, with a time limitation for purchase. 
• Offer different discounts for different services. Give the best discount on whatever your preferred product or service is (the one you most want people to buy). Introduce features and benefits when offering the discount code.  
• If you’ve produced an e-guide, you can talk about the different advantages of your available products and services tactfully. Find a way to segue into these details naturally using a point of information or advice as a starting point. 

Stage 5: Follow up

Follow-up is CRUCIAL if you want to increase leads for renewables and your business- yet so many people don’t do this at all, or if they do…they do it badly. 

With your new found warm contact list, message them in the immediate 2 weeks after they signed up for their lead magnet. Don’t necessarily do any hard selling, as this immediately turns people off- instead, look to build a rapport with the prospect; let them know more about you, show them you’re a real person and not a faceless brand, and that they can trust you to take care of them, their property and the installation of their new green tech. 

You could also set up automated sms messages just to check in with anyone who has joined your contact list. 

I said earlier that many businesses do this badly. A prime example of this is where you’re immediately thrust into a generic email subscriber list, where you’re bombarded daily with latest offers and discounts- however these are usually for products you’re not even interested in. 

Another means of following up is to offer a free webinar or tutorial, offered after the lead magnet has been provided. While this is incredibly popular with coaches and mentors, you could leverage this approach in order to increase leads for renewables too. Offering the webinar gives you a chance to really “talk” directly to the prospect, and go deep with the detail of why your products and services are the solution they’re looking for, and again, position you as the true expert in your field. 

You’ll notice a common theme in the pursuit of increasing leads for renewables here…keep it casual! 

Stage 6: Call to Action

Ok, so we’re at the final stage…introducing the call to action. In reality, you can insert a casual call to action throughout the funnel if you know what you’re doing- for example, within your lead magnet or subtly within your follow-up. 

At some point though, you’ve just got to suck it up and get people to take action though. A good time to do this is right at the end of your initial follow-up sequence, once you’ve spent the time building up rapport, showing off your social proof (happy customers) and proving why you’re better than the competition. 

A great way to position your call to action is to think of it as a call to benefit. Instead of saying, “Buy now”, say, “Decrease your energy bills now” or “Invest in a greener future now”. Make your prospects consider the ways that they’re going to be happier and more fulfilled.

Increase Leads for Renewables

This was a lot of info to take in, and this is just the basics!

Creating a sales funnel is not without its challenges, both in setting up the infrastructure and getting the content right. It needs to be as persuasive as it is informative and personable. You don’t want to come across as spammy…this will immediately turn off even the most engaged prospect. Knowing how to do this is an art form in itself.

For us, it all comes down to systems. You have a system for each type of lead, that is designed to capture, nurture and convert them with minimal effort. And if that’s something you think you might need in your business then get in touch for an initial chat.