Author : Austin Brentley

Should You Buy Solar Leads or Generate Your Own?

You can be the best PV installer in town. But without a steady stream of solar leads, your company won’t survive for very long. That’s because qualified prospects are the lifeblood of any installation business. And when it comes to consistent solar lead generation, you really only have 2 options: You can buy solar leads. […]

3 Lessons I’ve Learned As a Professional Solar Blogger

I’ve been a general blogger for about 8 years and a “solar” blogger for the past 4 years. Over that time, I’ve done long-term projects, one-off posts, and daily writing for a host of solar PV clients around the world. Each project is unique.  But the most successful campaigns I’ve worked on share some commonalities. […]

Does Solar Energy Have a Marketing Problem?

We have at our disposal a technology that produces free energy from an infinitely replenishable source. It’s clean, affordable, and actually boosts the property values of homes. Oh, and it exists against a backdrop of dirty, increasingly expensive fossil fuels. The technology is even subsidized in many states, making switching costs almost non-existent for the […]

The Poor Man’s Guide to Finding Solar Images Online

In an earlier post, I launched a one-man campaign to encourage greater diversity in the types of solar images that companies use on their sites. There’s a tendency to use the same solar stock images as everyone else.  This trend makes it harder to differentiate your offerings and market the value of your products and […]

Do Your Solar Landing Pages Have Too Many Options?

It happens all too often.  Solar companies spending thousands of dollars a month on email and AdWord campaigns only to direct visitors to the homepage instead of an actual landing page. On the one hand, I should be happy.  Common mistakes like these create more business for freelance solar marketers like myself.  Many of my […]

Every Solar Marketer and Copywriter’s Nightmare: the Dreaded Typo

As a solar energy marketer, you’re responsible for presenting the best possible case for every product or service under your firm’s brand. But what happens when you’ve just: Penned a great blog post Sent out an email blast Ordered 10,000 copies of a direct mail flyer And a typo slips in…. Whether someone points it […]

Time to Stop Using the Same Solar Energy Stock Photos

First, let me start by apologizing to LL28. I don’t know if you’re male or female, but you’re a very talented photographer who continues to make a killing within the solar industry. The quality of your work is outstanding, LL28 – as evidenced by the countless solar energy firms across the globe that borrow liberally […]

Hiring Solar Copywriters, Part 5 – Which Payment System to Use?

For the past four days, we’ve looked at the different payment systems that solar copywriters use, outlining the relative pros and cons of each. In quick order, they are: By the hour – best suited for ongoing projects such as SEO campaigns or longer writing assignments that have a lot of research involved. By the […]

Hiring Solar Copywriters, Part 4 – Paying for Performance

We’ve already looked at the pros and cons of paying copywriters by the hour, by the project, and by the word. Last in our line-up is performance-based pay in which compensation is directly tied to pre-determined results (i.e. conversions, traffic, sales, leads, etc.). Whereas the 3 previous systems are fairly interchangeable, performance-based pay stands alone. […]

Hiring Solar Copywriters, Part 3 – Paying by the Word

So far, we’ve looked at hiring solar copywriters by the hour and by the project. Today, let’s look at paying copywriters by the word (or sometimes by the page). Paying Solar Copywriters by the Page This is a pretty useless system because page lengths are so variable. With the right font type and size, you […]

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