Building a Marketing Plan for Your Renewable Energy Company

Building a marketing plan for your business can be stressful and troublesome for anyone, no matter the industry. As a clean energy company, you understand that no project, whether it be a residential or an industrial application, should ever be carried out without a strategic plan. In this day and age, the variety of readily available marketing strategies are enough to make your head spin with apps, platforms, automation, services, the list goes on … Whether you’re marketing hydropower, geothermal energy, or solar electrical energy, what is crucial, is building a marketing plan that your customers will like and engage. The very best method to do this is by creating quality content for your consumers that will help inform, notify, and raise their interest in your renewable energy services. As you may know, this new technique is known as Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing. This is a new marketing technique that has come to light in the digital era, utilizing technology. Since everyone has either a phone or laptop, consumers are always reading online, researching on their own for their own needs. This is where you come into play with Inbound Marketing! Taking the Inbound Marketing approach allows you to draw in website visitors organically, converting them into certified leads, and then turning them into pleased customers for years to come. Inbound Marketing also relies on SEO (search engine optimization). Search engine optimization ranks your content with the rest in the world when consumers search for something through platforms such as Google. This is achieved through special keywords to match what consumers are searching for. All of this should be part of your Inbound Marketing strategy for your renewable energy company. Majority of people think they know everything, but in reality, they don’t. So you are here to inform them! Below are the four vital stages of establishing a Content & Inbound Strategy to create customer-centered, relevant content..  

Self-assessment

So now that you are set on creating a brand-new marketing strategy for your business, it is essential to examine your standing within your marketplace, honestly. You’ll need to… Collect your current metrics. Take down the number of leads that originate from your website and how many visitors you currently pull in a day. Observe what percentage of those are certified leads. Determine what the value of a lead is. Gather products and ideas that can be implemented in premium content. Stage outcome: The goal here is to unite the team by creating insights on where you stand now a company. What marketing assets do you have? What are your goals for organizational growth? How can you achieve these goals?

 

Buyer Persona Development

In this stage, you will need to describe and define a clear picture of who your ideal buyers are. You’ll need to work with your team to come to an agreement on your buyers demographic. Preferably, you would want to get feedback from existing or potential customers. There are a few different ways you can do your research and gather the appropriate information. You’ll need to… Identify who your three suitable or most recurring consumers are. Write down the standard solutions to their needs. Discover exactly what portion of the consumers are certified. Collect relevant information about them to strengthen your decision. Outline your buyer persona buying behaviors in a clear and simple way. Stage result: After completing the buyer personas for your business you’ll discover a lot more about your consumer than you originally knew. Knowing this information automatically gives your business an advantage over others in your industry or others.

 

Buyer Journey – Mapping it out

In this stage, you will be mapping out a funnel for your ideal buyer personas. The funnel consist of different stages your buyer will be in, such as Awareness, Consideration, Engage, Delight. These four Inbound marketing stages are the basic footprints for where you lead your buyers. You want to raise awareness to your buyers issues and how they can be solved. Then, you want to show the solutions to their problems with a clear picture so they understand the impact of the solution you offer in the consideration stage. Once your ideal consumer has considered their options, you want them to come to a conclusion which ideally leads to a purchase and/or conversion. Agents such as eBooks, email and social subject lines are laid out in order to convert, qualify, and nurture your leads. But let’s take a look at what we need in order to do so. Detail what your buyer personas are seeking during the Awareness Stage. Brainstorm content concepts for buyer personas at the Awareness Stage. Gather pertinent details about them. Detail your buyer personas purchasing behaviors. Brainstorm content concepts for buyer personas at the Consideration Stage. Determine what your buyer personas are trying to find throughout the Decision Stage. Come up with content ideas for buyer personas at the Decision Stage. Outline exactly what your buyer personas are looking for during the Customer Stage. Develop content concepts for purchaser personas at the Customer Stage. Phase result: When you map out the customers journey, you are also outlining offers and email subject lines that transform, qualify, and nurture your leads across the buyer persona’s journey. This is pivotal to your strategy and should be carefully put together. You would hate to send the wrong messaging for the wrong persona.

 

Inbound Campaign Setup

In campaign setup stage, all your content ideas that were brainstormed now come together in an inbound strategy. But, before you can do anything with your content and research, you’ll need to setup how to execute your content. Let’s take a look at a few things you’ll need to do before you release it to the public. Conduct in-depth keyword research to identify most optimal keywords for SEO. This is crucial to getting into the public eye over all the other content out there. Outline the titles of offers like ebooks, article, email titles, social networks. Develop a content schedule with the associated social networking promotional material. Identify precisely what platforms and tools you will need to carry out an incoming campaign Stage outcome: Develop a detailed content plan to attract personalities by responding to common anxieties through your blog and premium material deals.

 

The Bottom Line

Now that you have a basic understanding of what Inbound Marketing entails, there is no better way to learn that to try it for yourself! With all the marketing tactics out there, it is essential to not forget what matters to your business and your consumer. You want to create quality content that is relevant to your consumer so that they think “oh, that is interesting”, for example. You want to guide your reader through a journey into a customer. Let’s use dating as an example. People generally don’t just said “I do” after one date. You’ll need to nurture your relationship with your partner and build to the moment of saying “I do.” So when you are building a marketing plan for renewable energy company, take the time to establish a comprehensive Content Strategy for your business. Take the time to carefully map out all the stages and what type of content you will provide. This content is a representation of you and your business, so make it count! Another great example is imagining yourself in the consumer’s shoes. If you will find value in your content, genuinely, then you are heading in the right direction. After providing relevant content to your potential customers, you want to create solid call-to-actions to acquire personal information from the reader, such as email address, company name and title, and so on. Once you have this information, you just attained a potential lead! Congratulations! These are the quality of leads you want for your business. Remember, it’s not the number of leads you have for your renewable energy company, it’s the number of quality leads for your business because those are the leads that will convert the most. Keep in mind, efficient strategies are hard to build on your own. Don’t hesitate to use external aid to get it right. Then you’ll be on your way to continually convert overall strangers into faithful customers! Responsify, is an all-in-one, cost-efficient solution to your Inbound Marketing needs. Helping businesses tackle what they need instead of hiring a whole team that can cost a fortune.   To learn about what’s needed to develop an effective Content and Inbound Strategy, grab our free eBook here! If you have any questions about how to get started with an Inbound Strategy for your company, don’t be shy, reserve a time to speak with us here. We’re happy to help!