Your Next Steps: A Practical Solar Marketing Approach
Workshop 7
(scroll down for detailed description)
Friday, May 21
8:30am to 5:30pm
Registration Price: $225 on or before April 1, $245 after April 1, $265 on-site (includes lunch)
You DO NOT have to register for the conference to register for a workshop. On the Conference Fees page in the registration system, choose "Workshops, Tours, Special Events Only."
Presented by: Liz Merry, Verve Solar Consulting and Mary Beth McCabe, Owner, Sun Marketing
Description: Who are your customers and what do they want? What is your market potential and how much should you be charging for your solar services? The solar industry is growing "mad-fast" but there are specific resources and tricks of the trade that you can employ in an organized and efficient manner to get the answers you need. This high-energy workshop is for any solar business owner (or potential owner) who wants to learn how to research their target solar market and develop a simple yet successful marketing plan that generates sales.
Materials to be provided to attendees include a copy of the slideshow, example market analysis, and a Resources Guide. The Resources Guide includes solar industry websites, publications, organizations, and a glossary of terms and acronyms.
Who should attend? Current solar business owners, managers, and marketing staff; as well as anyone considering whether to start a solar business.
Additional Workshop Details:
PURPOSE OF THE WORKSHOP
The purpose of the workshop is to enable business owners to understand their target solar markets in a systematic and effective manner. The workshop participants will learn how to truth-test their assumptions about their target solar market, assess the value proposition of solar water and solar electric power to their consumers, and decide whether and how to invest in professional marketing or sales services. Workshop participants will leave the workshop armed with the websites, databases, portals, and techniques they need to understand their end-use customers and effectively offer services to their marketplace.
CONTENT OF THE WORKSHOP
Please include an in-depth description, agenda, syllabus or the like here. The more detail, the better.
This full-day course will include five 50-minute learning modules and one working group session. Each module includes lecture, slideshow, group discussion, and individual worksheets.
- Customer sector analysis
- Customer by technology type, utility tariff, incentives
- Identifying and address primary motivations
- Sales funnel examples for residential, large commercial, government, and utility customers
- Financial analysis
- cost of goods sold - what to include where, customer acquisition costs
- Retail vs. Levelized Cost of Energy
- Analysis tools online (IMBY, SAM, valuing commercially available tools)
- Example businesses/Case Studies
- Major players in U.S. - who they are and how they do it (SunPower, REC Solar, First Solar)
- Marketing & Sales Strategies specific to solar
- Capturing media motivated demand
- Free and very low cost advertising strategies
- Qualified leads and choosing your customers while building your base
- Drafting a plan
- assess your resources
- marketing plan
- sales implementation
- mining satisfied customers
Each module will include slideshow supported lecture, live websites and demonstration of resources, and class discussion. Specific industry resources to be reviewed include, but are not limited to: CaliforniaSolarStatistics.ca.gov, DSIREUSA.org, Solar Advisor Model, PVWatts, Energy Information Administration reports, and non-commercial features of FindSolar.com.
Each lesson includes a "tips & tricks" session to review how to find and usefully apply solar market revenue, sales, utility pricing, and customer sector data. The morning session will also include a Guest Speaker business owner who will share their own experience with researching their customer sectors and developing a marketing and sales plan.
By the end of the workshop participants will have heard, seen, and read about the core solar industry research portals and free online tools to assess who their customers are, how to approach these customers, and how to price their products and services to make a reasonable profit. Participants will understand basic marketing principles and practice applying these concepts, along with the tools and resources discussed above, to draft a simple marketing plan for their solar business.
PRESENTER'S CURRENT POSITIONS AND EXPERTISE
Liz Merry has been educating the public about the solar industry since 2001 and recently completed the curriculum for an online "Introduction to Solar Sales" course provided by an accredited college. As the first Executive Director for NorCal Solar, Merry authored articles and edited the "Solar Energy Resource Guide," which was distributed to more than 20,000 readers from 2005 to 2007. In 2008 Merry co-authored the "Customers Guide to Solar Power Purchase Agreements," a free guide that was downloaded more than 110,000 in its first year of publication. Since 2006 Merry has taught more than 2,200 students in solar seminars sponsored by organizations like the Solar Electric Power Association, Renewable Energy World, Solar Living Institute, UC Berkeley Extension, PG&E, and many others.
Dr. Mary Beth McCabe helps businesses market better using strategy and media advertising. She wrote the marketing plan for the California Solar Initiative/CCSE and consults with solar businesses. After careers in selling radio and television, she buys electronic media in English and Spanish for everything under the sun. She teaches marketing at the University of San Diego, UC San Diego Extension, and is researching solar and sustainabilty. twitter@solarmarketing
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