How are you advertising PV?

[Markc]

Hi All

This idea is still running through my mind and I keep coming back to it.

The issues for me at this time are:

1. Time! (need I say more)
2. Cost's. We have all had massive costs to get where we are and funds are low for us all.
3. Knowledge. I'm a sparks and a PV installer, No web designer. Web designer = costs!
4. Keeping it amended and accounted.
5. Deciding on a strategy to implement it which keeps all the installers on a equal footing (no one installer taking presidents) and how many to allow for a designed area.
6. Ensuring trust and accountancy over admin costs. After all we are all cyber buddy's here aren't we!

Looking at using a web hosting services of 1and1 as they seem reasonable and cost effective on a basic package.

Was also considering sponsorship may be and keeping any adverts relevant to the industry.

Ideas welcome and anyone with web design and building skill welcome to assist.

Anyone interested email me [email protected] with your email details and over the coming weeks I will see what response I get and if it's a goer. Ideas and location would be good also. Anything looked at with an open mind and if response is good I will email you all back with all the information received for you all to consider.

Mark

P.S Website name also would be good.

 

[MorganPVI]

It's a good idea, basically taking the interent quote-machines on and cutting out the middleman.

For £250 we can have a nice website built with another £250 we can have it Search Engine Optimised, probally you'd need £100 /mth to keep it at the top of the search engines and general maintenace. So £500 -£750 upfront would get us a nice website.

There are 48 counties in England, so can we get 15 firms/people to take 3 counties each and pay £30 - £40 upfront and £6 a month, they then have all the leads in a tri county area. I'm willing to pay far more than £50 and £10 a month for 38 leads every 4 weeks. sounds better than £20 a time for a shot in the dark.

 

[Markc]

It's a good idea, basically taking the interent quote-machines on and cutting out the middleman.

For £250 we can have a nice website built with another £250 we can have it Search Engine Optimised, probally you'd need £100 /mth to keep it at the top of the search engines and general maintenace. So £500 -£750 upfront would get us a nice website.

There are 48 counties in England, so can we get 15 firms/people to take 3 counties each and pay £30 - £40 upfront and £6 a month, they then have all the leads in a tri county area. I'm willing to pay far more than £50 and £10 a month for 38 leads every 4 weeks. sounds better than £20 a time for a shot in the dark.

All sounds good but I think there may be a need to have some sort of one off payment on an annual basis. Calculate the cost of a web site and some form of admin split between a certain number (15 is good) of installers for a 12 month period. When 11 months are up Admin can send emails to those willing to stay in and collect moneys for the next 12 months. Anyone who pulls out within 12 months can not then jeopardise the web site for that 12 month period. £1000 split on 15 is around £66 per year. May be paypal would be the easiest way to collect payments?

Nothing could be instigated until 15 installers are signed up and payments made. I would further suggest payments could be made in one go? So as installers join up over time no monies are paid until 15. Then we all pay together and arrange for the website to be built.

I see the website as a UK map with the areas (counties) shown. If you click in that area it links directly to that installers website? Obviously a home page explaining the uniqueness of our site. As one has said already a installers site by installers.

Your thoughts?

P.S When emailing me please can I ask you to also put your Forum name? I don't know who you are on here if I don't know that and obviously nothing will be passed on to others!

 

[SRE]

OMG - came in tonight to 4 referrals from referral company - all good quality. One referral from my structural surveyor who wants to go ahead pretty quickly, one from the Parish magazine and another 2 from a customer who we installed for before Christmas. Out of those 4 are planning to go ahead in the next couple of weeks and 2 others in the next month. The most that's going to cost me is £80. I only went out for 4 hours!

Another colleague in a different part of the country got over 80 referals last week and is converting one in 4/5.

Remember it's quite expensive to mainatin the optimisation of your site, requiring ongoing & frequent tweaking and reviewing. In my experience SEO experts are expert in seo not solar so someone is going to have to keep providing up to date info to have a chance of competing with the big guys.

 

[Apollo]

We've gone for the website sponsored links and £25 a phrase. It does get your web page to the top IF the search is done using your key phrases. Feed back from the provider is poor as they said they would provide statistics. As yet nothing.

Hi Mark,

Like said you need to get a google account, get your web site linked in with this and then I would recommend talking to someone in the know about PPC and SEO, PPC is what costs you everytime someone clicks on your sponsored link. SEO is natural listings and is all about your Key words deep within your site. If you get the latter one right it can bring massive dividends. I would get hold of someone who can do a report for you on your web site as is. and then recommendations. This can cost but its well worth the investment. If you get it right you can stay top(ish) of the natural listings without much input. Problem being is that things are constantly changing but a little work can be a massive benefit. Hope that helps.

 

[Wiggers]

Hmm... you guys are struggling with advertising. I will give this some thought. Maybe if you all chip into a national add campaign. As the leads come in they can be vet`d and forwarded to each regional installer to follow up on. Sales are all about good leads and numbers. It would need some organisation thoe. Also it would be fair to say the southern firms will get more leads than the northerners. Not sure how this would work. Being a Pv supplier we have a list of regional installers but do not recommend them. It is the customers choice to who they go with. We pass on the lead for free as we supply the equipment.

 

[SRE]

Hmm... you guys are struggling with advertising. I will give this some thought. Maybe if you all chip into a national add campaign. As the leads come in they can be vet`d and forwarded to each regional installer to follow up on. Sales are all about good leads and numbers. It would need some organisation thoe. Also it would be fair to say the southern firms will get more leads than the northerners. Not sure how this would work. Being a Pv supplier we have a list of regional installers but do not recommend them. It is the customers choice to who they go with. We pass on the lead for free as we supply the equipment.

Sorry Wiggers, unless my fellow pv installers have megabucks to invest in advertising (and I'm fairly sure they don't) then any above the line advertising is a complete waste of money. Some of the guys on the site are pooling resources and looking at a joint website which isn't a bad idea but national advertising is a) extortionate and b) completely ineffective. Below the line marketing - leaflets in targetted areas, press releases, networking in your local areas and possibly emarketing - again to targetted markets will help as well as keeping your website refreshed and customer testimonials up to date. All significantly less than national advertising campaigns.

 

[grantr37]

"I have had numerous PV Lead companies contact me who could give us leads at £35 each and upwards. Think that is a total loss as you can't vet them prior to receiving them. Could even be form the other side of the UK!"



wouldnt bother with these, they are probably just scam artists, in fact they probably own a recruitment agency as well......I cant think how a "leads" company could get any work in at all when all the potential customer would say is "measure up and give me a price" which they can't do, so they would need to cold call people and pester them just in case, and that would just annoy the customer who in turn would do what many do with double glazing sales people, they would get you out to do a free quote 300 miles away, you pay the lead company 35 or 50 pounds plus the VAT of course, the customer (never intending to ever buy solar but just very peed off) goes "thanks for coming that was interesting, I will have a think and maybe phone you back"

 

[SRE]

"I have had numerous PV Lead companies contact me who could give us leads at £35 each and upwards. Think that is a total loss as you can't vet them prior to receiving them. Could even be form the other side of the UK!"



wouldnt bother with these, they are probably just scam artists, in fact they probably own a recruitment agency as well......I cant think how a "leads" company could get any work in at all when all the potential customer would say is "measure up and give me a price" which they can't do, so they would need to cold call people and pester them just in case, and that would just annoy the customer who in turn would do what many do with double glazing sales people, they would get you out to do a free quote 300 miles away, you pay the lead company 35 or 50 pounds plus the VAT of course, the customer (never intending to ever buy solar but just very peed off) goes "thanks for coming that was interesting, I will have a think and maybe phone you back"

Glad you think that makes my conversion rate go up considerably .....