Time in the market beats timing the market for solar

▶ 0:00Good evening, everyone. Tonight, we're going to talk about time in the market versus timing the market. And no, I'm not a dodgy Forex trader. I do marketing for solar companies, but bear with me. There's meaning behind this metaphor. Okay, so we've all heard about the grant that's coming out, potentially 2025, more likely 2026. Okay, there is going to be an absolute flood of new installers coming into the market, either people with existing experience that are looking to ramp up their operations, or people from adjacent industries that are looking to get a slice of the solar coaster, right? And when that happens, the amount of advertisers that are going to be advertising within this market is going to increase rapidly. When the feed-in tariffs came out,

▶ 0:45it probably went up about three times. On platforms like Facebook, there is a certain amount of attention that you're bidding for. Same with Google, there's a certain amount of searches you're bidding for. Granted, the amount of searches on Google is going to increase because the demand is increased. But I would bet my arm that the supply is going to match if not exceed that based on the gold rush that people identify with the grants coming out. Okay, so as a result, the cost to advertise is going to increase substantially. But that is only the cost to advertise at that specific time. Now, if you backtrack three months, six months, nine months, then your cost to advertise hasn't increased yet.

▶ 1:25However, you are still acquiring leads at a far cheaper cost than it will cost you in three months, six months, nine months later. Okay, because the demand hasn't quite increased, but you're still able to advertise to acquire those leads to acquire those potential prospects and to nurture them over time. With a £5,000 budget today, using MetaAds, you could potentially look to acquire 100 leads.

▶ 1:50Okay, with a £5,000 budget in 12 months time, you're probably looking at 35 to 40 leads, if demand increases in the way that we foresee it, and specifically, the number of advertisers increases in the way that we foresee it, especially when you account for just advertising budgets, rather than number of advertisers, because there will be people in this industry, cough, cough energy companies that are going to be 5xing, 10xing their advertising budgets, because they know that they can get far, far more people on the tariffs, because they can get the subsidies from the government to overcome the initial outlay, or to offer finance to the more wealthier homes. Right? So what should you be doing as an installer that is already established that has some systems in place?

▶ 2:38Well, you should be stockpiling your leads. You should be buying as many leads as you can possibly afford. You should be increasing your advertising budgets in advance of these changes coming through. And yes, this is a risk. Of course, it's a risk. That's why I'm talking about your time in the market rather than timing the market. You're decreasing your risk and your exposure later by preparing now. And yes, this change might not happen at all. There is plenty of talk that, you know, they're going to make this announcement, and it's actually going to be six months, a year, two years, three years, or it might not happen at all. In which case, I'm wrong. Okay. And you can still acquire those customers at probably the same price, if not slightly more, because advertising costs are

▶ 3:19always going up very steadily in a year's time, in two years time, right? But if they do come through, then you want to be well placed to actually capitalize on them. You should be really nailing these systems, getting your advertising accounts on Meta and Google, the conversion data that they need to perform now and also to perform when the demand increases, so that you're not caught out and you're not one of the installers that is trying to basically just play catch up and get those conversion events, because Meta needs those conversion events to actually learn who to show the ad to. So if you start advertising when the demand spikes, then you're going to have to play catch up on everyone else that

▶ 3:52was already advertising, right? So start doing that. And then you need to put the systems in place to actively nurture those leads over time before grants come in, before changes happen. One of our clients, Infinite Energy, generated a few leads in September that adhere very, very closely to this example. They were potentially deemed dead leads. They hadn't picked up the phone. They hadn't done any specific high intent action other than opting in and fulfilling kind of the initial funnel. And yet they received our automated every single day, 30 day email nurture sequence that goes through case studies. It goes through kind of rapport building about the company. It goes through the benefits of solar. It handles

▶ 4:34objections on behalf of the sales team. So we asked the salesperson, you know, what do you often face when you go and do a survey? What does someone say is stopping them from going solar? And we weave that into the email nurturing sequence. They received the odd WhatsApp, which is typically a really nice warm video that gives them again, further exposure and rapport with the owners of the business. And come December period that is typically absolute hell for advertisers, because you're slap bang in the middle between Black Friday and Christmas, which means that all of your e-commerce company is going to be slamming their budgets sky high. As a solar installer, it doesn't make logical sense to try and keep up with them

▶ 5:09and just increase your budget in line with what they're increasing because you don't have the same offer and there's some seasonal effects at play. So yeah, come December, when they were generating less leads from ads, these leads were trickling through from all of the nurturing activity that they were doing. And in fact, two of those leads from September closed in December and generated infant energy about an additional £20,000 that if they didn't have the right systems in place and the right nurturing, those leads would have been deemed to be dead. And the sales team would not have prioritized following up with them because quite frankly, that sales resource needs to go to those more higher intent,

▶ 5:45warmer leads. And without those systems, those leads wouldn't have received anything. They would by now, they would have completely forgotten who infinite energy even are. So the point of this is that you can start to acquire leads. Now, as long as you have the systems in place, you can probably get them far, far cheaper than you would do if you wait until the demand actually spikes up. And you'll probably find that let's say you generate a hundred leads. Now you'll close five or six of them when the grant comes out because you've been nurturing them the whole time and they've become familiar with you and you're the first person top of their mind when the actual change happens, right? And yes, it's going to hurt initially

▶ 6:21because you're acquiring those leads for say, let's say £50 a lead. And you should kind of work on the expectation that quite a few of them aren't going to close for six months, nine months, 12 months. But that's why you need to be doing other advertising activity as well and also have the conversion mechanisms and funnels nailed so that the ones that are ready to go, do go and do actually buy now because that will give you the cash to reinvest into the campaigns to get those cheaper leads that are going to carry you through and give you all of the demand you could ever possibly want when the grant does come out fingers crossed it does. So that's all for me for now. A bit of a just talking at the camera

▶ 7:04video, but I think it's an important point because because someone actually replied to one of my comments saying that they resonated with my stance on this. I think yes, it's a worrying time, but at the same time for people that are very bullish on the industry as a whole and very optimistic about where solar can go as a technology where renewables can go and the place it holds within the UK specifically, it can only be a force for good eventually. So that's all. I hope you enjoyed Happy New Year once again, and I will see you in the next one.