Why this local solar ad converts so well

▶ 0:00Hi everyone, another ad breakdown for you today. This time we've got ARK Technical. Now this is a absolutely fantastic father and son business. Their campaigns, to be honest, have absolutely flown. We've gone really hard on the angle of family-owned, local business, small enough to essentially be able to deal with each customer one-on-one and give them a really personalised and bespoke service and consultation, agnostic to certain manufacturers, etc, etc.

▶ 0:27Just basically the most bespoke provider that you could possibly find, right? And the ads as a result have just absolutely killed it. I think they're on an average cost per lead of about £28 right now. And these are not bottom of the barrel leads. These are leads that genuinely want Oliver and Jonathan's advice and consultation to help them achieve their goals with a renewable energy system.

▶ 0:48Okay, so let's take a look at the kind of concepts that we've used to create such successful ads with those USPs in mind. Let's jump right in. There's no better compliment than when a customer recommends us to install solar and batteries for their neighbour and their neighbour and their neighbour. So right away, we're not even six seconds into the ad and we've immediately gone hard on the referrals angle, okay?

▶ 1:15So the best thing is a referral, right? The second best thing is talking about referrals, right? So what we've done is to try and bring the lead quality as close as humanly possible to that that you would find from a genuine referral from one customer to the next. We've basically hijacked that concept and said, look, this is a street. This is a street where we've got not one referral, but two referrals and then actually a third one that they're quoting for.

▶ 1:40And we're going to talk you through how that kind of played out and why that is the case, why one person's gone solo on this street and all of a sudden everyone wants to join them, right? And a lot of people think, oh, well, you know, all of my business so far has come from referrals because, you know, I do such a good job and it's only then that people really talk about, you know, what is so different about us and how we do such a good job.

▶ 2:02But I've got some news for you. You can present that in an ad like this. You don't need to wait for someone to have that experience for you to get that word out there. You can take that feedback and the things that people most commonly cite as a reason for referring you and just slam that straight into an ad creative that you can show to thousands of people, right?

▶ 2:22And that's not going to do anything to change how you're already generating business from referrals, but it's just going to have you. But it's just going to mean that you can reach so many more eyeballs with that same concept and those same USPs, right? When we install solar systems and we do a great job, word spreads fast.

▶ 2:41We're here in this street doing several properties. We've done three already and we've got a fourth one that we're quoting. We're here today installing a 14-panel system with a Duracell battery and inverter in the garage. Come on, let's go and have a look. Little segments like that are lovely. Come on, let's go and have a look. It feels very human, very conversational, as if you're there on site with them.

▶ 3:01The last thing you want is just to stick someone in a spot and just have them talk at the camera for two minutes. We need to make it flow. We need to make it feel authentic, right? A lot of older solar panel systems have these silver rails which really stand out and don't blend in. We only use all black rails with all black panels, so your system looks modern and sleek.

▶ 3:19I love that. Even little things like that. I think someone was telling me the black rails are only like a couple of quid extra per meter, but it does make such a difference. And showing that people, when they see solar systems, they can see a system and they'll be like, you know, it looks okay or it's a bit obtrusive or whatnot.

▶ 3:36And then they'll see another one and it looks absolutely like the bomb. I can't quite tell why that one looks so different to the other one. There'll be so many different small little details like the color of the rails, if there was end caps put on the rails as well. All of that kind of thing, you know, whether it's a true all black panel rather than one that's kind of got like a deep blue hint.

▶ 3:59There's all this kind of stuff that to the untrained eye, you might not actually be able to spot. So a video like this that actually breaks down some of the reasons these systems look so good is super valuable because people might not even know what they're looking for. Many installers have all the equipment delivered directly to the customer site.

▶ 4:16We don't do that. We always have the stuff in our own unit where we take it over. So we have panels delivered to our storage unit. We take out the individual panels for the customer, bring them to site ourselves to make sure nothing gets damaged on the way. Just a quick note, a natural language. We always have the stuff ourselves, you know.

▶ 4:33It's communicating in a simple way. You know, one of the most common rules in advertising is to write copy or to speak in like grade three reading level, which is American, but, you know, year three reading level, right. And I think intentionally or unintentionally, these guys do a fantastic job of that. They just speak in a language that's understandable.

▶ 4:53You know, saying the word stuff is what you would normally say in a conversation, right. So these panels are 450 watts each. We're fitting 14 on the roof up there to give us 6.3 kilowatts of total power. Just that segment there, another thing to call out. That segment could have been quite static and quite boring if Oliver was just stood in one spot.

▶ 5:14But quite often, I mean, half the time when I'm directing, I'm just telling someone, go back over there. Then walk towards me. Go back over. Tuck to the left. Tuck to the right. And because the movement and the background changing just means that the viewer can see so much more information happening in the background, but also it's just more active.

▶ 5:31And it feels like there's progress that's happening rather than just someone being like stuck in, you know, it's in almost like sand, right. So these panels are 450 watts each. We're fitting 14 on the roof up there to give us 6.3 kilowatts of total power. This is what we call a path bag. It's a safety bag for lifting solar panels.

▶ 5:49Now we're talking about safety bags, right. Everyone always says, you know, solar saves you money. Solar does good for the environment. Solar increases your property value. But no one's talking about path bags, right. And this is the kind of stuff where you might think it's utterly irrelevant to the customer, but I promise you it is not because it's the accumulation of all of these different considerations that people might not even know is exists.

▶ 6:13They might not even know that some installers do bring path bags, that that's even an option. They might think everyone, you know, holds the panel as they go up the ladder. Different gravy. And it's stuff like that that combines together to give the overall feel that actually this company maybe is worth paying a little bit extra for in order to get someone that really does know their stuff.

▶ 6:34Sorry, I'm a bit out of breath. I've been lifting panels. So this allows us to lift the panels safely. We put the panel in the bag. It's a special non-slip surface and it protects the solar panels on their journey up onto the roof. Just because we're a small company doesn't mean we compromise on safety. Everybody can do it this way, but not everybody does.

▶ 6:52God, what a line. Everyone can do it this way, but not everybody does. That was cold from Jonathan. Love it. Well, we stand back when I'm lifting the panel so that I can see if it gets caught or if there's likelihood of anything falling. There's nobody underneath. The panels we use are bifacial panels, meaning they generate power from the front and the back.

▶ 7:10So you get a slight extra from the reflection underneath them. So if you want to get an honest solar quote from a local family-run business. Again, we're into the call to action now, which is super important. But instead of Oliver saying, so if you want to get a really price-competitive solar quote that's going to have the fastest ROI possible, then click the button.

▶ 7:28Like, that is not the angle we're going for here. We want to very much stick to kind of one angle and one type of customer and appeal to them very directly. So in this case, we've gone very much on you want an honest solar quote from a family-run business that is local to you. And the call to action reflects that. Let's click the button below, give us a few of your details, and myself or Jonathan will be in touch to arrange a solar quote for you.

▶ 7:51Also lovely how I've made it personal there. Myself or Jonathan will arrange a quote for you. Not the team, not one of us, myself or Jonathan. It's just really nice and local. There's no better question. And then, yeah, there you go. There's the full ad. So I think this is a great example for just how we can adapt our approach where we are working with national installers, where this approach just doesn't really match at all.

▶ 8:13But we're also working with local installers that are doing kind of 4 to 12 installations a month, right, that are on the smaller side that actually have really strong USPs that just more often than not, they kind of just need help actually conveying those to the customer as to why they should go with them as opposed to the person down the road or the national installer that might be slightly cheaper.

▶ 8:34So hopefully that's a really good example of that. And you can imagine that the leads coming from this ad are quite insensitive to price because they've got different goals. They just want to have that consultative experience and to actually be advised on the type of kit that would be a best fit for them and all of that kind of thing.

▶ 8:52And they're coming at a rate that is pretty unbelievable. It's, you know, £28, £29 per lead and they're surveying a great deal of them. In fact, ARK have literally just hired someone. I think they've got the trial literally today for someone that is going to be employed just to handle the leads that we're generating for them.

▶ 9:10They've said it's kind of happened far quicker than they ever expected, which is fantastic feedback for us that we absolutely love. So yeah, if you want ads made just like this one, maybe you're a local business that is in a similar position to Jonathan and Oliver where you haven't advertised before or you have and it was just a complete write-off and you're looking for someone that can actually deliver these kind of results for your type of business, for a local company that has similar USPs to this, that does fantastic work, that has high quality, that doesn't charge the cheapest rates in the market, then we're the company for you, you should book a call, you should see a book an appointment button at the top of the video above this here.

▶ 9:48If you do that, you'll be able to book straight into my diary and we'll have a chat and see what we can do. So appreciate your time and I'll see you in the next one.