Why video is the most reusable sales asset in solar

▶ 0:00Hi everyone, today we're going to talk about the power of reusable solar sales assets, specifically video assets. So as a business, we're very much video first, we think video is incredibly powerful. If a picture tells 1000 words, a video tells 1000 images, quite literally in frames, but we'll do loads of other videos on more general kind of sales assets that you can use like case studies and all that kind of stuff. But today, I'm going to do a breakdown on our favourite, which is of course, video content. So these sales assets are going to be your best friend. And they're basically going to be able to enable you to be in person with the customer, even if you're digital and hundreds of miles away or 20 miles away in the case of a residential install, right? So the first thing

▶ 0:41you can do is obviously get customer interviews. So this is both residential and commercial. This is where you actually go ahead and join the customer and film something like this, where it's a bit of an interview, you're guiding them through the questions, this is going to be more polished and structured. But the downside of that is that it's more polished and structured, right? It feels far less authentic. The energy companies are putting these out and genuinely, it feels like someone's like, you've got a gun to their head to answer the question in a certain way. And people do kind of feel that even if they can't like consciously feel it, there's an unconscious sense that this customer is almost an actor, which is why we much more heavily prioritize handheld customer video reviews.

▶ 1:20So this is where you are not present with the customer, you send them a link to give a video review. And they basically just file one back using the form that you give them so they can record it on their phone, handheld vertical landscape laptop sat down at the in the office, doesn't matter. It's entirely up to them. And the more natural, the better. So we actually say like specifically, there is no guidance, you don't necessarily need to show your installation, you don't need to be outside, it doesn't need to be sunny, just the more natural, just talk at the camera as if you're talking to a friend. And of course, the side benefit of this is it doesn't require any fulfillment for your team, you don't need a videographer, you don't need to go visit the customer or the client that's hundreds

▶ 1:58of miles away, right? But of course, it is less structured. So what you get is what you get a customer could just basically go on a rant and kind of fumble through a few different things. And that might be quite hard to extract a really valuable asset from. But at the same time, it just kind of enhances the more natural effect of it. So it's not like you're losing anything. It's just it's going to appeal in a different way. Our customers are absolutely hammering these at the moment. I mean, look at how many we're starting to collect. And these are all normal people. Some of them have been incentivized with kind of like gift cards and things like that. A lot of them have just done it off their own back

▶ 2:34because they've been so happy with the service. If you want to actually watch any of these examples to get a feel for it, then enter your email in the link below to the link that says Magnum Opus. And you'll be able to get access to this document. And then you can double click, click through and actually watch any of these in full and see kind of what we're aiming for here. The way we actually collect these is we use a platform that enables us to create this online form where people can dead easy on their phone or laptop come in and record this review. Literally a click of the button, camera appears, they do, you know, five star, they hit record, they start recording. And it's as simple as that. And then it goes straight

▶ 3:10through into the back end where you can basically manage all of these, you can improve them, you can then download the footage directly out the platform. So they don't have to send you like a file and you just know that it's going to be in the wrong format and everything is going to be a bright nightmare for them. It just goes straight through this platform. The next one, which is much more commercial is like full case study production pieces. These do work for residential. I've seen some fantastic ones, but for commercial, they are almost I would say a necessity at this point. So we work with royal energy who do cold email outreach campaigns for commercial installers. And they basically say

▶ 3:45this is a prerequisite to a really strong performing campaign because without these, you it just shows you you're not able to get your customers on camera, which is a real kind of red flag sustain is a great example of this. We've got four at least now really high quality video interview case studies where they've gone on site took a videographer. I went to the Baltic one and Thermo Fisher, but I didn't go to these two and basically just broken down the system talk to them about their experience, all of that kind of stuff with lots of nice drone B roll and all that good kind of footage, even some animation on this one here. And we're actually running these as YouTube ads as well. So I think this one

▶ 4:21one here has got about 16,000 views now and is generating inquiries. So really, really valuable assets there. The next one to consider is walkthrough and explanation videos. So this one here from Mark has been performing so well already, it got great engagement on LinkedIn and YouTube. But beyond that, Mark is now starting to send this video to people in order to encourage them to agree to a survey. And I'm going to go into that in much more detail later in this video. But it's such an incredibly powerful technique because you're building that rapport that you would normally build once you're at the survey before you've even booked it. It's fantastic. So of course, these can be posted

▶ 4:57regularly to social media, they can be used in ads, especially on the retargeting side. So we're going to use this as a retargeting ad. So it won't be shown to a cold audience because it's a bit too slow. But to a warmer audience that's already seen a few of your ads, maybe clicked on one of the ads, but not gone ahead and entered their information, we'll show them a video like this. And that is just going to build so much trust. How do you actually utilize these assets is all well and good having them. But how do you deploy them? So weave them through your public materials, whether that's social media, website, ads, email photos, etc. This is actually our best performing ad creative full stop. It's just Paul talking through his install for a few minutes and then send the most

▶ 5:31relevant video review to a customer or prospects. In this scenario here, we've got Mark talking to a prospect about going to visit an installation to be able to walk him through. And the prospect says, you know, he picks the installation, then Mark actually sends him the video review from that installation. And you can see 30 minutes later, survey booked, it really is that easy. You can also send a video to explain complicated topics. So the one above the solar 101 diagram, where Mark basically explains how solar works, especially with kind of taking energy from the grid.

▶ 6:06He actually sends that now in advance of the survey, because it's so powerful when he's at the survey, it makes sense to get that in front of people as early as possible. On the phone, he was talking to a customer about what they could expect, how the energy feeds in when the energy goes to the battery, etc. And then he's got that video asset ready to send, literally just stored ready to go on a link that he can just drop into the chat. And instead of typing out, oh, well, the battery does this and that.

▶ 6:33And then during the off-peak time, he's got a really nice polished video with a nice microphone, nice camera to send to that customer for them to watch in their own time. Absolutely fantastic. And this customer really appreciated that. He said, thanks again for the video. Look forward to seeing you Friday. Again, survey booked easy. So what assets should you actually collect first? How do you get started with doing this? What I would recommend is start to note down the objections that you're getting or the questions you're getting from customers. And as soon as you get that question, even once or twice or three times, make a video asset for that question.

▶ 7:08Even if it's 10 seconds long, 30 seconds long, a minute long, even 15 minutes long, because if it's a really complicated thing with like the smart export guarantee or something like that, these assets can be created once and used again for years. As long as the regulation doesn't change, they can just be rinsed over and over again. And the kind of value you're going to get out of that one half hour filming session, especially if you batch them. If you, if for the next two weeks, if you just write down every objection or question you get, and then you set aside a Saturday afternoon and you just sit in front of your phone and you record videos with a few illustrations or drawings like Mark was doing, I guarantee that you're going to have

▶ 7:48like 10 incredibly valuable assets that you can then use to push customers further down the sales pipeline in the future. The next one is like, what do you actually take people through at the survey? So Mark always took them through that solar 101 diagram to explain the export and the prices of the energy, etc. Why not actually make a video for that? If that performs so well when you're at the survey in that format where you like in order to do that previously, you might have thought I have to be with the customer. I have to talk them through, you know, drawing the diagram because if you just send a picture of the diagram, it makes zero sense because they haven't seen how things connect, the order and way things works. So even create a video going through a quote, going through what

▶ 8:28different parts mean, going through what someone could expect if they get a quote, because that's going to greatly increase the likelihood and the drive that someone has in order to get their own personalized quote from you for their route. The next one is where do you actually gain a competitive advantage? Try and get your customers to share that information rather than you because it means so so much more coming from them. So if your USP that you deem is that you have fantastic aftercare, then whenever you're speaking to customers that maybe had a system installed a year ago, two years ago, and you solve one of their problems, answer one of their questions, say to them, look, I know this is awkward, but I really would appreciate a video review that just mentions what happened here. You

▶ 9:11know, I'm more than happy to help free of charge. And I'll even come over and do a visit and just check up on the system to make sure everything's performing right. But if I do that, would you be happy to get on camera for 30 seconds in your own time and just record a few words about that experience? That is going to be huge. And if someone asks, you know, what kind of service do I get after the installation? Again, you've got the video ready proving that. And it's so much better than a Google review. People think that Google and Trustpilot reviews are just botted nowadays. There are so many companies that have like every five star review has like the same tone and the same title structure. And then every one star review is a massive paragraph that's all completely loads of

▶ 9:49variants between them. And you look at it and you're like, something's not right here. I've seen a few of them. I'm not quite sure how it happens. But these video reviews are things that at least for now, until AI takes over, can't be replaced or replicated. Major opportunity there. That also brings me on to how can you actually incentivize these customers. So obviously, we talked about on the tool that I mentioned where you collect the video reviews, this lets them spin the wheel like in a carnival and win prizes like gift cards or system health checks, for example. But that isn't very relevant for commercial customers. I think if you offered the sustainability director at Adidas a 20 pound John Lewis voucher for all the work that him or her are going to have to do in order to get even

▶ 10:33approval to go and film a video testimonial, then I think they'd laugh you out the room. So instead, the opportunity that you might have is actually leveraging the assets you would collect anyway, as a thing of real value to the client. So a lot of businesses at the moment are doing a really big push on like ESG marketing activities. So they always want to show that they're investing in sustainability, they're working towards net zero, etc. If you can position you getting the assets you need as helping them, then you could be onto a real winner, you could say to them, look, if we do a video interview with you, we'll also do loads of drone footage, we'll do footage of the building, we will, even if you've got a separate solar installation on the building opposite,

▶ 11:15we'll get you some footage from it, even though we didn't record it, we won't use the footage, but you can use it. And you package all of that up, maybe even prepare some social media posts for them on their behalf. So without any input, they've got all of that ESG collateral that they wouldn't have had otherwise. And you can use that as the selling point to giving the video review.

▶ 11:35So it's all about being creative in that sense. Also, just a quick note, the RECC says that you can't incentivize reviews with gifts over £50. So just be careful with that. And then finally, just ask your customers and prospects, like, what did they actually find complex to understand their existing customers, you know, what could they have used during the process of buying solar that would have helped that journey, and they might have actually used resources that weren't from you, you know, if they were searching things or viewing things on YouTube, and they still ended up going with you for service. But if those materials came from you, then you probably increase the likelihood they would have done that, right? That's a quick rundown of some of the video assets that we really

▶ 12:14recommend that all solar installers gather. If you want to get a copy of this document, then enter your details on the link that is in the comment of this post. And if you want the implementation of everything that we have shown, and far, far, far more, then carry on on that same link, and it's going to ask you some questions about your business, at which point you'll be able to book a call to work with us and scale your company. Appreciate your time. Hope that was useful. Cheers.