Why we changed the first question in our solar funnels

▶ 0:00Hello and welcome back. Would you look at this? We have seriously upgraded. We've got a light bar going on. We've got, oh, it's even adjustable. I can go mega bright, I can go low, I can do all sorts. And Joe's pretending not to hear me. But today I'm going to talk about something very important, but not before I show you my new hotkey setup where I can do this. Bang, bang, bang.

▶ 0:24So you'll remember last time we made one very simple change to the way that we generate leads for solar installers. And that one very simple change doubled our conversion rate throughout all of our funnels for all of our clients. So in essence, it halved our entire cost per lead across our entire client portfolio. Now, that one very simple change was literally just changing the first question that we asked.

▶ 0:49So we changed it from the service, like, what are you looking for, to a question that basically said, do you own your home? The logic behind this was that many people were clicking help me decide for the service. So we were asking them a question and the first question to which they didn't actually know the answer. So there's too much thought involved. They're confused, uncertain.

▶ 1:10And even if there's a help me decide option, they didn't really know how to progress further or they wouldn't click that because there was too much friction around it. So we sought that to do you own your home and obviously 99% of people know the answer to that question. So they were able to progress very easily to the next step.

▶ 1:28So that was one test that reached absolute 100% statistical significance across all clients. And you can see the data behind that as well. And you can see perspective. The tool we use tells us that we don't even need to go ahead and do the math. So we do some more in-depth, like advanced calculations and progression rate analysis.

▶ 1:48But perspective tells us basically what we need to know to make the judgment. So what is the next test that we're making? You know, so we reached significance on that one. What are we doing next? And I'm going to show you that. So obviously all of our clients use these demo, these funnels, which means that when we make this change and this test, we can test across 10 clients instead of across one or 10 or more clients.

▶ 2:10And the power of doing that is that where an individual client maybe has £2,000 to £5,000 a month of ad spend that they can use to reach these results and to get to statistical significance, which may take them three months, four months, five months, six months, especially if it's a test that actually requires them to understand what the impact is on the lead quality.

▶ 2:34It's going to take them that amount of time. When we've got a portfolio of clients that are all running the same system, we reach that same conclusion in 10 times less time or 10 times quicker. And that allows us to compete against the lead aggregators, the tech first companies, the energy companies, etc. Maybe not on that scale, but we get close, right?

▶ 2:55So our next test is going to be taking this style of form, which is very, very simple, very stripped back, because this is what we found to have the highest start rate. So the highest percentage of people actually interact with the first step of this form. Taking that and testing it against something like this, which is much more in-depth, very much a long-form style of content.

▶ 3:23It's got interactive videos. You know, it's got Mark's famous Solo 101 video. It's got different CTAs throughout the entire page. It's got long-form copy. It's got pictures with customers. It's got benefit lists. It's got testimonials. It's got recent installations as a slider. And then at the end, it's got a few words from the actual founder of the business that is very extensive and really long-form copy.

▶ 3:50And we're very confident that this is actually going to deliver better results across the board for all clients, this approach. What we're less confident about is whether it will increase the start rate. We think that the simpler stripped back form will still have a higher start rate. But because people have consumed more content, they're warmer to the brand, they've heard more of the benefits, more of the sales proposition, the value proposition for solar.

▶ 4:20They will therefore progress further through the funnel because the next question is, of course, what is your name? What are you looking for? What appeals to you? How much do you spend on energy? And we get progressive drop-off on each one of those questions. And if someone's consumed more content up front, our hypothesis is that they're going to progress further.

▶ 4:39And not only are they going to progress further within our funnel and therefore the client is going to get more leads, but they're going to progress more through the pipeline itself because they're going to be higher quality. They're going to have much more nurturing. They're going to require less work on the back end because they've already consumed a lot of this stuff on the front end.

▶ 4:57And therefore, actually, a higher percentage of them are going to close, which is the metric that we really care about. You know, it's one thing increasing the start rate and that will increase your volume. And therefore, the amount of days you have to test with and the amount of opportunities you get to speak to a lead.

▶ 5:11But it's an entirely different thing, increasing the actual percentage of those that end up closing. So that is basically the video. It's just an update of our strategy. And we like to keep you guys like cutting edge as up to date as physically possible. And we will update you as the results for these tests come in. That's why turn on post notifications, all that good stuff.

▶ 5:33If you want access to these insights ahead of everyone else that's following me on social media, then definitely go ahead, put your email address into the link that is somewhere on this post. And you'll be the first one to hear when these tests are developing, when they reach statistical significance. And we can reliably say that one way is better for our clients in particular than another way.

▶ 5:53Then, yeah, definitely go ahead, put your email address into that link. If you want the implementation and you want to be one of our clients that we're actually implementing this for live, as opposed to always having to play catch up against our client portfolio, then carry on on that exact same link. You'll be asked a few more questions that will enable us to determine whether you're a good fit to work with us and whether we can help you go to the next level.

▶ 6:14So that's all for now. Hope that was useful. And I look forward to reporting back on the results of this test. It's a really exciting one for us. We're probably going to let it run a little bit longer because we do need to see how this impacts the actual progression rates in the pipeline for all of our clients, as opposed to something that is very quick with a very quick feedback cycle because it's just testing the start rate.

▶ 6:34So it will probably be maybe two months before we actually get to statistical significance on this, but we'll keep you updated regardless. And I hope that was interesting. See you in the next one. Good night. Goodbye for now.