Strategy • Content Marketing • Local Marketing

KC Solar gains traffic, leads through local and content marketing

The Opportunity

KC Solar sought marketing assistance with the goals of both increasing awareness of KC Solar’s product offerings and generating increased leads. They wanted to quadruple the number of annual installs within two years.

Little to No Market Share

Founded in 2016, KC Solar is a solar energy company based in Kansas City. The company serves both commercial and residential properties in the Kansas and Missouri region.

The company had no in-house marketing team and created just-in-time marketing materials to support events. Furthermore, the company previously procured leads from third parties. Therefore, they had developed little to no relationship with the prospect prior to cold outreach.

The ownership group was dissatisfied with the conversion rate and wanted an integrated approach to developing prospects, converting clients and promoting referrals. With that in mind, KC Solar hired Sparkcade to develop a marketing strategy and execute on an integrated marketing plan to deliver leads.

4.19%

Visibility

Market visibility against 12 competitors. This is a measure of click-through rate and company’s ranking in Google’s Top 100 with their keywords.

0

Estimated Traffic

Nearly 100% of website traffic was driven by people who knew their name and website url. They received nearly nothing for people searching for solar panels as a solution.

77+

Average Position

The average position where the company and its products appeared on Google search rankings.

In short, page eight.

The Approach

Sparkcade started by performing a comprehensive marketing assessment, understanding how leads were obtained, who became clients and how KC Solar compared to competitors. Then we developed a marketing strategy that included:

Conducting an SEO audit as well as assessing competitors and prospect needs. Then established themes for regular blogs
Re-building the website, addressing content, design and technical items, to improve search as well as configure lead capture and conversion tracking
Developing paid ad campaigns to capture leads. Then created and executed a monthly email newsletter to provide consideration content and align with long sales cycle

Insight

Customer analysis revealed that the life milestone of retirement could positively influence the likelihood of considering solar panels. The need for a retiree to live on a fixed income was a compelling selling point. The current market is saturated by companies appealing to younger eco-conscious consumers, while older consumers were being neglected in demonstrating how solar panels could benefit them.

Based on the insight, content themes that aligned with the audience were developed. We tested the messages with financial advisors and implemented a retiree campaign that included paid advertising, a print brochure, an advisor referral network and social media.

In addition to the retiree insight, the team discovered through competitive analysis that many of the solar companies were headquartered elsewhere or weren’t original to the Kansas City-area. Both of the owners are native Kansas Citians. Based on existing naming and the source of pride Kansas Citians show for local, we developed new messaging and a pitch for referrals that showcased the benefits of working with a local solar company.

SCOPE OF WORK:

Marketing Strategy

Brand Identity & Messaging

Website

Content Marketing and Blog

Advertising

Photography

Videography

Marketing & Sales Collateral

Sponsorships

The Results