What Marketers Can Learn From How SmartPower Has Leveraged Consumer Insight For Growth In The Sustainable Energy Market.

As you already know I’m a large advocate for sustainability and am eager to be taught from corporations which have managed to develop and thrive whereas contributing positively to the planet. Sustainability is, fortunately, massive information for the time being, with President-elect Joe Biden proposing to make U.S. electricity production carbon-free by 2035 and to have the country achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

However what of shopper attitudes? How can their views even be modified in favor of sustainable merchandise? I lately had the good honor to talk to Brian F. Keane, President, SmartPower and Co-Founder and CEO, WeeGreen about how he and his workforce have leveraged shopper perception to advertise clear vitality within the U.S. marketplace for nearly 20 years. 

“We began in a time earlier than phrases akin to ‘sustainability’ and ‘local weather change’ had been even a part of the lexicon. And but, even then, polls confirmed {that a} majority of Individuals wished to purchase ‘inexperienced’ merchandise. Imagine it or not, again then 84% mentioned they wished solar energy and but lower than 3% had been really shopping for it. Our argument at SmartPower was that if solely a tiny proportion had been shopping for a $50,000 product then we should be promoting it incorrect! This isn’t simply an academic difficulty, it’s a advertising problem!”

The Washington, DC primarily based non-profit advertising agency is devoted to selling clear vitality and vitality effectivity and lately introduced a significant milestone in its ‘Solarize’ group-purchasing program.

“We’ve discovered by our analysis and apply that purchasing photo voltaic occurs on a neighborhood degree – peer-to-peer; friend-to-friend and neighbor-to-neighbor. We used that perception to know what motivates and strikes shoppers to purchase photo voltaic – and, crucially, that’s the actions taken by their associates and neighbors. Working with our companions over the previous decade we have now perfected this into our ‘Solarize’ neighborhood marketing campaign strategy. In a three-year interval, we have now been credited with putting in over $100 million in rooftop photo voltaic – That’s an enormous deal for a workforce akin to ours.” 

Maybe not shocking for a corporation with shopper perception at its core, SmartPower has lately been named the U.S.’s greatest non-profit advertising agency. The deal with what the patron actually values has been key.

“It’s actually been an unbelievable honor. And but, I feel the success we’ve had with our companions Yale College, the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, New York College and the U.S. Division of Power, is that we have now uncovered a few of the easy fundamental understandings of human conduct. Too usually our business has over-complicated sustainability and sustainability merchandise. We’ve tried to show individuals find out how to make photo voltaic panels as an alternative of serving to them perceive the worth they carry to your dwelling and household. Take into consideration that: once you purchase a automotive – they don’t educate you find out how to construct a automotive and the way a combustion engine works. However too usually when individuals purchase photo voltaic, they wind up in what seems like a PhD-level class on how the solar converts to vitality and the way the silicon on the panel work with this photvoltaic cells, and many others. and many others. It’s greater than the American shopper needs to know.  All they need to know is ‘can it energy my dwelling? Can it maintain the warmth on within the winter? Or the air-con on in the summertime?’ If we are able to’t present them how photo voltaic makes their way of life higher – then disgrace on us.” 

Intrinsic to the corporate’s development has been utilizing buyer perception and understanding find out how to grow to be a trusted associate to shoppers seeking to put money into renewables for the primary time. Guaranteeing the patron doesn’t really feel pressured or rushed into their buy can also be key to making sure that the advantages of the expertise are effectively understood:

“When advertising residential photo voltaic – and vitality effectivity – the perfect advertising device is the ‘trusted pal’ to information them of their purchases. That’s the place we are available. Though we acknowledge photo voltaic isn’t for everybody, we assist information the patron each step of the best way of their buy – connecting them to their social circles; to their associates who personal photo voltaic; to their photo voltaic installers; to their lenders, and many others.”

A key side to the continued development of the corporate has additionally been harnessing the normal – however usually forgotten by entrepreneurs – tactic of phrase of mouth.

“Phrase of mouth works. After all, it’s not a shock – it isn’t magic. It’s how contractors have been working for many years. Since we’re continually being bombarded with advertising messages – we see them continually on-line; on our smartphones, on billboards on buses as we stroll down the road, it turns into more and more laborious for messages to truly ‘break by’. Consequently, the messages we obtained from the pal at work or the neighbor subsequent door – break by the strongest. When your colleague suggests a selected film on Netflix, you’re extra more likely to keep in mind it – and much more more likely to watch it. Similar factor with photo voltaic – if somebody in your social circle has photo voltaic – you’re extra probably to purchase it. We’ve actually seen, time and time once more, that what’s outdated is new once more. Particularly relating to advertising.”

The corporate continues to broaden into new states within the U.S., in addition to internationally by a collaboration with the U.S. Division of State and the Authorities of India into New Delhi, whereas on the similar time rolling out the on-line “solarize” device, WeeGreen.

“As thrilling because the photo voltaic market is, we’re nonetheless simply skimming the floor. That is nonetheless a really younger and new market and it’s altering continually. The alternatives are extremely thrilling. Each certainly one of us can improve our existence by being extra vitality sensible. Whether or not it’s by a greater thermostat, or lightbulbs; perhaps a wiser showerhead or a small composter.  No matter it’s that fits our way of life and enhances it helps transfer individuals alongside the sustainable pattern traces that works for them and their household. We’ve got discovered that when somebody owns photo voltaic, they grow to be actually enthusiastic about sustainability and so they grow to be absolutely ‘bought-in’ over the long-term on vitality effectivity, and local weather change. I really feel the time now could be good to get the dedication of the U.S. Authorities absolutely behind the efforts of corporations akin to ourselves and our companions. There’s a big alternative for the subsequent administration.”

In addition to providing a compelling expertise and monetary answer, Keane and his SmartPower workforce have clearly realized that key to harnessing the expansion alternative are sometimes the very fundamental rules of selling that many people are responsible of ignoring; figuring out the actual key boundaries going through shoppers once they search to purchase new options is essential, as is clearly articulating advantages. It’s nice to listen to about corporations pioneering within the sustainability house and I stay up for seeing what they do subsequent in 2021 and past.