Solarcentury - Data Cleansing Case Study

Consultative sales approach drives sales appointments for leading solar panel company, Solarcentury

Founded in 1998, Solarcentury has been around since the early days of the solar industry and has been part of the evolution that has made solar PV the attractive investment it is today. Solarcentury has put solar on more types of sites than any other company in the industry, and has won multiple awards for product innovation. Solarcentury is in business for a purpose: to make a meaningful difference in the fight against climate change. All of their customers benefit from their experience in terms of engineering quality, sheer breadth of deployment and absolute commitment to solar. Choosing Solarcentury means you’re in very good hands.

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Campaign objective and project background

Solarcentury approached The Telemarketing Company as part of a wider marketing campaign to grow Solarcentury’s distribution business. The key objectives were to generate appointments for the Solarcentury sales team to attend, to promote the new offering of Solarcentury online and to cleanse and update existing data. The target market was Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) accredited installers of all sizes, and the target contact, the person who makes the purchase decision. Due to the success of the campaign it was extended and spanned eight months.

This was followed later by a campaign of similar audience and messaging into Italy. This was managed by the Solarcentury office in Italy and necessitated a native Italian speaker from a certain region of Italy and good diary management skills. This campaign was repeated twice.

Against a background of emerging Government fuel poverty strategy, and new responsibilities derived through the HomeEnergy Conservation Act, there was a significant opportunity for landlords to improve energy efficiency for low income communities through the installation of solar electricity. Solarcentury tasked The Telemarketing Company with identifying and setting up calls/meetings with Housing Authorities, Local Authorities and Registered Social Landlords looking at housing stock and reviewing the energy requirements of their properties, including any exploring solar PV already. This encompassed any organisations considering reroofing plans for their portfolios.

Alongside this a campaign was also launched which focused on Solarcentury’s ground mounted development programme, specifically looking for land that would be suitable and is available for the purpose of building a solar farm with a 25 year lifespan. There were some clearly defined criteria:

The land needed to be:

Approximately 25 acres in size (minimum)
Be either level or with a south facing slope
Have a nearby grid connection of 66kV/33kV/11kV lines
Access by road to site
Not be in an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ (AONB) or other nationally designated areas.

Project execution

Over the course of these many campaigns and during over 2300 hours of execution, many datasets have been used and a whole variety of messaging employed to hit the sweet spot. Call recordings have been sent with each result, along with unsuccessful calls to enable The Telemarketing Company to deliver the best possible results. A pool of the same callers has delivered on each campaign. An early lesson was that smaller installers who didn’t meet 20kWp would still be interested in Solarcentury Online. The Telemarketing Company’s open door policy also meant that Solarcentury could come in and experience live calls and give more relevant hands on feedback. The RSL campaign threw up issues of data duplication, as many people work across different sectors in differently named organisations and that in fact the real decision makers can be the Design and Build Company chosen by tender. During the Ground Mount campaign, an early lesson was that the best way to ascertain suitability was to get a look at the plans via email.

Results

The relationship has been a successful one with many results being generated across all sectors. We are confident that we will work together in the future.