Roofit.Solar is an award-winning solar rooftop company with a mission to work towards a cooler planet.
Based in Estonia, the company provides high quality solar roofs to the ones looking for a sustainable energy solution and do not want to compromise the aesthetics of their home with bulky solar panels.
I worked there as their content lead, developing content and SEO strategies, writing content in English (blog articles, social media posts, email drip campaigns), proofreading marketing materials and coming up with creative concepts for various media.
Currently I am consulting Roofit.Solar on social media strategy.
Advantage & Opportunity
- EU Green Energy Deal: Decarbonising the EU’s energy system is critical to meeting our 2030 climate goals and the EU’s long-term strategy to become carbon neutral by 2050.
- This means that the EU will rely on solar and wind energy by 2030. The question is which product, which technology and which company will take the lead?
- Design: Roofit.Solar’s modules stand out for their durability, strength and visually appealing design.
Challenges
- Confusion among both B2B and B2C audience whether Roofit.Solar sells solar panels or roofs
- The shift to B2B in marketing strategy – the need for smart partnerships become more important
- Need to develop engaging content and grow the community in a highly technical area
Fortunately, our competitors were not as active in demand generation. Although our domain authority score was low, so was theirs.
Getting There – Approach
Research and analysis:
As a marketing team, we first agreed on our target markets (mainly Estonia, Germany and Sweden) and mapped the target profiles there.
Insights:
- Sweden was the first country in the world to pass an environmental law in 1967.
So it’s no surprise that one of the core values of Swedish customers is sustainability. They also prefer to go solar out of respect for their neighbours and are concerned about the visual impact of bulky solar panels.
- German customers spend more time researching and comparing solar solutions (surprise).
Again, not surprisingly, solar installation procedures and processes are more lengthy and complicated in Germany.
- Estonian customers prioritise cost from 2022 and 2023. Side note, Estonia has very high inflation rates based on COVID-19 rates.
When marketing is just not marketing
Got a great product, closed a round of investment and ready to take on the world? Great. But…
If you are part of the management team and considering market expansion, product-market fit is not enough. Make sure you have an initial idea of the current socio-economic (and in some cases political, depending on your industry) situation before deciding on your target markets.
If you are not part of the management team, but see that the reality is not in line with the company’s ambitious goals, make sure you communicate this as part of the threats in your communication SWOT analyses.
Messaging
Based on this, we developed different narratives for B2B and B2C markets based on market insights.
Estonia: Full-service approach from planning to installation.
Sweden: Sustainability angle – the benefits of solar energy.
Germany: Focusing on the strong technical aspects of metal roofing.
Content strategy
To increase our brand visibility and the number of organic leads, I prioritised our web presence for the first three months by reviewing our web copy and improving our blog.
The first goal was simple: to show our target audience what we do (integrated solar roofs) and what we do not do (we do not sell solar panels).
SEO:
I worked with a team of writers to develop short term SEO plans and long term SEO strategies for each market.
- We created keyword lists, updated them regularly and struck a balance between TOFU (to increase domain authority score), MOFU and BOFU (to reach high intent in-market audiences) content.
- I wrote SEO-based articles and distributed and recycled them on our social media channels.
- Thanks to Semrush, we have had regular SEO audits of our website and have made regular corrections.
Social media:
To grow our audience, I balanced our content mix with educational (blog posts), inspirational (benefits of going solar), testimonial and creative (engaging and humorous content for special days) content such as ‘The Longest Day’, ‘The Shortest Day’ and the Barbie-friendly post shared during the hectic Barbie movie release period.
- For B2B marketing, I prioritised regular engagement with posts from our B2B partners.
- As part of our investor marketing, I encouraged other team members to share our content and supported our CEO Andres Anijalg with his personal branding on LinkedIn.
- I wrote posts and articles with and for our team and enjoyed helping to make the Roofit.Solar team more visible.
Email marketing:
I wrote drip campaigns for the relevant managers of potential B2B partners in each target market.
I sent announcement emails to our investors and potential investors with company updates, new content and special day celebrations.
Tools used: Semrush, UberSuggest, SEO Minion, Hootsuite, ActiveCampaign, ChatGPT, DeepL, Gemini, Canva
Results within a year:
- 30% increase in website visits
- 25% increase in organic leads
- Reduced bounce rates
- Doubled social media community
- Improved keyword rankings
- Fewer irrelevant questions on social media by clarifying what we do, reducing the workload on the sales force
- As a team success, 10+ B2B partners across Europe
Learnings:
- Experimentation wins in social. It is possible to squeeze the creative juice out of even the most technical topics in B2B and B2C.
- Patience is a virtue, but practicality also wins in SEO. Improving an existing piece of content can work wonders, rather than creating a whole new one every time.
- Event marketing matters. For B2B marketing, “toasting the event announcement” with multiple pre-event teasers and post-event sharings from different angles and insights – depending on the priority and importance of the event – will significantly increase engagement and help the community grow rapidly.
- Creating win-win marketing solutions for the company and its partners makes a difference. Cross-posting, guest blogging and interviews with B2B partners encourages collaboration.
My journey with Roofit.Solar is still ongoing as their social media consultant.
I hope that when I update this page next year, the numbers will be even better and we will continue to work together for a cooler planet!