Interview with Tim Dwight Owner of iPower

        

        After spending 10 years playing the NFL Tim Dwight was up for both a new challenge and a new career. Tim Dwight explains this challenge with, “The energy industry has provided me that opportunity, especially with now what I know and with how important solar energy is to the world. Solar energy is real, and happening due to the global market is booming. The solar market has grown at the extraordinary rate of 69 percent per year even during the recession.” Tim Dwight is the owner of the Integrated Power Corporation better known as iPower, a solar energy company based out of California. He specializes in commercial, industrial and utility solar power integration.

       Dwight is a native Iowan that has paved his way into being an influential local solar industry leader. He is the president of the Iowa Solar Energy Trade Association and gives back community in inspiring ways.

He also has met with a number of law makers stressing the point that renewable energy is

  "the biggest opportunity in the history of mankind."

 Recently I had a chance to ask Dwight a few questions about his endeavors in the solar industry, along with professional insight.

     Mandy Vrieze: How does the marketing of renewable energy differ in Iowa vs California? Along with that question is there a difference in markets and/or marketing plans of renewable energy ?

    Tim Dwight: At this point in time it is more education based in Iowa. California is farther ahead in terms of integrating solar energy into their daily lives. It’s everywhere on the west coast. Many Iowans are apprehensive to the idea of solar and just need to be educated on solar powers benefits.

      MV: The recent solar panel oversupply has caused decline in prices for solar panels.  Has the declining price in solar systems help your business making it more affordable for your customers?

     TD: Yes, in the solar industry there is a trend of oversupply but in the end only the strong will survive.

    MV: What’s iPower’s biggest target market?

    TD: We focus more on commercial because people want to see it as an asset.

    MV: In the past you have helped influence law makers on the pros of solar energy  in Iowa. Have you by chance made any sort of progression in the last year?

    TD:  In late May, Governor Terry Branstad passed the state tax credit law giving residential and/or commercial customer’s tax credits up to $15,000 for commercial and up to $3,000 for residential. They granted  $1.5 million dollars for this 5 year program and  within 6 months have exceeded a total $600,000 of the $1.5 million. This year alone I think we should total a million dollars.

    MV: What have you learned the most from being in the industry?

   TD: Once I got into solar I looked at things a little differently because I to realized the value of what we've got available to us. People are going to start looking at it more and more due to we are starting to see the effects of global warming. When it does happen it’s really going to scare people.

      MV: While I was in Germany I often saw fields and fields of solar panels… why isn’t Iowa like this?

     TD: That’s what Iowa is going to become someday. My goal with Iowa is to have every farmer carve out 3 to 6 acres that they will be able to have a nice solar array by not only powering their town but powering their way of life. The reality is we are going to see here in the near future. Solar energy is comparable to a cell phone. It’s transformation from liquid transmitters, to switchboard, cable operators, and then there to a cell phone. Big things are going to happen just from one single solar cell.

A few days after my interview with Tim Dwight, I happen to come across an article from the Des Moines Register stating the following,

“Iowa has received $1.03 million in federal funding to promote solar energy and make it easier for homeowners and businesses to adopt rooftop solar systems.

The Iowa Economic Development Authority and U.S. Department of Energy announced the 36-month grant Wednesday. The state agency is partnering with the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities and the Iowa Environmental Council to launch the Iowa Statewide Readiness Initiative to promote solar deployment across the state.

Iowa is one of eight teams across the country sharing about $12 million to cut the “soft” costs associated with solar. These soft costs include permit, zoning and connection fees, which can account for as much as 60 percent of one rooftop solar installation, according to the Department of Energy.

“As a leader in wind energy and renewable fuels, Iowa should be at the front of the pack in implementing programs that encourage the use of solar energy as well,” said Gov. Terry Branstad in a statement.”

Click here to watch a short clip with more information Iowa Get $1 Mil Grant for Solar Power - KGAN-TV CBS 2 Iowa - Top Stories

            Its looks like there is a bright future ahead for Iowa solar leaders such as Tim Dwight, with the 1.3 million dollar grant they will be able to continue educating and increase awareness on installation of solar power systems. 

Nivea Charges Phones With Solar Power

Early this summer Nivea moved mountains in surprising marketers that traditional print advertising can still hold a very strong effect on today's consumers if used properly. Nivea’s marketers asked themselves, “How can I delight my potential customers and have them think of my brand every time they go to the beach?”

Before I give anything else away, check out this quick video that describes the campaign.

        Yes, Nivea’s not a solar panel manufacturer, but a sunscreen and cosmetics company. However, their latest print ad made an impact on promoting solar PV. Nivea manufactured a clever solar –powered charger that was wrapped inside a magazine print ad so that people could charger their cell phones and devices as they lounged on the beach.

I would like to say touché to Giovanni + Draftfcb, who were the ad agency behind the creation and promotion of this ad in the Brazilian weekly news magazine Veja Rio. I know times are hard for solar PV manufacturers, but if you want consumers to truly ask for your brand by name, you ought to duplicate this guerrilla marketing move by Nivea. 

Think about it, you’re on the beach reading a magazine and then you see your phone is dying but you not ready to leave the beach to just go charge your phone. Well thanks to Nivea and their revolutionary magazine advert you don’t have too. This was a brilliant way to target Nieva’s potential customers by giving them a convenient outlet to fulfill their digital necessities. I really admire how the campaign bridged the digital and print divide to actually become a useful piece of content.

                                 Photo taken by By 生活童話

With Nivea sunscreen and a solar cell phone charger, you can stay at the beach until the sun goes down! So, no worries about sunburn, playing your music, text messaging, or watching videos while you play in the sun. Manufacturing an 8 ½” 11” thin-film panel within a magazine made it even more desirable to a customer because it solves an actual need that Nivea’s buyer persona have a visual, tangible, and digital manner. 

The ad also achieves something that is virtually impossible to do with print media: relevancy through be able to incorporate with users' current place. We need more campaigns like this from solar panel manufacturers. The whole point of the ad is to be a tangible resource that affects your actions. The more we see solar panels in everyday situations, the faster it gets to being mainstream and profitable.

Cost Effective Solar Energy Marketing Tips

"The biggest challenge we face is educating people about the true costs of solar energy,” – Solar Energy Industries Association president Rhone Resch.  

Marketing for solar energy is all about presentation, which must be the foundation of the overall strategy. The sun is the cleanest source of energy we have. On a clear sunny day the sun shines approximately 1000 watts of solar energy per square meter on the earth's surface. We have the remarkable opportunity and ability to power every home and office over the entire world for free. Approximately 220,000 homes are without power.

 Focus on Internet Marketing- Your able to target a broader audience and it is relatively cost effective at times. You can create slideshows and upload them to slideshare and other PDF sharing websites with links to your website or sales page with further information. Not only is this service free, but the high view counts on the pages after running a google analytics report is quite amazing. 

 Create a Social Media Presence- Using your social media to connect with your customers you can promote your product, it’s an easy way to create awareness, and help brand you as a skilled expert on solar to the public.  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, and many other social media sites are the ways society is sharing information and communicating among each other. Try to create a presence on all social media networks. To help you manage these accounts use social media dashboards resources such as TweetDeck and Hootsuite. Other great tools to keep you informed about conversation about your brand are GoogleAlerts to notify you every time your company name comes up online, and Talkwalker which offers social media campaign tracking tools, as well as brand monitoring and inquiries across multiple media. Participate in groups and pages related to solar energy, and share your thoughts and ideas with the community. This will help direct targeted traffic to your page.

 Offer Webinars- Webinars are a powerful tool for appealing new business or generating additional streams of revenue to your consumer. Webinars gives the general public the opportunity to interact when tuning into live broadcasts where people can openly ask questions directly to the presenters. Webinars also provides on-spot answers while your prospects and customers are given the luxury of comfort as they sit behind their computer screens.

 Inform Your Audience with Videos- This is a simple tactic to answer and educate the consumers on your products services and inform them on solar power. Getting creative and using a variety of videos is encouraged. For example, educational videos, promotional videos, instructional videos, video press releases, podcast videos and commercials. Creating videos is virtually free if you have the equipment, resources, and skills to have ability create them.

Create Commercial Success- Businesses often use YouTube to market their business and have success. This leads to a sky rocket in sales. How you present your idea is the most important. You need to think outside the box. Cartoons and animated commercials are ways of creating a quality low budget cost video. Also, YouTube communities are a great way to receive input regarding your videos or topics related to your business.

 Paid Advertising – “Search Engine Optimization”, or SEO, as it is frequently called in the tech world. SEO merely is the development of improving the visibility of a website, or a web page, in a search engine's un-paid or “organic” search results.  You can set a marketing budget on paid advertising on search engines.  On Google AdWords you will place a bid on keywords and compete against your business rivals.  You can promote your company through advertisements on search engines, or on social media and blogs creating artistic banners. The cost factor depends totally on your budget.

 Sampling Products- This gives your customers the option to “sample” your products so that they are introduced to all the benefits and the quality of your product. The customers will give reassuring testimonials stating: “It worked for me, it will work for you.”

Reinforce the Message to Your Consumers on Why They Should Buy Solar:

1.       Solar makes energy sense.

2.       Solar is a good investment.

3.       Solar is good for the Health of Future generations.

4.       Solar is good for the environment.

5.       Solar Creates energy independence.

Answering your consumers what’s, why’s, how’s and who’s are essential. Whatever you do, you should always— and I mean ALWAYS— make switching to solar sound easy.  For example:

• What are the initial costs/total setup costs?
• What is the process of setting up a solar system?
• Power/cost savings accurate?
• How much will I save and what are the benefits? Are they worth it?

• Why YOUR solar panels?

FAQ About Solar Panels

In marketing it's important to keep in mind the simple phrase KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid; consumers don't want to be confused with complicated features of your product or services.  With that said it is very important to make sure you follow the rule of KISS, is especially with  marketing an innovative product with heavy jargon like solar panels.

Below are listed ten frequently asked questions among customers, who are interested in purchasing solar panels. Each question is answered in a short video that is both easy to understand and straightforward. 

How do you know what questions your consumers have? Have your employees keep track of the questions they get asked on a daily bias by interested customers. Post the  videos pertaining to these questions either on a social media accounts or on a company website.  This will give your potential customers an easy way to access this information without going through the hassle of reading through confusing text. 

Also, try to keep short your answers , simple, and direct to avoid confusion among your prospects. Allow me to further explain. In this fast paced world we live in today we want information to be short and sweet. In today's society everything is shorten into Twitters expectations of 140 characters. Create simple words and grammar to explain complicated terms with less words.

Research shows that marketers have 10 seconds to capture viewer’s attention and leave a lasting impression. Therefore, visual aids could be the answer to this problem. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Inserting impactful pictures and short videos as seen below are ways to get your point across in less time. The sun is a beautiful thing, embrace its beauty. 

Simplicity in the field of marketing is essential.  Whenever you enter into a new marketing campaign think of KISS. Once you have grasped this concept you will truly understand and live by the meaning that "Less is More." 

1.) Which solar panels are the best?

2.) How much does solar power cost?

3.) Will solar power change my gas bill or just the electric bill?

4.) How much will solar save me if I put it on my house?

5.) What is the difference between a kilowatt and a kilowatt-hour?

6.) Do I need to replace my roof before I put solar power on my house?

7.) Can I buy solar panels and put them up myself? (DIY Solar)

8.) Why do you need my electricity usage to design a solar system for my house?

9.) How does the ownership of a solar power system work on a house?

10.) Where is pay-as-you-go solar, like a lease or a PPA, available?

Insight on Effective Marketing Tips for Solar Energy

 

The 2013 Green Tech Media Solar Summit Conference provided great insight on marketing strategies from marketing professionals in the solar industry. The conference set up presentations and a panel of marketing experts to discuss what improvements and changes the solar market needs to make.  The following topics were the panel’s main focus of conversation; global solar market in 2014, PV modules: cost, technologies and market strategies, inverters and balance of systems, emerging solar markets, and the U.S. solar market.

Video streaming by Ustream

Helena Kimball, head of marketing at Yingli Solar (YGE) represented for the company. The Chinese marketer of solar panels is among the world’s largest solar provider. They didn’t enter the U.S. market until 2009. Kimball explains that the breakthrough was the companies’ sponsorship of the 2010 World Cup. Although China did not participate in this year’s World Cup however, Yingli Solar did become the first renewable energy and the first Chinese company in history to sponsor the FIFA World Cup. Kimball explains how “it really created a catalyst for other companies (in the solar industry) to launch into sport marketing.”

Kimball also touched on the importance of giving back to the community through corporate social responsibility. She words, “Low income families who weren't able to go solar.”  She further explains that “Solar at that time (2010) was only accessible for middle or upper class Americans.” Yingli Solar made a strategic partnership with GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit solar installer whose mission is to empower communities. The two companies worked together to install one megawatt of solar energy systems for 1,000 low-income families. These solar energy systems will generate $10 million worth of renewable energy over their lifespan, while eliminating 40,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. GRID Alternatives has now been named one of the fastest growing residential installers. 

SolarCity's Jonathan Bass spoke for the company and was asked if there will be any changes from 2013 compared to the past years in SolarCity’s marketing? His response to the questions was “the demographics for solar are changing a little bit. Solar is growing much faster in lower middle income than it is in upper class homes.” Bass noted the younger generation demographics are coming into play in terms of the market because of the explosion of social media among solar industries.

Danny Kennedy of Sungevity says his companies’ success has to do with customer satisfaction which led to 70% referrals to Sungevity. In Australia there has been an increase to its base of now a total of 1 million solar homes which counts for 10% of Australia’s population. Kennedy states “how they did that scaling was through word-of-mouth.”  The “solar snowball” is also a key component which he explains is the mass benefit people have received and have been touched by solar. Sungevity customer service team motto “shine from the inside out” is what Kennedy says is the reason for their good reputation for service business and customer satisfaction.

Misty Benham, Head of Operations and Marketing at REC Solar, explains that with the solar industries record losses there is multiple ways to scale the market of your consumers. Two ways she mentioned were the shotgun approach and the sniper approach. In the perspective of marketing the shotgun approach, is more of the traditional marketing strategy, where a promotional campaign for products or services targets a large area and population. Some of these strategies include paying for advertisements on popular televised events, buying ad space across multiple websites, and sending out mass mailings and emails. Sniper marketing is a non-traditional marketing technique in which a campaign is designed to increase brand awareness, initiate trial or purchase and strengthen brand loyalty. In the sniper approach, campaign strategies and promotions are based on the understanding perception of the target audience. Benham states that Rec Americas are using the sniper approach to maximize on their dollar through return on market spending. She emphasizes that business-to-business marketing is changing as the industry evolve and that partnerships are more important than print ads.

Light Up The World: Social Responsibility

LIGHT Up The World: Social Responsibility 

Many companies have found success by using both business metrics and social missions as their main strategy such as American companies like Tom’s Shoes and Timberland. MPowerD is a start-up company looking to light up the world by helping end energy poverty around the world. They designed an affordable solar panel lantern called Luci. Luci is compact, light weight, waterproof, and provides 12 hours of light after charging 5-6 hours in the sun. The portable light can hold its charge for a total of 3 months.The target market for MPowerD is large because of the wide variety of uses, such as military, recreational campers, in the aftermath of a natural disaster and the primary source of light in third world countries just to name a few.

The CEO and co-founder of MPowerD Jacques-Philippe Piverger believes the experience of his team combined with his product's design gives him a competitive edge because of its design and usefulness among multiple platforms. He explains that his market base consumers could be either or from the developing world or a developed market, because of its beautiful design and usefulness.

Some marketers question the long term effectiveness of social responsibly. The product needs to have a basic assumption on which prevention concept based. In 2012, MPowerD incorporated their idea called “solar justice,” of helping people around the world in providing light. They implemented their model buy-one-give-one, every time they sell a Luci in the US at $14.95, they will send one to someone in the developing world for free through one of their non-governmental organization (NGO) partners.

Although Piverger has experience with working in the financial investments field for over a decade, his inspiration for the start-up company came from his desire to be more involved in philanthropic projects throughout the world. One  the program he began was an organizational project called “Light Up the World” that  supports communities like New Jersey and New York post hurricane Sandy. Last year along the project donated a total of 1,0000 portable lights.  

In a CNBC interview Piverger . "In the U.S. for example we have gone from zero to 60 retailers in the last six months,".  His company has already sold more than 100,000 lights with back orders for 100,000 more.  The CNBC Power Pitch panelists questioned Piverger on  how MPowerD would access potential customers in in the world’s most remote markets. Piverger response was that along with governments and NGOs, companies in the private sector who plan on marketing this product,  have helped penetrate Luci’s reach to remote corners of the earth.

MpowerD has already planning on making  the Luci available in the UK, Europe and Australia.  Along with expanding  their product into new countries they are going to modify the product to make it out of biodegradable plastic. They also want to launch more MPowerD products such as a solar-powered light that charges smartphones and recyclable materials that store energy are on the cards.

Bright Sun, Bright Future for the Worlds First Solar Airplane

Bright Sun, Bright Future for the Worlds First Solar Airplane

Photo Taken By Gregory Blatt

The company Solar Impulse has created the first solar airplane capable of flying day and night, rain or shine, without using a drop of fuel. There was excitement among Americans when the company hosted its Across America tour using their original solar airplane. The Across America tour not only inspired people in the solar or aviation fields but it also caught the eyes of influential masterminds of the tech world. Larry Page, CEO and co-founder of Google decided on an official partnership with Solar Impulse’s Internet Technology Partner.

 Google will help enhance Solar Impulse’s social media presence and promote their goal in using only solar power to fly around the entire world. They will provide Solar Impulse its abundant amount of social media resources such as YouTube, Google Glass, Google Earth, Google Hangouts, and Google+ to improve its communication with its online presence and create attention among the company’s support base fans and followers. According to reports the ideal social media channel will be Google+ and the usage of Google Hangouts in live broadcasts during flights will bring the public closer to the pilots. 

 Dr. Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, Co-Founders of Solar Impulse said;

“This partnership is a unique occasion to promote mutually shared values like pioneering spirit, innovation, engineering excellence and clean technologies allowing to [us] protect natural resources. With Google on board, our reach with the public, younger generations, media and political and business decision makers will be significantly enhanced.”

The first nonstop solar-powered flight around the world is being planned for 2015.The company’s future looks as bright as the sun with their new partnership with world’s biggest internet powerhouse.