Good evening everyone. Tonight we’re going to talk about time in the market versus timing the market. And no, I’m not a dodgy forex trader — I do marketing for solar companies. But bear with me. There’s meaning behind this metaphor.

We’ve all heard about the grant that’s coming out — potentially 2025, more likely 2026. There is going to be an absolute flood of new installers coming into the market: either people with existing experience who are looking to ramp up their operations, or people from adjacent industries who want a slice of the solar coaster.

When that happens, the number of advertisers in this market is going to increase rapidly. When the feed-in tariffs came out, it probably went up about three times. On platforms like Facebook there is a certain amount of attention you’re bidding for. Same with Google — there’s a certain amount of searches you’re bidding for.

Granted, the amount of searches on Google is going to increase because demand has increased, but I would bet my arm that supply is going to match it, if not exceed it, based on the gold rush people associate with grants coming out.

As a result, the cost to advertise is going to increase substantially — but that’s only the cost to advertise at that specific time. If you backtrack three months, six months, nine months, your cost to advertise hasn’t increased yet. However, you are still acquiring leads at a far cheaper cost than it will cost you in three months, six months, or nine months later.

Because demand hasn’t quite increased yet, you’re still able to acquire those leads — those potential prospects — and nurture them over time.

With a £5,000 budget today using Meta Ads, you could potentially acquire 100 leads. With a £5,000 budget in twelve months’ time, you’re probably looking at 35 to 40 leads if demand increases in the way we foresee, and specifically if the number of advertisers increases in the way we foresee.

That’s especially true when you account for advertising budgets, not just the number of advertisers. Because there will be people in this industry — cough energy companies — that are going to be five-times or ten-times their advertising budgets. They know they can get far more people on the tariffs because they can get subsidies from the government to overcome the initial outlay, or to offer finance to wealthier homes.

So what should you be doing as an established installer with some systems in place? You should be stockpiling your leads. You should be buying as many leads as you can possibly afford. You should be increasing your advertising budget in advance of these changes coming through.

And yes, this is a risk. Of course it’s a risk. That’s why I’m talking about time in the market versus timing the market. You’re reducing your risk and exposure later by preparing now.

And yes, this change might not happen at all. There’s plenty of talk that they’ll make an announcement and then it’s actually going to be six months, a year, two years, three years — or it might not happen at all. In which case, I’m wrong.

And you can still acquire those customers at probably the same price, if not slightly more, because advertising costs are always going up steadily in a year’s time, in two years’ time. But if it does come through, you want to be well placed to capitalize on it.

You should be nailing your systems now: getting your Meta and Google advertising accounts the conversion data they need to perform now and to perform when demand increases, so you’re not caught out trying to play catch-up.

Meta needs conversion events to learn who to show the ad to. So if you start advertising when demand spikes, you’re going to be behind everyone else who was already advertising.

Then you need systems in place to actively nurture those leads over time before grants come in and before changes happen.

One of our clients, Infinite Energy, generated a few leads in September that adhere very closely to this example. They were potentially deemed dead leads. They hadn’t picked up the phone. They hadn’t done any high-intent action other than opting in and completing the initial funnel.

And yet they received our automated 30-day email nurture sequence — every single day — which goes through case studies, rapport building about the company, the benefits of solar, and objection handling on behalf of the sales team.

We ask the salesperson: what do you often face when you go to do a survey? What does someone say is stopping them from going solar? And we weave that into the nurturing sequence.

They also receive the odd WhatsApp — typically a warm video — giving them further exposure and rapport with the owners of the business.

Then December comes around — which is typically absolute hell for advertisers because you’re slap bang in the middle between Black Friday and Christmas, which means e-commerce companies are slamming their budgets sky high. As a solar installer, it doesn’t make logical sense to try and keep up by increasing your budget in line with them because you don’t have the same offer and there are seasonal effects at play.

So when they were generating fewer leads from ads in December, these leads were trickling through from the nurturing activity they’d been doing.

In fact, two of those September leads closed in December and generated Infinite Energy about an additional £20,000. Without the right systems and the right nurturing, those leads would have been deemed dead. The sales team wouldn’t have prioritized following up with them because that sales resource needs to go to warmer, higher-intent leads.

Without those systems, those leads wouldn’t have received anything — and by now they would have completely forgotten who Infinite Energy even are.

The point is: you can start acquiring leads now, as long as you have the systems in place. You can probably get them far cheaper than you would if you wait until demand spikes. And you’ll probably find that if you generate 100 leads now, you’ll close five or six of them when the grant comes out because you’ve been nurturing them the whole time. They become familiar with you, and you’re the first person — top of mind — when the change happens.

Yes, it’s going to hurt initially because you’re acquiring those leads for, say, £50 a lead, and you need to set the expectation that quite a few of them aren’t going to close for six months, nine months, or twelve months.

But that’s why you need to be doing other advertising activity as well, and have your conversion mechanisms and funnels nailed so the ones that are ready to go do buy now. That gives you the cash to reinvest into campaigns — to get those cheaper leads that will carry you through and give you all the demand you could ever want when the grant does come out. Fingers crossed it does.

That’s all from me for now. Bit of a “talking at the camera” video, but I think it’s an important point. Someone actually replied to one of my comments saying they resonated with my stance on this.

Yes, it’s a worrying time, but at the same time, for people who are bullish on the industry and optimistic about where solar can go as a technology — where renewables can go — and the place it holds within the UK specifically, it can only be a force for good eventually.

That’s all. I hope you enjoyed.