Happy Sunday. Fraser from Current Renewables has done over £200,000 in just over a month of advertising with us. And that’s from £5,000 in advertising spend, meaning he’s got basically 40 times his money back on his ads.

Now, what we’re going to do today is go through one of the actual real comments on one of his solar ads that are running on Facebook and start to dissect why this campaign is performing so, so well.

So, this is a comment from Jordan Thomas, and it basically sums up a few different things:

• Firstly, why video is so powerful.

• How Fraser has come off really, really well on camera without any effort at all—intentionally.

• And how authenticity is basically the way to go.

A lot of the time when I go out to shoots… I mean, we’ve done—I think it’s 100 solar video shoots now. If it’s a two-day shoot, if you could include that as two, I think it’s 100 days of shooting.

And when I go out, quite often what will happen is: I’ll be having such a lovely conversation with the client about something they’re passionate about. Maybe it’s how the system’s strung, how it uses the MPPTs, and how someone quoted it differently and it wouldn’t have been as efficient, etc. Whatever it may be, right?

We’re having a great conversation. Then the camera red light goes on and all of a sudden that conversation becomes really stiff. And I’m only going to speak in three words at a time because I want to make sure every word is perfect.

And the problem with that is that you lose any relatability. You lose the ability to get someone to know, like, and trust you—because it’s not real. It’s you trying to articulate and perfect every word, and people feel it.

That’s why it feels like an ad. And it’s why we moved very far away from scripting everything a very long time ago—because when you script something down to the word, it just feels like an ad no matter how hard you try.

You have to be a really skilled actor to take a script and then make it not feel like an ad. And unfortunately—credit to you guys—most of our installers are not necessarily trained actors.

So the far better approach is actually to prompt you to just speak naturally and to try and get over the difference between the red light being on (the camera recording) and it not.

One person that did that perfectly would be Fraser from Current Renewables. And as such, he’s getting comments like this.

So Jordan said:

“Out of every sponsored advert for any kind of trade, let alone solar, this is by far the best.”

Okay—give ourselves a little pat on the back for that. But obviously Fraser as well.

“I’m not in the market for it just yet, but I watched till the end as the chap came across as very down to earth, professional and genuine. No fake influencer vibes whatsoever. I don’t know where you’re based, but I would definitely consider your business based on how genuine you came across. Good luck with your business and I’ll keep it out.”

Now, firstly, thank you to Jordan—because that’s a lovely thing to say, especially there’s nothing really for him to gain out of that other than being kind.

And secondly, there’s a few different things to break down out of this.

First of all: we’ve been doing video ads in solar the longest. We are the best at it, hands down, without question.

Secondly, he says: “I’m not in the market just yet for solar.”

A lot of people have this misconception that when you’re advertising on Facebook for solar, you’re only advertising to people that are already engaging with solar content.

And yes, it is true—when someone clicks on your ad, they are very likely to be shown another five, six, seven, eight solar adverts right after that because Meta starts to understand what they’re engaging in, and does that to actually be able to reach people properly. That’s how the advertising targeting works.

And the flip side is also true: when someone engages with someone else’s ad, they’re probably going to be shown yours if you’re similar, in the same area, and all that kind of thing.

But there is a huge portion of users on Facebook that we are reaching that aren’t necessarily in the market yet.

So they’re very top of funnel. They need quite a lot of educating. They need to build trust in the industry, but also the company they’re going to install with. And they just need a lot more nurturing through the process, and it’s going to take more time.

This person probably, at a minimum, isn’t going to go solar for another three months—probably more likely a year, two years.

But that seed has been laid. And as he says in his own words:

“I would definitely consider your business based on how you came across.”

So he’ll reach out in future. And if he’s engaging with these kinds of adverts and watching a large proportion of them—as we go back to shoot with Fraser again and shoot new advertisements—he’s going to see all of those new advertisements.

He’s going to see different hardware. Different installs. He’s going to see how Fraser and the business develop over time.

So it’s this long-term play that we are in.

And, believe it or not, the marketers of the industry are bringing more people into solar. It’s not just taking more of a share for their specific clients—it is also increasing the size of the pie, no matter what advertising format you’re using.

It’s really interesting, this one.

What I’ll do is I’ll bring up the ad itself so we can break down some of the reasons that it comes off so well—and actually how, quite a lot of the time, it’s the less effort you put in and the more you just relax into it, the better it comes out.

So let’s play this out here.

Ad playback begins

“Right. So today we’re in Honington on this installation. It was another slate roof installation. We have seven on the east facing roof and then we have two on the south facing roof. Two on the south facing roof—you’d be surprised how much extra generation that actually adds.”

So right away you can tell there’s no hook here. There’s no “Did you know you could save 70% with your solar panel…” or “and if you’re qualified but only if you’re in a specific postcode…” Oh god—leave it out.

It’s just a natural conversation. It’s as if you’re just there with Fraser.

The only way I can describe it is that the way we try to manufacture the ads is: Fraser is literally walking someone around the installation and talking to them very naturally—almost having a conversation.

You should feel enveloped into this environment and this conversation, rather than feeling like someone’s just projectile-vomiting a load of statements and facts and hooks at you.

It’s just not how you get high quality leads out of this advertising format.

The way he says—he chuckles and says—about the two panels: they do a lot more than you might think.

He’s not saying “this is going to save an extra 10, 12, 21%.” It’s just—yeah, it’s going to do some good stuff. It’s natural and authentic.

Ad continues

“Especially when we got the east west and then an extra two on the south on the front as we walk through round to the side of the house. That’s our DC run.”

And the other thing for us is that we just need to get out of the way of the person on camera quite often.

A lot of the time with video ads, people put all these crazy transitions—sparkles and all this stuff—and music.

And a lot of the time, our editors: it’s actually about stripping it back and focusing attention on whatever the installer is talking about.

And if they’re not talking about something specific, then you just keep focus on that.

Ad continues

“Try to keep everything as neat as possible.”

Highlighting the DC there is just a nice touch to show exactly what Fraser’s talking about.

Ad continues

“Unfortunately, we do have to sticker everything to MCS standard.”

Again—that’s just real. Everyone says “we vinyl them all up perfectly and it looks amazing.” The stickers just don’t look good, do they?

If you had the choice and it wasn’t important for safety purposes, you just wouldn’t put the stickers on. So why lie about it?

Fraser’s just gone: “Yeah, unfortunately we do have to sticker it up—but we make it as neat as we can.”

Ad continues

“Inside here, we put our sub DB. So on every installation, we install a separate fuse board with its own RCBO breakers so that anything in the house trips—it doesn’t affect the solar. This also houses the meter, the import export meter. Then from there we have our low-level clipped cables…”

You can see there we’ve just used a subtle transition to take a cut out of either a silent period or a period that wasn’t useful—and didn’t provide authenticity.

Ad continues

“Box stack, whatever you want to call it. You can see there two 6 kW inverters and the two 5 kW batteries. That equals a 12 kW inverter. We could have done a better job on the B-roll right here to be fair… But the best part of the installation—the most elegant and beautiful-looking bit—I’m yet to show you. Follow me around back.”

“One of the biggest concerns we get is flat roofs… Can panels go on flat roofs and water systems go flat roofs? Is it going to damage the flat roof? Is it easy to take off the flat roof?”

That’s another attempt to think: what is the viewer thinking right now—and how can I preempt those questions and overcome those objections?

Ad continues

“There’s really two options you have with a flat roof. There’s a bucket system which is a cheaper option. It does its purpose, doesn’t look as good. It’s basically a bucket you weight down and you panel attach it to it.

Or you can have a nice sleek looking all blacked out Aztec and full system—which I think is by far the best part of this installation.

And if I could say myself, it’s something I would have in my garden.

So as you can see on this house, we have panels on the back, on the front, on the other front elevation, on the flat roof. And there’s one reason because of that.

First off: Dela, which absolutely canes electricity—up to 9 kW.”

That’s brilliant. “Absolutely canes electricity.”

Instead of everyone saying “it’s a very high draw appliance…”

If you would normally talk like that with a customer—crack on, because that’s authentic.

But you don’t need to force it.

If the way you speak is “it absolutely belts it / canes electricity,” then say that normally—because otherwise there’s going to be a huge disconnect between the person they engage with in the video and the person that speaks to them on the phone, or comes out to survey, or runs the business.

We’re always about not putting words in people’s mouths and actually just letting them do their thing.

Ad continues

“When that’s going, that’s drawing so much. Then if I take your attention down here, they have a hot tub.

In my eyes, this is a perfect garden. You can jump in the hot tub, jump in the sauna… You got solar. It’s all generating it. You’re not paying for anything. It’s all free.”

Again—just natural language. Talking to someone like they’re a human.

And he’s speaking to one person, rather than speaking to lots and lots of people.

A lot of people feel like they have to be this presenter because they imagine the ad can be seen by a thousand people.

But instead, Fraser’s just focusing on: how would I normally speak to someone?

Even just forgetting there’s a camera and speaking to the videographer and saying “get in the hot tub, get in the sauna.”

Ad concludes

“This is the best scenario we could ever have. So if you’ve got a sauna and high energy bills, why don’t we put a load of panels on every elevation of your roof to power not only your sauna, but your hot tub as well? Click the button below, fill in some contact details, and we’ll be in touch.”

And there you go.

Then we’ve got some really nice B-roll of him interacting with customers—being a smiley, happy chappie.

So that is a breakdown.

We have plenty of ads that follow that same structure that are just as authentic as that one—but I thought this was such a good example because it’s been reinforced by a member of the public without any prompting. It really is great to see.

And I think that if you’re looking to get on video and you recognize the importance of it—or maybe you’ve already tried video ads before but you didn’t think they really were “you” and presented your business in an accurate light…

It’s not even about being the best light.

We could be at one site all day trying to get the perfect sequence of words.

Or we could go to seven sites. You could crack on, be yourself, and talk as you normally would.

Maybe it won’t be perfect. Maybe you’ll say something and think: “Is that word the best word I could have used? Is that going to put 1% of people off?”

Yeah, maybe it will.

But it’s going to allow you to form a connection with the other 99%—who were actually going to buy from you anyway.

So get over it. Get over the 1% that might not like the way you speak—because it’s not worth fretting over.

If you try and please everyone, you’re going to please no one.

So yeah—that’s my little speech. Hope you enjoyed this breakdown.

And I’m really excited to see more of these comments coming through because I know this made Fraser’s day, and it certainly made our day as well—because we basically gave Fraser the platform to be able to be himself and put that out there in the format that he wanted.

Cool. Thanks for watching.