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Why you do not need to be entertaining for solar ads to work
A lot of established solar business owners avoid video ads because they think it means embarrassing themselves on camera.
They assume it requires costumes, skits, gimmicks, or exaggerated humour.
It does not.
In this video, i explain why some of the most reliable and consistent solar ads are calm, technical, and educational, and why entertainment is often overrated when your goal is qualified leads that actually convert.
If you have been put off video ads because they did not feel like you, this should reframe things.
For context, this video was originally recorded on 5 December 2024, views and strategies may have changed since.
Featuring
Video transcript
You’re the owner of an established solar business, and so far you’ve been put off by solar video ads because you think that, for them to work, you have to make yourself look like an idiot on camera.
You think you have to wear a costume, do silly ideas, or create skit-style videos that some people might find funny, but others will find embarrassing or cringeworthy. That is not the case.
I really want to hammer this home, because this belief holds so many people back from presenting their businesses online in the way they actually want to be presented. A lot of installers think that for a social media ad to work, it has to have some kind of gimmick, shock factor, or exaggeration. It simply doesn’t.
In fact, we’ve found that some of our most reliable and consistent-performing formats are education over entertainment.
These ads are:
More measured and slightly more monotone
Calm and well-paced
Focused on explaining things properly
Willing to go into the technicals and the detail
Rather than relying on a cheesy line at the start and hoping that carries the video, these ads focus on substance.
Yes, entertaining or skit-style ads might:
Get clicks
Get shares
Get engagement
But is that actually what you want?
No. You want leads, and more importantly, leads that convert into paying customers. That’s exactly what informative, educational content about specs, hardware, and real-world installs is designed to do.
What we’ve also found is that skit-style content works far better for organic social media, not paid ads. When you run skit-style paid ads, you’re essentially hoping for the best. You might get a 10% hit rate—one ad absolutely flies due to virality—but the other nine you put time, effort, and discomfort into just don’t perform.
By contrast, when you run informative, educational ads, the success rate is dramatically higher and far more consistent.
That’s exactly what happened with Jesse from Solar Works.
He’d worked with multiple agencies before, and many of them pushed the idea that for social media ads to work, they had to be fast, loud, funny, and exaggerated. That approach just didn’t suit him.
When we shared his first ad with him, his feedback was:
“Yeah, I think that’s the first video I’ve done that I didn’t cringe at and actually liked. I normally find it so hard to watch myself back, and you guys have done a brilliant job. I’m well happy with that.”
The reason we’re able to get results like that is simple: we don’t put words in your mouth.
We’ve done video ads for long enough—over 100 shoots—that we don’t need to script lines word for word in advance. We can be there with you, alongside our videographers, and take what you’re already saying naturally. With a small prompt or tweak, we shape it into something that converts extremely well on social media.
During the shoot brief process, we:
Identify your three strongest USPs
Understand why customers choose you
Understand why they trust you, review you, and come back
Understand why they chose you over a bigger or even cheaper provider
Those three USPs then form the backbone of the shoot. We build prompts around them to ensure they come across clearly and naturally on camera.
If you don’t know your USPs, we can’t invent them for you. You should already know why your business is great. Our job is to give you the platform, get out of your way, and present that story in the best possible way—then make sure it reaches the right people.
We’re not here to tell you why you’re better than everyone else. We’re here to help you explain that, authentically.
So if you want to see examples of ads that—let’s be honest—people who aren’t interested in solar would probably find incredibly boring, but which perform exceptionally well, just reach out and I’ll send a few over.
You don’t need to go crazy for ads to work.
Hopefully this reframes things for you. And if you’re a solar business owner who thought you had to flap around on camera to get leads, book a call and we’ll have a chat about how this actually works.
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