Commercial Solar Engineering and Construction — Melink Solar
Melink Solar is one division of a family of companies founded by Steve Melink to develop and sell clean energy solutions in the USA. Sister company Melink Corp sells building energy efficiency services and products, including the industry-leading Intelli-Hood, and Melink Zero markets a revolutionary new phase change material for more efficient HVAC thermal energy storage systems.
Melink Solar designs and builds on-site solar PV systems. Their first project was the Cincinnati Zoo parking canopy in 2011 – since then they’ve expanded to national coverage with projects from Hawaii to Massachusetts and clients from mid-market to Fortune 100 companies, non-profit organizations, municipalities, utilities and developers.
Commercial on-site solar PV systems are increasingly popular because they ensure 30+ years of stable energy pricing and also satisfy the needs of corporate responsibility initiatives. Studio Director Mark Sund recently completed an 18-month redevelopment of Melink Solar’s marketing program.
B2B Lead Generation
Lead generation included development of robust campaigns and cost-per-lead reporting for:
Web searches on Google
Social media on LinkedIn
Trade shows
Events at Melink HQ
Challenges included targeting:
Commercial solar interest – not paying for exposure to the dramatically larger residential solar market. On Google this was successfully achieved by testing combinations of broad, phrase, and exact match keywords, negative keywords, text in the ads themselves, and content on the landing pages. On LinkedIn this was achieved through testing combinations of audience attributes, the ads themselves, and landing page content.
Purchase intent – this is always a far smaller audience than DIY, information-seeking, and feel-good audiences. This was achieved with on-going testing of attribute combinations to generate qualified leads. Working with the sales and business development team helped identify robust leads to feed back into effective combinations of targeting attributes.
Print and PDF Collateral
New PDF / print collateral included Powerpoint decks for sales presentations and showing off their project portfolio. Melink Solar has done amazing work all over the USA – they had plenty of photos so the challenge was presenting them attractively and cohesively. New, modern designs were developed for proposals created and output from their proposal software, RFP responses and general sales documents in Word, and media packages for joint publicity with clients.
Trade Shows
A robust schedule of trade shows was initiated for name recognition, in-person contact, and lead generation. Two new booth backdrops were developed – one a set up pull-up panels for use at smaller shows and tables, the other a full back-drop with cubbies showing clients’ products and a consulting-style arrangement. Melink Solar’s VP, now president, Seth Parker, and business development director Monica Niehaus collaborated to find a way to make a solar module into a table-top that could be transported to regional trade shows for some extra pizzaz.
Timing was close on the heels of the pandemic, so in-person and spontaneous connections were a great benefit to lead generation and business development.
Sales CRM Enhancements
We worked with the business development director to separate their Hubspot account from the parent Melink Corp account and then enhance categories and reporting. We also added a chat box to the website with a few pre-qualification questions leading to the business development team’s phones.
Website Content Updates
Melink Solar’s WordPress website was enhanced with new projects and information, and separated from the parent company Melink Corp website to form Melink Solar’s own freestanding website.
