Marketing and SEO Insights from a Renewable Energy Fair

I always appreciate getting marketing advice for my brand from an external perspective. It’s a viewpoint I obviously lack and it helps me improve.

From my active participation at Genera, the renewable energy fair in Spain, I picked up on some aspects that could be improved, at least from my point of view.

This wasn’t my first fair, far from it. I attended several times as a Search Manager behind a stand for a marketing agency in London, and several more as a visitor (purchasing) when I had an e-commerce furniture business.

But this time was different. I went as a visitor to gauge the sector, better understand my target audience, and why not, to sell my services.

I went with the role of observing, analyzing, and improving (as a good SEO does), and I noticed several things that I want to share.

Although this is a list of marketing and business tips seen from the ignorance of what really goes on in each company, my intention is not to criticize harshly or “cause harm.”

Take it as something constructive and said with all due respect. Here it goes.

What caught my attention? Room for Improvement

It’s something that matches quite a bit with what I already knew and perceived from my experience working with companies in the renewable sector.

Message

• Stands that only talk about themselves, how good they are, their years in the business. (I, me, and myself)
• Stands that only discuss technical features.
• Stands (companies) that you don’t know what they do unless you ask, and I’m not just talking about the more modest ones who haven’t invested even in signage.
• Brochures filled with features and/or “how good we are” as the only material for the customer.
• Stands and brochures that don’t address the pain points or needs of their target audience. They don’t connect.

In general, the idea here is that there’s a lack of work on connecting with their target and their needs. Instead, there’s an emphasis on “flexing muscles.” This happens in all sectors, let’s not kid ourselves.

Websites

• The vast majority of the ones I visited clearly hadn’t worked on their SEO (SEO professionals can easily tell).
• Many websites of international businesses, with a “version” for their target countries, aren’t optimized for them. In many cases, not even the target language. There’s no international optimization, yet there’s a focus to sell.
• Websites with an international focus, under regional domains (example.es/en/).
• Websites of international businesses that only have the local language, and in some cases, at least, English.
• They underestimate the business potential of a website. Found websites submitted to the event organizers that don’t correspond with the actual website.
• Website submitted to the organization still under construction! (Just one case, to be fair, but it didn’t make sense.)
• The copies (texts) on a significant number of websites visited, follow the line of what I mention above. There’s a lot of self-promotion, but little connection with the needs of their target audience.

The website is our virtual corporate headquarters, the main place where B2B business is generated (with LinkedIn’s permission).
You shouldn’t neglect it.

Marketing

* First of all, my utmost respect to the employees, as people and as workers who give their all, sometimes well, sometimes not so much, like all of us.

That said, what caught my attention:

• Marketing professionals. Handling all aspects of marketing alone. Also, other related fields, like communication or sales. Jack of all trades, master of none. Besides…
• … “junior” marketing professionals in charge of everything.
• CEOs and managers who think they have “that” (marketing/SEO) sorted. When you tell them you can help generate business with their website, they say they “already have a team or an agency taking care of that.”
  
  However, you quickly see that their website doesn’t have too many visits, or the visits they get are searching for brand terms.
  
• CEOs and even marketing managers who think that web positioning is not for them because they are B2B.
• Salespeople who think that a website capturing leads and passing them on for them to work and close the sale, is not their thing.

It’s fine that companies have in-house marketing managers, even when the size of the company demands a team. But no matter how skilled the person is, they should lean on external experts/teams when they can’t handle everything internally.

Good marketing work is essential for a company’s success, and a significant part of the resources should go to this area, both in-house and outsourced.

Let’s not be all negative!

Hats off to the amazing projects out there, and their entrepreneurs. Also, to many stands that were impressive and everyone who made them possible.

People were very kind and helpful for the most part. Lots of sunny smiles.

I found cases, only a few, where there was indeed some work focused on the needs of their target, both in stands, paper materials, and salespeople. It has to be said.

I remember a brand for training solar installers/technicians, the name of which I can’t recall and wish I had noted down. They mentioned they were already working with a marketing agency.

And this time, it showed.

Both the stand itself, the content, signage, and message were crafted to arouse interest in their target. And the website worked, of course.

Brief Reflection

I suspect what I saw isn’t exclusive to this sector, although here it may be more pronounced. That’s one side of it.

On the other hand, I’m convinced that the good times for renewables mean that somehow there’s not this “imperative need” to sell.

There’s growing demand and the focus is on developing products and services to satisfy it, as well as selling without complications: using the most familiar or favorable media/channels for the teams.

“If I have enough companies and/or people knocking on my door… I’m not going to bother going out to look for more”

I imagine more than one might say.

Those who “bother” to properly work on their marketing now, will take the lion’s share in less prosperous times. The rest will be late.