How Crest Blends Art, Science, and Strategy into Campaigns that Resonate
Building a new product or B2B service for the solar-plus-storage market isn’t easy. So when it’s finally ready, you might become dazzled by the achievement. But if you’re too enthralled by the features of your technology, your campaigns will miss the mark.
Running campaigns without knowing what resonates with your buyers costs a lot of money. Marketing that rattles through lists of features, technical specifications, or internal talking points fails because it doesn’t view the solution through your customers’ eyes or talk about it in their words.
This is especially relevant in today’s environment: The solar-plus-storage landscape is increasingly awash with dollars. And because hundreds of millions in private and public investment generates more business, competition for products and B2B services is booming. Standing out has never been more important.
What you need are memorable campaigns that truly connect and resonate with your audience. One of the best ways of achieving this is to tell visual stories about the people behind your technology and the people benefitting from your solutions.
It’s a powerful way of making your customers feel as if they already have your solution in their hands.
Why is visual storytelling important for solar-plus-storage businesses?
Storytelling is one of the most effective ways of relaying information: In Story Proof, Kendall Haven explains that the human brain is evolutionarily hardwired to understand the world in terms of stories.
Haven also cites research that shows how stories are a highway to our memory banks: “experiences not framed into story form suffer loss in memory” (Mandler, 1984).
Then there’s the growing popularity of visual marketing formats: One survey found that 91% of businesses are using video as a marketing tool in 2023. If so many businesses are betting on visuals, they’re clearly a very effective way of getting the job done.
What’s more, communicating the value proposition of technological products and services is often best done visually: In our engineering-driven industry, relying exclusively on written text can open the door to confusion and misunderstandings.
So when everyone is jostling for installers’ attention, compelling visual stories are the conductor that allows your solution to flow to the front of your customer’s mind.
That conductor becomes even more effective when the creative team understands:
- The technology and the problem it solves
- What makes it different from the competition
- What customers value most about the solution
- How to communicate that value effectively
- Which revenue model and marketing channels will drive growth
In other words: effective visual storytelling for solar-plus-storage technology is most powerful when rooted in product-market fit and revenue strategy.
How do product-market fit and revenue strategy enhance visual storytelling?
Crest Creative regularly works with Mayfield Renewables and Cross Consulting Services in their product consulting and revenue strategy engagements. At Crest, our role is to design and deliver visual campaigns built on the consulting and strategy outcomes.
Product consulting engagements provide accurate, unbiased information about how your solution fits into the market—they validate product-market fit. The work is founded on:
- Customer interviews
- Code compliance review
- Industry stakeholder interviews
- Market and other desk research
- Engineering and technical analysis
- Value proposition and key messaging
These steps also reveal the bigger business picture, which provides the information needed to build a tailored revenue strategy for a product, service, or company.
The product- and strategy-focused reports that emerge from these engagements give Crest the customer-centric data we need to develop accurate hypotheses about which stories and campaigns will resonate most with your audience.
Think of it as art driven by science.
And by understanding the revenue strategy, we can be intentional when planning the phases of your campaign. So the budgetary decisions always align with your business goals.
Why is Crest a strong partner for solar-plus-storage campaigns?
When you’re creating campaigns for complex technological solutions, you need a team that understands both sides of the coin: The science and technology behind your product, and the creativity and strategy needed for a campaign.
If you work with a team that only understands creativity, the science is lost. That diminishes your product or service, because the science, the technology, is at the heart of everything. It’s what drives your solution and your business. It must also drive your campaigns.
We’re a creative agency that specializes in working with solar-plus-storage manufacturers and B2B service providers. As Crest’s founder, I bring 15+ years of experience in cleantech and renewables and 20+ years of high-level business and revenue expertise to the table.
So our work is always guided by a potent mix of industry acumen, engineering expertise, and bold creativity. We speak your language and the language of your customers—and we can wrap it all up in campaigns that help you stand out, gain traction, and boost sales.
To see this in action, read how we’re creating compelling visual stories for two major companies in the solar-plus-storage space:
Megger: Campaigns for a legacy company entering the solar vertical
Tigo Energy: Campaigns for a well-known manufacturer in the PV space
In both cases, our work builds on the product-market fit and revenue strategies established by Mayfield Renewables and Cross Consulting during product consulting engagements.
Also in both cases, the collaborations span several years. Long-term, agency-of-record partnerships benefit creative campaigns because the agency better understands the client and their products.
They also allow us to better orchestrate the telling of the story because we can strategically arrange multiple elements over a larger expanse of time. And we can adjust to changes in the industry—a big advantage when things change as fast as they do in solar-plus-storage.
Campaigns for a legacy company entering the solar vertical
Megger is a global leader in electrical testing and measurement equipment. They came to Mayfield and Cross Consulting for help entering the solar-plus-storage market.
The product-market fit insights pointed to education as a catalyst that would make Megger a strong partner to the industry. Mayfield Renewables is now leading content production on an Electrical Testing Standards Guide to position Megger as an industry leader.
Cross Consulting then drew strategic insights from the consulting work. These are defining the areas of investment and the sales and marketing activities that the team are building around the guide. It’s a multi-phased, multi-year project.
Collectively, the product-market fit and the strategy have given Crest a solid foundation on which to build the assets that will support and augment the content of the PDF guide. These assets include:
- Videography
- Photography
- Animation
- Website
One example are videos showing how to perform electrical tests in the field. The assets use a combination of videography and animation to guide PV technicians through the process. They’re a valuable way for professionals to access expert support quickly while onsite.
Ahmed El-Rasheed, PhD, Industry Director for Renewables at Megger, has been working with us for some time now. He appreciates the industry acumen and technical expertise Crest brings to the campaign side of the project:
“When you go to a general marketing agency that’s not familiar with the industry, you run into problems and have to explain everything. Crest’s relationship with Mayfield, and your experience of working in renewables, means you already have a good understanding of the industry and the people who work in it.”
He also values the artistic skill and high production values that Crest brings to its work:
“One of my pet peeves is that, on talking head videos, the lighting is right for some skin tones but comes out too dark and overexposed for others. Your guys at Crest got it right.”
Campaigns for a well-known manufacturer in the PV space
Tigo Energy is the worldwide leader in Module Level Power Electronics (MLPE). They have been working with Mayfield Renewables and Cross Consulting on multiple product consulting engagements.
These include conducting market research and discovery interviews to establish product-market fit and strategy for its EI platform.
Crest has been producing numerous assets around these engagements. One project in Summer of 2023 involved traveling to Italy and Germany to shoot videos promoting Tigo and its solutions.
The multilingual content is strongly people-focused, showcasing Tigo staff and customers in both countries. As with the Megger example, this asset uses a combination of video and animation to tell a strong visual story.
Explaining why Tigo chose to work with Crest, John Lerch, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Tigo, had this to say:
“It’s hard to do good assets, especially video assets. Any kind of solar assets are hard to generate. We live in a technical industry, where understanding the industry and the technology is a necessary part of crafting a good message and value proposition, and telling a good story. I feel like you guys have this Venn diagram of good creative and video production, but also the industry acumen to be able to deliver on it.”
The collaboration with Crest has also changed the way Tigo does marketing, bringing a number of benefits with it:
So who’s on your team?
Do you have a creative partner who can tell powerful visual stories anchored in a deep understanding of the industry, your customers, and your technology? Who can translate product-market fit and revenue strategy into powerful campaigns that resonate with your audience?
Crest can be that creative partner. We can help you independently, or in collaboration with Mayfield Renewables and Cross Consulting Services.
If you’d like to learn more, please email me.
