What’s trending in cleantech marketing?
Key takeaways from the State of Cleantech Content Marketing Report
Content is a critical aspect to any company’s marketing strategy. From SEO to thought leadership to lead generation, a well-rounded and planned content strategy can directly impact a company’s bottom line. While content marketing is a longer term play than other marketing channels like paid search, paid social, or partnerships, it’s the foundation to a company’s brand identity and authority in the industry. Often, it’s also the top source of website traffic and in turn, qualified leads.
While content marketing is important for all industries, it’s perhaps even more crucial for the cleantech industry—and especially now. Now, more than ever, people are investing in clean solutions, from clean energy to green building and manufacturing to battery components. The US Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, is driving investment in clean energy offering a range of tax incentives. In its first year, a total of 280 clean energy projects have been announced across 44 states.
The push for more sustainable solutions is not slowing down, which means cleantech companies are in growth mode. A major factor in driving growth is hitting revenue goals, which is where marketing comes in.
We evaluated the content strategies of Cleantech Group’s 2024 Global Cleantech 100, a list of the leading companies in cleantech today. With findings about how content impacts search engine optimization and site traffic of these companies as well as details about lead nurture strategies (or lack thereof).
Here are the key takeaways:
Virtually all of the top cleantech companies offer resources on their website
A whopping 96% of companies evaluated featured a resources section on their website. Typically comprised of articles, case studies, whitepapers and sometimes media, a resources section is the bare minimum of what’s recommended for a strong content strategy. The small percentage of companies that doesn’t feature any resources sees significantly less traffic to their websites from organic search (Google).
Those with no resources section see a staggering 978% less organic search traffic than their top three competitors and rank for 895% fewer keywords.
Why does this matter? Relevant organic keywords improve a company’s visibility on search engines, as organic search drives 1,000% more traffic than organic social.
Cleantech companies with blogs see 56% more website traffic from organic search
Concerningly, nearly half (45%) of the top 100 cleantech companies studied don’t feature a blog on their website. And it shows: the group that don’t have a blog receive 56% less traffic to their site from Google search.
Aside from the obvious benefits of driving more traffic to a website via relevant keywords, blogs help prospects learn more about an industry, brand, product or service. It’s proven that blogs can directly impact a company’s revenue: 56% of customers in a recent survey said they have made a purchase from a company after reading their blog.
87% of companies are missing the boat on gated content
What’s gated content, you ask? Gated content is an online resource like a whitepaper, ebook, guide, case study or video that’s accessible to users only after they provide certain information or take a specific action, typically by filling out a form. While top-funnel marketing content like blogs and press releases are designed to spread awareness of your brand, products and services, gated content is used primarily as a lead generation tool. While less people will likely submit a form to download content versus visit a blog page from a Google search, those few people are highly qualified and ripe for nurturing.
So how did the 13% of companies studied use their gated content in their overall marketing strategy? 92% of companies that offered gated content emailed it to the recipient upon form submission, but just 30% continued to nurture the lead post-form fill.
To convert leads into valued customers, it’s critical to strategically nurture leads to build trust and brand awareness. According to Zendesk, industry-leading nurture campaigns (a series of touchpoints like email marketing sent to a lead) generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost.
Wrapping up
The cleantech industry is one of innovation. Cleantech companies are focused on driving growth, finding new solutions to old problems, and making the most of their investments. While many are already seeing the tangible benefits of a robust content marketing strategy, a large portion of leading cleantech companies are falling behind to their competitors when it comes to showing up on the first page of Google search results for relevant and key industry terms.
For cleantech leaders to reach more of their target market, they need a well-defined content strategy to establish their brand identity, improve search engine visibility, and drive more conversions.
Curious and want to dive deeper? Download the full report here.
