I will eat my shorts for a solar energy account
How do you land business from a solar energy company? Start a blog and threaten to eat your shorts on YouTube.
Captains of Industry has years of experience in renewable energy, but thanks to the economic slowdown in early 2009 landing a solar account was proving to be a daunting challenge. One day Captains’ creative director, Ted Page, blurted in frustration, “If we don’t land a solar account this year I will eat my shorts!” Thus was born the Solar Shorts blog, with a video in which Page pledged to actually eat his shorts and put the video on YouTube unless the company landed some solar business. To launch the site, Captains reached out to friends and colleagues through social networking channels such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. The result? Emails and blog posts from around the world starting coming in immediately after the site went live, and within 2 weeks Captains had started its first project for the largest solar installer in the Northeast. The blog was featured in the Boston Business Journal. Renewable Energy World online magazine provided free web banners to promote the blog. And the videos have been seen throughout the solar industry. It’s another example of how good web content (in this case a funny video), combined with social networking can deliver terrific results on a budget.