Deep Patel, and the company he founded GoGreenSolar, prove that adding information is one sure way to heighten scenes and improve performance.
In 2005, while getting his Masters Degree in Business Finance at Boston University, Patel discovered that information about solar power and equipment was not easy for potential users to come by. He launched GoGreenSolar solely with the intention of providing useful information to his audience. When the audience for this information grew, he added an e-commerce component. By the time he got his graduate degree he was one of the solar industry’s most authoritative voices and had developed a brand that will sell over a million dollars of solar equipment online in 2009.
Patel is quick to point out that he launched GoGreenSolar.com with a) no intention of selling anything on the site; and b) with full commitment to educating the market (and himself) about solar.
Deep Patel’s number one obligation to his brand (and the move that he ties most closely to its success in the marketplace) is to add information. “I blog seven days a week,” he says. “No matter what.”
An ‘Adding Information Strategy’ like this produces all kinds of positive outcomes.
It keeps the brand customer-focused. There’s no better way to keep an audience engaged in your performance than telling them something they didn’t know.
It’s low-overhead. Adding information costs less than just about anything else you can boost a brand’s performance in the marketplace.
Adding information also keeps the brand narrative fresh. It is an evergreen move. The currency of the information added, a relatively easy standard to achieve in a fast-growing industry like solar, ensures that the brand is ‘alive’ in the minds of its audience.
It expresses confidence. In an emerging field like solar energy, there’s naturally a lot of uncertainty and ignorance in the marketplace that can be exploited by ‘first in’ players. Because its strategy is one of educating, not hyping, its, GoGreenSolar stays ‘manufacturer agnostic’, which makes the voice of the brand credible. This credibility translates into customer confidence in what is being sold on the site.
It demonstrates the importance of conversations. Deep talks to a lot of people, inside and outside his industry. Those conversations bring perspective and insight to the information he adds. Who is saying something (and where and when and why) are every bit as important as what is being said.
Conversations require good listening. Listening yields suggestions from the audience that can be woven into the brand’s themes.
Adding information creates context. That’s huge. By adding information, Patel dimensionalizes the products on GoGreenSolar, until they are more than products, they are essential elements in a larger brand narrative. In the Networked World where content is ubiquitous, context is king. It is our ability to make sense of information, to add emotional and meta meaning to cosmetic data, to find patterns in the complex tapestries of life and the marketplace, that set our brands apart and distinguish us as communicators and as human beings.
