An interview with Nicolle Buchbinder, Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Aurora Solar
We sit down with Nicolle Buchbinder, Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Aurora Solar. Aurora’s cloud-based software transforms solar design, sales, and delivery.
How did you end up at Aurorasolar and what problem does Aurora Solar solve for its clients?
The head of marketing at Aurora Solar found me through LinkedIn! I wasn’t actively looking for a new role, but the idea of working in an eco-friendly industry appealed to me. Our platform transforms the process of designing, selling, and delivering solar projects. From the first impression to project installation, with Aurora, companies can provide a personalized solar customer experience that is uncomplicated.
As the Lifecycle Marketing Manager, what are your main responsibilities at Aurora Solar?
At Aurora, lifecycle marketing begins as soon as someone enters the database as a prospect and continues long after they’ve become a customer. Using the tools at my disposal (email, in-app messaging, and online chatbots), I orchestrate an educative journey for prospects on how Aurora can solve their specific pain points. The idea is to create segmented messaging that enables sales to have a smooth conversation once a prospect has been handed over. The goal is similar for customers. Instead of selling customers on the idea of Aurora Solar, I help them understand how to optimally use our products to grow their careers or businesses. I’m constantly searching for ways to improve our touchpoints and create cohesion across the different messages that may be presented to folks over time.
How do you lead your team to organize and improve the marketing-sales process to increase sales and enhance the customer experience?
We take a collaborative approach at Aurora Solar. There are multiple, recurring meetings to keep the feedback loop open: marketing likes to know what is working for sales, because they’re our eyes and ears on the ground. Keeping tabs on metrics is obviously a healthy approach, but sometimes our sales and customer-facing teams can bring important issues to light faster than any dashboard can.
At ColdFire, when we look at our clients' Marketing and Advertising strategies, they vary greatly. Some have found a single, scalable client acquisition process while others thrive on a mix of top-of-funnel strategies. How would you summarize the overarching revenue-focused strategy of Aurora Solar, and what key elements does it encompass?
On the marketing team, Aurora Solar is hyperfocused on content marketing, digital efforts, and field events. I’ve had the unique pleasure of watching email marketing become a top strategy for us as well. We’re focused on being a trusted thought leader and champion of the solar industry.
What is an efficient marketing technique that you've implemented at Aurora Solar or previous companies, which you believe is underutilized by most management teams - and why do you think that is?
Many B2B industries overlook email marketing. I suspect it’s because email is cursed with ubiquity: we see emails everywhere all the time and just about anyone can send one. With just a little bit of planning, testing, and help from a design team, I’ve seen email marketing raise the bar of our entire demandgen strategy.
Has your Marketing team experimented with some kind of cold outbound strategy (like cold email)? If yes what was the general outcome and if no, why not?
We shy away from cold outbound strategies and instead reach out to folks who have shown us signs of life according to our behavioral scores. In our particular industry, we’ve found more success with a warm outbound approach.
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