Ahhh. The Holy Grail of Customer Acquisition. Maybe it's low price ... great company reputation ... special technology ... brand name products ... ubiquitous marketing? I've tried all of them and they all work, to a degree. But these tactics are not cheap, consistent or scalable.

There is an answer, one that is pretty much right in front of our eyes. Research into this topic is described in the following paper: “Spatial Patterns of Solar Photovoltaic System Adoption: The Influence of Neighbors and the Built Environment.” This research was spearheaded by Dr. Kenneth Gillingham, a professor of economics at Yale University. Dr. Gillingham is not an ivory tower solar newbie. He's been doing research in the solar industry for over a dozen years going back to his days at Stanford. Interestingly, one of his projects was crunching the numbers in an enormous spreadsheet that led to the economic justification for the California Solar Initiative.

Ken's research confirms that if your neighbor has rooftop solar, there is a much greater chance that you will have solar (or want to get solar). Rooftop systems tend to cluster in a neighborhood, regardless if these neighborhoods are wealthy or liberal. It's almost as if solar is contagious! Please join me on this week's Energy Show on Renewable Energy world as Ken explains the way in people are influenced to go solar, which is termed the Diffusion Effect. So listen up to this week's show for some practical tips on finding new customers and reducing your customer acquisition costs.