Sometimes it’s hard coming up with unique and effective HVAC marketing ideas. It seems like it’s the same old ineffective marketing tactics that cost lots of money and yield few results.
But we’re in the trenches. We’re working with home services companies all the time and are always trying to come up with cutting edge HVAC marketing strategies to give our clients an edge over their competitors.
Here are 10 ideas that you can implement to ensure your trucks are out moving instead of sitting in the yard.
HVAC Marketing Ideas
1. Make Sure Your Call Center Doesn’t Suck
This might be one of the biggest things we see HVAC companies do wrong. They turn their phones over to an answering service at 6 or 7pm and lose out on hundreds of leads.
Lots of people have issues with their home services after hours and want to talk to someone ASAP. If they’re going to be turned over to an answering service, make sure that answering service is legit. Test them out, listen to calls, make sure they have proper scripts, and of all things… make sure that someone doesn’t have to sit on hold for extended periods of time.
We literally watched one of our HVAC clients have hold times at their after hours call center for up to 7 minutes. You might as well not even pay an answering service at all if that kind of stuff is going to happen.
2. Make Sure Your CSRs Have Been Properly Trained
This goes hand in hand with the last tip. You need to make sure your CSRs both in house and at the answering service are on point when someone calls. Everyone wants to focus on marketing and “getting leads” and yet few people truly focus on CRO or what we would call Conversion Rate Optimization.
You’re probably spending tons of cash on HVAC Pay-per-click services through an agency or through Google’s cost per click. You’re probably spending money on offline advertising such as billboards, mailers, or wrapped trucks. But then HVAC companies will hire some inexperienced kid out of high school that has no idea how to talk to a customer or setup an appointment.
We can’t tell you how many times we’ve listened to inbound leads become frustrated at the competency of the CSR who picked up the other end of the phone.
3. Focus on CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)
Don’t just keep throwing money at getting leads without a clear plan as to how to convert them into appointments on a regular basis.
Work backwards. Start with the CSR and do some demo calls. Make sure you’re comfortable with the competence of the people you have picking up the phone when a new lead calls. One you’ve got the CSRs dialed in, then check your landing pages and your websites. Make sure you have relevant and enticing offers on those landing pages. Make sure you have clear calls to action. Make sure the phone number is actually working and that it is going to the right destination. Make sure your messaging on the landing page is clear and the customer knows exactly what you do and how you do it. Make sure that you’re not bidding on irrelevant keywords and wasting money on bad clicks.
Becoming hyper focused on Conversion Rates will help ensure that every dollar you spend on advertising isn’t going to be wasted somewhere down funnel.
4. Make Sure You’re Remarketing
If you’re unfamiliar with remarketing, it is the process of staying in front of people who have shown interest in your brand or service.
If someone lands on your website, there’s a good chance they leave the site without taking action. Maybe they’re not ready. Maybe they don’t trust you yet. Maybe they’re shopping competitors.
Whatever the reason, you need to make sure you’re staying in front of them. Remarketing allows you to do just that. You can serve up ads to anyone who has landed on your website for up to 180 days from the time they land on your website.
We do this by dropping a “cookie” or a piece of code in their browser. This keeps your brand top of mind when they get ready to make a buying decision.
It is by far, the most cost effective method for staying in front of potential customers and scooping up that low-lying fruit.
5. Give Away Free Stuff and Do Unexpected Things For People
Services, Parts, Units… anything you can afford. Give away some free stuff to people on a regular basis and you will find yourself building a word of mouth referral army of brand advocates. Look at this article I wrote for Anyhour Heating and Air after they came and gave me unexpected service at an unexpected price. This post got shared hundreds of times and read by tens of thousands of people.
Word of mouth is your best friend. It’s the cheapest and highest converting traffic you can have.
6. Throw Parties and Let The City Know It
Get active in your city by having some sort of event. Even if its just a company dinner, make sure you get every bit of mileage out of that dinner.
Tell all of your techs to roll up in their wrapped truck. Get 10, 20, 30, 40 trucks with your brand in one place at one time. Make a spectacle. People in the city will begin to marvel at how deep your fleet is and wonder what you guys are all about. Then they’ll visit your website. Then you can retarget them. Then you’re on your way to having these people get exposed to your brand 7 times leading to more and more inbound calls.
7. Leave Your Stickers On Every Unit You Service
You probably already do this, but if not, you’re losing a big opportunity. When you go on a service call, make sure you are removing the old HVAC company’s sticker or placing your sticker on top of theirs so that next time something breaks, and the customer looks at the unit, they’ll find you.
8. Offer Free Second Opinions
People are starting to ask for second opinions on everything nowadays. Run your campaigns on offering second opinions. Tell potential customers that you’re willing to come and validate or invalidate, with proof, the diagnosis they were previously given. This gives your tech a chance to get out there and win over a customer.
9. Perform Structured Data Markup on Your Website
This one might be a little technical and you may need the help of a SEO specialist but it has the ability to increase your relevant traffic by 60% in just month or two.
Most HVAC companies have no idea what Structured Data Markup is… which means if you’re doing it, you’re going to have an enormous edge on everyone else trying to compete for top spots in Google. You’ll be beating them all if you do this right.
10. Reward Your Techs For High Marks On Service
Some HVAC companies incentivize their techs based on the amount of revenue they drive for the company. That can backfire on the company and the brand in the long term because of high pressure sales and possible dishonest diagnoses. If the tech is only rewarded based on revenue, they might go to great lengths to get that extra cash.
Instead, incentivize them based on high marks in customer service. Happy customers always lead to more money and better yet, a sustainable brand.
Summary
These ten suggestions are some of the most inexpensive HVAC marketing ideas that we have seen while working with some of the most innovative HVAC companies in the nation.
Give them a try and see if they make a difference for you.