2024 Guide to Marketing Your HVAC Company
The HVAC business world is highly competitive with numerous national players vying for control and large, well-established local businesses crowding out smaller contenders. The reason for the intense competition is simple: this industry has been growing for decades and is forecast to continue to do so. There is a lot of money in the field and lots more to be made!
So, the question is simple: how should a HVAC company approach their marketing in order to succeed? At Cut Throat Marketing our specialty is home service businesses and we’ve helped HVAC companies achieve record growth even in crowded and competitive markets. This article is a strategic guide for business owners looking to enhance their marketing and follows our battle-tested marketing strategies.
Branding: Build Awareness, Earn Trust
At the end of the day, all home service businesses must convince their customers that they are trustworthy. Your customers are inviting your crews into their home and must believe that they are knowledgeable enough to correctly diagnose their issues, equipped with the tools to successfully complete a repair or replacement, and honest enough to charge a fair price.
Branding is the act of building this identity and conveying it to your customers. Here is a quick rundown of how to develop an effective brand identity for your HVAC company:
Develop Consistent Branding
Whether your company is brand new or well established, consistency is key for branding. A potential customer should be able to tell in an instant if the website they are looking at is for the company whose truck they saw in front of their neighbor’s house.
Likewise, once they are on your website each page should feel like an effortless extension of your brand – with no jarring changes of template design or colors.
Consistency should carry over to your technician’s vehicles and uniforms – make it easy for your customers to know that the person standing on the other side of the door is a part of your team.
Clearly State Your Value Propositions
Remember that your website is more than a menu of the services you provide – it is an explanation for why customers should choose to do business with you instead of one of your competitors. In marketing parlance we refer to these reasons as your value propositions.
Consider your value propositions every time you write copy – whether you’re putting together new ads for Facebook or Google, rewriting your homepage, or are developing a new pamphlet for your technicians to hand out to customers.
Ping ponging from one set of value propositions to another gives prospects a confused vision of what your company offers and makes it harder for them to trust your business.
Embrace Local Advertising Opportunities
Home service businesses are fundamentally local businesses and thus are ideal candidates for traditional marketing channels. While we’re all for internet marketing, the simple truth is that billboards and radio ads can be cost effective ways to get your name out to your community.
We have found that sponsoring community events or local sports teams is another fantastic way to engage with your community and build trust. At the end of the day, people feel more comfortable doing business with a company who supports their community and is willing to put in the effort to demonstrate it.
Don’t Be Afraid of Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool that helps you engage with your community. Your HVAC company doesn’t need to go viral or become TikTok famous – but it will help to have a presence on Facebook or Instagram.
In our experience, social media platforms are better at developing brand awareness and brand loyalty than they are at generating leads. The reality is that here in the United States few people are looking for AC installation options on Instagram.
However, social media is a great way to remind existing customers about seasonal services or promotions. By posting useful tidbits of information, you can foster a positive relationship with your customers long after your technicians have left their home. At a future date, when they need HVAC services, they will more readily call you back.
Track Your Branding Success
One of the ‘secrets’ to effective marketing is good reporting. It is essential to know what is working and what isn’t – because otherwise you will end up spending time and money on campaigns that aren’t effective.
From monitoring the conversion rate of your service lander pages to keeping track of how many call-backs you receive after sponsoring a booth at a local festival, every marketing effort should incorporate tracking.
Some types of branding success, like social media, are historically more difficult to quantify. For example, how many impressions does it take to turn a one-time customer into a repeat customer? For this reason, we generally find impressions to be of passing interest, but not particularly useful.
Engagement is a strong sign that your customers are interested in the type of content you are creating. If a post gets lots of comments, likes, or shares, then this is probably a sign that you should create more of this sort of content!
Don’t forget to take the time to evaluate how each campaign is performing! Collecting data is only helpful if it is going to be scrutinized and acted upon.
Online Lead Generation: Mastering the Google Search
Once upon a time a home service business could be successful without an online presence. That time, however, is long over and now if you want to succeed it is imperative that your business embrace online lead generation.
As of 2024, Google is the undisputed leader in search, and has been for quite some time. As such, most of your opportunities for lead generation will come from their platform. There are several ways to appear on a Google search results page, and we have found that the best results come from taking a multi-faceted approach.
By dominating the search real estate you make it easier for customers to say yes – capturing those looking to make a quick decision at the top while those who need a bit more convincing become more likely to click your organic result after having seen your name two or three times in the few inches of scrolling immediately prior.
Paid Search Ads
When done well, paid search ads are a money printing machine. You give Google some amount of money to run ads, and in exchange receive leads that are worth some multiple of that original amount. How large of a multiple depends on several factors including how well your ads are targeted, the conversion rate of your website, and local competition.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has long been the de facto form of search ad, and is a versatile tool for local service businesses. These ads are available in a variety of formats, including AI-powered variants that self-optimize, as well as manual ads which give business owners more granular control.
An important, and oft-overlooked, component of PPC advertising is having a website which is optimized for conversions. Since you are paying for every visit to your website, a high conversion rate will result in a lower cost per conversion, while a lower conversion rate will effectively increase the cost of your advertising campaign.
Google Guaranteed / Local Service Ads
Local service ads are industry specific and generally are only available to home service businesses. These ads sit at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) and include a green checkmark alongside the “Google Guaranteed” banner.
If you want a deeper understanding of these ads, check out our full article on LSAs. However, in brief, Google requires that businesses submit proof of insurance, background checks, and already have several reviews before allowing businesses to run LSAs. Because of this verification process, Google is able to offer customers a cash refund policy in cases of unsatisfactory work.
This guarantee is a great way for businesses to establish trust with new customers as the entire service experience is essentially underwritten by Google.
Unlike PPC ads, Google Guarantee is charged on a per lead basis. The cost is generally much higher than each pay per click ad, but since your business is only paying for leads, LSA ad campaigns can still be a cost effective component of your digital marketing strategy.
Organic Search Results
When people say they want to rank on top of Google, they are almost always referring to organic search results. While a number 1 ranked organic search result does not put you on top of a SERP (for that you need LSAs) they are still a powerful marketing tool and can help your HVAC company perform better in this highly competitive industry.
Google Business Profile: Showing Up on Google Maps
When your customers perform a search with local intent, such as “air conditioning repair near me” or “heater installations Columbia SC,” they are likely to encounter a map widget with a few local service businesses mentioned.
Ranking on this widget, known in the industry as the ‘map pack,’ is a fantastic way to get more leads. We have found that our clients can get 25-40% of their leads via the map pack – making this an essential component of any digital marketing strategy.
In order for your business to show up here, you need a Google Business Profile (GBP). Signing up for a GBP is free – and is probably one of the easiest ways to get more leads if you don’t already have one. Check out our guides for setting up and optimizing your GBP and rank on top of the map pack!
Building Authority: Using Blog Posts to Help Service Pages Rank Better
Blogs are a unique piece of marketing content in that their purpose is not to generate leads. While there exists the possibility that someone within your local market discovers your blog and ultimately contacts you from it, this is a low probability event and is not our objective!
Instead, blogs serve to create authority, and show Google that your company knows what it is talking about. If you have a series of blogs related to a topic in your field, such as new AC installations, then Google is likely to assume that you are experts in this particular topic. As a result you can expect your AC Installation service pages to rank better!
The end result is your service pages will get more visibility, more traffic, and produce more leads – even if not a single customer ends up reading your blog!
What’s Worth Tracking
Just like with your branding efforts, tracking is an essential part of an effective marketing strategy.
When it comes to ads, there are a few key performance indicators to monitor: number of leads generated, cost per conversion, and the average value of each lead. With this information in hand you have the ability to perform a simple equation to determine how much revenue to expect from a new ad campaign. Just like turning a dial on a thermostat you can increase leads in a predictable fashion by increasing your advertising budget!
One metric to not worry about is how many views your blogs are receiving. Remember, the blogs are largely being written to convince the algorithm of your industry-specific expertise – not to collect views.
Building Your Referral Sources:
The third component of any marketing campaign for home service businesses is developing a robust referral pipeline. While your ads and search results are important – the reality is that personal referrals and repeat customers still make up a huge portion of the HVAC business.
It goes without saying that you need to provide excellent service in order for your customers to be willing to recommend your business – so we’ll focus on the marketing-specific side of the equation.
Join Local Business Organizations
Many businesses join local business organizations for one reason: to get a local backlink to their website. And while a local backlink undeniably has some SEO value – the reality is that local organizations give back as much as you put into them. If you’re willing to put in a bit of effort they can be far more rewarding.
For those who want to get more out of their membership, we generally recommend membership-based groups (local chamber of commerce & professional service-related organizations) over lead-based groups. These groups give you opportunities to get in front of your community, as well as add to your personal and professional interests.
While we don’t recommend lead-based groups to everyone, they offer their own unique opportunities. In these groups you are usually responsible for bringing in a certain amount of leads and so they can end up feeling like a part-time job meets popularity contest. If this sounds like something that interests you, then they can be a worthwhile endeavor.
Customer Re-Engagement: Newsletters & SMS Campaigns
Your business’s list of past customers is one of its most powerful tools for booking appointments. Unless a customer has an actively negative experience with your company, they are far more likely to become a repeat customer than a random prospect is to become a first-time customer!
Two of the best ways to reach out to your customer base are email newsletters and text message (SMS) campaigns. Compared with other advertising channels, these options are usually very cost effective and are almost always worth your time!
Email Newsletters
In a seasonal business like HVAC, newsletters are a great way to remind customers it is time to begin thinking about their next service visit.
Your newsletter can be as simple as a reminder about the clocks changing, advice on how frequently to replace air filters, and then a link to your current specials or your HVAC service page.
Many customer management systems (CMS) have the capability of sending out newsletters – so check for that functionality before investing in a new tool.
SMS Campaigns
Using text messages to re-engage your customers might sound a little odd – but with a 98% open rate, it is hard to deny how effective SMS advertising campaigns can be. This number might sound high, and that is because it is! Email marketing rarely exceeds a 50% open rate and 11% open rates are not unheard of.
SMS text messages let you send brief, unobtrusive reminders about specials you’re running or about seasonal services that are soon to be due. We recommend pairing SMS marketing with a mobile-optimized website and online scheduling system so your customers can go straight from the text message to online booking without needing to put down their phone!
Review Automation: Never Stop Collecting Reviews
Customer reviews are the lifeblood of home service businesses. There are many homeowners who won’t even consider contacting a company that doesn’t have any reviews, or has less than 4 or even 4.5 stars on Google. However, try as we might, there is always going to be a customer we just can’t satisfy: negative reviews happen!
The best way to defend against this eventuality is to armor yourself in hundreds of positive reviews. You can drown out a negative voice with a deluge of praise!
But, as many business owners already know, the process of requesting these reviews can be a full time job in itself! Thankfully, there are automation tools which make the task far simpler and even help avoid negative reviews from making it all the way to Google before you have a chance to address them.
We recommend starting your review collection process early – as a single negative review is far more impactful when your business only has a few reviews. Once you’ve gotten 50 or 100 positive reviews a solitary negative review will be far less damaging to your overall reputation.
Tracking Success
If you’ve made it this far down our HVAC marketing guide, then you probably know where we’re going with this. If you want an effective marketing strategy, you need to track your marketing performance and make adjustments as necessary!
The value of a local business organization can be a little hard to gauge – but customer re-engagement campaigns and review requests produce valuable data. Monitor your opening rates for newsletters to make sure your message is resonating with your customers. Similarly, keep an eye on how many reviews you are getting. If you notice the numbers are dropping, check to make sure that your review generation pipeline is working as it should. Sometimes the issue is as simple as technicians forgetting to provide the review-request cards to satisfied customers, while technical gremlins can occasionally be at fault!
Marketing Your HVAC Company is As Easy As That!
This guide is a good starting point for your HVAC company (and most other home service businesses too) and should give you a good idea of what is involved in the process. It might look like a lot… and well, that is because it is a lot! To stand out in a crowded market requires a lot of effort – but an effective marketing campaign will bring in leads. Lots of leads.
Full disclosure: We don’t mind when companies do DIY marketing. Know why? Because it is really hard to do well, and so our clients have an easy time competing against home-brew marketing campaigns.
If you’re ready to start getting more leads for your home service business, our recommendation is to find a marketing company with a proven track record. Are you ready to take your business to the next level? It’s time to get Cut Throat.