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Homeowner needs are changing fast, and the heating and cooling companies that adapt their marketing strategy to meet their demands will be the ones that generate more phone calls, more leads, and more booked jobs.
In today’s digital age, your HVAC marketing plan needs to target homeowners throughout their customer journey, starting at the moment they begin searching on Google to turn them into lifetime customers; that journey continues even after that job is complete.
Because you need to focus on running your business (and not executing these strategies yourself), the Blue Corona team did the hard work for you. In this guide, we’ll cover digital marketing strategies to include in a comprehensive HVAC marketing plan, including:
HVAC Marketing Case Studies 300% increase in HVAC web leads $90K in HVAC revenue with a 32:1 ROI during the slowest month of the year 794% ROI on HVAC PPC Doubled HVAC revenue with a 1,117% ROI $16.36 cost per HVAC lead and an ROI of 9:1 with Google Local Services ads
Keep reading to see the HVAC marketing strategies that will get you results like the ones above, and contact us if you want an HVAC marketing partner to do it all for you.
Gone are the days you could solely rely on word of mouth to fill your call board with jobs, and so are the days where customers remain loyal to a company just for loyalty’s sake. Modern homeowners use Google to find an HVAC company near them.
Consider this:
Bottom line — if your HVAC marketing plan doesn’t successfully position your company’s website on the first page of Google results, you’re guaranteed to be losing calls, leads, and sales to your competitors.
Not all HVAC websites are created equal, and as a result, not all of them will rank on the first page of Google or turn website visitors into leads.
However, you can implement several HVAC website design tips to increase rankings and convert more visitors into calls and booked jobs.
Pop quiz: Where should your company’s phone number be located on your homepage to get the most leads? Find the answer and other tips for building a better HVAC website.
If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re well behind the times. Mobile-friendliness has been a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm since April 21, 2015, and up to 75% of all local searches are done from a mobile device.
More than half of your customers access your website through their smartphone or tablet, which means your website needs to be designed with a “mobile-first” mindset.
Your customers shouldn’t have to hunt for information, and they shouldn’t have to zoom in to see your text. Additionally, they should be able to contact you easily and use your mobile website seamlessly — almost effortlessly.
Your website may be responsive, but that doesn’t make it MADE for mobile. Your goal is for someone to walk away thinking, “Well, THAT was easy. I’m definitely using them again.”
So, since you created a responsive HVAC website a long time ago, the next step is to consider how well your mobile website works for users.
Once a visitor lands on your website, your site should be designed to make it as easy as possible for them to contact you. We recommend having:
Trust builders are features of your website that build credibility with prospective buyers, showcasing your team’s services, value props, and company differentiators. These include:
Learn more about Blue Corona’s website design services.
In today’s digital age, it’s not enough to just have a website. Today, customers want a seamless experience when visiting your site. A seamless experience often relies on your website’s code and structure — the “HTML geek speak” hidden behind its beautiful design.
Dive deeper into this topic by catching up on the following blogs:
If you’re looking for HVAC marketing ideas, look no further than Google Local Services ads. They are available nationwide for heating and air conditioning businesses and are the first thing that pops up when someone searches for HVAC services.
Take a look at the image below of a modern Google search result page for the keyword “HVAC contractor washington dc”:
The top spot goes to Google’s new Local Services ads platform, then PPC ads, then the local pack, and way down at the bottom are the organic search results.
What this means for you is that it’s getting harder and harder to show up in organic search results for geographically related searches.
To counter this, you need to be investing in Google Local Services ads for HVAC contractors and PPC ads which show up at the very top of the search results page.
Here’s how it works:
Learn more about Local Services ads for HVAC companies.
There is a waiting period to get your Google Guarantee badge, so if you want to get leads quickly, pay per click ads — specifically paid search ads — must be included in your HVAC marketing strategy.
Learn more about Blue Corona’s PPC services for HVAC companies.
When using paid search ads, you pay to list advertisements throughout the internet search engines and platforms. Paid search marketing is oftentimes referred to as PPC (which stands for pay per click). PPC is the most common form of paid search marketing for HVAC companies there is.
The term “PPC” is self-explanatory. Every time your ad is clicked on, you pay the network that is showing your ad. Basically, you are buying visits to your website instead of having them visit you through organic rankings generated by SEO.
Yes. For our clients using PPC as an HVAC marketing strategy, we’ve seen anywhere from a 794% ROI up to a 1,214% ROI.
Like we saw above, you need to do everything you can to get on that prime first page. Many people think PPC doesn’t work for small businesses, but that simply isn’t the case. The real question isn’t whether PPC works; it’s whether it makes sense for your HVAC company. To determine whether PPC advertising (or any other marketing strategy) is worth it, you must know your numbers.
First and foremost, you should know how much you’re willing to pay for each HVAC lead you receive.
If companies weren’t seeing positive ROI, they wouldn’t be running ads. And pretty much every major brand runs PPC ads with Google. Paid ads effectively get clicks to HVAC websites, but we understand that marketing strategies and budgets are not one-size-fits-all.
Read for a more in-depth discussion about paid advertising.
Tired of paying Google to appear at the top of search results? Enter SEO into your HVAC marketing plan.
When homeowners need HVAC services, 97% of them go online to find a contractor, and 93% of them start their online experience with a search engine. And when it comes to search engines, if you’re not on the first page of results, you may as well not even be there at all.
While there are more than 200 actual search ranking signals, here’s what you should focus on if you want your company to show up on the first page of Google:
Each page of content on your site gives you an opportunity to rank for a specific set of relevant keywords, so the more content you have, the more likely you are to rank.
If you’re looking to improve your HVAC SEO and rank higher in search results, try these 10 ways to improve rankings for contractors.
With the shrinking of the organic results and the rise of the local pack, local SEO is more important than ever for HVAC companies. Why? Because you want homeowners near you to find your business when they need your services.
If you want to get to the top of Google’s local listings or any other map listings, you need to do the following:
There are many ways to improve your local SEO so that you’re more visible to users in your service area.
Let’s start with three of the easiest ways that you can boost your HVAC company’s local SEO right now.
You need to build out your website’s content to try and capture more of those search rankings. Keep in mind that Google ranks web pages, not whole websites — so as part of maximizing your online real estate, you need to have pages for all your lines of business and more specific pages related to those services, such as emergency HVAC repair, duct cleaning, furnace inspections, air conditioning installation, etc.
But eventually, you’ll run out of services to write pages about. So what do you do then?
Blogs are perfect for bringing in qualified traffic for specific services. For example, a blog called “Do I Need a New Air Conditioner” fits perfectly into an HVAC marketing plan, targeting people on the fence about getting a replacement unit.
Learn more about the benefits of having a blog for your HVAC website.
HVAC social media marketing is undeniably a great way to engage with your current customers, promote your services, and increase your visibility to potential customers.
But if you’re new to social media marketing, it can be tough to know where to start.
Check out this detailed list of tips for marketing your HVAC business on social media.
Before you answer, consider the fact that your target market is already on Facebook. Why wouldn’t your business leverage Facebook as an HVAC marketing strategy?
Learn how HVAC Facebook advertising can help get you qualified leads, create loyal customers, and increase your company’s search visibility.
Here’s the thing, though. If you want your Facebook strategy to generate leads as part of your HVAC marketing strategy, you need to put money behind it with Facebook ads.
If you already use PPC ads, you might be thinking, “Why do I need to do Facebook ads, too?”
The short answer is that the audiences for these two types of ads are different, and to maximize your online real estate, you should use both tools (if you can afford it).
You can run several types of Facebook ads depending on whether you’re looking for more website clicks, “likes” on your Facebook page, or engagement on a particular post.
Learn more about Facebook ads for HVAC contractors.
Want to spread brand awareness and create loyal fans of your HVAC business? Great idea! Instagram is a surprisingly effective way to build your brand.
Learn nine effective, proven strategies for leveraging Instagram.
You’re missing out if you haven’t heard of Nextdoor or aren’t active on the platform. Nextdoor is a social media app for defined neighborhoods in the U.S., and it’s where homeowners get a pulse on what’s going on in their neighborhood.
It can also help grow your business — 90% of American neighborhoods use Nexdoor to get recommendations and find local service providers.
It’s also one of the best places to get referrals, build trust in your company, and increase brand awareness. The best part? Now local companies can advertise on Nextdoor.
The most comprehensive HVAC marketing strategies combine Nextdoor advertising with Nextdoor Local Deals.
Nextdoor Local Deals are special offers, discounts, and promotions local businesses can post on the Nextdoor app for residents of specific neighborhoods within a 10-mile radius of your company’s location.
They’re the perfect opportunity to drum up more business and increase your brand exposure in your most desired neighborhoods. Consider promoting your current promotions.
Like any form of internet advertising, Nextdoor Local Deals cost money. However, they are much more affordable than PPC ads and Local Services ads.
Nextdoor Local Deals can cost as little as $3, but the average cost of an offer is right around $75.
Learn how to create a promotion for your company on Nextdoor Local Deals.
Looking for a great way to keep in touch with your customers and inform them about special promotions? HVAC email marketing is a great way to generate leads and sales from your existing customer base:
One of our HVAC clients made $17,000 in new sales from ONE email newsletter send in the slowest month of the year!
Get eight email marketing tips that you can apply to your HVAC company here.
Even when you know the basics of HVAC email marketing and you’ve sent out a few messages to your contact list, it can be tough to get people to open your emails.
Learn a few simple tips that will help your next email newsletter stand out from the crowd.
Reviews are important. About 95% of consumers read online business reviews, and 85% trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. You can’t just get a few good reviews and call it quits — 85% of consumers don’t trust reviews more than three months old.
Not only could low review ratings (or a total lack of reviews) steer potential customers away from your website, but higher review ratings may also help you get in the “local pack” on Google results pages.
Learn how to get more Google reviews for your HVAC company.
You know better than anyone just how many homeowners don’t know how to change their HVAC filter. What do modern consumers do when they need to do something but don’t know how?
They head to YouTube — 86% of U.S. viewers say they regularly turn to YouTube to learn something new. YouTube is also the world’s second-largest search engine. Not only is video becoming the majority of the population’s preferred way to consume information, but it also increases conversion rates up to 80% when you put videos on your web pages. The key is creating the right kind of videos and distributing them on platforms your target audience uses (social media, your website, email, etc.).
Before you hit record, here are a few things to consider in your video marketing strategy:
What is OTT advertising, you ask? OTT is an acronym for over-the-top. It’s the delivery of TV and movie content to anyone who has access to the internet by going “over the top” of broadcast television.
In simple terms, OTT is long-form video and TV content that can be watched anytime, anywhere, on any device, on any streaming service or TV network app.
HVAC companies have a very specific customer. The most profitable:
Each HVAC company has a slightly different ICP (ideal customer profile), but the list above is a good start.
With OTT advertising for HVAC companies, you can select from thousands of audience parameters, building a network of highly qualified prospects who need HVAC services, including:
OTT advertising not only is proven to generate thousands (if not millions) of qualified impressions from homeowners in your service area, it also creates Brand Lift.
Brand Lift measures how visible your company and website are across all of your digital marketing campaigns, not just OTT. This means OTT results in more homeowners searching for your company online instead of your competitors’. Who wouldn’t want that?
OTT Advertising Results: HVAC Company in Pennsylvania Comparing a six-month period of running OTT ads to the prior six months without OTT advertising included in their HVAC marketing plan, this Pennsylvania HVAC company generated: 156% increase in direct website traffic 54% qualified lead increase 93% increase in Brand Lift
Comparing a six-month period of running OTT ads to the prior six months without OTT advertising included in their HVAC marketing plan, this Pennsylvania HVAC company generated:
Too many companies treat customer service as an afterthought, and they’re making a terrible mistake. The #1 most effective long-term growth strategy any HVAC company can employ isn’t content marketing or SEO; it’s top-notch customer service.
Learn how to make the most of customer service.
The first step to evaluating your customer service strategy is to find out how well it’s working in the first place.
And if your customer service representatives (CSRs) aren’t doing a great job, all you need to do is add a little extra training into your HVAC marketing strategy.
Have you ever been in the office and overheard your CSRs’ calls, only to realize that many of the conversations revolve around the price of an air conditioner installation or furnace repair?
If you’ve felt disheartened as these price shoppers waste your CSRs’ time and don’t convert into paying customers, we’re here to tell you that price shoppers don’t have to be frustrating time wasters.
If your CSRs have the skills to handle them properly, you can turn these leads into customers.
In case you missed it earlier, 41% of consumers expect live chat on your desktop website, while 50% expect live chat on your mobile website.
If website chat services (like Blue Corona Chat) are missing from your HVAC marketing plan today, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Customers receive near-instant responses to their questions within three seconds of messaging you.
Website chat services leverage artificial intelligence to chat with your website visitors without diverting your CSRs from the phones. You can also give your CSRs the choice to take over automated chats and engage with customers one-to-one.
Not only that, website chat services have proven to increase website conversion rates by 2%, on average. What this means is that adding website chat to your site can increase your volume of inbound customer leads by 2% over what they are today, without lifting a finger.
Now you know what you need to do to better market your HVAC business this year, but a plan is nothing without implementation.
Learn the basics of digital marketing strategy execution.
We know that that you wrack your brain trying to come up with HVAC business ideas, and marketing can be complicated and frustrating at times — especially when you’re trying to focus on the day-to-day duties of running a business.
If the above sounds daunting, ensure you’re not making one of these awful HVAC digital marketing mistakes.
If you are, you know you need help. If you’re still feeling a little lost about HVAC internet marketing, or you just don’t have time to handle everything yourself, we’re here to help.
Contact us online for more info about our HVAC marketing services.
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