Generate More Leads and Sales with These 7 Powerful HVAC Marketing Strategies
As an HVAC business seeking to establish a bigger online presence, you know relevance is the secret ingredient to seeing success online.
It’s the 21st century—also known as the century where we seem to advance faster in one decade than we did the previous 100 years.
Think about it! From 2010 to 2020, we went from barely knowing what an iPhone was to having over ten new models come out. We now have apps like DoorDash, Uber, and Kindle Fires to replace drive-thrus, taxis, and libraries.
Thus, it only makes sense that the marketing strategies we used just two years ago are becoming ancient history in 2020.
Plus, people are getting smarter and pickier.
Before, they relied on word-of-mouth and Yellow Pages to discover businesses offering solutions to their problems.
Today, they run a Google search and are greeted with a buffet of options.
If you want a shot at survival, you must adjust your HVAC company’s marketing strategies to stay up-to-date and relevant to your prospects.
Lucky for you, we’re going to introduce you to seven powerful HVAC marketing strategies in this blog post, as well as discover why traditional marketing is dying and what to expect from the modern consumer.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Are Traditional Marketing Methods Dying? What You Need to Know About Staying Relevant
People expect more out of businesses than ever before.
According to Accenture, 75% of prospects are more likely to purchase from a business that recognizes them by name and knows their purchase history. That’s almost impossible to do by running an ad on the radio or filming a TV commercial.
To understand your prospects’ purchase history, spending habits, and what turns them into buyers, you have to do some research. Build a user persona, find out where they’re hanging out online, and identify the problems they’re facing and how you can solve them.
Personalizing user experience is more important now than ever, and the way your brand is represented should be consistent—with the content you produce, social media posts you publish, cold emails you send, customer support calls, you name it.
Additionally, approximately 30% of internet users have ad blockers, according to Social Media Today. As a result, running ads anywhere but on search engines through paid search marketing tactics like PPC (pay per click) risk their ad not even being seen by their target audience.
(We’ll discuss more about PPC later!)
Finally, you might not think TV commercials are a dying trend due to the surplus of them. But do you know how many millennials actually watch live television rather than Netflix or Hulu?
And when was the last time you watched (and paid attention to) all the commercials of a program?
Most likely, you changed the channel until your show resumed or got up to use the bathroom, cook, or do another task.
These human habits teach us one lesson: traditional advertising is getting old while remaining expensive.
So, What Does the Modern-Day HVAC Prospect Look Like?
Since you want to keep your marketing methods up-to-date, you have to do more than abandon marketing tactics left for the history books.
You have to know what your up-to-date, relevant prospects look like, expect, and are searching for.
According to Forbes, millennials spend an average of 11 hours a day engaging with digital content. Compare that to the U.S. average of 8.8 hours.
What does this mean for you?
It means more people are spending time online than ever before, and as a business, you need to take advantage of that!
Furthermore, Blue Corona reports that 92% of consumers look at a company’s website before choosing a service or product.
If you aren’t generating as many leads as you’d like, consider taking a look at your website. An unattractive website communicates untrustworthiness, which is a huge turn-off for consumers.
Finally, 33 percent of customers say they’ll consider switching companies after just a single instance of poor service, according to American Express.
Gone are the days where customers stick to one company just for loyalty’s sake.
Today, their loyalty depends on your ability to answer their questions through online content, provide solutions better than your competitors, and personalize your entire presence to speak to their needs while accurately representing yourself.
Sounds like a lot, right?
Luckily, it’s not as impossible as it sounds.
Let’s explore seven powerful marketing strategies to help you meet all of these criteria with ease (no matter the size of your budget).
Generate More Leads and Sales with These 7 Powerful HVAC Marketing Strategies
Marketing Strategy #1: Optimize Your Website
Since over 90% of prospects look at a company’s website when choosing an HVAC contractor, you want your website to be in tip-top shape.
But what exactly goes into building a fully optimized, highly converting, attractive website?
For starters, your site needs to be secure. Not only can having an insecure website significantly impact your keyword rankings, but it also communicates untrustworthiness to visitors (aka, potential customers).
Plus, starting in January 2020, Google Chrome leveled up its insecure content blocking game by blocking “mixed content.” So even if a web page is loaded securely by HTTPS, if it pulls elements from non-secure locations, that page risks getting blocked.
As a business with an online presence, that’s the last thing you want to happen to your web pages.
Additionally, your website shouldn’t take longer than 3 seconds to load. Site speed is a major factor in search engine optimization (SEO) and can even do damage to your keyword rankings.
If a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, a visitor will likely hit the “back” button to return to the results page before your page even appears. This increases your page’s bounce rate. The higher the bounce rate, the more untrustworthy your site appears to Google.
Finally, your site must be mobile-friendly. Just like site speed, if a website isn’t mobile-friendly, it risks a higher bounce rate and lower keyword rankings. Even if your site appears trustworthy and attractive on desktop, it can still look like trash on mobile.
Marketing Strategy #2: Target a Specific Clientele
Marketing isn’t just about what you’re marketing. It’s also about who you’re marketing to.
If you spend all your effort (and money) putting your company under the eyes of people who don’t really care about it, you aren’t going to see a pretty ROI (return on investment) at all.
Imagine trying to sell meat to a vegan.
Essentially, that’s what you’d be doing.
Knowing who your target customers or clientele are is the first step you should take when beginning to market or advertise, and finding them is rather easy.
Identify the types of people most likely to use your services, and the people you want to work with. Then, do research on them to gain basic information about their demographics, goals, and pain points.
This is called building a user persona—a semi-fictional representation of your ideal buyer.
One of the biggest discoveries you’ll make when researching your user personas is where they hang out online.
Is it Facebook? Instagram? Twitter?
Wherever it may be, that’s where you want to market your services.
But don’t stop there. Remember, 75% of prospects choose businesses based on whether or not they understand their buying patterns and demographics.
So the next step you’ll want to take is personalizing user experience, site navigation, web design, the content you publish and more to your ideal clientele’s needs and wants.
Marketing Strategy #3: Master Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a term you’ve likely heard before.
It’s the ability to attract thousands of people to your site without spending a single penny, build brand awareness, generate more leads through engaging content, and rise above your competitors just by answering your prospects’ questions and problems better online.
Why wouldn’t you want a piece of that pie?
As an HVAC business, you’ll want to learn not just basic search engine optimization, but also local SEO and technical SEO.
By mastering local SEO, you’ll build a name for yourself in the area you’re located and bring more people through your doors.
Technical SEO refers to the upkeep, construction, and overall performance of your website itself. Things like site speed and mobile-friendliness are prime examples of technical SEO.
Although SEO is affordable and highly beneficial, it’s a long-term investment. You won’t see results overnight, and consistency is key.
As a result, consider delegating SEO maintenance, audits, and optimization to a local search firm so you can focus on the other tasks piling up on your desk.
Marketing Strategy #4: Invest in HVAC Content Marketing
The Oxford dictionary defines content marketing as “a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.”
The great thing about content marketing is that it’s perhaps the easiest (and fastest) way to build trust with prospects.
Having a blog filled with valuable information about your industry, problems your prospects are facing, and answers to their biggest questions is key to not only trust building, but also establishing credibility.
The more high-quality content you produce, and the more you contribute to other sites in your industry, the more industry authority you gain.
With time, people will start seeing you as a thought leader in your industry.
Content marketing is all about engaging readers, educating them, and leaving them with a positive experience.
The goal isn’t to promote your services. With quality content on your site, your services will promote themselves. Instead, your goal is to be less of a marketer and more of a human—which is what picky, smart consumers want.
If you choose to invest in SEO, content marketing is practically a must.
This is because Google ranks pages, not websites.
In other words, you have to have high-quality content on your site—whether that’s blog posts, sales copy, an engaging “about” page, or anything in between—if you even want a shot at ranking for a keyword.
Marketing Strategy #5: Take Advantage of Video Marketing
Many expert marketers agree that video is the future, and it’s easy to see why.
Take a look at these statistics from Think with Google:
- 86% of U.S. viewers say they frequently use YouTube as a resource to learn new things.
- 7 out of 10 YouTube users say they turn to the platform for help with a problem related to work, studies, or hobbies.
- The number of learning-related videos on YouTube surpasses the amount of books in the Library of Congress
Again, these facts scream “relevancy.”
Like writing blog posts, publishing videos on a platform like YouTube (or even your own website) allows you to engage, educate, and build trust with your target audience.
According to Business2Community, 84% of consumers that were surveyed were convinced to buy a company’s product or service after watching the brand’s video.
Furthermore, 62% of people watch product review videos before making a purchase.
By investing in video marketing, not only are you increasing the amount of eyes that view your business, but you’re also increasing brand awareness and generating leads.
Finally, Business2Community also found that including a video on your landing page can increase conversions by more than 80%.
Hopefully by now, you’re convinced that the hype around video is for good reason and taking part in it can increase your sales.
To make the most out of your videos, put these simple tips to practice:
- Keep your videos 2-3 minutes long.
- Add captions so people can watch even when in a quiet environment or for those who don’t have hearing abilities.
- Place videos on your landing pages, homepage, services page, and more.
- Ask your existing or previous customers for video testimonials.
- Incorporate videos into blog posts.
- Upload videos to your website and on a YouTube channel.
Marketing Strategy #6: Ask Existing and Previous Customers for Online Reviews
A single negative review can do plenty of damage to any business.
Even though thousands of customers might’ve walked out of your doors completely satisfied, the few people who aren’t are more motivated to leave a review than others.
Because of this, your ratings can reduce significantly based on just a few low-star reviews.
According to Inc., 84% of people trust online reviews more than word-of-mouth they’ve gotten from friends and 91% of people read them.
Two of the most popular places for finding reviews online are Facebook and Google Reviews.
When searching for a company (especially locally), the first thing you’ll likely see is an excerpt of the company’s Google page. It includes the location, hours, and a contact number.
But what’s placed before all of these?
You guessed it! The reviews.
In some cases, your Google reviews might be impressive. But your Facebook reviews? Not so much.
Luckily, if you aren’t too happy with yours on either platform, there’s something pretty simple you can do.
Send out an email (if you run an email list) or call a few people who had good experiences with you to ask them to submit a review. These can be either previous or existing clients.
You can even enter each person who leaves a review on your desired platform into a drawing for a small prize, like an Amazon gift card, to show your appreciation for helping the business.
Marketing Strategy #7: Consider Using PPC Ads to Generate Leads Quickly
If you want to see an increase in leads quickly, many HVAC companies have benefited from investing in PPC (pay per click) ads.
PPC ads are essentially paid search ads. Whereas SEO is all about achieving a high position on the SERPs (search engine result pages) through producing quality content, PPC lets you pay to list advertisements of your website throughout the internet.
PPC is the most popular type of paid search marketing.
When someone clicks on your ad and visits your website, you pay the search engine that displayed it, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. You’re essentially buying traffic to your site.
Like we mentioned earlier, SEO is a long-term investment and even though it costs significantly less, you won’t see new lead generations overnight.
PPC is like a shortcut for those who need results fast, but it can be costly.
Depending on the industry, businesses can pay upwards of $30-$40 per click or just a few pennies per click.
But according to WordStream, $1-$2 per click is the average cost across all industries.
Digital Marketing Is the Key to Staying Alive and Relevant
And there you have it—seven powerful marketing strategies for your HVAC business.
Whether you’re ready to commit to organic SEO or are in the need of a few PPC campaigns, knowing how to tailor your marketing to the right audience in your specific industry is the key to winning more leads, more sales, and more trust.
The benefits of digital marketing are endless, and not only is it nice for your bank account, but it also increases your industry authority and builds awareness for your brand across the internet.
Traditional advertising methods are quickly becoming a thing of the past, but that doesn’t mean your business has to fall to the wayside with it.
Understanding what digital marketing means for your HVAC company is the first step to staying relevant, up-to-date, and successful.