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As an HVAC business owner, you get used to wearing multiple hats. But how well do you wear the marketing hat?
Unless you already live the dream and your phone constantly rings off the hook, you probably lose sleep wondering how to get more clients and make more money. Advertising and marketing will solve your problems, but so many strategies exist for lead generation. Let's take a look at the most common online and offline strategies for marketing an HVAC company.
Pay-Per-Click Ads
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads essentially refer to online billboards. You encounter PPC ads every time you get online; they occupy the space above content, in the side bar, or even embedded within an article. To get started with PPC, you need to design a graphic, define your target audience, and set a budget.
Of all the online marketing strategies, PPC requires relatively less time to manage and can give you more bang for your buck. Why? Because you only pay money when someone clicks on your ad. (If you prefer, you can choose to pay based on how many people see your ad instead.)
Social Media Marketing
Understanding your target audience helps you understand which social media platforms will reach them best. Facebook represents the best option for HVAC companies, but sites like Instagram or LinkedIn might work well too if leveraged correctly.
Social media marketing requires you to stick with a plan for the long haul. Although you can take out paid advertisements on most platforms, social media should really remain separate from your PPC campaigns. You can build your reputation on social media by interacting with followers, giving helpful tips, and showing off your company's values, sense of humor, or work ethic in posts. You also want to build trust with your followers and to keep your business' name top-of-mind. When your followers think HVAC, they should think of your business automatically.
Take advantage of the marketing tools offered by platforms like Facebook to help you boost or promote posts to your target audience. In many ways, social media overlaps both PPC and content marketing. When managed by someone who understands not only your business, but also your target audience, your social media platforms offer excellent lead generation possibilities.
Search Engine Optimization and Content Marketing
Like social media marketing, you must invest time and effort into search engine optimization (SEO) before you'll reap the benefits, but it represents one of the most lucrative lead generation campaigns you can run.
When you optimize for SEO, you make changes and additions to your website with the hope that your work will help you appear higher in the search results for various keyword searches (typically things like "HVAC company in [your town]"). Search engines like Google and Yahoo! also take into consideration the searcher's location and other known data about the searcher in order to provide the most relevant results. Understanding how search engines display results allows you to make small behind-the-scenes and front-facing changes to your website in order to reach more people.
SEO also goes hand-in-hand with content marketing, which refers to your overall strategy for using content, such as blogs, to generate leads. Blogs and landing pages give you the space you need to optimize your website with various keywords. SEO sends traffic to your site; helpful content keeps that traffic there.
Print Media Advertisements
When using print media advertisements for HVAC lead generation, make sure you stick to local outlets only. Local newspapers reach your target audience; national magazines do not. Billboards in the middle of town reach your target audience; those on the outskirts of town will reach fewer people in your service area.
Don't forget to list your business in the Yellow Pages and to consider non-traditional forms of "print" media, like catchy bumper stickers or tried-and-true business cards and flyers.
Never underestimate word of mouth.
When people look for an HVAC company, they trust the recommendations of their friends and family above all else. Help your customers remember your name by giving them refrigerator magnets or pens with your business' name and contact information.
You can also ask happy customers if you can put a yard sign in their front yard for about a week after servicing their HVAC system. This yard sign can simply state the name of your company as well as the website and phone number. It tells neighbors and anyone who drives by that the residents of that house had a good experience with your company.
Encourage people to write online reviews on sites like Google and Facebook by leaving a reminder at the bottom of their invoice.
Don't be afraid to hire an expert.
Which campaigns should you prioritize? A marketing consultant can help you hone in on the strategies that make sense for you and your business. But keep in mind that managing successful marketing campaigns can easily turn into a full-time job, so don't be afraid to hire an expert (or even an in-house marketer).
