Your HVAC company is going to miss out on a significant amount of business if it depends on word-of-mouth referrals. Generating news leads helps expand and grow your company. Therefore, you must look beyond your business listing in the yellow pages or handing out business cards in hopes that potential customers are going to reach out. Instead, develop an HVAC marketing plan targeting potential customers. Not only does this improve your brand, but it also increases leads.

In this guide, we’re discussing the best strategies for developing the best HVAC marketing plan from beginning to end. That way, prospective customers can find your business, and, as a result of those HVAC leads, you can see a return on investment.

What is an HVAC Marketing Strategy?

The key difference between an HVAC marketing plan and HVAC marketing strategy is that a strategy is a plan of action, and a plan is a detailed proposal. While there aren’t many differences between the two, keep in mind that one involves taking action. At the same time, the other outlines proposed measures for doing so.

The best way to advertise your HVAC business and its services is by creating and implementing a year-round marketing strategy. Ultimately, your goal is to get ahead of the competition without wasting advertising dollars. If you don’t have any advertising or choose to advertise on the fly, then you’re spending too much time and money.

Effectively marketing your HVAC company involves understanding your customer’s needs, how advertising works, associated costs, and seasonality. A strong marketing plan also includes the goals you want to hit monthly or quarterly. That way, your company can have a plan in place no matter what scenario it faces.

The following sections outline how to reach new customers in your service area and grow your customer base.

1. Develop HVAC Advertising Customers Can’t Refuse

Before building a website or conducting keyword research, you must develop irresistible offers for your potential customers. That way, when you launch your marketing campaign, they know about your HVAC services and how they can help solve a problem or pain point.

These marketing efforts not only help with lead generation but also how you’re going to develop your content marketing strategy.

• Seasonal Offers: Depending on the season, your target customers have different priorities on their minds. For example, if you live in a wintery state, fall is when customers start thinking about heating. If it’s spring or summer, air conditioning is a priority. Tailor your offers according to the season.
• Focus on Upcoming Events: Think about upcoming events or holidays, like when your customer base might be throwing parties or hosting dinners. Do they need cooling during a 4th of July party, or do they need to keep their home comfortable during a Thanksgiving feast? Create offers that build upon these calendar events to help show customers you can make their lives easier.
• Don’t be too technical: Your potential customers know they want heating and cooling. However, the majority of these individuals don’t understand what a high-efficiency air conditioner or heater means or why it’s beneficial. Many others in your target audience aren’t sure what HVAC stands for, or where it belongs in their home. Create offers that are easy for your audience to understand why an HVAC system beneficial.

Each advertisement should include information about how to find the features, benefits, pros, cons, and technical specs for the products and services you’re offering. That way, potential customers can use that data alongside online customer reviews to make a decision.

2. Create a High-Quality HVAC Website

Lead generation starts by designing a high-quality HVAC website. Because you’re operating a small business, having a website that converts visitors into leads is critical. Choose a website template that’s easy to use, clean, and has easy navigation. This design is where your potential customers are seeing your offers and developing a first impression of your business.

Avoid spending too much time on your company’s background or why you decided to launch your HVAC business. Create content that’s easy to digest that they can see in a simple layout that’s readable on any smartphone or mobile device. On every page, make sure you list your contact information, including your phone number and email address.

Key components of a high-quality HVAC site include:

• Web design featuring high definition photographs, appropriate fonts, and videos featuring tutorials or answering questions
• Customer testimonials, online reviews, and Google reviews as a separate features page
• Quality and evergreen content that engages visitors and answers their questions and shows them why your products stand out
• Blog content that you update consistently presenting HVAC industry news, innovations, tips, or offers
• Social media links – Advertising your HVAC business on social media, and giving visitors an easy way to find your channels, is critical
• Offer finance options as a separate page with links to it on your HVAC product and service information pages
• Contact information pages should also include how visitors can schedule an appointment with HVAC contractors
• Lead magnets and supporting landing pages that offer incentives to those who subscribe to your email newsletter

Don’t forget to incorporate a chat feature on the homepage and each supporting page. If customers have immediate questions, they don’t want to send an email or worry about sitting on hold. Be sure to provide them with instant results to common inquiries or the ability to chat with someone in real-time.

3. Learn All You Can About SEO for Your HVAC Business

SEO is an acronym for a popular phrase, “search engine optimization.” One of the top ways to advertise your HVAC services is through SEO. As soon as homeowners start searching for the services you offer, SEO allows you to connect with them immediately. The majority of people looking for HVAC services want them to be local. They also want to find them easily using their smartphone.

SEO marketing encompasses the following key points:

• Search engine optimization for your HVAC company
• Implementing local SEO
• Using pay-per-click advertising (PPC ads)
• Google advertising for local services

Implementing this marketing strategy ensures that, when homeowners go to search engines like Bing or Google, they can find your company. If your company isn’t on the first page of results, it’s going to get lost in the shuffle. Internet marketing involves using strong SEO tactics to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

Digital Marketing Strategies to improve your HVAC site’s rankings:

• Make sure you’re featuring high-quality content on your website
• Use HTTPS instead of HTTP to ensure visitors have the security they want
• Your website must be mobile-friendly
• Page speeds must have the fastest load-times
• Optimize each of your images to help customers find your business page
• Incorporate high-quality backlinks that provide additional information or statistics

Develop separate landing pages that you want to rank higher for specific terms. For example, you might want “boiler installation Chicago” to rank high. In that case, create an SEO-focused business page utilizing fully-developed content and design for ranking higher in an organic search. You’ll find these pages work well for geo-targeted and informational searches.

4. Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy for HVAC Contractors

You might be wondering if it’s worth the time for HVAC contractors to have social media accounts. The fact is, that’s where many of your potential customers are spending their time. Not only do they want to find out more information about products and services, but they also want to see how companies react to comments, complaints, and reviews.

Having a strong online presence is more than developing an optimized website. It would be best if you also reached your target audience where these individuals spend most of their time—and that includes on social media. Visitors want to see HVAC companies and contractors on social media.

Searchers and visitors want to see posts updating containing information like:

• New blog posts featuring a home service, tutorial, or other updates
• Video marketing depicting services, tutorials, customer reviews, or pro tips
• Special offers, rebates, or other deals
• Contact information, company history, and relevant links
• Eye-catching imagery of products and services
• Seasonal solutions for any HVAC problems or questions they might have

Managing a social media account for your HVAC business goes beyond that of keeping your digital marketing strategy up-to-date. You must also engage with your audience frequently during this online marketing tactic. That means responding to comments visitors make on your posts and answering any private messages you receive.

5. Implementing Local SEO for HVAC Contractors

The HVAC industry is competitive, and you already know you’re not the only company in your area that’s offering HVAC services. Now it’s time to determine how to set your company apart from the rest. That starts with implementing local SEO.

Local SEO is incredibly important for HVAC companies now more than ever. The main reason is that you want homeowners in your service area to find you easily. Landing on map listings and the top of a Google search result involves the following marketing strategies:

• Make your site crawlable: Search engines crawl through meta descriptions, title tags, and an XML map. In doing so, it improves rankings and makes it easier for your HVAC company to land in local results
• Mobile optimization: More and more homeowners are searching on their mobile device or smartphone. That means making sure your local SEO is also mobile-friendly, or you’re going to miss out on many potential customers
• Keep local listings up-to-date: Sites update local listings frequently, so you must make sure you have an online presence on there and that your business page is correct and up-to-date. Use these business directories to your advantage because prospective customers frequent them
• Remain consistent: Your HVAC company must have a consistent presence across all social media channels. That includes your business’s phone number, website address, and other contact information
• Google My Business: Make sure your Google My Business page is up-to-date and optimized

Because potential customers want to focus on local businesses, your HVAC company benefits substantially from this tactic. For example, if someone is looking for air conditioning products, services, or repairs, you want your HVAC business to show up in their results.

6. Email Marketing and Link Building Marketing Strategy

No matter how you choose to approach link building, this form of digital marketing almost always involves email marketing. Some people love their inboxes. Others hate the thought of sifting through them. However, the best way to build links is by distributing your content via email.

You can create this same type of outreach using social media or messaging apps. Email trumps those marketing efforts, however. Email messages are still the preferred communication channel for many, especially those who are operating a business. That’s why it’s critical to stand out from the rest when using this marketing strategy.

Email marketing strategies:

• Make sure you’re hitting the right target audience every time sharing relevant content and using the best email marketing tools
• Create eye-catching subject lines that include buzzwords or alerts
• Keep things authentic by personalizing emails to prevent them from looking like they’re coming from a robot or spam account
• Don’t beat around the bush – your potential customers want you to get to the point
• The email’s body must create value by explaining why your products and services are worthwhile
• Follow-up with prospective customers to ensure your messages aren’t getting lost in the shuffle

It isn’t uncommon for businesses to feel intimidated by email marketing. It’s a good idea to begin small by sending out special offers, links to free content, and updates from your website. Then, move on to sharing data about how your business stacks up against the competition.

7. PPC Ads for Your HVAC Company

PPC stands for pay-per-click advertising. You pay for these advertisements on search engines and social media platforms. Every time a prospective customer clicks on one of your ads, you pay the network responsible for showing that advertisement. When you hear the phrase, “paid search marketing,” that often refers to PPC.

HVAC businesses benefit significantly from PPC advertising. Instead of waiting for someone to visit your site through an organic search, PPC advertising helps drive traffic quicker. Not only do visitors land on your pages faster, but you also see a better return on investment.

PPC advertising plans are available on the following platforms, as well as many others:

• Bing
• Facebook
• Google
• Instagram
• Linkedin
• Pinterest
• Twitter

Ideally, you want to set a specific budget and make sure you don’t go over. Using this form of advertising allows your HVAC company to set bids based on your budget. You’re setting your budget based on how much you want to spend for every click leading to your site. Consider setting a daily budget, monitoring it, and making sure you’re not exceeding that amount.

8. Use Google Adwords Improve Google Search Results

We all want our HVAC businesses to rank high in Google search. While SEO is a great tactic, it isn’t the only digital marketing strategy available. Google AdWords works well in conjunction with your PPC advertising strategy. For example, when you dig into your PPC insights, those carry over into a Google Adwords campaign. Not only does that help boost your results, but it also saves a considerable amount of time.

For example, you can spend one afternoon setting up, activating, and driving traffic to your site using AdWords. However, if you use PPC or SEO as stand-alone marketing strategies, it could take up to one year before you see favorable results. Looking at this from a PPC point of view, that puts a high dollar amount on your marketing spend.

Ultimately, you might be spending your advertising dollars and time ranking keywords that aren’t bringing in the traffic you need. Or, they might be driving great traffic, but not converting into new customers. In addition to using data from your PPC insights, data from AdWords is also beneficial. Let’s look at why:

• You can remarket, or retarget, prospective customers who previously visited your site or engaged with your company by showing them targeted advertisements
• AdWords features a search terms report, which are the actual search terms potential customers are typing into search engines to find your site
• See your visitor’s click-through rate (CTR), which is the percentage of visitors who click on an ad to reach your business page
• It’s possible to measure the geographic performance of your ads according to a visitor’s location, thus improving your local SEO

Launch Your HVAC Marketing Plan Today

Now is the time to develop and launch your HVAC marketing plan and put it into action. Otherwise, no one is going to know anything about or find your HVAC services. Waiting could result in missing new customer conversions. No matter if you want to advertise on Google, use SEO to rank higher, or use an email marketing strategy, waiting too long costs money. By following the advice we’ve outlined here, it’s possible to put your HVAC business ahead of the completion and attract more potential customers.