The Best HVAC Marketing Strategy: Have One

If you’re an HVAC shop that’s trying to build your business through advertising, there’s a really good chance you’re wasting your money.

It’s not that advertising itself is a bad idea. It’s that most HVAC contractors approach marketing haphazardly. They hear they should be on Instagram, so they set up an Instagram account. They learn a little about Facebook ads, so they try boosting a post (probably incorrectly). Someone shows up at the shop with a coupon to get listed on Home Advisor, so they pull out their wallet.

In short, they have no strategy. And if that’s how you’re going about your advertising, what you’re actually doing is gambling. You’re throwing money out into the universe, crossing your fingers, and hoping it’ll magically turn into new business. Sometimes it does, which is great. But most of the time, without a solid marketing strategy in place, you might as well be buying lottery tickets.

Stop gambling. Develop a strategy.

The definition of strategy is a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal over a long period of time. Let’s dissect that a bit to get a good understanding of what a solid HVAC marketing strategy might look like.

Yes, you’re right: The overall goal of a marketing strategy is to grow your business. But that’s far too broad of a goal, and we need to be more particular. You may be familiar with SMART goals, but let’s explore what they look like for HVAC contractors.

SMART goals share five characteristics:

• Specific. What does “grow your business” look like? Are you okay earning 10 new customers this year? Or is that a monthly goal? Or weekly? Do you want to keep your eye on repeat customers, too? It’s great to earn 50 new customers—unless you lose 45 old ones. Do you want to be busy enough to offer 24/7 service? Do you want to employ six more techs? Brainstorm what “grow” looks like for your shop.
  
• Measurable. How will you know when you’ve reached your goal? Is there a revenue amount attached to “grow your business”? Number of service calls? Total number of customers? Number of referrals?
  
• Attainable. A good HVAC marketing strategy will point to an attainable goal. That doesn’t mean it has to be easy to attain; but it must be possible. Be sure to consider the costs of achieving your goal as you’re assessing how attainable it is. It might be possible to double your new customer base next quarter through Google AdWords, but it’s going to cost thousands and thousands of dollars to reach that goal. Is that really attainable?
  
• Relevant. This one’s a bit more philosophical. A good goal should be relevant or meaningful to you. Why do you want to grow your business? Just because that’s what good businesses do? Or because you want to retire early? Or because you want to give your technicians a bonus?
  
• Timely. A healthy goal will have a deadline. After you figure out the specifics, determine how long you want to give yourself to achieve them. Increase service calls by 20% in the next quarter? In the next year? It’s fine to be optimistic when setting your timeline, but don’t be unrealistic.
  

There’s no quick fix when it comes to advertising your business. Successful shops make long-term investments in their marketing strategies. Sure, there are some (relatively expensive) ways to get your name out reasonably quickly, but even those methods aren’t set-it-and-forget-it. Persistence is absolutely keyif you want to avoid gambling with your marketing budget.

Marketing—marketing well , anyway—is tough. Digital marketing is critical, and the “right” way to engage in that space changes constantly. Have you thought about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will impact your business—and how you should market accordingly? We have.

In addition, your future customers are blasted with marketing messages every waking hour of every day. If you want to cut through the noise, you’ll have to be strategic and intentional about what audiences you’re talking to, through what channels, and with what messages.

And that’s just the talking to potential customers. There’s also relationship-building to think about. People want to be listened to, not just advertised at. Does your current advertising approach take that into consideration?

The very best HVAC marketing strategy is to have a marketing strategy . Stop throwing away your hard-won money on willy-nilly advertising and starting building a SMART, well-thought-out plan that will go the distance.

Very few HVAC professionals happen to be marketing experts. So, how about we leave the compressors and chillers to you, and we’ll take care of your keywords and CPCs? In short, we want to help you grow your business—and we can even help you decide what that actually means. Schedule your free strategy session today. (Yes: Free. Really.)