Are you spreading yourself thin trying to stay on top of your HVAC internet marketing?
Hey, no one ever said that being an HVAC contractor was easy. Just keeping up with the ever-advancing technology in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning sector is enough to make anyone’s head spin. Falling behind could leave your business in the dust. Add the ongoing struggle of recruiting, retaining, and training qualified technicians to the mix, and you’ve got yourself a full plate.
So, how do you make time to focus on digital marketing your HVAC business when you’ve got so much else going on?
You don’t.
More heating and cooling contractors are seeking HVAC specialized internet marketing services.
Why?…
Because HVAC digital marketing strategies are often high-maintenance and (like the HVAC industry) evolve at a staggering pace. It takes a team of experts to keep up.
We all know the HVAC industry is notorious for high overhead costs that make turning a profit difficult. That’s why you need an expert marketing partner to systematically take advantage of the latest technologies and strategies to get you more paying customers.
Unfortunately, not all HVAC digital marketing companies are created equal, and choosing the wrong one could cost you both time and money.
How Do You Attract Heating And Cooling Customers? …Hire a Professional HVAC Digital Marketing Agency
Do you perpetually ask yourself, “how do I advertise my HVAC company?”
Hiring a professional HVAC digital marketing agency will solve that problem for you, and with the right partner, the RIO should (eventually) cover the cost. Before we tackle how to choose the best HVAC internet marketing company, let’s make sure we’re on the same page.
Digital marketing is the umbrella term for all your lead-generating marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. This can include social media, website design, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, email marketing, and more. The unique complexities of the HVAC space require a specific approach, so hiring an agency with intimate knowledge of the industry is fundamental to success.
There are countless effective web marketing strategies out there. The beauty of working with marketing experts is that you don’t need to be one yourself. But, you should be aware of the best practices to ensure that whatever company you hire implements a heating ventilation and air conditioning digital marketing plan that meets and exceeds your business goals.
What HVAC Company Problems Can Be Solved With Internet Marketing?
An effective digital marketing strategy for HVAC businesses should increase your sales by solving two problems:
- How to generate as many high-quality leads as possible and
- How to convert them to a sale.
Getting more leads is a significant first step, but if a high percentage of those leads fail to convert, what’s the point?
Consider that up to 60% of inbound phone leads don’t convert, and a dismal 90% of people who fill out web forms end up slipping through the cracks. Therefore, one of the most critical areas to assess when choosing a digital marketing partner is their ability to nurture those leads and turn as many of them as possible into paying customers.
Additionally, digital marketing agencies for HVAC contractors build strategies to even out the seasonal fluctuations that are so common to the industry. By constantly generating a steady flow of leads, they ensure you’re never left scrambling when business slows down.
Does the HVAC Industry Have A Specific Digital Marketing Strategy?
The answer is both yes and no.
Because the HVAC industry is so competitive, it’s essential to tailor your HVAC online marketing strategy to your company’s unique selling points and strengths.
Specific HVAC internet marketing channels in heating and cooling are proven to be effective. These secrets are only discovered after years of ‘trial and error.’ You see, I’ve discovered how to get-HVAC-internet-marketing to get the phone to ring and drive sales.
An excellent HVAC digital marketing company will work with you to create a customized marketing plan. This plan should meet your business’s unique needs while incorporating some of the tried and true online marketing strategies that produce results across all industries.
Ok, now that we’ve laid down some background information, let’s move on to how you can choose the best digital marketing company for your HVAC business.
How To Choose An HVAC Digital Marketing Service – Top 8 Criteria And Strategy You Must Use:
When it comes to HVAC digital marketing companies, there are specific criteria you should look for to ensure they’re the right fit for your business. Here are eight areas to explore during your decision-making process.
1. Outline Your Goals Before You Contact An HVAC Internet Marketing Service
Before reaching out to any potential HVAC web marketing partners, identify your goals in detail.
For example, a short-term goal might be to update your website or improve your graphic design, and a long-term goal might be to improve search engine rankings. Your specific goals should drive your decision-making process and help you weed out companies that don’t fit your needs.
Consider the following digital marketing goals for Heating and Cooling:
- Modernize your website
- Improve your brand visibility online
- Generate and grow your social media following
- Step-up your search engine rankings
- Lower your cost-per-acquisition
- improve your ROI
Once you establish your HVAC internet marketing goals, you should vet several companies. Don’t rush this important process. Ask how they would set out to accomplish your goals and compare their plans. A quality HVAC online marketing team will be willing to work with you on a custom lead generation strategy rather than a cookie-cutter approach.
2. Do They Provide HVAC Company Web Design and Development Services?
The best HVAC online marketing agencies routinely update outdated websites and build new ones from scratch. To compete in the hyper-competitive Heating and Cooling space, a professional SEO-optimized website designed to convert traffic at every turn is a must. If it’s not sleek, modern, and easy to navigate, you’re likely losing business to the competition.
Your website should also feature pop-ups to inform potential customers about promotions and, more importantly, collect emails for email marketing (we’ll get into that later).
Web Design for HVAC Contractors: What To Look For
When interviewing HVAC digital agencies, ask for some examples of their recent web design projects. The examples provided should be multimedia heavy, meaning they should prominently feature infographics, videos, and pictures, providing visitors with clear, easy-to-understand information about the services offered and what makes the company different. Around 65% of people are visual learners, and a webpage dominated by blocks of text is likely to lose their attention quickly.
It’s also critical to look at examples of a prospective agency’s recent work optimizing websites for mobile devices. According to Google, 52% of users are less likely to engage with a company if they feel the mobile experience is sub-par.
Your ideal HVAC digital marketing experts will take a mobile-focused web design approach. The examples they provide should be just as visually stunning as the browser version, responsive (easily able to adapt to various screen sizes), and fast loading.
3. Ask About PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Advertising
Reputable HVAC digital marketing services should know PPC advertising inside and out and use it to jumpstart your lead generation and website traffic. By far the most common form of paid search online, PPC advertising is among the fastest ways to improve brand awareness and get your website in front of potential customers actively searching for your services.
Used correctly, PPC both immediately impacts your business and is a sustainable long-term marketing strategy.
How does it work?
With PPC, you’re essentially buying visits to your website rather than organically generating all of your traffic. You bid on specific keywords that you want your website to show up for when potential customers search for them on Google.
You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Since you’re paying a small fee for visits to your website, ensuring that your site is optimized to convert traffic (as discussed above) is a big part of PPC success.
4. Look for HVAC Internet Marketing Companies With Proven SEO Success
SEO or search engine optimization optimizes your website content for Google’s search algorithm, so your site appears as the top result when potential customers search keywords related to your business.
While it can take a few months to see results from SEO, once you start ranking in the top ten for relevant keywords, you’ll notice a significant uptick in traffic. The organic traffic generated is 100% free and sustainable.
The results of an HVAC SEO marketing strategy take time to kick in, and virtually every digital marketing agency claims they can improve your search engine results page (SERP) ranking. The truth is some agencies are much better at SEO than others, so how do you ensure that your new digital marketing partner’s HVAC SEO marketing services are tried and true?
For starters, they should be able to provide you with a list of current SEO service clients. If they’re doing their job, their clients should appear in the top ten for relevant keywords.
The HVAC digital marketing agency should have no problem providing you with a list of keywords they’ve targeted for their clients and the current ranking for each.
The on and off-page SEO strategy your HVAC contractor internet marketing partner puts in place for your business can transform your website into a lead generation machine, but only if executed correctly. So don’t be afraid to ask for concrete proof of their expertise.
5. What About Email Marketing?
Email marketing is one of the top HVAC internet marketing strategies to engage existing and potential customers, generate leads, and grow your HVAC company.
If you have a solid list of emails, you have a powerful marketing tool that your digital marketing partner should be ready to take advantage of. A strong email list represents a group of people who have already used or at least shown interest in your services, making them prime prospects for marketing messages and sales pitches.
It’s vital that you actively collect emails from your existing clients and keep in touch with them regularly. Your website should also feature a pop-up form to collect emails from your site visitors.
Why would your site visitors give you their email? In exchange for their email, you might offer a discount on their first service, a free air conditioning or furnace inspection, or some other valuable content like a homeowners HVAC maintenance eBook or newsletter.
Your new HVAC digital marketing partner should offer comprehensive, ongoing email marketing strategies, but how do you vet them to ensure they know their stuff?
Be sure to ask them for examples of email marketing campaigns they’ve sent out on behalf of their clients. Remember, the results of email campaigns are easily quantifiable, so ask for details on open rates, click-through rates, and sales generated.
6. Ask About HVAC Digital Google Ads Retargeting Campaigns
Your potential HVAC internet marketing partner should be able to set up a Google Ads retargeting campaign for your business.
Retargeting allows you to show ads to people who have already visited your website but didn’t convert. For example, let’s say a potential customer visits your site but doesn’t contact you for a consultation. Thanks to an unobtrusive cookie placed on their computer, you can use Google Ads retargeting to show them your relevant ads as they continue to browse the internet. Before long, they recognize your brand and are statistically far more likely to become customers in the future.
When evaluating your potential web marketing services abilities, ask them how they would create a retargeting campaign and how they would measure success.
7. Don’t Overlook HVAC Social Media Marketing
HVAC digital marketing companies should offer social media advertising services and be able to set up and maintain accounts for your business on the platforms where your target audience is most active.
Your HVAC online promotion service should also be ready to regularly create compelling and engaging content that will grow your following and get people talking about your brand (ask to see examples of content they’ve created for other companies in the HVAC space).
In addition, ask potential HVAC internet marketing services exactly how they plan to use social media to generate leads and attract more business for your company. For example, exclusive offers, online ads, paid advertising, contests, Facebook posts, content marketing and giveaways are all tried and true methods to turn social media followers into paying customers.
8. Evaluate Their HVAC Marketing Reporting Capabilities
A digital marketing partner for your HVAC company should offer to provide detailed monthly reports outlining the direct results of their efforts.
The best way to evaluate their reporting capabilities is to ask for a sample report.
Their reports should include:
- A clear and concise executive summary outlining monthly accomplishments and how they benefit your business.
- A detailed breakdown of the work completed, including any changes to your website, written blog posts, or social media activity.
- A complete analysis of your website’s analytics showing traffic sources, page views, time on site, and conversion rates.
- An overview of your email marketing campaign’s performance, including open, click-through, and unsubscribe rates.
- A list of new leads generated that month (with contact information).
- The results of any paid advertising campaigns, including impressions, clicks, cost per click, and conversions.
Final Thoughts
You can now streamline the HVAC digital marketing company selection process and save time. You now know how to choose the best HVAC internet marketing services for your heating and cooling company to dramatically spike your website traffic, leads, and customer base.
When evaluating potential marketers, get multiple proposals to compare, ask lots of questions, and get specifics on their past experience.
With the right online marketing partner for your heating ventilation and air conditioning company, your return on investment (ROI) will be a lot higher than you thought possible. You’ll have more money in your pocket. You’ll have more time to keep up with the latest HVAC technology, regulatory compliance, And ongoing training for your technicians.
Get more leads. Drive 2-3x more local customers to your HVAC company.
Schedule a FREE, exploratory HVAC SEO strategy session with ‘HVAC SEO Results Expert,’ Mark Buckingham right now.
