How do you know if you’re spending your HVAC marketing budget on the right kind of advertising?
You’ve worked hard to build your company to this level, so you need to be efficient with the resources you have. Especially when it comes to your marketing budget! You rely on it to grow the business year over year.
If you’re not tracking leads closely, you may be wasting a lot of that money on tactics that don’t work anymore, but it’s completely avoidable…
In this blog post, we’re going to talk about 3 of the most inefficient ways you can spend your marketing budget and discuss ways your HVAC business can be more efficient. Let’s get started with the #1 mistake we see HVAC contractors making – failing to connect direct mail to tracking solutions.
Investing in Traditional Marketing with No Tracking Ability
Are you still sending flyers to nearby areas and hoping they call? In today’s digital age, that’s not always the most efficient way to spend your marketing budget.
Unless you’re using digital tracking and QR codes…more on that later.
Most consumers today go online for information before making large purchasing decisions. That makes a lot of sense! Businesses are moving more towards digital advertising, so don’t get left behind.
What makes digital marketing so great is that it’s not as expensive or difficult to maintain as many people think! Most importantly, it will attract so many more qualified leads.
If you can get more qualified leads through digital marketing, the biggest question is: do you have a digital presence yet?
If you don’t already have that online piece of the puzzle figured out, not only are you losing potential customers but you could also be jeopardizing your reputation!
How to Check Your Online Reputation [DIY]
Here’s a pro tip for any HVAC company that’s not sure if they have negative reviews somewhere online. Go to Google.com – not just your browser – actually type it in and go there.
Next, you need to enter an advanced search operator:
“Your Brand” Reviews
In place of – Your Brand – enter your business name and keep the quotation marks in place. Those quotes tell Google to show very specific results to your reviews. You’ll see that every page mentions your company and includes reviews about you, assuming your listed everywhere you need to be. Neat huh? I did a Google search of local companies and found an example I could use so you’ll understand what I mean:
We’re not affiliated with that contractor in any way at the time of writing, but I did want to point out that they have a lot of reviews on many different sites and it’s helping their SEO a lot!
For more info on reputation management for your heating and air business, click here to read our article on getting amazing reviews for your business.
There were pages and pages of different review sites this company was listed on and that’s how you win a spot on Google Maps for sure. Using that advanced search operator to track your reviews also lets you know that Google is indexing all the different review sites you’re listed on.
That’s a great free way to keep tabs on your online reputation, right. If yours needs some work, reach out to us for review generation services.
What’s the Value in Investing in Digital Marketing for Your HVAC Company?
If you’re not investing in digital marketing, that means your competitors are constantly finding ways to get ahead. In our opinion, the value in investing in digital marketing is that your HVAC company can constantly stay ahead of competition and capture most of the online leads in your local area.
As long as you’re maintaining a good first impression online, traffic from SEO, Google Ads and Social Media is easy to convert into new installs and even commercial work.
Your online presence can either help you get potential business or lose new customers. After all, your website is the first impression your clients see. That’s your HVAC business!
If you build a great website and take advantage of your Google Business Profile, that’s just the beginning.
Going back to those flyers, you can definitely make them more effective by adding a QR code that points to a landing page on your site. That way, you can track traffic to that particular page with Google Analytics and know exactly how many leads your flyers produce. It’s an easy hack that combines digital and traditional methods for more effective HVAC marketing.
Targeting the Incorrect Audience.
Are you spending your marketing budget targeting every member of a certain demographic? That could be a mistake. Not everyone in one demographic needs exactly what you provide. Narrow your marketing to homeowners and property managers, then go from there!
There’s a lot of HVAC contractors that spend a lot of their marketing budget on PPC ads, mailers, and email campaigns without any detailed targeting or a clear understanding of who their real customers are.
This marketing strategy results in an incredibly high cost per lead. Is it worth it to spend your budget on leads that won’t be potential clients?
To get better outcomes in your HVAC marketing ads, it’s important to spend time and effort identifying who your potential customers are and understanding their behavior.
How to Target [and Capture] Qualified HVAC Job Leads Online
And how would you do it? Simple but quite tricky. You need to focus heavily on data analytics. This will help you understand search traffic trends and come up with the right audiences and keywords.
If there’s a zip code in your area that’s primarily multifamily, you may want to exclude it from your direct mail and also Google Ads. Instead, a direct outreach campaign to property managers in the area may be effective for commercial contracts.
Additionally, understand the difference between high and low value keywords when planning your Google Ad campaigns.
You probably want people who search ‘AC Replacement’ to go to your website, right?
Well, what if they type in ‘Window AC Replacement’???
Is that worth $25 a click or should we remove the word ‘Window’ from your campaign?
Those are just two examples of how incorrect targeting can waste HVAC advertising dollars.
Playing the guessing game on your digital HVAC marketing strategy and budget.
Are you familiar with the saying “Failing to plan is planning to fail”? Well, this is especially true when it comes to spending your HVAC marketing budget. Without a clear set of goals and a plan for what you want to do with your budget, you are setting up your marketing strategy to fail.
When it comes to digital marketing, these are the top four things that we strongly recommend:
- Set goals well in advance so you’ll have time to adjust and finalize.
- Monitor results and constantly adjust strategy.
- Find out what needs to be improved.
- Test, test, test, and test.
Remember also that just like any other marketing channel, digital marketing will not produce results overnight. It’s a journey toward finding what works best for your business!
No two brands are alike and that’s why conversion optimization is critical to the success of your heating and air company.
With time, effort, and the right knowledge, you’ll surely end up finding the right marketing strategy that fits your company culture.
If you’re making any of these 3 marketing mistakes, it’s not the end of the world. All you have to do is review your marketing strategy and make the necessary adjustments. Then, you’ll be right where you need to be!
Need Help Evaluating Your Strategy?
If you’d like to get expert help so you don’t have to manage all this, the first step is to sign up for our free website audit.
We’ll identify easy opportunities to leapfrog your competition and quickly pull in more business from Google. We offer simple month-to-month contracts and an exclusive contract to only work with you and no nearby competitors, so you’re guaranteed top placement and traffic in Google and other search engines.
