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HVAC industry marketing strategies have changed drastically over the years. Currently, you can market your HVAC products successfully by getting more leads, booking more appointments, and closing more sales. You earn better net profits as you increase the HVAC leads, giving your company higher returns.
You can be a top performer in HVAC lead generation by implementing digital strategies that help you understand your customers’ demands and take the necessary steps to make HVAC advertising stand out. The online marketplace is increasingly competitive, and without offering unique services and products, you will lose customers.
Furthermore, the rate of customers using the Internet to find local businesses increases by the day. Research shows that over 33% of customers search for local businesses where they can use their services. Therefore, you need to utilize digital marketing effectively to reach out to prospective customers in your area.
You can achieve the most out of your HVAC marketing strategies by knowing where you put your efforts. Investing in the right strategy online helps optimize your website for SEO and ensures you appear on most local searches that prospective customers will look for in any search engine.
Let’s look at some of the strategies you can use and how you can find the best support to help you rank higher in search engines and get more leads.
Understanding HVAC Lead Generation
As an HVAC contractor, you know who your ideal potential customers are. Like any other service business connected to a certain locality, the majority of your HVAC sales come from the people living in the same city. While getting extra exposure is nice, your brand efforts should be contained within a specific area.
Focusing on a specific audience close to your physical location is the best way to go about things, as it will limit and optimize the expenses. You won’t have to overspend money on regional advertising. Instead, you’ll gain much more value by pinpointing users through Google local services ads.
Similarly, when doing search engine optimization, you can gain more HVAC leads through local SEO than by pursuing global keywords. The same can be said for social media platforms; you don’t actually need to become the biggest brand on Facebook or Instagram, as most of that exposure won’t spill over to sales.
Having a focused approach is crucial in this niche. Unfortunately, many companies aren’t aware of this rule, falsely believing that any type of promotion can yield good exposure.
Outsourcing vs. In-House Marketing
Before anything else, HVAC contractors need to decide whether they’ll perform marketing in-house or outsource to external companies. Each approach has its pros and cons, so HVAC businesses need to be thorough before choosing one or another.
Outsourcing HVAC Lead Generation
The fastest way to get exclusive HVAC leads is by hiring an external agency. A top-tier lead generation company should not only be experienced with one particular marketing strategy, but they should be able to create a marketing mix best suited for your specific needs.
Besides understanding search engine optimization, Google ads, and social media marketing, these providers should also have extensive knowledge of paid advertising, affiliate marketing, emailing, and other tactics. On top of that, they’ll need a customized approach for your HVAC website.
Here’s how outsourcing compares to having an in-house marketing team:
Pros
- Quick results
- Expertise and experience
- Optimal for short-term growth
Cons
- Gets more expensive as time goes on
- Potential communication issues
- Hard to find an optimal provider
Perhaps the biggest issue with HVAC lead generation companies is that you’re often a mixed bag. Some of them will provide enormous value while costing barely anything, while others will take your money without anything to show for it.
While outsourcing is generally a good approach, you need to make sure that the service company can generate results. Furthermore, they should also be transparent during their marketing efforts and provide periodic reports. That way, you can stay on top of things and determine if the juice is worth the squeeze.
In-House HVAC Lead Generation
Creating an internal team is another option at your disposal. This strategy is much better in the long run, as the initial phases can be extremely painful. For example, most companies create internal teams by hiring a few experts and lots of newbies. Then, they train the internal team so they can perform at the expert level.
Hiring young employees is much better as it can reduce your overall costs. Still, it will take some time to train all of these guys. As you will do marketing in-house, you’ll also need to perform more micromanagement, something that almost every HVAC contractor hates.
Here’s why a reliable in-house team might work better for your HVAC brand:
Pros
- Increased control
- Saves money
- Optimal for long-term expansion
Cons
- The initial phases are troublesome
- Slower lead generation
- More micromanagement
Don’t expect that you’ll get free HVAC leads just because you started doing things in-house. Creating a well-polished team will still require a few experts who would oversee the project (unless you can do it). So, you’ll lose money either way.
The even bigger issue is if your team struggles to achieve goals. Unfortunately, employees under contract might lose their motivation and start taking shortcuts. If you don’t have enough marketing savvy, you might not even notice that this is happening.
The good thing about external HVAC service providers is that they’re always under performance pressure, which is why they need to generate HVAC leads and sales for clients to retain HVAC clients.
Which One Is Better?
Like any other industry, HVAC contractors require a constant inflow of leads. So, in theory, any marketing investment will be worth the money as long as it can increase brand awareness and improve your positioning in the local market.
However, it’s worth noting that certain marketing services become redundant after a while. For example, after creating a certain number of blog posts, many of your content writers will become redundant. A similar goes for some other specialized tasks.
In that regard, creating an in-house team and hiring employees on contracts might come back to bite you. By hiring external providers, you can pay for each marketing campaign separately, allowing you to optimize your budget. Furthermore, you don’t have to hassle creating a team and watching it grow.
How to Get HVAC Leads?
HVAC lead generation takes various forms, and you may need to look for one that will suit your business. However, some of these strategies are compulsory if you want fair competition with other players in the market.
You will use them to offer you more leads as well as convert sales. Here is the common lead generation that you should start using immediately.
1. Social Media Advertising
Did you know that 78% of Americans have at least a single social media account? That is according to the Statista report of February 2021. The figure is not static, and most people are still joining these platforms. Whenever you choose suitable digital marketing for your HVAC Company, social media offers you a potential market of over three-quarters of the people in the US.
You can use social media for various benefits, such as raising your brand awareness, boosting your customer service with instant messaging features, and proof of the quality work you offer others in the same region. Such features give you an easy way to connect with your potential customers, boosting your ROI.
2. Video Marketing
The HVAC business constantly develops strategies that can catch the customers’ eye. Therefore, video marketing will be the most suitable platform you can use to attract and convert sales. Use a how-to video to describe your services and increase the search results since most people search for them.
With video marketing, you enjoy the flexibility of posting your video on various platforms. YouTube, for example, is a great search engine that most customers go to look for information through. Even for local searches, YouTube videos always come first for those using desktop computers. Therefore, using them will attract prospective customers’ attention and push them to get your services as they can view your quality videos.
3. Trade Shows
Trade shows are essential events to bring every stakeholder together to display, demonstrate, and discuss the latest products and services in the market. By joining local trade shows, the business can connect actively with prospects who learn from the company directly about your products.
While trade shows might not generate as many leads as some other activities, they can put you in touch with potential strategic B2B partners. Among others, you can utilize them to set up future joint campaigns with other businesses, connect with local news outlets, and build brand awareness.
4. Pay-Per-Click Campaigns
HVAC companies attract potential customers through online and offline mediums. Businesses can utilize just about any platform or tactic as long as it focuses on local users. Among others, paid campaigns have proven to be quite valuable for these service companies.
Pay-per-click ad campaigns are one of the best ways to get noticed by your prospective customers. Although SEO gives you a long-term impact, PPC will drive leads fast to your business. You also have complete control over where you want the ads to appear, where they are showing, and how much you pay for them.
Perhaps the biggest issue with paid advertising is that it’s quite expensive. Small mistakes can cost you a large portion of your marketing budget, and, what’s worse, you might get little value in return. Similar to SEO, this is a marketing tactic best left to professionals.
5. Affiliate and Influencer Marketing
You can also generate an enormous number of HVAC leads through affiliate and influencer marketing. The best thing about these promotional tactics is that you don’t have to build your own marketing channels and platforms. Instead, you can tap into other businesses’ resources and gain value with minimal time investment.
With affiliate marketing, you create video ads and other promotional messages for your affiliates. All they need to do is share a link or the post with their audience, and they’ll gain commission from each sale.
Influencer marketing works in a similar way, although it gives your partners more options to make money. They can either go affiliate way, where they make money from commissions, or they can get flat compensation for sharing your message via their channel. In most cases, big time influencer go with the second option as it eliminates the hassle and uncertainty.
6. Master Local SEO
HVAC companies leverage the power of SEO to boost their leads. Mastering HVAC SEO ensures you take the appropriate steps to ensure your HVAC company’s name and website appear at the top of all organic searches on all devices. Customers who require your services, especially during emergencies, require you fast and will hire the first person they find reputable.
You can get more HVAC leads by including top-ranked keywords in all the contacts you have on your company websites, newsletters, HVAC social media posts, business directories, and digital advertisement platforms. Your local customers can also find you easily by including nearby cities or neighborhoods and attaching the right keywords to the regions. For example, you can rank higher with keywords like “Tampa A/C.”
When a customer searches for HVAC services near me, your keywords will likely appear in the top lists since they are geographically relevant and offer what the search requires.
You can advertise your HVAC services on Google and receive HVAC leads that direct you to potential customers in the local area with Google Local Service Ads. Therefore, SEO is the best strategy that will enable you to get more clients and convert sales. Finding the most suitable SEO best practices for your HVAC marketing will come in handy to boost your sales.
Find a Trusted SEO Agency for Quality HVAC Leads
Based on everything said so far, HVAC lead generation depends largely on your SEO provider. Therefore, at Miromind, we dedicate ourselves to providing effective SEO that captures interest. With over 12 years in service, we have the best experience in this niche to ensure we offer tailored solutions for your HVAC company that effectively drive your leads.
Here are a few reasons why partnering up with a reputable provider is the best thing for generating HVAC leads:
Focused Efforts
As mentioned, focused efforts should be your point of emphasis when trying to acquire HVAC leads. Many marketing services have a global character, where providers try to gain as much exposure as possible through various channels.
For example, most SMM companies will try to increase your followership on the platform, disregarding whether these users are potential customers for your brand. At the end of the day, they’ll boost vanity metrics, never putting an emphasis on HVAC sales.
At MiroMind, we only use tactics that are relevant to your business. Each lead we generate for your business has a chance of converting into clients. We do so by ensuring that each person we reach out to is truly interested in your brand and that they live in the same area.
Funnel Utilization
Speaking of sales, many marketers believe their job is done once a person lands on the website. While this might be true in theory, the fact remains that the HVAC company won’t be able to cover your service fee for long if your activities never translate into sales.
We understand this dynamic very well, which is why we only utilize tactics that can affect your bottom line. Each article, external link, and social media post we create is part of a larger marketing and sales funnel. They are small elements in a bigger chain meant to slowly introduce your HVAC business to a client and convert them over time.
Long-Term Plan
Many people have, at one point or another, tried SEO services to no avail. They might’ve partnered up with an agency for a few months and have abruptly ended the contract.
This usually happens for a few reasons. The most common issue is that agencies don’t properly explain the service and that it takes time to yield results. Another potential problem is that some SEOs don’t have a long-term plan and can’t explain the direction of their marketing campaign.
When onboarding a new client, MiroMind creates a long-term plan that will cover all eventualities. We make an outline of all our activities and try our best to report to the client periodically. That way, the HVAC contractors can always stay in the loop and monitor the progress. Among others, this transparency can build trust between the two sides.
You can trust our top-rated services, which have helped most companies over the years. We have also got a portfolio of success to prove our expert SEO services. Most of our clients rank high at TOP3-TOP 5 for HVAC service keywords on both national and local levels. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business achieve higher leads and SEO rankings.