HVAC pros rely on repeat business and a steady flow of new leads. That’s because it’s not enough to provide quality products and services. You need to promote your business and keep people engaged over time, as well.
Why? Because one of the keys to consistent profitability is a steady flow of customers.
Marketing is particularly important for the HVAC industry. You’re often threading the needle, balancing competition with your customers’ demands for quick service at low prices.
If you run an HVAC company, it’s crucial to get in front of your market and take control of your brand. Too many businesses rely on patchy, impulsive marketing campaigns. But it doesn’t have to be that way. A well-managed HVAC marketing strategy will work wonders for your business.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the basics of branding. Whether you’re new to the idea of branding a business or a seasoned pro, these are the bases you need to cover to set yourself up for solid lead generation. We’ll also look at a variety of advertising and marketing strategies. We’ll even highlight some low-cost options that are proven to work.
If you’re ready to gain new leads and increase your bottom line, you’ve come to the right place. There are plenty of ways to attract more customers.
HVAC Branding Tips
Branding is essential for all businesses, no matter the industry or size. Good branding is the cornerstone of long-term marketing.
To make an impact as an HVAC specialist, you need to create and promote your brand in the local marketplace. And if you want to transform from a one-time service provider to a long-term partner, good branding is the key.
Your brand is your company’s personality and reputation. It provides continuity and consistency over time. It’s a great way to form long-term relationships with your customers.
Branding is a long-term recognition strategy based on identity and presence. More than that, your brand is a powerful signifier of value that connects your business with specific benefits. As an HVAC company, you can associate your brand with concepts like home-based comfort, environmental control, and seasonal readiness.
The Practical Elements of Branding
In its most basic form, branding involves “the action of marking.”
In the HVAC industry, branding involves researching, developing, and applying a distinctive feature or set of features to represent your business. Branding involves ongoing promotion, either of a particular product/service or of the business itself.
What does that mean in practical terms? It means you’ll need to give your company’s brand some thought. You’ll want to look at other local HVAC businesses and consider their brands. This might give you insight into what works for your area—though you do not want to simply copy someone else’s brand. Instead, consider what makes your business unique—in terms of value, services offered, or customer experience. (We recommend that you not focus your branding on pricing.)
Branding relies on consistency. Repetition creates associations, making it possible to leave a “mark” over time. There are lots of elements involved in branding HVAC, including:
- Your logo
- Your website
- Your content
- Your design
Creating a Business Logo
Your logo plays a central role in your marketing activities. It’s the primary visual image customers will associate with your company. Not only that, but your logo has the potential to communicate a lot about your business beyond the business name.
HVAC logos often involve business names or initials, combined with HVAC-related visual elements such as cooling or heating symbols and work tools. To be effective, these elements need to be integrated creatively through geometry and color. Primary colors are a solid choice for the HVAC industry. After all, cooling is often associated with blue, and heating is often linked with red or yellow.
Along with the design of the logo, it’s important to think about size. Also, consider where you’ll use your logo. From letterheads and websites to the sides of work vehicles, your logo needs to work in every format.
Developing a Website
Your HVAC business needs an attractive, functional website. This is essential.
While the internet is often appreciated for its global reach, it’s also a great way to find customers in your local area. Google Maps and Google Search, for example, offer deep localization features. Facebook and other search engines, like Bing, do, as well. But all those localization options hinge on a strong web presence.
That begins with your website.
A website can be used to define your place in the local market, list your services and prices, and present contact information to your customers. Your online presence is a great branding tool because it presents your business as a local authority and helps inspire trust.
As an HVAC company, you’re likely to get new leads through your website, so your website needs to be designed and built with that in mind.
Writing Business Content
As a business owner, you need to present your best face to the world. The content you use to promote your business plays a powerful role. That includes:
- All the text on your website
- Your tagline
- Your slogan
- Your service listings
- Your company information
- Your social media profiles.
- Your social media posts
As Bill Gates observed all the way back in 1996, content is king. Online, businesses get a lot more positive attention when they produce valuable, relevant content.
Along with essential information, such as services and profiles, another way to focus on content is through your blog. Publishing articles is a great way to push your brand forward, but it’s essential that you keep your customers top of mind when you plan your content.
Answer the questions they’re asking. Freely give advice and guidance. While it’s a little counter-intuitive, sharing this kind of information will actually draw customers to you rather than pushing them away.
When you present valuable information to your audience, you’re presenting yourself as an authority in your field. Plus, you’re showing them you’re invested in them. If you do this regularly, you’re much more likely to transform interest into action and turn leads into customers.
Designing Graphics and Media
From your business logo and website to your print ads and work vehicles, graphic design is used across every part of your business. And you don’t need big-budget productions with special effects to get attention. But you do need a plan.
If you have the budget to work with a professional graphic designer, we recommend it. They’ll help ensure you don’t make any design mistakes—poor color choices, ambiguous imagery, unclear fonts, or out-of-style graphics, for example.
Beyond that, simple animations on your website or helpful videos on YouTube can help to build trust in your business.
At a minimum, you need to create a few graphical elements to use online and in the real world. Consistency and repetition help, so limit your designs to a few colors and use a single font to help bring your brand together.
Advertising for HVAC Companies
Branding is a long-term strategy used to build awareness and authority. Advertising is a short-term tactic used to get attention and motivate sales. While both elements are crucial to the success of your HVAC company, advertising is much faster and more direct.
Advertising is commercial in nature, which means you’ll have to pay for it.
There are many forms of HVAC advertising, with online and offline platforms both widely available. Common advertising methods for HVAC companies include:
- PPC (pay-per-click) ads
- Social media promotion
- Print advertising & direct mail
PPC Ads
PPC advertising is an efficient, highly-targeted form of online advertising. With PPC ads, you only pay for your ad when someone clicks on it. This is ideal for HVAC companies, as it helps to funnel the market and improve the ratio between interest and action.
Broadcast advertising, such as billboards and magazines, works great when there’s a large market. But broadcast advertising can be wasteful for the local HVAC pros. There’s only a small number of people looking for HVAC services at any time.
PPC ads, on the other hand, allow you to target these people directly. Google Ads is the most popular form of PPC, with ads published on Google’s search engine and via third-party websites.
Social Media Promotion
Social media advertising also provides a form of PPC—only this time, reach is limited to a particular social media platform.
Popular social platforms include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Facebook is particularly useful for advertising purposes, with HVAC companies able to limit their ads to specific user groups.
Social PPC ads can be targeted to specific demographics, including age and gender. They can also be targeted to topics of interest and particular community groups. Social PPC can be incredibly powerful for HVAC companies because it allows you to limit your ad spending based on data gathered by the platform.
Print Advertising & Direct Mail
Traditional print advertising is still going strong in many communities. From newspapers and magazines to brochures and postcards, print advertising is effective for many home service businesses.
Despite the broad nature of print ads, there are lots of effective ways to spend wisely. For example, you could limit your campaign to local community newspapers or distribute postcards to homes and businesses in your service area. Print advertising is highly flexible, from simple classifieds to postcards, banner ads, and full-page spreads.
From air conditioner installations to heating repairs and gas services, print ads can be a great way to promote special deals in the community.
Digital HVAC Marketing Strategies
Along with commercial advertising, the internet provides a number of HVAC marketing strategies. Unlike PPC and social media advertising, HVAC digital marketing is about improving your organic reach through search engines, email messages, and social platforms.
While this form of marketing is free to implement, it takes time, energy, and expertise to really make a difference. HVAC businesses benefit greatly from digital marketing strategies, with visibility on Google, Facebook, and other platforms.
This is a great way to build authority and drive leads to your door.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing involves using social media platforms to promote products, services, or brands. As a powerful form of digital marketing, social media campaigns leverage the natural reach of social platforms to target specific market groups, direct tailored messages, and direct leads to your website.
HVAC social media marketing is a great way to develop relationships with your customers and build a community around your brand. In just a few steps, you can engage with potential customers in your local area.
For example, you can create a business profile for your HVAC business, join social groups in your local community, and speak directly with highly targeted leads.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a great way to reach out and influence a large number of people. There are lots of ways to capture email addresses, including your website, your social media profiles, or your local HVAC teams.
You could use this information to publish a newsletter, send people information on new services, and promote special deals for new customers.
HVAC email marketing is the ideal way to promote seasonal specials, which are used by many heating and air conditioning companies. For example, perhaps you’re offering an air conditioner discount in the lead-up to summer or a heating maintenance deal during the autumn months.
While it can take time to develop an email list, once you have one, it’s worth its weight in gold.
SEO for HVAC Companies
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful tool for all HVAC companies.
From the outset, you should register for a Google Business Profile and pay close attention to your website ranking. A business that ranks well on Google is more likely to be trusted by the market and better placed to attract new leads.
SEO marketing relies on smart content, considered design, and thoughtful backlinks from authority pages. As an HVAC provider, you can improve your ranking by posting valuable content, employing an internal linking system, and obtaining external links from trusted sources.
Free HVAC Marketing Tactics
HVAC marketing is a diverse field that includes a variety of commercial and organic activities. Along with SEO and other digital optimization strategies, HVAC businesses benefit greatly from more traditional marketing tactics.
From classic word-of-mouth marketing to authority-building campaigns and industry partnerships, there are lots of ways to stand tall and spread the word.
The following HVAC marketing ideas are 100% free.
Promote Word-of-Mouth Marketing
As an HVAC specialist, positive word-of-mouth marketing is essential. When you have a good reputation in your local area, you’re more likely to receive new contracts and repeat business.
Word-of-mouth describes naturally occurring instances of shared satisfaction, like when a happy customer talks about you with friends and family. While this is largely spontaneous, there are things you can do to increase the frequency of word-of-mouth mentions.
For example, you can build a social media community, respond to online reviews, and ask satisfied customers to spread the word. The best way to receive positive word-of-mouth, however, is simply to deliver value. When people are satisfied with your service, they will recommend you to friends and family.
Become a Thought Leader by Being Helpful
To be successful, HVAC companies need to be experts in multiple fields. Not only do you need to understand heating products and infrastructure, but you also need expertise with ventilation and air conditioning systems.
Perhaps more than any other home service provider, you’re in a great position to share this knowledge and build trust in your brand.
There are lots of ways to do this, from publishing articles and blogs on your website to creating videos for YouTube and speaking at local conferences. Industry thought leaders get more attention, win larger contracts, and have the ability to charge more money.
Partner with Other Home Service Providers
Heating, ventilation, and cooling systems are integral features in all modern homes and businesses. They are typically installed from the outset, and they’re often upgraded or replaced as a building ages.
From new builds to renovations and expansions, you have plenty of opportunities to work with builders and other home service providers.
One of the most effective ways to promote your HVAC business is to partner with other professionals. If you have a good relationship with builders and tradespeople, you’re likely to get recommended for more contracts. If you offer joint discounts with other home service providers, you may be able to win over even more customers.
Marketing Ideas and Examples from Real HVAC Companies
When it comes to marketing your HVAC business, you don’t have to start from scratch. Lots of businesses have been in your shoes. It only makes sense to learn from their successes and failures.
From social media campaigns to valuable website content and integrated search engine strategies, the following three examples are worthy of your attention.
Example #1: Facebook
Facebook is a powerful weapon for HVAC companies. You can promote your business directly and use demographic data to reach a highly targeted group of customers.
HVAC Pros Los Angeles is a great example, with a solid logo and a keyword-rich business name combined with regular posts that engage users directly. This company often mentions the seasons, which is a great strategy for HVAC businesses.
Example #2: Your Website
As an HVAC business, your website has an important role to play. It’s how customers research your services and prices. It’s where they measure your expertise and trustworthiness.
Aircor provides a great example of valuable website content, with multiple blogs published to assist readers and inspire trust in the market. When you go out of your way to help potential customers, they’re much more likely to use your services.
Example #3: SEO
If you have an HVAC website, it should be simple to find and easy to interact with. Interstate Air Conditioning and Heating has invested in commercial search engine marketing and organic SEO.
This company is ranked on the top page of Google results for “HVAC New York,” and they’re in the top three registered businesses for Google Maps. While they’re not first for either category, they have multiple bases covered.
Ready to Get More HVAC Leads?
Do you want to know how to get HVAC leads? At EverConnect, we help HVAC companies and home services providers, specializing in lead generation.
If you want to focus on running your business instead of worrying about your leads, we’re here to help. For more information, please contact our customer support team today.
