Alberta is a unique place filled with extreme conditions. We have extremely cold winters, and short but hot summers. These extreme weather conditions make heating and cooling essential to life in Alberta, and in turn, makes the HVAC industry in our province very competitive. Maintaining your competitive edge is incredibly important for this in-demand service. There are many marketing tactics that work together in your overall marketing strategy to help you keep your edge, increase your visibility, grow your customer base, and ultimately increase your revenue. Here are some of the top strategies that a top tier internet marketing company like Smart WSI Marketing leverages to successfully market your HVAC business. Call us for a consultation today!
Likely the most important thing you need for marketing your HVAC business is an awesome website. 92% of your future customers will look at an HVAC company’s website before hiring them! That means your website is a pretty big deal! It is one of the first glances of your business that potential customers will see, and you want to make a good impression. Your website serves as the hub of all your internet marketing activities. It’s important that you give users a seamless experience with a clean, uncluttered, and easy to navigate website.
Not only does your website need to be visually appealing to give a great first impression, it should load quickly as well. The average web user only waits 3 seconds for a page to load before ditching it. 3 seconds!! That’s how long you have to make a connection with potential customers. If your site takes longer than that to load, chances are that customer is moving on to a competitor.
Another crucial point is to make sure that your site is fully optimized for use on any device. Everyone and their dog has a mobile phone at hand these days and will whip out their phone to search for anything as it pops into their heads. Having a mobile-friendly site makes sure that you are found no matter what device your customers are searching on.
Google My Business is a free listing that helps your business to show up for searches related to your business offering and local area. These results are shown above organic search results which makes them very valuable. Think of your Google My Business page as a summary of your business which provides:
This is often many people’s first impression of your business, so you want to make sure that you take the time to set it up properly and keep it up to date. Having a well setup Google My Business page gives users a quick and easy way to find out everything they should know about you before ever going to your website! Being a Google product, Google My Business has quite a bit of weight when it comes to search engine optimization on Google.
HVAC is a service-based business, and service-based businesses rely greatly on word of mouth, even with internet marketing! Your potential customers are likely going to ask their buddies if they have a “guy” when it comes to home services. If your potential customers don’t get a personal recommendation from a friend, they are going to turn to the internet at large. Making sure you have great reviews online will definitely increase the odds of YOU becoming their HVAC “guy!”
It’s also worth mentioning that 60% of consumers say that they will consider switching companies after bad service. If they are unhappy with their current HVAC “guy,” and on the hunt for a new one, having great reviews gives you an opportunity to gain their business.
Review signals are very important for SEO. Make sure to ask for reviews regularly (especially when you know you have done a stellar job) and take the time to respond to both positive and negative reviews. Don’t be afraid of a few negative reviews. Look at them as opportunities to showcase your customer service skills and improve on your business practices.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads are the absolute quickest way to get qualified leads for your HVAC company. PPC ads are shown at the very top of the search engine results, ensuring that you are getting seen by potential customers. With PPC ads, you bid on keywords that you want to rank for. Bidding on relevant keywords increases your odds of showing up for those terms, even if you aren’t currently ranking for them organically.
One of the great things about PPC is that your digital marketing agency can measure your return on investment (ROI) by tracking the calls and form submissions that result from clicks on your ads. Calls are often recorded for quality assurance to determine if the calls are relevant as well as to identify potential customer service issues. For example, if you get multiple phone calls requesting duct cleaning, but you don’t offer that service, your marketing team will make adjustments to eliminate these requests.
PPC ads are not only effective for increasing website traffic and generating leads, but they also offer data insights that can be valuable across all of your marketing channels. If you are unsure of where to start in your digital marketing journey, PPC can provide information that will help make your future marketing activities a success.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for increasing your visibility online and putting your business on the radar of your potential customers. Using strategically placed keywords in your website content helps to improve your rankings to boost you closer to the top of the search engine results. If more customers can easily find your website, you are most likely to get more website traffic, and therefore leads.
Having SEO best practices implemented on your website is a foundation that needs to be built on with regularly added content. SEO is not a one-and-done activity. It requires constant effort to come up with the fresh content that Google craves, and your customers enjoy reading.
Content marketing also helps your search engine rankings by showcasing your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (EAT). These are all factors that the Google machine takes into consideration when ranking you, as well as things your human customer base is looking for in an HVAC company. Showing off your EAT in educational blogs, videos, and social media posts goes a long way for your SEO and lets your customers know that you’re an expert in your field. Adding in a geographical component gives you an edge to be found by customers in your local area. If you’re Alberta based, and service the Greater Edmonton Area, it’s not really helpful to rank in Manitoba, for example.
Email marketing may not seem like the most attractive tactic, however, it’s efficient!
It’s the most direct way to reach your customer base. Check out these email marketing statistics!
Start an email campaign to nurture your existing customer relationships. Contacts you already have are likely to give you repeat business and recommend you to others. Even though they probably aren’t going to need a new furnace or new AC unit installed regularly, your contacts will still need an HVAC “guy” to maintain and service their units. Even if you didn’t do the install, with a strong marketing campaign, that could be you!
Social media boasts many opportunities to market your HVAC company, but you need to use it wisely. Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to have an account on every platform you can. Choose one or two key platforms that your customers frequent and do them really well.
While social media signals are valuable to SEO, the main purpose of social media is to build a sense of community and engage with your customers. It’s important for you to be active on your social media platforms. Post often to keep your page relevant and respond to comments and questions quickly and in a friendly, transparent manner. 75% of social media users expect a response within 5 minutes so it is important to have someone on your team to monitor and keep up with customer engagement, or partner with an agency.
Although posting frequently is important, don’t post just for the sake of posting. Your posts need to be relevant and add value to your customers. Repurposing content from your website (such as blog posts) for your social media channels is a smart way to get the most out of your creative efforts and translate them into effective online marketing tools.
It’s no surprise that many of these tactics translate across industries. Those in high demand home service industries know how important it is to separate yourself from your competition. You do this every day by providing the best service you possibly can to your valued customers. Let our experienced Edmonton digital marketing agency help you leverage these invaluable marketing strategies so that you can focus on giving expert HVAC service to your growing customer base. Call Smart WSI Marketing today to discuss how we can put these great strategies and more to work for you.
Lynne is known for her strategic approach to marketing communications, technologies, and lead generation. She has a passion for education, keeping up with current marketing trends and practices, and helping clients keep ahead of their competition.
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