Depending on your industry, marketing can represent up to 40 percent of your budget. If you’re in a competitive industry, like HVAC, then you may end up spending more to compete effectively.
Two of the biggest parts of your marketing budget are likely personnel and tech tools. The more complex your marketing plans, the more time your staff members may need to carry them out. Investing in the right tools can help, but they can also run up the bill.
Marketing automation can help you streamline your costs and create more effective campaigns. Of course, to be successful, you need to make sure you’re automating the right way. These tips can help you automate your HVAC company marketing with ease.
1. Start with Strategy
The first step is to make marketing automation part of your digital marketing strategy. If you don’t already have a digital marketing strategy in place, it’s time to create one.
Why do you need to think about automation as part of your overall strategy? There are many options for automating, and HVAC businesses run the risk of adding automation piecemeal. When that happens, you might spend on a particular tool or automate tasks that you would have been better off handling in person.
Thinking about automation as part of your strategy ensures you leverage it effectively. That means it becomes a key part of every marketing campaign, instead of something you tacked on at the end.
With an automation strategy, you can use the right tools to achieve your goals. You can automate particular tasks and drive your strategy forward. It also helps you outline a budget and measure goals.
2. Build and Segment Contact Lists
Automation started with email marketing. Email marketing is a powerful tool, but it can be tricky to leverage the right way. This is especially true for HVAC businesses and other home services companies.
You may have some customers who are individual homeowners. Others may operate B&Bs or commercial rentals. Yet others are commercial customers.
All have different needs. You need to put effort into the messages and deals you send via email, as well as when you reach out. Miss a key touch point and you might lose the sale.
If you’re using email lists, then think about using tools to help you segment them. You can divvy everyone up into many groups to receive the right offers at the right time.
Also be sure to build your lists, rather than buying them. There are tools to help you collect the information you’ll need. Building your list will give you more room for personalization.
3. Choose Marketing Automation Software Carefully
There are tons of marketing automation solutions out there. They can help you with everything from social media to nurturing leads.
You’ll want to think about the tools you want to adopt. If you use Facebook ads to generate leads, then automating campaigns might make sense. It can save you time and help you manage your ad spend more effectively.
A lead-nurturing tool might also be a smart choice. Once you’ve generated the lead from your Facebook ad, this tool can help people move through the customer journey. When they’re ready, your sales team will have a warm lead to follow up on.
4. Add Chat to Your Marketing Efforts
Chat is an important tool for automation these days. If you don’t already have a chatbot on your website, it might be time to invest in one. You might also think about adding a chatbot to your Facebook marketing efforts, if that’s a channel you use.
Why is chat so important? It gives your customers access to assistance at all hours. When someone’s HVAC system goes down before you open, they can start troubleshooting right away.
That may sound more like automating customer service or sales. People may be looking into systems after your marketing team has gone home for the day, though. The chatbot can help them discover more about the solutions and services you offer.
It can even lead them to get in touch or book an appointment with you.
5. Focus on Dynamic Content
Content should be another piece to focus your automation efforts. As noted, different HVAC clients have different needs. You don’t want to send everyone the same email, and you don’t want to show them the same ads either.
They’re also not interested in the same blog posts or white papers, because they don’t have the same concerns. One person may be incredibly price sensitive, while another is looking to get away from a company that’s delivered bad service.
Dynamic content shifts and changes according to customer preferences and persona. Automation can help you deliver the right content to leads at the right time.
6. Use an Agile Approach to Automation for Marketing
If you want to get all the benefits of marketing automation, then you’ll want to adopt an agile approach. What does that mean for HVAC companies?
It means being platform agnostic. One tool may work for your Facebook marketing, but if it’s not supporting your email efforts, then it’s time to look for alternatives.
If you’re not sure if the tools you’re using are delivering results, then you can talk to a marketing agency. Their team can help you find the right tools and even change between them as your marketing needs change.
7. Remember to Measure
Metrics are one of the reasons digital marketing tools are so powerful. There’s so much data out there, which can provide deeper insights into how your campaigns are performing.
Think back to your automation strategy. What did you want to accomplish? Maybe it was freeing up time, or maybe it was moving customers along via a drip campaign or lead nurturing.
No matter the goal, you’ll need to measure the right metrics to ensure you’re achieving it. Your marketing agency partners can help here too. With the right metrics, you can see how well automation is working for your HVAC marketing.
8. Remember to Keep a Human Touch
Finally, remember that marketing is all about customer relationships. Showing customers dynamic content or nurturing a lead through the funnel is great. Yet your customers will still expect a human touch.
Focus on making your automation less robotic and you’ll see better results. Also use automation strategically to free up your team’s time. With marketing automation, you can take customers through the buyer’s journey hands-free until it’s time for your team to make the service call and close the sale.
Automate Marketing Success for Your Business
Marketing automation is powerful, but HVAC companies need to use it the right way. Following these tips can help you incorporate the right technology to support your marketing goals.
Ready to see what automation can do for your sales? Get in touch with Optic Marketing Group to get started with marketing automation now. Smarter marketing campaigns could be just a few clicks away.