Are you looking to expand your HVAC business to new territories? Perhaps you just started and want to drum up attention in the local community? Whatever your reason, you need a plan, and it starts with knowing the difference between online marketing and offline marketing.

Once you expand your knowledge, you’ll be able to decide on an HVAC marketing plan that works. More importantly, you’ll know that each one of your marketing dollars will be leading to a high return on investment (ROI).
With this in mind, read on to learn all about HVAC marketing–both online and offline!

Online: HVAC Digital Marketing

Regardless of whether you want to use traditional, offline marketing methods in your strategy, you need to use digital marketing. Online marketing is synonymous with digital marketing. You’re using a variety of digital methods in order to build authority with your brand, find new customers, and build your current relationships with customers.
Digital marketing uses a variety of different channels, such as:

    Paid social media advertisements
    Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns
    Social media posts
    Content marketing (blog posts, video, infographics, etc.)
    And more

You can see how it can quickly become overwhelming if you spread yourself too thin and try to market on all of these channels. However, an HVAC marketing company is here to make the process simple. We’ll go over some of the most effective HVAC marketing strategies.

Offline: Traditional Marketing

Compared to online marketing, offline is everything that is now deemed “traditional.” Even though they’re not as widely used as years past, traditional marketing can still be beneficial for your business, especially if you’re trying to build rapport in a local community. Here are a few examples of traditional marketing:

    Billboards
    Newspaper advertisements
    Magazine advertisements
    TV commercials
    Radio ads
    Postcards
    Brochures
    And more

Traditional marketing can be even trickier than digital marketing because you won’t get as much real-time feedback on what works and what doesn’t. For instance, PPC campaigns will give you instant data on how many people are viewing and clicking on your Google advertisements.
In contrast, you won’t be able to tell how many people have viewed your roadside billboard. You would just have to make a conjecture based on how much traffic is on that road. Then, you’d have to manually keep track of how many more calls or website visits you received since the billboard went up. The same is true for print advertisements.
The main benefit of traditional marketing is that you’ll stand out from your competitors. A well-designed brochure that includes a discount for the first-time service is more likely to be remembered. This is because your competitors will probably be focusing on digital marketing strategies alone.

HVAC Marketing Ideas: Where to Start

 

    Increasing brand awareness
    Generating qualified leads
    Increase customer value
    Building brand authority

If you’re just getting started with your HVAC business, it helps to focus on building brand awareness before moving on to other goals. You’ll find you’ll have an easier time generating leads if many people are already familiar with your brand.

Building Brand Awareness

Digital marketing is one of the easiest ways to begin building brand awareness. You can do this by creating a functional and aesthetically pleasing website that people can navigate to in order to learn about your business, schedule appointments, and find contact information. Boosting traffic to your website is done through a combination of PPC advertising and content marketing.

Generating Leads

PPC advertising is another way to quickly generate leads without waiting for your content marketing to “kick in.” Search engine optimization (SEO) is important, but it’s a long-term strategy. At this point, you can also create brochures and postcards in order to mail to local residents and previous customers.

Increasing Customer Value

Once you begin building brand authority in your local area, you’ll begin acquiring paying customers. However, it’s important that you keep those customers happy and retain them. You’ll find it’s far easier and worth more of your energy to retain current customers than to constantly struggle to acquire new ones.

Providing exemplary service and making your scheduling system easier can be great ways to increase customer value. Happy customers will also be more likely to leave positive reviews on your Google Business page and recommend your HVAC business to friends and family.
This can be done through a combination of email marketing and print advertisements to keep customers engaged.

HVAC Marketing: Starting With a Strategy

When it comes to HVAC marketing, it’s important to start with a strategy regardless of whether you’re going the digital route, traditional, or a combination of the two methods. This is because you can quickly stretch yourself as well as your budget too thin, if you try to do anything and everything all at once.
Marketing the smart way begins with discovering your target audience and learning which marketing channel will capture their attention the most. If your budget allows for it, it is even best to invest in both.
Ready to begin your marketing strategy with a premier full-service marketing agency that’s experienced with working with companies in the HVAC industry? Contact us today to get started!