Email marketing for HVAC contractors

As an HVAC business owner, having a robust digital marketing strategy is critical to increase brand awareness, generate leads and attract new customers.

Most HVAC companies rely on social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and their Google My Business listing to gain new HVAC leads. While those are tried and true tactics, you can add another strategy to your digital marketing arsenal that is convenient, low-cost and flexible.

That new weapon is email marketing.

By sending regular email campaigns to your existing customer base and potential customers, you can promote your HVAC services and grow your small business.

In a highly competitive field such as HVAC services, you need every strategy to get new business and retain your existing customer base. What better way to do that than with inbox-to-inbox customer communication?

This article will show how email marketing is a top HVAC marketing idea to boost lead generation, nurture customer relationships and encourage upsells.

Is email marketing useful for HVAC contractors?

Email marketing is a powerful tool to effectively enhance your marketing strategy.

The HVAC industry thrives on maintaining current customer relationships. At the same time, continuous expansion is the ultimate goal of many HVAC business owners. Luckily, there are plenty of opportunities to do so, even though the HVAC industry is notably seasonal.

New opportunities might pop up at the start of winter when panicked homeowners call for home service and furnace upgrades. Likewise, new buildings might need rush air conditioning installations as the summer months approach. Maintenance and repairs for existing customers also follow this seasonal rhythm.

With such dynamic and seasonal business patterns, you’ll need a flexible, targeted, and efficient marketing strategy to reach the optimal audiences at the right time.

Email marketing can be particularly ideal for HVAC contractors.

• Audience curation. Services like HVAC cater to various individuals and businesses that require a wide array of services, making blanket campaigns difficult. With an HVAC email marketing campaign, you can curate your audience to receive the right promotions and specials that suit their needs.
• Customizability. To stay competitive, you must create personalized campaigns targeting specific benefits based on customer type and demographics. This is only possible with a highly customizable tool such as an email marketing platform.
• Automation. HVAC is a highly seasonal business. Services, promotions, and campaigns can vary widely depending on the season. Email marketing allows you to automate these dynamic changes in your marketing to remove the pain from your campaign.
• Lead generation. Since email marketing lets you target specific audiences, you can target email marketing campaigns to check on frequent site visitors, follow up on unsold quotes and request referrals to boost HVAC leads.
• Convenience. Automated email marketing campaigns are much more efficient than hiring a full-time customer relations staff to nurture each marketing strategy.

Email marketing ensures a cost-effective means of reaching specific audiences with your marketing campaigns, enhancing relationships and improving lead generation.

How email marketing can boost your overall HVAC marketing strategy

Integrating an email marketing campaign into your overall strategy can help you reach your audience, promote your services and drive new business.

One of the primary benefits of email marketing is its ability to deliver personalized content to your target audience. Segment your email list to create targeted campaigns that speak directly to the needs and interests of your customers in your service area, whether they are business owners or homeowners.

Customer reviews and testimonials are powerful tools that complement your email marketing efforts. By including customer reviews and testimonials in your emails, you can establish trust with potential customers and showcase the quality of your services.

In addition to personalization, email marketing is cost-effective compared to other HVAC advertising ideas. For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you’ll get a $40 return on investment, helping you drive traffic to your website or social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

How HVAC businesses can start an email marketing campaign

In this interconnected and information-saturated world, email marketing is an incredibly efficient way to promote your business.

But how exactly do you begin this process?

Starting an email marketing strategy requires specific steps, but anyone can do it if they know the steps. That said, it can’t be denied that launching an email marketing campaign is easier when you have a suitable platform such as Broadly.

Here are some specific steps for launching your email marketing campaign.

Identify your goals

Everything begins with goal setting. Before you go through the more technical steps of an email marketing strategy, you need to have a general direction that all your email marketing efforts can point towards.

Your email marketing goals are what you want to achieve with this campaign. Do you want to increase your reach? Minimize wasted business opportunities? Maybe you have plenty of active regulars, but you want to boost your follow-up and upselling efforts.

Goal-setting is crucial because it will serve as a roadmap for your email campaign.

Pick the right platform

Although your goals drive the direction of your email marketing efforts, there’s much more to your strategy. Having the right email marketing platform will make your journey easier.

Here are some examples of how your goals can correlate with platform features.

• Automation: To reduce time spent on tabs and clicks, you can choose platforms with powerful automation features that streamline administrative tasks and deliver quick results.
• Analytics: Some email marketing platforms feature stellar analytics, provide campaign projections and allow you to profile your audience. These media types are best if you’re looking to optimize your targeting capacity.
• No-Frills: If you’re still new to email marketing, you’ll want a platform that gives you everything you need without advanced features you may not need at the start of your journey. Starting simple can help you master the basics and keep you from getting overwhelmed.

Different email marketing platforms have various features that appeal to various customers. HVAC service providers should evaluate their goals and capacity to pick the best platform to suit their needs.

If you want a highly competent, all-around email marketing platform, check out Broadly. Broadly’s email marketing tools allow you to easily curate audiences with just a few clicks and deliver personalized promotions to specific groups of customers.

Build an email list for HVAC marketing

With the right goals and platform to support them, you can now build your email list. Here are some popular strategies for building an HVAC marketing email list:

1. Build a following: By consistently providing valuable information, such as informative blog posts or entertaining videos, you can attract a following of people who are interested in your HVAC business.
2. Give something in return: Offering a valuable incentive, such as a free consultation or a downloadable guide, in exchange for contact information.
3. Highlight the benefits: Besides offering free content or incentives, it’s essential to highlight the benefits of being on your email list. This may include personalized promotions, discounts on HVAC services, exclusive content and early access to new products or services.
4. Collect their details: Ask for their phone number, email address, demographic information and permission to send them marketing materials. You’ll want to segment your email list, so it might be helpful to know the type of HVAC system they currently have and if they are a homeowner or business customer.

Understand email types

With a growing email list, you’re becoming a great email marketer. But wait – just what kinds of emails should you be sending again?

Email marketing isn’t just greeting your audiences and sending holiday-appropriate promotions. Several email types can be used to maximize your email marketing capacity.

• Promotional. We are almost familiar with these types of emails. Ideally, promotional emails deliver relevant and personalized promotions to specific audiences.
• Transactional. Transactional emails are the types you send before or after transactions. This includes welcome messages, purchase confirmations, quotation follow-ups and requests for feedback or online reviews.
• Relational. These emails are sent to enhance customer trust and relationships. They can be your promised exclusive content, like informational guides, DIY maintenance tips and gifts.

Create a unique HVAC email template

A unique and high-quality email template is crucial for success. A well-designed template is easy to read on mobile devices, reinforces your brand identity and creates a sense of professionalism.

It also reduces the administrative load of creating email marketing campaigns because you will always have a solid starting point.

Your template should have a clear call-to-action, directing potential HVAC clients to your HVAC website or content marketing materials. Ensure your phone number is formatted for click-to-call in the email so users don’t have to figure out how to copy and paste it to their calling function on their mobile devices.

Track and test your email campaigns

Tracking and optimizing your email campaigns is crucial for the success of your HVAC marketing plan.

Therefore, you should monitor customer experiences and track your email campaigns with the analytics services your email marketing platforms provide or a third-party email analytics service.

Some specific metrics that you will want to track during email campaigns include:

• Delivery and open rate
• Emails that go into the spam folder
• Opening and click-through rate
• Leads, link clicks and web visit rate
• Costs and conversions

Once you’ve tracked your email campaign metrics, you must analyze them to troubleshoot and optimize your HVAC marketing strategy. Additionally, if your click-through rate or web visit rate is low, you might want to review your email design and layout, call-to-action buttons, or the content of your landing pages.

By consistently reviewing and optimizing your email metrics, you can improve your campaign’s effectiveness and increase engagement with your target audience.

Don’t forget to respond to emails

The last and simplest form of engagement is also among the most powerful. Responding to email inquiries makes your business very appealing to customers.

It exudes professionalism and gives a human face to your local business, making it friendlier and more approachable.

Always respond to emails to build customer relationships. Customers will trust your business when they feel heard. Responding promptly can also lead to positive online reviews and testimonials, further boosting your reputation.

Start your HVAC email campaign with Broadly

With a comprehensive email marketing strategy, your HVAC service business can cater to personalized demands, even though those demands might fluctuate seasonally.

Broadly has everything you need in an email marketing platform: automation, customer segmentation, message curation, and content customizability. More than that, it’s also a robust reputation management platform that can help you supercharge your online presence across multiple business page directories.

Additionally, the experts at Broadly can help you with an HVAC website design optimized for mobile devices and local SEO. Broadly’s website design service takes the mystery out of search engine algorithms and boosts your rankings on Bing and Google search results.

Internet marketing and managing your online reputation are a breeze with Broadly.