I know what you want!
You want a steady stream of HVAC leads without wasting money on B.S.
You want leads you can actually close, and you want to create scalable solutions around strategies to generate those leads.
But right now, you’re scared to invest the time into reading a 5-minute article?!
Maybe you’re scared:
- “This guide is going to try to sell me on services”
- “It’s going to tell me all the tactics I already know.”
- It’s going to throw me into the deep end, and not teach me HOW to do any of it.
In fact – I give you my word. My team has generated 10’s of thousands of home services leads – and in this guide I will do everything I can possibly to show you how to generate 1000’s of HVAC leads.
First – a few principles for more HVAC Leads
#1 – Referrals will always be your number one source – so get customer service down first.
#2 – Own your marketing
#3 – Know your numbers, and learn the basics, and always double down on what works
#4 – Make it about them, not about your company
#5 – Be there when they’re looking
Have a persuasive website with social proof + strong call-to-action.
Here’s an example – we did to show the key elements of a strong website:
- Showcase reviews with who left each – Present 5-star reviews for your HVAC business, a photo of the reviewer, and an excerpt of a testimonial on every selling page
- Make sure your website is fast – Smaller Images and using Caching, Gzip, and a CDN can do wonders.
- Make sure it looks great on phones, not just on desktops – sometimes we forget to look at the website or do quality assurance on our phones, but these days sometimes MORE THAN HALF of your traffic of people looking for HVAC contractors is on a phone, it should be easy to use there as well.
- Have clear “call-to-actions” – A ‘call-to-action’ is just a button that says what you want them to do next so ‘Get a free quote’ or similar, and should be present as often as possible. Potentially on the top right of the site, at the bottom of every page, and right away after the headline on the homepage.
- Answer their questions – We love using an FAQ section, and including the top asked questions in the sales process. Involve your sales and service team to be part of the brainstorming, and get 5-8 top questions answered on each of your services pages.
Here’s a full list of 12 things you can do on your website to increase conversions.
Ensure you have systems in place to increase search engine traffic.
- Google Guaranteed – particularly if your competitors aren’t all on there already, Google Local Services ads and Google guaranteed to allow you to show up at the top of searches with a rating, and basically are insane ROI. At least experiment with them if you haven’t yet.
- Local SEO – Creating content on your HVAC business website, having systems around that, and getting links back to your website from other relevant websites, targeting pages for the right keywords, and making technical edits for structure and meta titles, and description.
- PPC for your most lucrative keywords – The important point here is that keep your ad budget TIGHT for only the terms that are most likely to turn into business is the key here. Google does its best to spend your budget, on whatever it can. How to keep it tight? Add negative keywords every week, and use options like ‘expanded exact match’ to ensure all words need to be present for an ad to show.
Diving deeper into driving boat-loads of Organic Traffic
“Spend at least half of your marketing dollars on HVAC SEO, Pay-Per-Click digital ads, Google My Business, Google Local Services, and getting more positive customer reviews. Today’s consumers find 70 percent of all services online through Google searches, so “just understand Google is God when it comes to home service.” ” – Tommy Mello, A1 Garage Door Services.
- Content on key landing pages – we say at least 500 words ideally, particularly for your most lucrative services for your HVAC Business.
- Blogging – answering questions customers have, and expanding your website’s footprint and traffic flow in general. This also can drive ‘links’ back to your site, which is big for long-term rankings increase.
- Local citations, and deeper link building – Check out ‘3 Things I would do for SEO if nothing else‘ article to get some local citation service options and other easy link-building ideas.
- A persuasive website + getting higher on Google = Lead Generation. Don’t think any one tactic is going to dramatically increase your leads. Every single thing you do helps – but a professional website, and SEO are 2 big systems to build on the way to a bigger sales pipeline.
- Did you know sponsoring local events, local news etc – can help with SEO? We sponsor events and organization and take every chance we get to be on local news. Don’t know where to get started? Try ‘Help a Reporter Out’ and answer a few queries from reporters every morning!
If nothing else – get your reviews right on Google
- PulseM is a great option for helping get more reviews (you can set it up to ask after the initial consult)
- Podium also uses text to communicate + ask for reviews. It will give you a chat box on your site to communicate with visitors, just make sure if you use that function – there is someone on your team ready to handle the inquiries.
- Online ratings + reputation are the foundation of everything else you do in digital marketing. No matter what though – you should create an expectation for your team that this should be part of your process, asking – and understanding a 4.0+ star rating can make or break you, so have your team act accordingly.
Video testimonials scale out ‘social proof’
- A simple video of a customer who loves you is now super attainable for small businesses and large alike. As soon as you are able – to get video of customers who loved working with you.
- This helps other potential customers imagine themselves after a completed project, and this is super powerful for that ‘positive upward cycle’ of customer acquisition + delight.
- Make videos short and sweet – 1-2 minutes tops! I suggest having your brand and a smiling face right at the beginning + ideally having your tagline (if it’s good) pretty quick in the video, so you can use this as a ‘remarketing video’ all over social media.
- A re-marketing video – means when someone comes to your website, for the following 10 days (or longer) you can show up around the web – perhaps on Facebook and Youtube to remind them of your company. It’s a fairly simple ad structure to set up as long as you have a decent video, and a 1000+ people on your website a month. Some ad platforms have a minimum amount of people that are in the ‘bucket’ of potential viewers before they’ll allow you to set up ads serving that group.
Track your calls – and ensure your sales team is always leveling up
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- Use CallRail or similar tools to track how many calls your getting, from where, and to ensure quality
- Create ongoing systems for leveling up your reps! Have your reps “follow the golden thread” – ask questions, and learn about what matters to them.
- Give them a range of prices, not a single price point.
- Ensure you’re training and educating them on pre-calls, add-on’s and follow-ups. Check out this interview about this topic with Rob Ambrosetti of KGG Consulting and Indoor Air Quality solutions.
- Be conversational, and treat them like a human!
Social Media Platforms like NextDoor and Facebook
- Be present, and authentic all over social media. Depending on the size of your company – if your over 1M+ in revenue, you should be able to post 2-3 times a week. It might be a goal for a 5M+ company to post every weekday at least on 2-3 main platforms. It’s really hard to be everywhere, but focus on the top platforms you believe your audience is spending the most time (maybe Facebook, IG, NextDoor.)
- Local Facebook Groups and NextDoor can be great, particularly if you get a ‘referral partner’ that refers your HVAC services – and you refer them out, rather than promoting your selves.
- Teach them to DIY, but sell ‘Done for you’ – in the end, the quality of your content is what’s going to create an audience, along with your consistency. 2 Tips for increasing the quality – involve ‘subject matter experts’ and give real tips, act as if they were going to do it themselves (DIY tips,) but understand most of your best customers would rather pay a professional.
- Paid ads to increase brand awareness – at the end of the day, once you find where your audience is spending the most time, pay for increased visibility, and track where your leads are coming from, so you can double your online marketing ad spend on the ones that are working, and dropping the others.
E-mail marketing
- E-mail marketing can be incredibly effective – particularly when you do ‘drip sequences’ based on when someone signed up for your list, or to have work done.
- Then put them into a cyclical or monthly email newsletter list – and create seasonal campaigns based on the needs you’re already seeing around those times, hitting them with the occasional time-based offer.
- A message is 5x more likely to be seen in email than via Facebook.
- You are 6x more likely to get a click-through from an HVAC Contractor email campaign than you are from a tweet.
Other options
- Pay-per-lead – “Industry sources estimated that acquiring a single customer costs an HVAC contractor between $200 and $300.” This also is supported by numbers from the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA). By ACCA’s estimation, the average industry cost per lead (CPL) is between $250 to $300 per lead.
- Call center – For instance from Modernize – “Homeowners request to connect with local HVAC contractors · Modernize instantly matches local homeowners to your sales team · Your team calls the homeowner.”
- Don’t sleep on the basics like Google My Business and Google Local Services Ads!
Some final thoughts: HVAC Leads on autopilot
At the end of the day – you want SYSTEMS in place for more leads.
Don’t let some HVAC leads company sell you on them owning all the systems they create.
Whether that be Facebook ads, a call center – or them owning your website and all the content they create. Make sure that your company owns it all, otherwise you could be in a crunch at the end of the engagement with them.
OWN YOUR MARKETING.
Find the things that work – and double down on them.
If you’re interested in HVAC search engine optimization, we’re here for you! Send us a message or give us a call now to get started.
Frequently Asked Questions about HVAC Lead Generation:
How do I get HVAC leads?
The largest quantity of HVAC leads come from referrals, so consider looking into ways to increase your referrals systematically. Ensure you have a sticker on the items you sell, and ensure it’s well designed and has a clear website + number to call. Referral leads are also the easiest to close. The second largest chunk of leads comes from being visible on Google (through ads, or finding ways to get higher in the ‘organic’ listing.) While mailers, and directories are still important to at least be somewhat present on, online marketing will be one of the largest broad categories of advertising you should vigorously pursue.
How much do HVAC leads cost?
You may consider buying leads from places like HomeAdvisor, or people that do Facebook ads for you – but I strongly suggest OWNING YOUR MARKETING, and owning the methods to get leads for your company. Industry sources estimated that acquiring a single customer costs an HVAC contractor between $200 and $300. Often shared lead sites, will sell a lead to more than one company, thus the number might be cheaper (but that may be a sign of low quality, as well.)
Do HVAC contractors make good money?
The median annual salary of an HVAC technician is $48,730 (or $23.43 per hour) according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. While HVAC company owners and administrative people may make significantly more than this. If you are looking to gain experience in the HVAC trade, consider applying for an HVAC apprenticeship. Throughout and HVAC apprenticeship, you receive hands-on training from HVAC technicians, allowing you to gain on-the-job experience. Ensure you are applying at a place that cares deeply about its employee’s development and understands that you are at the beginning of your HVAC career. Many are hungry for employees right now, and are open to creative ways to finding new (driven) people.
How do HVAC companies increase sales?
It’s not just about increasing your HVAC company’s leads! Online Marketing / Digital Advertising is only one way that you can increase your revenue and profit. The closer you get to signed deals and checks, the more impact you can have immediately on your HVAC companies bottom line. Sales training is another system you might consider getting in place, any ways to systematically increase your employees in-home confidence. The technology around your service (HousecallPro, and Service Titan being HVAC CRM options), getting more reviews, and anything else you can do to give social proof and authority to your brand/company to help customers trust you. Increasing your average revenue per home visit, through offering add-on’s can also have an immediate impact.
How do HVAC companies advertise?
1. Google Local Service Ads.
2. Google Ads.
3. Creating blog content and landing pages for service areas on niche services on your website.
4. Increasing the visual appeal and social proof on your website through reviews and persuasive images and headlines.
5. Informational videos on social media, and promoted through Facebook ads.
6. Attending local events, and giveaways.
7. Working with other home services and working out referral deals.
