What if you could save $5000 a month on Google ads?
What if you didn’t need an HVAC marketing agency to run everything?
What if you had a community of HVAC customers that buy directly from you?
These are some of the proven advantages of HVAC content marketing.
And although it sounds confusing or like just another marketing jargon term, HVAC content marketing is more simple than you think.
In a nutshell, HVAC content marketing is simply giving customers answers to their questions and concerns before they buy.
HVAC content marketing is the bridge between prospects and customers. It is a source of building trust before you ever visit a customer’s home or buy your HVAC services.
And it’s one of the best-kept secrets in the world of HVAC marketing.
In this article, I want to share some of the reasons why HVAC content marketing works, and how to start to use it to stand out from your competitors.
The Truth About HVAC Marketing
Let’s face it, your HVAC business is driven by one thing: demand.
When there is a demand for repairs and replacement of HVAC systems, you are inundated with calls. You can’t keep up the volume of requests for AC repairs, or quotes for installing new HVAC systems. Your technicians are working long hours, and everyone is stressed, but hey, at least you are making decent money.
But, when the summer ends and the demand dries up, so do the easy sales.
This drop in sales happens because the entire HVAC industry is selling a service that is not enticing or exciting for people to spend money on. All HVAC sales are the result of reducing or removing pain from the customer’s lives.
When the demand season ends, this is the time when most HVAC business owners will look into doing some HVAC advertising or paid marketing.
Every HVAC marketing agency will try to tell you that you need a clever HVAC marketing strategy that will make your business stand out from competitors. They will suggest PPC, social media, brand awareness, Google reviews, Google local services ads, and a whole host of other confusing things that cost a lot of money.
But the reality is that all that most of these HVAC marketing efforts do is make you visible when there is demand.
The key to breaking the feast and famine cycle of an HVAC business is to focus on earning the trust of your potential customers.
Once you are seen as a trusted partner, your local HVAC market is essentially yours.
What HVAC Marketing Agencies Don’t Want You to Know
The truth is the vast majority of HVAC marketing makes almost zero new revenue.
Most of the money you spend with an HVAC marketing agency is wasted trying to figure out how to outrank competitors with generic Google ads.
The rest of your money disappears onto platforms like Angie, HomeAdvisor, or even into HVAC SEO services that give you very limited results.
Most HVAC marketing agencies won’t admit that they have no idea how to stand out from competitors.
Most will offer digital marketing services that are not specialized for your business. They will baffle you with marketing jargon and label their generic marketing plan as breakthrough ‘HVAC advertising’.
The biggest thing most HVAC marketing agencies don’t want you to know is that the true value of your brand is not found online.
It is found in the customer relationships you create and maintain, and the knowledge that your HVAC technicians share with each potential customer during the first visit.
Why HVAC Content Marketing is a Secret Weapon
The only way to stand out from the competition is to do something different or offer something they don’t (or won’t).
When you take a trust-building approach to your HVAC marketing, you will be amazed how much easier the HVAC sales process becomes.
And the ironic thing is that HVAC content marketing takes a lot less time and money than most business owners realize.
By setting up a regular email list, a Youtube channel, and useful HVAC buyer guides you can start to outrank and outsell almost any competitor in your market. If you do this consistently over three to five years, you will build a business that is unstoppable.
The greatest benefit of HVAC content marketing is that it costs a lot less than all other HVAC digital marketing approaches.
The Most Valuable Types of HVAC Content Marketing
If you think from the perspective of a potential customer, they are trying to avoid spending money, and they don’t want to be sold on unnecessary services.
No customer is excited to spend money on a HVAC service, or replacing their HVAC system. They want to keep it running as long as possible and to make a smart decision.
HVAC content marketing is all about sharing insider information that helps customers to understand their problems, and what can be done to solve them.
It’s not about endlessly talking about your HVAC services, or trying to badger them to buy from you. The secret weapon of your content marketing strategy is the fact you help them to make an informed choice.
With this in mind, here are the most valuable types of HVAC content marketing:
Website FAQs – sharing useful answers to customer questions and concerns
Email Marketing – weekly, or twice monthly emails that help customers save money and time
Blog Posts – in-depth explanations of problems and solutions for HVAC systems
Downloadable Guides – helpful information about cost, timing, and product options
Explainer Videos – short, simple, friendly videos that give customers answers
Social Media Posts – sharing the latest trends, company updates, and helpful information
At the core of every piece of engaging content is something of use to the customer. Whether it is information on the costs of your HVAC service, how long it takes to do the repairs or answers to specific technical questions, it should all help the customer trust you more.
Why Do HVAC Marketing Agencies Avoid Content Marketing?
For most HVAC marketing agencies, it is much easier for them to run Google Ads, set up Google local services ads, or sell you on a new website design.
These HVAC marketing approaches are all things they are familiar with and are easy to slide into their client portfolio. And they are lower effort, higher profit for the agency.
But when it comes to HVAC content marketing, they will avoid and ignore almost every chance to use it.
Why? Because they don’t know what they are doing.
Worse than this, HVAC marketing agencies know that if you use content marketing correctly, you likely won’t need their services long-term.
How To Begin HVAC Content Marketing for Your Business
Imagine you were talking with a friend at a party, and they asked you an HVAC equipment question. You would likely be honest, transparent, and clear with your answer.
The same kind of communication with customers is what makes you stand out in the marketplace.
The key to HVAC content marketing is to start to pre-empt your customers’ questions and worries. Think about how to help them understand what is happening with their AC system, how much it might cost to fix, and what they can expect from your service.
With this in mind, here are three simple steps to get started with HVAC content marketing:
1) Write a List of all your Customer Questions
Every time a customer calls an HVAC company for an AC repair or a new HVAC system quote, they usually have a laundry list of questions.
It can feel arduous and time-consuming to answer these questions, but they are the key to building trust and standing out.
The first step is to sit with your CSR team and start a list of all the questions customers have over the phone. These HVAC customer questions will likely be things like:
– Can my system be repaired?
– How much does it usually cost?
– Is there a guarantee on the work?
– How soon can you come out to fix it?
Beyond these HVAC logistics questions will likely be more detailed questions like:
– Is the work covered under warranty?
– Why does the system keep breaking down?
– Can I fix the system myself?
– Can I buy the parts and you install them?
You probably will have another twenty (or maybe fifty) questions similar to this that your CSR and Technician team have answered. No question is too small or ridiculous. Write them all down, and show the list to the rest of your team to add to them.
2) Create a Written Version of Each Answer
Once you have a list of HVAC customer questions, now you have to make some effort.
(This is the point where most HVAC business owners tap out and prefer to waste money on HVAC marketing agencies running ads for them.)
The second step is to pick the top 10 HVAC customers’ questions and write at least 200-word answers for each of them.
Don’t get top professional or technical. Imagine you were explaining the answer to a friend or family member. Be completely honest and transparent about the details.
If you hate writing, then you can dictate your answers into your phone and get them transcribed by an AI tool. But make each answer clear, and ask someone who is not an HVAC technician to read them through.
This whole process shouldn’t take more than 2 hours, but it’s well worth the effort.
3) Add a ‘Helpful Guides’ Section to your Website
The third step might require you to pay a HVAC website designer, or your marketing agency to build a new page or section on your website.
Ask the website designer to build a webpage labeled ‘Helpful Guides’.
It doesn’t need to be super fancy, and it should be easy to read on a phone.
Take the Top 10 questions and the 200-word answers, and add each of them to the Helpful Guides page. You can list this as a FAQ section or also offer it as a downloadable PDF. All these methods are a way to make your website more useful and will also increase the search engine ranking for your HVAC website.
As a next step, every time a new potential customer visits your website they will see this Helpful Guides section and be able to have some of their questions answered before calling.
As a bonus, you can also email this helpful guide over to each new prospective customer before the technician visits. It can act as a pre-visit guide for people, and help them have a greater understanding of what to expect.
This three-step formula is one of the simplest, most effective forms of HVAC content marketing that you can do.
Improving Your Google Business Profile with Valuable Content
Another HVAC content marketing method that almost every HVAC company ignores is to improve and update your Google Business Profile (also called Google My Business) to include more than just a list of HVAC services.
The first important fact that helps your Google Business Profile is to ensure all the information on your listing is accurate, and current and matches your website and social media platform listings exactly. Any discrepancy in the details about your opening hours, address, phone number, or the types of HVAC services you offer will have a negative effect on your search engine ranking.
Of course, you should ask for a Google review and testimonial from each of your satisfied customers. Every customer testimonial will help your brand appear more trustworthy and also help with local SEO rankings.
But perhaps the most important aspect of the Google Business Profile that is overlooked is to add FAQs and valuable content that answers customer questions.
You can easily repurpose the written answers from the Helpful Guides section of your website, and add them directly to the Google Business Profile.
If you have blog posts on your HVAC website, you can also repurpose and link to them directly on your Google listing as well.
These additional sections provide more content depth which improves your HVAC SEO and also helps your map listing rank in the top three results.
The Secret to Successful HVAC Content Marketing
There are thousands of ways to attract attention for your HVAC service, but the majority will do little more than get your name in front of people.
The value of HVAC content marketing is that it helps your potential customer feel like you are on their side. If you take time to think through the customer journey and create engaging content that helps them, they will reward you with repeat business.
HVAC content marketing will reduce the need for PPC ads, or trying to stand out on social media platforms. It will save you time having to explain the same things to new customers every time, and it will also make your HVAC business stand out from the competition.
As Seth Godin explained, “Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem.”
If you keep this idea in mind, you are guaranteed to succeed with your HVAC content marketing.