How to Create an Effective Email Marketing Campaign for your HVAC Business

Email marketing serves as an effective way to get your HVAC business in front of new and existing customers for a relatively inexpensive price. According to Marketing Sherpa, 61 percent of consumers report enjoying receiving promotional emails weekly, while 38 percent would like emails to come even more frequently. This trend makes it imperative for your HVAC business to capitalize on untapped revenue by engaging in this channel. To do precisely that, read the steps detailed below.

The Best Email Marketing Campaigns for HVAC Companies Include:

• A Defined Email Strategy
• Seasonal HVAC Tips
• HVAC Sales and Discount Offers
• Consistent Delivery Schedule
• Follow-up and Reply Strategy
• A New Email Acquisition Plan
• A Dedicated Email Platform
• Testing Email Subject Lines
• Testing Email Copy

Defining an Email Strategy

Defining an email marketing strategy for your HVAC company includes identifying who your campaign should target and what goals you’d like to accomplish. As far as targeting, typically you’d begin by leveraging an email list of existing customers. Eventually, you will acquire new email addresses through website leads and service calls. But when you initially create your campaign, your goals should include targeting past customers for repeat business and staying top-of-mind during seasons of the year when HVAC services become most important.

Offering Seasonal HVAC Tips

Not all of your email marketing messages should focus on sales. Developing an effective nurturing campaign that offers helpful tips and best practices is equally important. Seasonal HVAC tips and advice could include content like, “How Often Should I Change My Furnace Filter,” or “What Is The Best Way To Start Up My A/C in the Summer.” These emails allow customers to engage with your content and learn some helpful advice while keeping you top of mind for potential future HVAC issues.

HVAC Sales and Discount Content

Along with your nurture emails, HVAC companies will also want to create email content that speaks directly to sales and discount programs. These emails would go out during slow periods to generate new or repeat business. For tracking purposes, you should include a promotional code unique to your email campaign to determine how many customers that channel generates. Sending this type of content in combination with your nurture emails will ultimately produce the best results overall for your email campaign.

Establishing a Consistent Email Delivery Schedule

Establishing a consistent delivery schedule includes determining the weekly, monthly, and seasonal email content you plan to send throughout the year. To get started, we recommend sending one email per week, rotating between nurture and sales-oriented emails. HVAC companies should send seasonal emails as well, offering tips and best practices when the seasons change during the winter and summer months. As your email campaign becomes more sophisticated, you can also include emails that go out to customers after completing a service call or when a warranty gets close to expiration.

Follow Up and Reply Strategy

One critical mistake when creating a new email marketing campaign? Failing to identify a strategy for following up and replying to inquiries the campaign generates. An office administrator, owner, manager, or anyone else at the company with the ability to follow up with incoming email messages should be assigned this responsibility. No matter what, you do need to have one person in charge of checking for email replies on a daily basis and taking the lead on replying to those messages. This correspondence could very easily yield leads and new business.

Implementing an Email Acquisition Plan

You must begin your email marketing campaign with a plan to acquire new emails. One of the best places that HVAC companies can obtain new emails is through service calls and work estimates. Any time a technician meets with a customer or prospective customer, they should aim to acquire an email address. Your website should also offer a place where visiters can opt in to your email marketing campaign.

Finalizing an Email Platform

To launch your email marketing campaign, you need to decide on the platform that works best for your business. You can use an email marketing tool like MailChimp, Constant Contact, Hubspot or others. These all work exceptionally well. Signing up and using an email marketing platform will provide actionable data and insights you can use to optimize your campaign moving forward.

Testing Email Subjects and Copy

After accomplishing each step listed above and launching your email marketing campaign, you should continue to test and optimize the email subject lines and copy to find the messaging that works best. The subject line is especially important since it is the only thing customers see before deciding whether or not to open the email. Writing and testing new copy and calls to action will help generate the best results.

Interested in learning more about email marketing? Check out the awesome infographic created by our friends at Campaign Monitor.

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