Advertising Ideas for Local HVAC Businesses

As as an HVAC company, you may not spend a lot of time worrying about online-only competition. Your challengers exist in the real world, where companies within a local market are competing for the business of homeowners needing repairs, replacements and renovations for their existing HVAC services.

To reach this audience, companies often lean on traditional marketing channels like local TV commercials, direct mailings, and even billboards to increase brand awareness. But if you’re looking for HVAC advertising ideas that step outside of these traditional strategies, you’ll find plenty of opportunity where digital advertising channels are concerned. Given the diversity of options available to companies today, generating advertising ideas for local HVAC businesses is easy. All it takes is looking at today’s marketing trends and figuring out how they can apply to a local business.

If your HVAC company is in need of some fresh thinking, here are some ideas to jump-start a better advertising strategy:

Get Your Business on HGTV

(And other relevant networks!)

One of the best HVAC advertising ideas is related to one of the most popular home renovation properties in the world. Of the Americans planning to make home repairs or renovations within the near future, 32 percent of their consumers plan to get some of their ideas from HGTV. This stat alone underscores the value HVAC companies can drive from building a presence through HGTV.

There are opportunities with these same audiences beyond HGTV as well – think: DIY Network, TLC, and more. HVAC companies also can seek out digital advertising opportunities that align with these networks (like TVE) and target a niche audience within their local market, and at a price they can afford. This opportunity wasn’t widely available a few years ago, but it’s becoming one of the best ways to reach a TV audience through new digital channels.

Long-Tail Keywords and SEO for Voice

Consumers needing HVAC likely have specific requests or needs. They may need to find someone to repair their air conditioner or to install ventilation in a home remodel.

Basic keywords offering relevant to these needs—air conditioner repair, for example—might offer some value in driving traffic in a local market. But consumers are often looking for the best, easiest solution to their problem, so it helps to create an SEO strategy that takes this specificity into account. Long-tail (specific) keywords perform exactly this service, allowing digital ads to be displayed in response to long queries that offer a lot of information about what the consumer is seeking.

Long-tail keywords offer the benefit of being more relevant to a consumers’ needs, and their smaller volume and reduced competition also makes them more affordable keywords to fit into your paid advertising budget. But long-tail keywords, when combined with the use of natural language, also positions HVAC companies to capitalize on the rise of voice search queries.

By building display ad and other marketing strategies around long-tail, natural language queries, your HVAC company has a great shot at ranking high in voice search, creating stronger conversion opportunities through this emerging search functionality.

A Mobile-Friendly User Experience

Picture a frustrated homeowner standing in his basement, furiously using his phone to find someone who can come see why the furnace isn’t working. They’re most likely using their smartphone to seek out a provider, which means the mobile experience must be emphasized in any HVAC advertising strategy. Not only should display ads be running on mobile platforms, but brands should link those ads to mobile-optimized websites that feature fast page load speeds. The stakes are high: According to Think With Google, an increase in mobile page load times from one second to three seconds increases the odds of a bounced visitor by almost one-third.

Meanwhile, HVAC companies should also consider the use of mobile-optimized forms to facilitate lead generation. This provides an alternative method of contact for consumers, particularly millennials, who may be less interested in making a phone call.

Display Ad Retargeting

When consumers are researching for HVAC companies in their local area, they’re likely to scan through a bunch of different names. Half of the battle is getting consumers to remember your brand’s name over your competition. And a visit to your site doesn’t necessarily indicate a hot lead: According to a study from Episerver, 92 percent of traffic to retail websites aren’t there to make a purchase.

That means to drive conversions from your marketing campaigns, you need to get that traffic to come back. This is where retargeting comes in: By running retargeting campaigns through display advertising, HVAC companies can increase brand awareness, which can increase CTRs and other actions that bring those prospects closer to a conversion. Retargeted ads can have a pronounced impact on brand lift, which is critical to helping HVAC brands distinguish themselves from the competition.

And unlike other types of advertising that become less effective over time, retargeting actually becomes more successful the more times content is displayed to the user: It only strengthens the brand’s credibility and trust, making them a more serious candidate to provide services to the customer. HVAC brands should invest in retargeting campaigns that use display advertising to follow would-be customers around the Internet, keeping the company top-of-mind as the consumer does their research and moves closer to a purchase.

When you’re used to advertising your business a certain way, it’s sometimes difficult to embrace change. But injecting a little out-of-the-box thinking can be a great way to turn innovative HVAC advertising ideas into tangible improvements in your company’s bottom-line.