The HVAC industry is hit harder by seasonal changes than most. Heating and air conditioning units get the most use (and break the most often) during peak weather changes. As the heat kicks in, families run their AC units into the ground, trying to find relief. And as winter starts to take over, heating units take on the brunt of the work to keep homes safe from the cold.
But what about the time in between the extremes? The demand for HVAC services plummets.
In some instances, Scorpion has observed a drop in demand for HVAC-related searches online by 65% to 75% in a single season. Not only does demand drop during this season, but the cost of advertising also increases. This causes one of the most dramatic shoulder seasons across the home services market.
Thankfully, these seasons are somewhat predictable. You know when the peak seasons are in your region and when the weather is nice enough that families are less likely to lean on their HVAC systems.
Why Marketing During Shoulder Season is Essential
Many customers don’t realize how much they need it until it breaks. Advertising your HVAC services during this season keeps your business top-of-mind when it otherwise would fall to the wayside.
But this does mean you keep your HVAC advertising strategy the same and continue advertising to stay top of mind when a customer’s HVAC unit breaks. You can also shift your messaging to focus on HVAC maintenance, which helps prolong the HVAC unit’s lifetime.
There are some long-term strategies you should focus on optimizing during your shoulder season, but you should also allocate time to HVAC marketing tactics that generate quick cash before peak season resumes.
6 HVAC marketing strategies to thrive during shoulder season
Shoulder season is the perfect time to work on your business and build a name for yourself within the communities you serve. Why? It ensures that when peak season rolls back around, your name is the one families think of first to fix their HVAC systems.
There are 6 marketing strategies to establish your HVAC business in your local communities:
- Optimize your website for more business
- Optimize your advertising spend
- Optimize your nurture and automated campaigns
- Expand your service and product offerings
- Generate demand with educational content
- Focus on brand building with SMS, email, and social media
1. Optimize your website for more business
Your website is the foundation of your digital marketing strategy, and according to our study of consumers choosing a home services business, 54% of them choose within 4 hours. Meaning your website is where you can make it count. It’s where you get to talk about what makes your business great and the types of services you offer. But get it wrong, and you could be missing out on a substantial amount of customers looking for HVAC services online.
What is search engine optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website so it comes up on search engines like Google and Bing when people search for things like “AC repair” or “HVAC business near me.”
Learn more about SEO and how it can affect your lead flow.
2. Focus on brand building with SMS, email, and social media
Shoulder season is the perfect time to build strong relationships with your current and future customers. Building email nurture campaigns highlighting your maintenance programs, social media marketing, and SMS marketing are all HVAC marketing strategies that give you direct access to the communities you serve so you can have more personal conversations with your target audience and spark interest in your business and the HVAC services you offer.
Brand building with social media, email, and SMS marketing looks like:
- Sharing HVAC maintenance tips that demonstrate your expertise.
- Highlighting customer testimonials that remove doubt from prospective customers.
- Showing before and after photos or time-lapse videos of your work to build trust.
Greatest reach
Lower reach
Lowest reach
Social media marketing
Between Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok, users spend about 2.5 hours per day on social media platforms, with about 60% of the world’s population currently using one or more social media platforms. This makes it one of the most reliable ways to reach customers.
Maintenance Nurture Campaigns
A slow season doesn’t mean you can’t stay busy. Focus on maintenance nurture campaigns to keep your schedule full during the off-season. Reminding customers to schedule regular tune-ups not only keeps their systems in top shape but also keeps your technicians busy.
Regular maintenance can also lead to long-term customer relationships, a steady list of new reviews, and a chance to stay top-of-mind for customers.
SMS marketing
Sending text messages with SMS marketing campaigns is one of the newest forms of HVAC marketing to add to your advertising toolbelt. SMS marketing is the most personal way to reach customers and boasts a98% open rate and one of the higher click-through rates at 15% to 20%. It also offers even more benefits like personalization, speed, and convenience.
3. Build and optimize automated email nurture campaigns
Automated email campaigns offer a more hands-off approach to email marketing while still providing the personalization that resonates with prospective customers. Because they’re extremely relevant and highly targeted to a specific audience, these types of campaigns help you improve customer retention, increase bookings, and increase profits.
It’s important to set these campaigns up to run during your shoulder season, but equally important is to spend this time digging into the data to understand which audiences respond best to which campaigns.
Let Scorpion help you build dashboards and reports for your HVAC email campaigns
4. Expand your service offerings
Shoulder season is a great time to invest some time and energy back into your business. You can take the time to build out services that you weren’t able to provide for customers in the last busy season or target new customer segments you may be missing out on.
But launching a new service or targeting a new customer segment requires thoughtful planning and intentional execution that starts with deeply understanding your customers’ needs and preferences. From there, you can spend your shoulder season building and launching your marketing campaign, which includes:
- Updating and optimizing your website
- Building an email campaign for your new audience or launching your new service
- Creating a paid and organic social media strategy
- Developing Google ads to target your new audience or promote your new service
- Produce content for your new audience or that promotes your new service
5. Generate Demand with Educational Content
Content marketing is one of the most cost-efficient forms of HVAC marketing with some of the biggest benefits: building trust with current customers, attracting attention from potential customers, and establishing your business as an industry leader in the communities you serve.
How? By sharing your expertise.
Write down your top five checklist items for HVAC systems homeowners should be aware of when moving into the winter months, including why it’s an essential time for a tune-up. Publish it on a blog and include a quick and easy way for readers to contact you for a strong call to action.
Share that blog on your social media platforms and include it in email newsletters for your customers and prospective customers.
Not a fan of writing? Scorpion provides content marketing services for businesses that want to stay relevant and inspire readers to keep your services top of mind.
Ready to give video engagement a try? Pull out your smartphone and film yourself working on an HVAC system and point out what each piece is, what it does, and why it’s important. Post that video on YouTube and share it on social and via email. Our recent studies show that video marketing
Other forms of content marketing could include designing an infographic, writing an ebook, publishing a case study, sending out educational emails, or starting a podcast.
The final versions don’t have to be extravagant. Your customers are more interested in the information and evaluating your expertise than anything.
Ready to take your content marketing strategy to the next level?
6. Optimize Your Advertising Spend
A slow season doesn’t mean a dead season. Review past shoulder seasons to see what worked in your marketing during those periods. Focus your advertising budget on the strategies and ad channels that bring you the best results.
Choosing the right advertising strategies is essential for home services businesses–including HVAC. Our latest surveys produced in our study already show a 32% surge in advertising spend while click-through rates have declined.
To read our findings, including how to navigate new technology and increased pricing as an HVAC business, get our insight guide up.
Optimizing your ad spending not only boosts your business but also helps secure jobs for your HVAC technicians. Job security is vital for team morale and keeping service quality consistent. Plus, it safeguards your reputation in customer reviews, which people often check before choosing a company.
Maximize Revenue Flow During HVAC Shoulder Season
It can be easy to dread the start of shoulder season. The phone might not be ringing as much, and it can feel like there’s a lull in your business. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Implementing any of these HVAC marketing strategies can help attract new and returning customers during the slowest seasons, allowing you to reinvest in your business.
Remember, the key to success in the shoulder season lies in being proactive and strategic. Spend your time and money on the strategies and tactics that strengthen your business, engage with your customers, and lay the groundwork for future success. A digital marketing agency can help your business stay busy and avoid HVAC technician layoffs.
Ready to optimize your HVAC website for better local SEO? Scorpion has deep experience helping home services companies grow through website design, SEO, email marketing, Google ad strategy, and more. Contact us to learn more.
