HVAC marketing costs typically account for between 2% and 5% of revenue for most small businesses, including HVAC contractors. 2% to 5% of revenue is a fairly tiny marketing expenditure, especially for small businesses. Small investments typically have minimal effects.
It’s common knowledge that small business owners, HVAC contractors included, spend between two and five percent of their revenue on advertising. 2% to 5% of revenue is a fairly tiny marketing expenditure, especially for small businesses. According to HVAC contractor marketing experts, cost-cutting measures usually end up producing subpar outcomes.
What To Spend Your Marketing Budget On
When you know how much you’re willing to put into advertising your business, you can begin to prioritize where that money will go. Advertising on newspapers, websites, search engine optimization, radio spots, billboards, and truck wraps. There are a lot of possibilities below, and you should pick those that provide the most return on investment for your business.
Here is a breakdown of some available choices and potential budget allocations for those choices.
Website
To be successful, a website needs to have several different components. You’ll find the good design, obvious calls to action, and trust indicators across the site. Search engine optimization (HVAC SEO), content strategy, and the copy that fills your website are all other factors that might help to produce a good website.
SEO
As part of an HVAC SEO plan, you’ll ensure your site conforms to industry standards and is optimized for search engines. In addition, you need a content plan to ensure the consistent rollout of fresh blog posts and other audience-focused resources. This will help your website rank higher in Google and keep your readers up-to-date on industry news.
Google Ads (PPC)
Advertising on Google is a fantastic way to attract new customers to your company and its offerings. But there are a few things to take in mind, as there would be with any marketing effort. If you don’t know how your advertisements perform for your business, you risk using up your entire advertising budget for nothing. PPC has the potential to yield high returns, but it can quickly become prohibitively expensive in the hands of individuals who lack experience.
Want Better Results? GO BIG!!!
We’re talking about a very modest percentage (5%) here. Less than 5% is only enough to make a difference if you are the market leader (and even then, maybe not). To generate results at this budget level, you have to evaluate the worth of marketing and conclude that marketing doesn’t work.
A 5% increase is considered “maintenance” marketing. Spending at this level is reasonable only for established businesses with a sizable number of loyal customers, a robust portfolio of service contracts, and no pressing need for rapid expansion. The large contractor can increase by about five percent thanks to referrals from existing customers and the replacement of lost consumers. Only five percent of the market is needed to keep the status quo. The item in question doesn’t make room for the original.
You should allocate 10% of your revenue to advertising to expand your business and gain a larger market. Only a small fraction of HVAC companies even make the top 10%. Contrast this with the fact that 10% is still subpar in other areas, including other service industries.
For example, a marketing expenditure of 10% of projected sales will help you expand, but only slowly. If you want to see quick success, you need to think large. Spend 20%.
Marketers rarely get 20% of a company’s budget. According to a separate report from The CMO Survey, only 2% of CMO Council members spent 20% or more. The likelihood that 2% of businesses will pay 20% or more on contractors is far higher. However, expenditures of this magnitude are not unprecedented. Contractors who are focused on expansion are involved.
20% of Nothing is Still Nothing
Whenever someone offered a free lunch, the late great economist Milton Friedman always reminded them there was no such thing. Like nothing else, marketing costs money. A financial or time commitment is necessary for any HVAC marketing strategy to be successful. Save your time if you’re too little for twenty percent of your income to make a difference.
Contractors need to be prepared to invest time and energy into HVAC contractor marketing to promote their businesses locally. Leave the house. Create a network. Put yourself out there and sign up for a club. Engage in a leads club. Participate actively in your area’s chamber of commerce.
20/20 Marketing
Although there are extremely rare cases of people with better than 20/20 vision, the standard for perfect eyesight is still 20/20. If you devote 20% of your time and earnings to advertising, you can achieve success with “20/20 marketing.” But you must ensure you’re spending your marketing budget wisely by focusing on the correct channels, messages, and brand strategy. If you can get all of that correct (or at least close), then marketing to technicians will be your biggest hurdle.
Conclusion
Over 30 HVAC marketing specialists work together on customer accounts here at HVAC Marketing Xperts. This means that we can become your “one-stop solution” for ALL of your HVAC contractor marketing needs, allowing you to significantly cut down on marketing expenses, boost your return on investment (ROI), and experience far fewer headaches.