Home Services Playbook for Today’s HVAC and Plumbing Companies

Home Services Marketing Playbook Table of Contents Building a Site for YOUR Customers ...... 4 Customer Personas ...... 6

Using Your Personas ...... 10

Where Customers Live Online ...... 12

Promotional Strategies ...... 14

How Customers Select Businesses Online ...... 18

Discoverability in HVAC and Plumbing ...... 21

How To Tell If A Marketing Campaign Is Working ...... 23

The Marketing Numbers You MUST Know ...... 25

The Way Forward ...... 28

About Local 360 ...... 30

Home Services Marketing Playbook There are about What are they doing online? 4.4 billion internet users today. On average, each of them is online for 6.5 hours every day. of users looked searched for a searched at least for a local local business once a month business every day

In New York City, for example, a Google search for “plumbers near me” produces roughly 3,600 searches per month. A similar search for “HVAC near me” produces about 480 searches.

If users ...

Don’t consider your Fail to locate what they’re Can’t find your website website easy to use looking for on your website

… the customers conducting those searches will contact one of your competitors. Do you want them to find you instead? Of course! First, however, you need to understand who your website is for.

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01 Building a Site for YOUR Customers

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Understanding your Here’s why That includes Potential Customers website users is While the website will promote your business, Current Customers important. it’s true mission is to People searching for the information you provide serve the people who visit the website.

You want a website tailor-made for them. The best way to do that? By understanding your customers’ personas!

What do we mean by “persona?” A persona describes a fictional customer whose traits match the traits of real customers.

Customer personas will help guide your marketing decisions. That’s because a persona operates like a GPS unit. It enables you to navigate the marketing journey every step of the way.

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02 Customer Personas

In our many years assisting local businesses, three persona types emerged.

Home Services Services Marketing Marketing Playbook Playbook Customer Personas QUESTION QUESTION 7

How would Ellen react to the What would be one of the main challenge of finding a plumbing or reasons Ellen doesn’t select your Ellen, 35 y.o. HVAC company? company? Office Manager for Small City ANSWER ANSWER “This is an emergency! Temps are going to An estimate she considers high might spur HOUSEHOLD INCOME be in the 90s next week, and my AC unit isn’t Ellen to call several providers. She’s $50,000+ working!” willing to shop for the best price. This holds true even if the business she called came As a first-time homeowner, Ellen is still recommended by a friend and during an getting used to all the work it takes to emergency. She’s ready to pay a fair price if maintain a house. Plus, she devotes a lot of she thinks the HVAC pro or plumber will do a her time to work and family. great job.

As a result, she isn’t able to proactively address house-related issues. Instead, she’s

reactive. This often involves a panicked QUESTION call to a local business ready to help in an emergency. What are Ellen’s information resources (blogs, social media)?

ANSWER

Ellen hits several online review sites when she’s looking for a service vendor. She also spends several hours each day on social media outlets like Facebook. Ellen uses the platform to ask her friends about service providers they recommend.

Home Services Marketing Playbook Customer Personas QUESTION QUESTION 8 How would Patrick react to the What would be one of the main reasons challenge of finding a plumbing or Patrick doesn’t select your company? Patrick, 45 y.o. HVAC company? Manager at a mid-sized ANSWER ANSWER company downtown Patrick wants to handle his work and personal schedules “We need to get something on the books for with military-like precision. That means he must be able HOUSEHOLD INCOME work I need done at my house.” to trust his service providers with: $100,000+ At work, Patrick plans out his weeks, days, and hours. In his personal life, he doesn’t Keeping their appointment times change much. Patrick likes to proactively Providing an excellent address needs around the house before they Standing behind their work become emergencies.

If Patrick feels that he can’t trust a service provider to deliver this, he’ll either look elsewhere or attempt to do QUESTION the project himself.

What are Patrick’s information His penchant for precision, paired with a strong DIY resources (blogs, social media)? attitude, often compel Patrick to tackle select projects around the house. To assist in such efforts, he uses

ANSWER various reference tools such as:

Patrick takes the performance of his home as YouTube videos seriously as he takes the performance of his department at work. Blog posts

Because of this, he seeks information about Forums of like-minded DIYers service-related fields before spending $1 on any of them. Blogs are his favorite source … and more. Patrick is a big fan of all of the information of information, followed by Facebook and available on the internet to put him in control of his next LinkedIn. home improvement efforts.

Home Services Marketing Playbook Customer Personas QUESTION QUESTION 9 How would Catherine react to the What would be one of the main challenge of finding a plumbing or reasons Catherine doesn’t select Catherine, 40 y.o. HVAC company? your company? Operations Lead for Growing Accounting Firm ANSWER ANSWER

“My team is relying upon me to pull this off Price, quality of service, and availability. HOUSEHOLD INCOME without a hitch. I need you to ensure that.” Catherine’s employer requires multiple bids $80,000+ for any work they do. They must be convinced Catherine juggles multiple locations for an that the vendor they choose is the best for accounting firm enjoying strong growth. the job based on: That growth doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because Catherine and her colleagues place a lot of stress on themselves Testimonials to make things happen. Online reviews

Word of mouth

QUESTION What are Catherine’s information resources (blogs, social media)?

ANSWER

Catherine is a member of several business- related social media groups. She’s always gathering names of service providers group members praise in online discussions. She’s also bookmarked contractor director websites such as Angie’s List.

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03 Using Your Personas

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Once your personas are developed, the path to a robust marketing plan becomes more evident.

That’s because you invested in the time required to “program” a GPS that can help get you where you need to be.

Example #1 We know that Patrick reads blog posts to Example #2 help educate himself about various services. Ellen and Catherine get some of their local We also know he appreciates precision and service provider information from online proactive solutions. review sites. That’s why it’s important to ensure correct info appears in places such as We might use this foundation to craft blog posts that: Yelp and HomeAdvisor.

Suggest how homeowners can avoid select problems It’s also crucial to leverage Google My (e.g., “Common Wet Basement Issues To Avoid”) Business, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Those sites are where online citations (comprising your Present the info as clearly as possible business name, address, and phone number) (“5 Common Wet Basement Issues To Avoid In Winter”) may appear.

Promote the post on Facebook early enough in the winter. This will allow him to schedule service to avoid a damp basement come the spring showers.

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04 Where Customers Live Online

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Promoting your business means you have to know where they look for service providers online.

Here are three virtual arenas you need to know about:

Contractor directory sites Google Facebook Angie’s List HomeAdvisor

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05 Promotional Strategies

The following tactics can help promote HVAC/ plumbing services across contractor directory sites, Facebook, and Google.

Home Services Services Marketing Marketing Playbook Playbook Promotional Strategies The earlier years of Google and Facebook saw businesses implement various tactics with their websites to reach users by:

“Gaming” Google’s algorithm to try to land on the coveted first page of search results.

Building a Facebook Page and flooding followers’ feeds with promotional copy.

Over the years, Google and Facebook implemented many behind-the-scenes changes. The changes prevented such tactics and improved the user experience. But many of the changes left paid advertising as the most reliable way to promote a business on those sites.

In the early days of background color. In other Fun the internet, some SEO words, they camouflaged practitioners placed a large their keyword spamming. Fact number of keywords on individual pages. This is Google soon caught on, called “keyword spamming.” however, rendering this particular SEO “hack” To hide what they did, they useless over time. would alter the color of the text to match the page’s

Home Services Marketing Playbook Promotional Strategies There are several ways to do this, including:

Content Marketing

Blogs Videos White papers Email newsletters

People use the internet for a variety of reasons. Among them: to communicate, access There’s a reason that close to 90% of marketers focusing on consumers entertainment, and read the news. consider content marketing a key strategy: it works.

Another key reason people use the internet is to find Plumbing companies know this. In a review of the top 10 plumbing sites, every information. How to fix a one of them contained regularly updated content such as blogs or videos. carburetor, for example, or which area restaurants serve the best hamburgers.

That makes developing and sharing meaningful information to users a great way to attract Real-World Content Examples attention.

HVAC CONTENT PLUMBING CONTENT Keep Your Cool! 7 HVAC 6 Crucial Plumbing Facts Maintenance Tips Every That Could Make or Break Homeowner Needs to Know Your Bathroom Remodel

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Promotional Strategies How important are online reviews? This important:

Reviews 86% 57% 91%

of consumers read of consumers will only of 18-34-year-old reviews for local use a company with consumers trust businesses four stars or more online reviews as much as personal recommendations

Online reviews are critical today. Also important is the ability to ask for and use reviews to convince prospects to give your business a try.

One way to do this is by asking customers for reviews, either immediately following a service appointment or as part of a follow-up call.

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06 How Customers Select Businesses Online

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One of the most-asked Since online mobile activity With local searches questions is this one: now tops online desktop resulting in purchases activity, ensuring that your 28% of the time, it’s website is mobile-friendly both a customer-centric “How do customers select is a must. and bottom-line-centric strategy. businesses online?”

The answer has changed over the years as: To select businesses online, customers:

An increasing number of businesses migrated to the virtual space Read online reviews.

Search engines such as Google secretly changed the way they Prefer local businesses that offer worked, and those changes made the results as beneficial to mobile-friendly websites. In fact, searchers as possible 61% of mobile searchers are more likely to contact a local business if the business offers a mobile-friendly Users became more comfortable communicating with one another website. in forums, on review sites, and through social media

Conduct online searches using terms such as “near me” or “close by.” Smartphone technology developed to the point where people Those search types grew by more today walk around with a full-blown, internet-connected computer than 900% over two years. in their pockets, purses, or backpacks

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One of the most-asked digital marketing To understand how crucial, it’s important to understand two types questions is this one: of searches that people — even you — conduct every day.

Discovery searches: “How do customers select This is where someone goes online and searches for a businesses online?” particular service without using a company’s name. So, “plumbing companies in my city.”

Direct searches:

This is where someone looks for a specific company by name or address. “Bob’s Plumbing in Grand Rapids.”

Google My Business is a feature from Google that allows local businesses to post important This is the key data you need to know: contact information online. Such information, of course, helps customers discover your One study found that discovery-based business. searches outperformed direct searches by a striking 84% to 16%. And such discoverability is crucial to business success today. Every business wants the kind of recognition that leads to direct searches. However, making sure your website is discoverable by people unfamiliar with your company can make a more significant difference to your bottom line.

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07 Discoverability in HVAC and Plumbing

Home Services Services Marketing Marketing Playbook Playbook Discoverability in HVAC and Plumbing Boosting In the survey cited above, Discoverbility the split between discovery searches and direct searches for HVAC and plumbing Advertising Google My Business Help customers find you when they use Whether on Google, Facebook, or a the most popular search engine on the practically mirrored the combination of the two, nothing else can planet. overall percentages. guarantee similar exposure.

SEO Those percentages are listed below, Business Info Uniformity with car dealerships added for We’ve seen many businesses with Many elements affect how well your several different addresses listed for website performs in discovery searches. comparison. one location. That’s a big problem. Few of them matter as much as Even minor variations can create optimizing your content to leverage the discoverability issues. Make searches keywords and phrases that customers use as part of their searches. Discovery Searches Direct Searches easier by ensuring all your online information is accurate wherever it appears. Customer Reviews

90% Content Marketing Show the pride you take in your work while boosting your discoverability by You need to have content before you can soliciting online reviews from customers. optimize it. A good content marketing 71% strategy also creates collateral that works across a wide swath of digital and Mobile Friendliness print outlets. If you could only select one outlet in which to appear, we’d recommend Social Media Presence mobile over desktop. That’s how 29% important mobile is today. Fortunately, We’ve helped clients make dramatic you can — and should — have both! inroads with social media with a few 10% relatively minor tweaks. One key ingredient: consistency. Sporadic posts are worth about as much as not posting at all.

HVAC/Plumbing Car Dealerships

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08 How To Tell If A Marketing Campaign Is Working

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Gauging the success A company could use promo codes in newspaper ads, of a marketing for example, and follow the effort up with an advertising effectiveness study. But that took time; sometimes a campaign used to long time. take much more Today, skilled digital marketers can launch an online time, effort, and even campaign one day and by the next day report on its guesswork than it effectiveness. does today. Digital campaigns are a wellspring of data about how people interact with not only a particular campaign but also with your website.

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09 The Marketing Numbers You MUST Know

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What are the online marketing numbers every HVAC and plumbing company needs to know? The data that allows them to measure campaign efficacy?

1 Traffic 4 Cost for lead

2 SEO rankings 5 Customer lifetime value

3 Total leads (web form submits, calls, etc.) 6 Online reviews

Gathering and processing all this information requires several different digital marketing tools.

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Google Analytics Free Google Sheets Free The granddaddy of all website analytics tools. The good news is When you want to determine your cost per lead, the lifetime that Google Analytics is free, and a powerful ally in tracking web- value of a client, or any number of other essential data points, site traffic and web form leads. The bad news is that learning the Google’s free Excel alternative is tough to beat once you plug in Google Analytics platform can take years to master. Fortunately, the proper formulas. Like Google Analytics, though, mastering there are many online training resources available, including the software requires an investment in valuable time and effort. from Google itself.

CallRail $95 per month SEMRush $200 per month This is a great way to track how many phone calls a particular No digital marketing path forward can succeed without the kind marketing effort generates. CallRail offers unique phone num- of insightful data available from a tool like this. We’re talking bers for your potential customers to call. From there, you can SEO rankings, trends, and more — enough to help you run your access phone call tracking analytics, recordings, transcriptions, SEO, pay-per-click, and social media marketing projects. It also helpful keyword information pulled from calls, and more. provides great insight into your competitors’ rankings.

BirdEye $3,000 per year Social Report $49 - $99 per month Online reviews for business are important — and becoming more There are more popular social media management tools out important every day. BirdEye automates the process of gathering there. Social Report, however, offers a great combination of reviews for your business. It’s an effective way to collect more user-friendliness and capability that make it a valuable tool in reviews and manage your online reputation. increasing all-important social media engagement.

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10 The Way Forward

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Regardless of your HVAC or plumbing company’s past as it relates to digital marketing, conducting business today requires it. Nothing is more crucial to attracting new customers.

Fortunately, the benefits of the right digital marketing plan are numerous — if you have the right playbook!

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11 About Local 360

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Developing effective HVAC and plumbing websites requires the right mix of:

Collaboration Technical know-how Engaging creativity

Local 360 offers that in a convenient all-in-one solution.

Services include

Marketing Dashboard Website Design Digital Marketing Tools that measure how well your A website that demands A marketing solution that website and digital marketing attention and looks amazing converts more prospects into plans work for your business. across all devices. customers.

Home Services Marketing Playbook Get a free demo by calling 866.419.3709