Using Case Studies for HVAC Marketing
Using case studies for HVAC marketing is a very effective and powerful technique to incorporate into your online marketing strategy. Think about this…
When your customers start to think about replacing their HVAC system, what is the first thing they do?
Typically homeowners will do one or both of the following actions.
- They will consult with their friends, family and/or coworkers to ask if they have worked with your company or if they have an HVAC system in their home that they would recommend.
- They will perform some online market research to see what other people are saying about the product in question or your company.
In today’s online, Internet-savvy world, 9 out of 10 people are relying on Google searches for online product reviews. They are also using Facebook, Twitter and other social networks for posts from trusted friends related to your product and service. These people are using online tools like this prior to making their purchasing decisions. The Internet has become a powerful tool and consumers understand that a little bit of time invested in online research upfront can save them from making bad investment decisions.
Case studies are a marketing tool that we highly, highly, highly encourage our customers to utilize. Case studies are in invaluable asset and an extremely powerful marketing and sales tool that allows you to establish proof to your customers that the heating and cooling systems you install are of high quality will be a solid investment and increases the value of their home.
According to Content Marketing Institute, U.K. marketers use, 12 different marketing tactics on average, with case studies being the fifth most popular after social media content, eNewsletters, blogs and website articles. It doesn’t stop there: The CMI also reports that 63% of UK marketers believe that case studies are effective marketing tactics. Similar statistics apply to the US market.
How do you use case studies to market HVAC services?
For starters, heating and cooling contractors should have a dedicated case studies page on their website. This does not necessarily need to be called case studies. For example, you could easily label this page as “Project Portfolio“, “Examples of Work“, “Customer Showcase“, “Case Studies“, etc.
The case study is what is the most important aspect. Be sure to include the initial problem that your customer was experiencing as well as the solution that was solved as a result of your company working on their home. Good enhancements to include in a case study include references to cost savings that the homeowner experienced in their monthly utility bills as well as any details on financing that help in the sales process. The bottom line is that your case study should highlight the problem, solution and results.
Click to see this complete example HVAC case study.
We also like to use the customer’s city information and personal story to transform regular case studies into hyper-local SEO pages that appear in Google searches for other customers researching the same problem and solution in their city. It is okay to make the case study very personal as that resonates well with other people searching for the same problem/solution.
Be sure to optimize your case study with call to actions. Incorporate the types of call actions that a potential buyer would be interested in. For example, a homeowner searching for solutions related to ductless heating and cooling may very well be interested in downloading a product guide for a ductless system. Don’t stop with one call to action. The reader of your case study may be further along in the sales process and is more interested in receiving an estimate. Be sure to include called actions that will satisfy that reader’s goals. These call to actions could be as simple as a phone number or an online scheduling form.
Leverage your Heating and Cooling Case Studies: Get More Bang For Your Buck
Once the case study is completed incorporate that case study in other aspects of your existing marketing plan. For example, publish the highlights of the case study and a link to your website page containing the case study on Facebook, Twitter or other social platforms that you are active in. Don’t stop there! Create a blog post from the contents of your case study and publish that on your blog. Remember, incorporate call to actions within your blog post and links back to the case study.
One other way to utilize case studies is to group them by classification and then build a blog post that talks to that specific classification. For example, if you have 6 to 10 case studies that highlight Mitsubishi ductless heating being utilized to extend the season of sunrooms, it would be a good idea to classify those case studies into a “Sunroom” category. This is a great way to group related content. Additionally, this makes it easy to create a single blog post that is targeting sunroom comfort and highlighting these 6 to 10 case studies.
- Does this sound awesome but like a lot of work?
- Do you see the benefit of utilizing case studies in your HVAC business but are thinking that you just don’t have the time to do this?
- Do you need to have this on your website immediately?
If so, you can leverage the resources of L4 Group. We build these types of case studies and integrate them into your website so that you don’t have to. You focus on what you do best, installing HVAC systems. Let us focus on telling your story and leveraging your story as a marketing tool for you to get more sales.
Existing customers of L4 Group can click the button below to access our case study entry page. If you would like us to create case studies for your company but you are not an L4 Group customer yet, give us a call at (610) 471-0001 to get started now.