What HVAC Owners Should Consider About Their Digital Marketing Strategy

One of the challenges I see a lot of local business face in their digital marketing strategy is that many business owners are approaching it with a traditional marketing mindset.

This is true across a wide spectrum of industries, but I see a prevalence in it in the HVAC, plumbing, and home service type industries where many owners are still resistant to a huge transformation that has taken place across the business landscape.

There has been a dramatic shift in the way business and marketing are done today, from traditionally successful approaches. Since the invention of the internet, we’ve watched purchasing dollars shift from brick and mortar purchases, to a rapid transition to online sales.

Customer Buying Behaviour Has Changed

 This transition can be directly attributed to a dramatic change in consumer buying behaviour and that means home service customers especially.

It goes without saying that we're dealing with the most educated generation of consumer in history. Another byproduct of the internet and the access to information that it affords everyone.

Buying decisions are now being made online. Before a customer even picks up the phone to ask you anything, they’ve already researched you and decided almost completely who their buying from and what they’re buying.

With the change in the buying decision process comes a significant change in what comprises a successful marketing strategy.

Digital Ad Spend Is Exploding for a Reason

The ad dollars spent on traditional approaches are dwindling causing huge disruptions in many of those industries. All while the amount of online ad dollars are exploding and do you know why?

Because of the effectiveness of properly ran digital marketing campaigns and the long-term assets they can create.

Now, when it comes to companies and their experience of, we also run into two different stories.

Either companies are really benefiting and have really latched on and are doing well with the digital approach, or what we here is "You know, we tried digital marketing and it just didn't work. We didn't convert, we didn't get good leads. It just didn't work. We spent a lot of money and it didn't produce any results".

I would say in the vast majority of the cases, when I dig into companies that say this, when I look at the way that they approached digital marketing it was from a traditional marketing approach.

Customer Experience Is the New King of the KPI’s

The thing to understand is that while the internet has opened up all of this opportunity in ways to reach and talk to our, it's also created a much pickier customer who is surrounded by a lot more marketing “noise.”

There is a new KPI that is going to rule in 2020 and we're already seeing the impact of it on conversion rates and return on investment when it comes to digital marketing strategies.

Customer experience is the new king when it comes to the results you get back off of your marketing budget.

The most important part of that and what a lot of people don't realize is, customer experience begins at the first interaction a customer has with your brand.

Let that sink in for a minute

The Customer Experience Begins at Their First Contact with Your Brand

The customer’s experience of your brand and their impression of its service begins the FIRST time the come into contact with your brand or it’s messaging in any way.

In the days of the internet, this just opens the door into what those initial customer experiences can be. The problem is a lot of businesses are approaching their digital marketing strategy from a traditional marketing mindset. You hope you reach enough people to expose enough people, enough times to a particular advertisement to steer the customer into a sale.

The challenge with this is that the modern consumer is looking for a much more personalized experience. 

They want a business to talk to them where they're at, about what they're interested in, at the point in the buying process that they're in.

The good news is that with digital marketing that's all possible, when properly set up and executed. You can speak to the specific person in a fashion that speaks directly to them, whether they're just trying to find out more about product information or whether they're further along in the buying decision process.

The modern consumer is expecting customized messaging that brings them value and won’t accept anything less from a brand.

The modern consumer is looking for a much more personalized experience. 

In 2020, the KPI that's going to determine the success of a business more than any other analytic is going to be customer experience

Customer experience starts the moment that customer comes into contact with you online. From that point on they are judging whether or not you're addressing what they're interests are and whether you're providing them real value at every point in their customer journey.

Meeting that expectation builds their belief that your brand will not only solve their problem but treat them well as a customer. This is what will result in them spending their money with you not only this time but every time in the future as well.

Bear in mind, chances are if you're not doing it, I you have a competitor that is not only doing it but doing it effectively. And if you don’t, you can bet it won’t be long before there is.