Everyone is always looking for the next best thing when it comes to marketing, especially when it comes to digital marketing. The digital marketing world is always changing slightly, but there are a few marketing practices that YOU CAN START TODAY, and they will get you started on the right foot with digital marketing. 

1. Create a Blog 

Create a spot on your website (your blog) that answers every question your customers ask. This is a perfect way to generate website content that will attract visitors to your website. 

When you write blogs that contain answers to questions and solutions to the common problems your customers always have, it will help you to be found online in a search about the problem or the question.

Whenever you have to make a big purchase, the first thing you do now is go online and do research. When your website is filled with PROBLEM and SOLUTION-based information, your website becomes a magnet for people who are searching for answers and solutions. 

A good way to think about blog topics is to simply think, "What questions do customers ask me?" Take a look through your email sent box or do a quick scroll of the phone calls you took this week. Ask your salespeople and technicians what people are asking them about.

Creating informative blogs that answer these questions is the easiest way to start your digital marketing efforts, and build a library of content on your website. 

What you need to get started today:

• A website
  
  

2. Email Marketing 

Email marketing is still the most effective channel of digital marketing. Creating a strategy to send informative marketing emails is an affordable and easy way to immediately generate business. Send educational emails to existing customers, new leads, and old prospects who you haven't heard from in a while

Many HVAC companies don't even gather email addresses. This is a critical miscalculation. You may feel email is a burden to your customers and prospects, but it is an effective, inexpensive way to keep in contact with many people. Your best customers are return customers. Staying top of mind with a respectful and educational email strategy is an easy way to keep them coming back. 

As you become more proficient with email marketing, you can begin to use list segmentation to send specific emails to certain people, and email automation software to manage your contact with people who take certain actions on your website. 

What you need to get started today: 

• An email marketing platform - Mailchimp, Constant Contact, HubSpot, etc.
• Email Addresses - You need to have two lists of email addresses: leads and customers.

3. Creating a Facebook Page 

If you don't have a Facebook Page for your business, you are missing out on an inexpensive way to stay in touch with your people. Your Facebook business page is FREE. Add some pictures, business information, and engage with your community that your website doesn't allow. 

Facebook is also a great place to where social proof comes into play. You can add pictures and updates about work you are doing. It's also a place where customers can come to leave a review for your business. 

If a potential customer is doing online research, and 2 HVAC companies are exactly the same, but one has a Facebook that shows examples of work they've been doing as well as many great reviews, and the other company doesn't have a Facebook at all, it could be the deciding factor in landing a new client. 

Facebook has also become one of the best places to run advertisements. You can choose the audience you want to target, in specific areas, and select how much you want to pay for clicks back to your site. 

As you become more well versed in how to use Facebook for your business, you can get into Pay-Per-Click advertising and things like that. For now though, making sure your business has a Facebook Page is quick, easy, and free. 

What you need to get started today:

• An email address
• A personal Facebook Page