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Sending smart emails to people on your email list is the most direct path to generating revenue growth.
I’m not overstating this point. This approach will increase your revenue even within your current email list.
The key is knowing who is on your email list and why they are there.
If you don’t have an email list yet, click this link to learn How to Build a Customer Email List, but before you click that link, please finish reading at least Phase 1 of this article, Email List Segmentation for HVAC Contractors.
83% of consumers say they prefer email for business communications. - Twilo
IMPORTANT NOTE: If 83% say they prefer email, that means that 17% do not prefer email. As of this writing, as many as 20-30% of HVAC customers do not have email nor do they use email as a reliable method of communication.
If you want to get a message to the person who doesn't do email, you need to call their phone or send them something in the mail. People who do not do email pay attention to their phone and their mail for pretty much all communication.
This article addresses how you should communicate with the 83% of your customers who do prefer email.
But you should still include non-email-using customers in this process so you know what to call them about and when, and what to snail mail them and when.
Whenever you communicate with your email list, you should, at the same time, communicate with non-email customers by phone and through postcards or other direct mail campaigns.
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When you are ready to begin to segment your email list, I have already handled Step 1 of Phase 1 for you.
I have done the thinking part and given you the 5 email lists that every residential HVAC contractor should have:
If you have commercial customers you will need the same set of lists dedicated to your commercial business.
As you segment these five core lists to even further to align them with your revenue goals, you will repeat these three steps every time;
This article addresses Email List Segmentation in three phases.
After reading this article, you may find that your list segmentation game is already pretty good.
This is a good starter how-to.
Our approach to lists is detailed and obsessive, especially when we work with good tracking tools.
Empowered by software such as HubSpot or SharpSpring, we are able to create lists based on a wide variety of "buying behaviors" based on a prospect's specific website page views, form submissions, lead scoring, deal status, or some combination of these properties and behaviors.
Email list segmentation, when practiced to its full potential, is as valuable as a paid employee on your sales staff. Except it runs in the background, improving the volume and quality of your sales leads.
Freeing your salespeople up for more valuable, higher percentage estimates.
After reading this article, you may know right out of the gate what lists you need.
You can jot down that list on a yellow legal pad and have one of your people create the lists in your email marketing tool tomorrow.
Then at your next sales meeting, you can grind through the list with your salespeople and admins to figure out which customers belong on which lists. Often this data resides in your accounting or business software where you do customer invoicing.
By downloading (Excel, comma-delimited .csv files) lists of customers from your accounting or business software based on the services you have provided, it's easy to then upload these lists of people to your email marketing software which automatically puts those people into the right relationship bucket.
Once you complete this initial process, it's important that the people on your staff responsible for entering data into your system are trained to add new customers and prospects to the right lists as part of their typical data entry process.
You don't have a data entry process?
Well, you do, it's just not consistent, or you're not making the most of the information at your fingertips.
Sounds like a lot, right?
It is a little overwhelming, but that's why I created this phased process. To help you be successful.
This activity is an investment that will be worth every penny.
The revenue you make from your email marketing strategy improves dramatically when your list is segmented in alignment with your company's strengths and revenue growth goals.
So pick the person who is going to do this.
Give them some dedicated time to accomplish each phase.
The amount of time required will depend on the size of your customer base, the size of your email list, and the technical abilities of the person in your organization who will be doing the job.
Breaking down your customers into these five lists will improve the quality and results of your email marketing strategy:
Some contacts may qualify for more than one list, that is, it is possible that a customer could buy their new HVAC system from you and also buy a maintenance agreement.
That same customer may download a product guide for an air scrubber, which would qualify them for two more lists, IAQ Interest and Air Scrubber Interest.
The bottom line is it okay, even preferable, to have people in more than one list, as long as they qualify for each list.
The more lists your customers and prospects qualify for, the more “smart, soft touches” you will have with that person over the course of the year.
It’s the “smartness” of these “smart, soft touches” that are the key to an effective email marketing strategy.
Each of your lists has the ability to be broken down into subcategories.
These subcategories will focus your strengths on the real money in your email list.
Consider the products and services that make you the most profit.
Now consider what information you are always giving to the customers who purchase these products and services.
Here’s one look at how you might further segment these five lists:
Once finished, when you look at each list, you have a detailed understanding of who each person is and what their relationship is or interest is with your business.
You should take this one level further to really speak directly to people in a way that shows them you are REALLY paying attention.
Now you know exactly what your relationship is to every person in your database:
Now you can put all this to good use when you implement Phase 3 of your email list segmentation. By segmenting your list to this level of detail, your emails will give your customers a feeling that you have a firm handle on your business relationship and their seasonal needs.
When they get an email from you they will not delete it without reading it because the content of your email will always be relevant, helpful, and perfectly timed.
When you combine list segmentation with a CRM, it’s possible to create lists and dashboards that will reveal buying behavior within your customers and prospect lists.
Imagine the benefit to your salespeople to be able to quickly view the recent “digital body language” of the people in these highly valuable lists.
Salespeople have the ability to reach out to contacts who are displaying behavior that indicates they may have questions about their proposal or perhaps they are in the final stages of making a decision and weighing your proposal against a competitor’s.
A perfect time to drop a text message or a follow-up phone call to close the deal.
Other customer behavior could trigger an email with a coupon for service or an email with a reminder about financing and rebate options.
You get the idea. The possibilities are only restricted by the products and services you offer and your imagination.
This guide is all about getting you started in the right direction.
Now that you have a properly segmented contact list, your lead-nurturing systems can be fine-tuned to deliver customers and prospects exactly the information they need at exactly the right time, resulting in them taking the actions you want them to take sooner.
Your system will deliver perfectly crafted messages and information designed to lead your customer or prospect to the next step of their particular Buyer’s Journey. Whether they downloaded a ductless heat pump product guide, or it’s time for their annual heater clean and checks, your email will provide them with exactly what they need to know, even if they didn’t know they needed it.
By automating your marketing emails with messages designed to speak to one specific list of contacts, you will generate thousands of smart, soft touches that will result in:
If you are already doing any part of this, you are ahead of your competition. If you are not already doing this, you must come up with a plan to stay competitive. You can cry “old-school” if that makes you feel better about yourself, but it’s a cop-out. You need to get a handle on your email marketing strategy if you want to grow and not simply survive in the HVAC industry.
First off, you need an email marketing tool. The investment you make in this tool is dependent on the size of your list. The smaller your list, the lower the cost. Mailchimp, one of the most popular email marketing tools available, offers a free plan for lists under 2,000 contacts.
While tools like these won’t do everything you will need, they’re perfect for contractors just getting started with email marketing.
More advanced contractors with larger lists might go with a full marketing automation toolset like HubSpot, SharpSpring, ActiveCampaign, or ServiceTitan. We work with all these platforms and love them all equally.
Not trying to be a wiseass, but as soon as humanly possible. In all seriousness, if you are doing a million a year and you want to be five million, you need to start this sooner than later. If you are doing three million in revenue, you need to make your move during the next shoulder season.
Marketing automation toolsets have all the various digital marketing tools an HVAC contractor needs under one login:
Each of these features gives you lead intelligence, and lead intel gives you the knowledge you need to take relevant, timely, consistent actions designed to “pull in” revenue.
Your marketing automation toolset will
A WORD OF CAUTION: Don’t enter into an agreement with a marketing automation company unless you have a competent person on staff to implement it, or an implementation consultant, Like Comfort Media Group, who will help you set it up correctly and ensure you get a strong ROI for your investment.
Segment your email lists to enjoy the kind of email marketing success that you’ve been missing.
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Comfort Media Group is the digital marketing company for growing HVAC contractors.
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