If I talk to one more contractor who doesn't collect customer emails my head is going to explode.

I've heard some of the most successful contractors in the HVAC business say, "Oh, we don't do email.". As if it's optional! Might as well say, "We don't need to grow that fast."

But who wants another email, right?

Our inboxes are overflowing with emails from family, friends and the people and companies we do business with, so how can an HVAC contractor possibly break through all those emails to sell more systems?

The answer is so simple, it's almost painful.

All you have to do is do it, and you will have success. It really is that easy.

Despite the negative reaction most of us have to sending and receiving marketing emails, it remains the most effective cash generator in digital marketing. Email is inexpensive, and provides incredible ROI when done right.

From creating fresh, new leads, to nurturing (and pre-selling) long term leads, email marketing can make a significant positive impact your business today! 

Who Should You Email?

• Existing Customers
• Prospects
• Business Partners

WHAT DO I EMAIL TO CUSTOMERS?

One of the easiest ways to stay top-of-mind with your existing customers is through email.

These are the people who already trust you, and are most likely to purchase more products and services from your company. You are no longer trying to convince them that you're the right company for the job, you are now assuming your role as their Trusted Advisor in all things related to home comfort systems and tech.

WHAT DO I EMAIL TO PROSPECTS?

Someone is either your customer, or they are not. They have either purchased, or they will purchase. If they are not your customer yet and they have not purchased yet, you should be sending them educational emails based on the original reason they gave you their email address.

You should not be selling them, but teaching them how to be a smarter buyer.

How can that upset them?

WHAT DO I EMAIL TO BUSINESS PARTNERS?

If you are making the investment in educational website content designed to delight your existing customers and educate your prospects, I guarantee you your strategic business partners will want to share your information, so share it with them.

The HVAC Buying Process Has Changed

These days, when prospects are early on in the process of doing research on the Internet, they are looking for information, so it's common to offer them something on your website, such as a product guide, to aid them in their Buyer's Journey. When you do this, the prospect provides you with their email address in trade.

Using seasonal emails, you simply educate people about the home comfort issues that matter to them - even if they don't know if yet! 

Email Automation

Using email automation today for businesses not only simplifies email campaigns, but it also opens up many possibilities of what you're able to do when it comes to email marketing strategies. Typing out an email every time you have to send one out would be extremely time consuming, and can't be done quickly enough to properly nurture each type of lead. This is why pre-writing emails and organizing them to automatically send based upon a lead's actions is crucial to attacking leads at the top, middle and bottom of the sales funnel. If your business isn't using automated emails, you are missing out on easy opportunities to grow your business.  

Short Term Automation and Setting the Table

Some leads are hot and ready to go. This is why a quick series of emails to educate a lead about a product or service can be extremely helpful. Depending on the email service you use, you can set the emails up to go out all within a week, or based upon when the previous email was opened. These emails can be automatically sent, and you can even tell what emails have been looked at by your contact. This gives a sales rep a good idea of how interested the lead is, and what information the lead has consumed or still needs.

This is a great tool to use before a sales rep goes out to an appointment. This will not only cut down on the time it takes at the appointment, but it also gives the contact the power of some knowledge before the sales call. This friendly education creates a sense of trust, and will often increase close rates. 

Long Term Email Automation and Nurturing

Everyone has some leads that don't close, or go cold. Using long term email automation and campaigns can help you stay in touch with these contacts, and eventually this nurturing will set you up to be at the top of mind when the contact is ready to make a decision.

Not every lead you receive is ready to buy, and keeping in no sort of contact with them allows other businesses in your market to slide in and steal this potential business. We have seen contacts who become a lead, and don't actually close as a sale for an entire year! This is why a long term series of emails through automation can not only keep your potential sale alive for long periods of time, but it can also establish you as the trusted source of information in your market. 

Email automation allows you to nurture different contacts in different ways. You can send emails based on time, actions, or other indicators that will push the proper information to the right people. If you were to simply look at all your contacts everyday and try to decide who should be receiving an email, you would be lost quickly. Having everything organized and set up for automatic emails will eliminate this indecision, and free up your time. 

When using email automation, you will be able to:

• Send the right emails to the right contacts at the right time
• Differentiate contacts based on behavior (email opens, clicks, website visits, etc.)
• Create different series of emails to go out to contacts based upon what they want to know, and where they are in the sales funnel
• Establish regular emailing schedules and practices
• Organize your messaging and educate your contact base
• Nurture cold leads in a long term series
• Notify your contact base about upcoming events, sales, and specials 
• Set up your system all at once, and simply tweak it based upon what works best

There are many examples and benefits when it comes to what email automation can do for your business. What do you need to get started though?

• Email Addresses from your customer base 
• An emailing platform that can support automation (Hubspot, Aweber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, etc.)

Once you have these things in place, you can start creating your emails. You want to develop your message and strategy first. What are the emails going to be about? How are you going to keep your audience interested and engaged? Here are a few things you can do that will help give you an idea of what you should be putting in your messages. 

• Segment your lists - Not everyone in your contacts wants the same exact thing. You will for sure do some email blasts out to everyone in your database at some point, but you will want different lists as well to create more personalized messaging to certain contacts.
• Think of what you offer - You likely sell more than one product or service. When you are creating your message, these different products and services may require different language, and certainly different content. 
• Educate - These automated emails aren't going to be selling every time they go out. Most of them are going to be about education. You want to become a trusted source of information, not just another sales pitch sitting in the inbox. 
• What do your customers ask - What are the things your customers typically want to know, or don't know? By answering simple questions and using your knowledge of your industry, you can create emails that will be viewed as useful information, and not just another boring email. 

The next step is setting up your automation. This can be complicated or simple. 

It may be as easy as, if a contact downloads a brochure, they will then receive a particular email. 

It gets more in depth when you are creating a series of emails to go out based on different actions and behaviors.

For example, you can set up an email to go out to a list of 100 people. Maybe 35 of them open the email. This could trigger a different email that goes out to those 35 people, while the 65 who didn't open it can receive the original email again in a few days with a different subject line. This can be the same series of emails, but delivered in different times, based on different behaviors. 

All of this is set up long before the contact initiates the email automation. It can be a tricky task, but pays dividends once it is all set up and ready to go. 

Moral of the story here: 

Automation is essential to nurturing all different types of leads, and without it, you could be missing the boat on significant opportunities for your business.