January 2013 Issue
It’s an exciting time here at Continuity Programs, as this month we are celebrating our 40th Corporate Anniversary! Also, we are proud to announce that we have been selected as Southeast Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center’s Best Small Business of 2012! Through all of this excitement, we are still delivering your HVAC marketing advice:
Dominate Your Local HVAC Market With Exclusive Lead Generation
When many business owners hear the words lead generation, they think of the unpleasant task of calling leads they’ve purchased from a lead generation service. When HVAC business owners or their staff reach out to these supposed ready buyers they often find the homeowner completely uninterested in hearing from them. No conversion, no sale.
Buying leads doesn’t make selling easier
With purchased leads, you don’t have a natural jumping-off point to begin a conversation — let alone make a sale! Often the “lead” has already made a purchase and is no longer interested. Or they’ve forgotten they “signed up” to get quotes from random HVAC contractors and once again, they aren’t going to buy or even show interest. There’s a much simpler way to win real customers and grow your business. Don’t waste time and money buying leads that lead nowhere. Generate your own high-quality exclusive leads.
Grow your own leads
Leads you’ve generated yourself are much more likely to result in a sale. These prospects will be expecting to hear from you and probably know a lot about your business already from your website, blog or other online marketing. This is a very sales-friendly atmosphere for you to walk into. Your self-generated (earned!) leads are likely to welcome your call. You’re now selling from a position of integrity and authority, instead of an awkward uphill battle.
Earned leads = cost-effective, quality leads = sales
Earned leads are the natural way to build a customer base and the best way to build a strong, loyal sales base through relationships of respect and trust. In this case, your entire business profile (reputation) sells your services for you, often before you even speak to the customer. Many motivated buyers will find you online – since research is something almost every consumer does in advance of buying, especially big-ticket items, these days.
These are self-generated inbound leads that come about from your well-crafted online presence, your website (content, contact form, specialized landing pages), your advice-filled blog, your social media outreach and positive online reviews combined with your presence in the local (offline) community.
Customer retention yields lifetime value
Of course, your sales potential is limited unless you retain customers. Use proven strategies to remain a known, trusted entity among your customers and prospects. Stay in contact with a carefully timed set of cross-media messages including emails and direct mailings including thank-you cards and surveys, social media interaction and more.
These tactics will prepare the way for a lifetime of business from your customer relationships – and from their family and friends, too.
Business intelligence and data help you grow
The information that your contacts/prospects provide to you through your customer outreach, retention and relationship-building efforts will help you sell to them in the future. Collect and pay attention to birthdays and record personal information from all customer touch points, like when a contact reveals that they’re selling their home or have had a baby. Track responses from customer satisfaction surveys, where you can ask for leads quite directly. All this data, along with an analysis of past-customer behavior allows you to plan personalized marketing messages and even create new product/service offerings.
Dominate: Own your service area
What about those homeowners you’re still not in contact with? Bring them into your field of influence with targeted mailings (to neighbors of your recent installations or new homeowners, for example) through a quality list provider. Once you’re in touch, you can apply the previously discussed techniques to capture future sales.
Need help executing your Market Domination Strategy? Please feel free to contact Continuity Programs anytime.