Educate and Activate: Using Awareness Marketing to Drive Sales

As homeowners continue to be cautious with their spending, demand for home services remains low. To keep schedules full in 2024 and beyond, contractors must shift their focus from merely capturing demand to actively creating it through awareness marketing.

The key to marketing for contractors in uncertain economic times lies in understanding the difference between capturing existing demand—meeting the needs of customers already seeking your services—and creating demand, which involves educating and activating potential customers who haven’t yet gotten hip to your solutions. By building brand awareness and proactively addressing common homeowner pain points when it comes to energy, comfort, and financial incentives, contractors can set themselves apart and generate new business opportunities.

Capturing Demand vs. Creating Demand

For decades, contractors especially in the HVAC industry have relied on the natural ebb and flow of demand driven by seasonal weather patterns. The first heatwave of summer or the arrival of winter’s chill typically spurs homeowners into action, leading to an uptick in phone calls for air conditioner or furnace repairs. This reactive strategy is a form of capturing demand. Homeowners are already aware they need help, and your job is to be visible and easily found when they search for a contractor.

Capturing demand is often the primary goal of inbound marketing strategies like search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and Google Ads. 

Real World Example of Capturing Demand: A homeowner with a surprise broken furnace might quickly search for "furnace repair near me" and select a top-ranked contractor to fix the issue, or directly type in their search bar the first local contractor that comes to mind. 

This is where SEO, PPC, and good website content shine, ensuring your business appears when customers are ready to buy. However, this puts contractors at the mercy of demand, and when demand in the marketplace is lower than what many contractors need to keep the phones ringing and forms filling, a marketing shift is in order. 

Creating Demand: Proactive Education and Awareness

Creating demand involves reaching potential customers who may not be actively searching for your services but could benefit from them - a marketing problem whole-home oriented insulation contractors and home performance contractors are all too familiar with. Through outbound marketing techniques, such as paid social media and connected TV and podcast advertising, paired with simple educational messaging, contractors can inform homeowners about solutions they didn’t even know existed.

For instance, many homeowners may not realize that a heat pump can both heat and cool their home, making it a versatile and energy-efficient alternative to traditional HVAC systems. By running ads that highlight the benefits of heat pumps, rising energy costs, and strong incentives for electrification, contractors can spark interest and start to fill the top of their funnel. The same can be said for solar and home performance or insulation solutions, leveraging the shrinking pocketbooks that accompany the upcoming weather peaks.

A Granular Approach to the Sales Funnel

In high-performance marketing for these industries, many homeowners are at the top of the sales funnel, unaware of how solutions like heat pumps, whole-home approaches, or even tax credits can improve their comfort and energy savings. As they learn more about the benefits of your services and the potential savings, they move further down the funnel, becoming more engaged and eventually transforming into qualified leads ready to make informed decisions.

Want to go more in-depth on re-thinking the sales funnel and using awareness marketing? Check out Energy Circle CEO and Founder Peter Troast’s webinar on the topic, “Turning Education into Sales with Awareness Marketing”.

Digital Tools that Build Awareness

Thanks to the growing reach of digital marketing tools, contractors in the solar, home performance, and HVAC industries now have access to premium marketing tools. Platforms like YouTube, Hulu, and Spotify, and social media channels like Instagram and Facebook allow contractors to place targeted ads in front of highly specific audiences. Imagine three rotating 30-second videos, educating homeowners about three main selling points for your services. These ads may not result in immediate calls, but they plant the seed of awareness that can lead to future sales.

Messaging Examples

Brevity is key when it comes to getting the most out of these short form marketing tools like 15-30 second videos. Keep it simple, focus on the issues at hand for homeowners, and remember that you are playing the long game with your messaging. Here are a few messaging ideas that can be the basis for written, graphic, and video content:

Insulation & Home Performance:

• “A hot house in the summer will be a cold house in the winter - upgrade insulation for year round comfort.”

• “Energy prices getting to you this summer? Upgrade your home’s performance and save in the winter, too.“

• “There are rebates available to make your home more comfortable and efficient — upgrade before the end of the year and save in more ways than one!”

Heat Pumps & HVAC:

• “Is your AC on its last leg after a long summer? Replace it with a heat pump and upgrade your home heating, too!”

• “There are rebates available for energy efficient heating and cooling upgrades — upgrade to a heat pump before the end of the year and save in more ways than one!”

Solar:

• "Tired of unpredictable energy bills? Install solar panels now and enjoy consistent savings all year round!"

• "Utility rates climbing higher? Take control with solar and lock in low energy costs for decades to come."

• "There's still time to take advantage of solar tax credits — install before the end of the year and save big on your energy and your wallet!"

Actionable Steps for Contractors

So, how can contractors begin implementing awareness marketing strategies? Here are a few actionable steps:

1. Leverage Digital Advertising: Explore cost-effective advertising channels like Facebook, Instagram, and connected TV to reach homeowners who may not be actively searching for services but could benefit from them.

2. Build a Strong Foundation: Ensure your website is optimized not only for capturing demand but also for educating visitors. Create content that addresses common homeowner questions, such as “How can I make my home more energy efficient?” or “What are the benefits of a heat pump?”

3. Invest in Retargeting: Use retargeting ads to stay in front of homeowners who may have visited your website but weren’t ready to buy. Retargeting allows you to keep your company top of mind as they move closer to making a decision.

Educate to Activate

Marketing may only be one part of running your contracting business, but at Energy Circle, we do it all day, every day. If you are looking for ways to even out your seasonal demand, and activate potential customers in your service area, we have seen an investment in awareness marketing pay dividends throughout the year for contractors in the HVAC, home performance, insulation, and solar industries. Schedule a discovery call with Energy Circle today.