The Heat is On…

XYZ Heating and Air is a new player in a highly competitive

services industry. Brand differentiation is crucial to attract new business. Brand credibility is a huge factor in selecting a service professional, so becoming established as a trusted, reliable, and honest HVAC provider is absolutely essential for success.

With the Winter Massachusetts has had this year, the demand for Heating Services is unusually strong. So, the opportunity to thrive is tremendous if consumers in need can find you, and quickly identify you as reputable.

Our brand has opted to focus on Facebook, with both paid ads and organic efforts. Their current IMC mix includes a business website, a Twitter Account, a Google+ page, and a Yelp Account. They also dabble in Direct Mail, but but have no email data base. For this exercise, we are analyzing XYZ’s Facebook Stats hoping our finding can inform future marketing endeavors.
Analysis of Facebook Statistics:
The information from Facebook is to me extremely limited and in fact statistically insignificant. It does not give us any insights into other IMC elements that could affect reach and engagement, such as a direct mail piece, web search engine placement, and Yelp Reviews. Nor do we have any conversion rates from any of the posts, likes, or engagements. However, just looking at the numbers, here are four things that stand out in this vacuum of data:

1. Women are becoming fans at a much higher rate than men. They represent only 26% of this brands “reach” but comprise 58% of their fans. If they continue to pay for Facebook ads, they should refine their focus to be skewed more to females in the age bracket of 25-64.
2. The “paid” facebook reach is under-performing in fan/engagement rates as compared to the organic reach. The 1.25% post click and the 2% likes, comments they garnered on 2/27 is nice off of 3,500 reaches that day-but what did it cost? On 3/15 they achieved a 2.6% post click and nearly 5% engagement with the same post. I think perhaps rather than paying to promote they should first do some fine tuning to their posts, track the organic reach, and add other IMC elements which I will discuss later. The ROI on the blanket pay posts may not be the best use of their budget at this juncture.
3. Frequency-Everything we have learned says to post well and post often. I believe they are falling short on both. The 2-4 week gaps between posts make it difficult to track their efficacy. They need to post MORE if this is going to be their main vehicle for promoting their business.

4. They have an interesting pocket of Hispanic reach and fans. With a reach of 463 and 13 fans, that’s a 2.8% conversion, much higher than the English 149 against 6,512. If they can speak Spanish, or have an affinity for the culture, this is a demographic to explore.
5. Positives from the Stats
a. Leveraging March Madness to get views and likes
b. They seem to understand their best days to post
c. They have offered contests and special offers

That is all I gleaned from the Facebook Stats. The other data points-particularly the week over week gains-did not seem imperial enough to credit to anything on Facebook given the low numbers and their other marketing initiatives.
Facebook Recommendations:
Belle Beth Cooper from BlogBuffer shares some interesting findings from Kissmetrics in her 7 Powerful Facebook Stats you Should Know blog that could improve XYZ Heating and Air’s Facebook engagement (and ultimately the ROI). Here are a few that I would recommend:
1.  Photos induce 39% more interaction, 84% more click throughs, and 104% more comments. I could not really tell what they had as imagery but weather is always a popular image, as might be photos of the owners, photos of new products, even funny photos. Getting more attention, then having the viewers go deeper or interact, would truly help with customer engagement and ultimately build that critical trusted relationship.
2. Emoticons increase like rates 57% and raise share and comments 39%. A cute frozen face would definitely get my attention and empathy! Same benefits as photos for engagement and incremental reach.
3. Questions get more comments and engagement. While they had questions, they were not optimal. Kissmetrics says Should, Would, and Which are the best. Engaging people in Polls has also been determined to be successful in engagement. Why not do both? Try a Poll that asks about the life of a Heat System- Should you replace your Heating Unit after 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, when it breaks? Or Would you call a Heating Contractor if a) your thermostat stopped working b) your electric bill spiked c) smoke was coming out of the unit? Engagement is the goal here-and added reach.

4.  Contests and Coupons are popular, and they used WIN which is strong. There may be room for improvement here-especially to combine a contest with a poll, require email addresses to build their email data base, or do a coupon that grows in value if you refer a friend(s).

5. Content – The changes outlined above will hopefully drive consumers. Now let’s give them something once they get to XYZ so they will share and come back.  Add Links in Posts to educate and cross market:
o Sites that discuss HVAC – see Home Improvement
o Recommendations on choosing a reputable HVAC Provider
o Add a link to the brand of Products they carry and Reviews
o Link to their Website and promise value added content once there such as-
o Checklist for winterizing your heater,
o 10 ways to lower electric bills, etc.
o Video demonstrating basic maintenance
o Online appointment scheduling tool for a free analysis
o Coupon

Now lets explore other IMC elements to help grow this fledgling HVAC Brand.
IMC Additions:
Fieldservice published a blog 8 Ways to Advertise your HVAC Business and detailed the Great, the Good, and the BAD. Here is how these recommendations would benefit XYZ Heating & Air.
GREAT:
o Linked In – Add a Page here detailing Professional Qualifications and incent customers to endorse them
o Professional Networking – join a leads group, gain some complimentary professional partners like plumbers, general contractors, even landscapers to do cross referrals. No cost-high yield in this industry and generates the most valuable kind of advertising-word of mouth
GOOD:
o Website-beef it up with content recommended above, maximize Google Search placement and Yelp reviews, and be sure it is Mobile friendly.
o Email – use recommendations above to gain an email database, then maybe create a quarterly newsletter with valuable information. When the heater breaks, you need to be top of mind. Giving good advice costs little and could generate big returns.
o Referral Program – even though you are new and may not have customers who can refer friends, you know people. Be obnoxious and concoct a referral program that will give your word of mouth referrals. Even something small like a Starbucks gift card will help your friends and neighbors think of you FIRST if someone they knows needs your services. I would also try to gain endorsements with links from the manufacturer of systems they use, and the complimentary industry contacts mentioned above.

For a small start up, a “campaign” is not really the best way to grow. They need to establish themselves as credible through word of mouth, providing helpful information, and engaging their fan base to share, comment, take polls and make referrals. At this point their marketing efforts need to be very personal and extremely high touch and grass roots in nature. By adding helpful content, cross linking between their platforms and those of trusted partners, and establishing a referral program I believe XYZ Heating and Air can leverage a strong social media presence, an informative website, and a broad reaching word of mouth referral program to become credible as a service provider. Once they have a strong customer base, good YELP reviews and Google Search placement, and client testimonials they can work on a clever or catchy marketing campaign to grow their brand. Along the way they can learn from facebook Analytics and track the success of new content, contests, and questions, run website stats to measure that traffic, and track the success from each referral/partnership channel. Utilizing a tool like HootSuite that could allow them to manually enter their other activities and see how each impacts their online traffic would be a good investment of time. Knowledge is power-but right now the Facebook Analytics offer a limited look at how effective their posts are, and no cross linking to their other IMC efforts. And if all that fails-