How will we market our Service Plan?
Following on from last month’s Boiler Business column, “Building your service plan part one”, this month, we will look at how to market, sell & grow your service plan to create reoccurring revenue and cashflow all year round.
Offers & Promotions
We have already looked at how to layer value into the service plan to give long-term peace of mind to our customers that their homes will remain cosy, safe & energy efficient. However, most people are always busy; if the deadline is now, they will take action now. If the deadline is next year, they will wait until next year!
Promoting a no-brainer offer to the correct people at the right time is the key to steady, consistent growth of your service plan.
New boiler customers
Your best opportunity to sign up new service plan customers is on completion of a boiler installation. You already have the skills & knowledge to sell large complex installations, so it should be easy to offer the extended,l help, support and peace of mind that comes with joining the service plan.
You could promote your Service Plan offer with the boiler quotation. This offer has two benefits. Firstly it will show your potential new customer that you are the local professional company that will be looking after their property’s comfort beyond the installation. Remember, customers want to trust the people who work in their house, so if they choose you for the installation, you have already won their trust.
Existing customers
Another easy win for your service plan is looking at your existing customer database. With so many changes in the heating industry in recent years, you can easily convert regular service customers onto your plan by simply saying the “service plan” includes all the new test requirements and additional costs such as chemical dosing.
You may find signing long-term customers onto your plan challenging if they are used to paying you when the annual boiler service is due. Timing is key, so ask yourself, “When is the most likely time your existing customers may join the service plan?
Most people are always busy with their minds solving 101 tasks. Hence, we need to have the strategy, the listed customer benefits & offer the “Service plan” at the time that they are thinking about their boiler the most. Typically, this would be when they need help with their heating for whatever reason or before/ during the annual boiler service.
Planning your Email/ SMS / Phone communications to promote your no-brainer “join the plan” offer at this point will cut through the day-to-day barrage of information they choose to ignore or to take action on.
When booking their “standard” annual service, can you look to offer a discount of some type or, better than that, add more value to create the “no-brainer” offer?
Google search ( SEO )
Your customer database and Service Plan will grow much faster if you purposely market this service through a dedicated “Service” page on your website. Keyword research will help determine how many people in your local area are searching for boiler service, heating care plan, boiler repair,
and any other related search queries.
Many heating companies believe that SEO is a game for big companies with a budget to spend, which is not always the case. Other than Google only presenting 3 local companies in the “map pack” area of its results, there are many, many examples of local companies that have outranked national websites in the top three organic listings.
When looking to improve your online marketing, consider how much revenue this page could generate in the next five years. Every 100 service plans priced at £100 per year = £10K in additional revenue. Over five years, those same 100 customers would generate at least £50K.
Paid Ads ( SEM & PPC )
The advantage of SEM over SEO is the speed you can make sales. If you have the budget, you can be at the top of the Google search page tomorrow! The negative to using ads is, ultimately, paying for clicks to your website will require a regular budget, so consider this when pricing your service plan.
Once you have built your service plan and implemented most of this Service Plan workshop, using PPC could be a speedy way to build your customer database but jumping into SEM without everything else in place first can cost your business a fortune.
Target Customers vs Potential Sales
What’s the difference between the two?
The difference may be what you want and what they want or do not want at the point that you target them.
Free Service Plan Workshop
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You can sign up for a free online service plan workshop at the following
Tom Lee-Zmuda
Hey buddy. My name is Tom, a former heating engineer turned marketing Jedi. My team and I specialise in helping local HVAC and Solar business owners dominate Google and sell their most profitable services. We are committed to building the best ROI through local SEO, kick-ass websites & sales communications that attract, sell and keep your best five-star customers.
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