While winter might be an easier time to attract the attention of homeowners looking for energy efficient upgrades, a sultry summer should not be overlooked. The hot weather presents a golden opportunity to market home performance services to potential customers who are living in excessively hot and uncomfortable homes. And considering the unfortunate state of the current building stock in this country, chances are good that there are many such homeowners in your service area who are actively looking for relief.


Besides the obvious gains in overall energy efficiency, home performance services such as insulation, air sealing, and duct sealing have additional benefits that could be extremely motivating to your potential customers, including:


  • Reduced AC and cooling costs

  • Increased occupant comfort

  • Extended home comfort during power outages

  • Improved indoor air quality


The problem? They might not be fully aware that they need you.


So how do we effectively reach these potential customers in their time of need and steer them towards home performance services? Here are four approaches you can use to drive your home performance business this summer:


#1 Intercept air conditioning leads organically


Throughout the late spring and summer months, the volume of air conditioning related searches on Google and the major search engines goes through the roof. As savvy home performance business owners, you can benefit from this seasonal interest in air conditioning by having air conditioning service pages and seasonal promotions on your website. If you don’t offer air conditioning services, you can still benefit by writing blogs and opinion articles about why it’s crucial to have a properly insulated and air-sealed home in order to achieve maximum efficiency of your AC unit.


The goal here is to attract potential customers, provide the air conditioning content they’re looking for, and then explain the pitfalls of looking at air conditioning in isolation. There is a strong case to be made for the systems approach to improving comfort inside buildings, and this is your chance to explain that to potential customers -- both on your website in service page copy, and in person once you get the lead.


#2 Use PPC to attract searchers looking for relief




One avenue of online marketing that consistently shows very high return on investment (link?) for home performance companies during the summer is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. On the Google Search Engine Results page, PPC ads increasing claim the most prominent real estate. That means, when Aunt Rosie finally gets fed up with her inefficient AC window unit and searches google for “Central Air Conditioning Toledo”, you have the ability to rank #1 in PPC (the highest result on the page) and get Aunt Rosie’s very valuable click.  


For summer, it’s best to carefully monitor keyword search volumes and make sure you are competing for comfort and equipment terms that real life searchers are actually using. And remember, the second part to any successful PPC campaign is having appropriate landing pages(link) on your site with relevant copy and a strong, compelling Call To Action.


#3 Use social media to really engage potential customers


Social media -- Facebook in particular -- serves as the perfect platform to make small talk with your customers about the weather. Is there a heat wave bearing down on your city? Snap a screenshot of the 5 day forecast and post it to your Facebook page. You’ll be shocked at how many Facebook users engage with this type of content.


To really maximize it’s effect, link your Facebook post to a blog on your website about the particular weather event with tips and tricks for staying comfortable. In the copy, be sure to link internally to the particular service pages that you reference. That way if someone who navigates from social media to your blog is interested in learning more about your Air Conditioning Repair or Insulation Services, they can easily find that page and inquire for more information.


#4 Blog as the delivery vehicle for summer-related content




Just as we do here at Energy Circle, you too can utilize your website’s blog to leverage summer-related content. While summer is a fabulous time of year for many of us, it also poses some serious risks and distresses to potential customers in your service area. Reach out to them and sympathize about the issues they’re facing: high humidity, blazing sunshine, and buildings that offer limited relief from the outdoor elements.


When you lead with the problem and relate to your customers’ issues, it’s easier to divert the conversation to proven solutions to common comfort problems and how home performance services can help.


Once published, be sure to disseminate your blog posts on ALL of your available social media platforms for maximum exposure and fast indexing by Google.


Go Forth and Market Your Home Performance Business!


By applying these four, proven home performance marketing techniques, you will increase your leads this summer and have more opportunities to persuade homeowners that home performance is the only true solution for their comfort issues. One potential drawback? You might have to postpone the August family vacation to early fall due to the increase in business #goodproblemtohave.