Businesses worldwide are scrambling to figure out the best way to market their services on social media. While Facebook and Instagram have shown promising results for many types of businesses, the work behind a knockout social media presence could end up costing you more time than you'd like to spend.

Though many of these platforms are great for connecting with potential customers, you might not connect with people in your service area. On top of that, many social media users aren't necessarily encouraged to recommend services like plumbing to their family and friends. 

This is where Nextdoor comes in. Nextdoor is a neighbourhood-driven app focused on bringing communities and local businesses together.

But how can you utilize Nextdoor to find more leads? And what are the advantages this app has over more common platforms? Let's dive into the world of Nextdoor and find out if this is the business-focused app you've been waiting for.

Finding Your Social Media Flow

Before we look at Nextdoor and the many advantages it can provide your business, we should first establish some simple ground rules for having a fabulous social media presence. You can use these tips for any social platform you use, even Nextdoor.

Many businesses struggle with handling their social media accounts initially. But over time (and possibly with the help of our social media geniuses over at ADHOME), you'll find your audience and generate meaningful leads.

Create a Brand

Branding is something you hear all the time, but what does it actually mean? In simplest terms, branding is the identity or personality of your business. For plumbers, there are several different directions you can take this:

• Family-focused (i.e. IKEA, McCain Foods)
• Professional (i.e. Tesla, Microsoft, Blackberry)
• Blue-collar (i.e. Home Depot, Canadian Tire)

Knowing your brand is a fantastic first step towards developing your social media strategy, especially the type of content you want to create.

Provide Useful Content

The key to great content is information. Facebook, Instagram, and Nextdoor provide various tools to produce helpful content for your audience; the trick is knowing which content is suitable for which tool.

For example, general posts are a great way to promote special deals, while live streaming may be an even better way to show off your knowledge or answer frequently asked questions. This process may seem like trial-and-error in the beginning, but with time and practice, you'll be creating world-class content your competitors will envy.

Show Off Your Work

Now, what's marketing without showing off what you're made of?

No matter what platform you're on, it's always important to show off the quality work you do. Pictures, customer reviews, and videos can all illustrate your commitment to your customers while also giving you the chance to show off your expertise.

 

What Is Nextdoor?

Now that we've taken a look at some quick strategies you can use to rock social media, it's time to meet the new kid on the social media block: Nextdoor.

Nextdoor is one of the first apps to focus on bringing neighbours together. Instead of searching for people you know and adding them as a friend, Nextdoor automatically connects you with other members right in your community. Nextdoor members can post about things going on in the community, like events happening in your local park or information on stolen property, and, most importantly, they can even share business recommendations.

This locally-focused way of connecting is not only excellent for getting to know the area you live in, but it's also essential for helping businesses leave a lasting impression with real customers. Instead of relying on Google reviews (which are helpful in their own right), Nextdoor makes it incredibly easy for people to recommend your business to others in their community.

For example, if someone posts on Nextdoor that they're having trouble with a constantly running toilet or leaky pipes, people in their area can advise on how to solve the issue and, most importantly, recommend your services based on prior experience. Commenters don't have to be friends or followers—they only have to live in the same community as the original poster.

Signing Your Business Up for Nextdoor

Create a Personal Account

Becoming a Nextdoor member is similar to signing up for other social media programs, albeit with a few different steps. You'll need to create a personal account before you can sign your business up.

• Add your email address, postal code/ZIP, and address
• Fill out some basic personal information
• Verify your account with a phone number or email address

At this point, you can personalize your profile to reflect you best and even take a look at how Nextdoor works before jumping into creating your business account.

Starting Your Business Page

Now that you've joined your Nextdoor neighbourhood, you can start building your business account. 

• Go to www.nextdoor.com/create-business
• Log in to your account
• Pick an email address for your business account to use
• Search for your business through your business name and address
• Choose your business category from a drop-down list
• Personalize your business page

Personalizing your business page is your opportunity to practice some of those branding skills we talked about earlier:

• Add a high-quality profile picture
• Write a short description of your business
• Add more categories to help people search for you
• Upload pictures of your business like your location, trucks, and employees on the job

Marketing on Nextdoor

Congratulations! You've made your business account on Nextdoor.

Now is the time to get yourself familiar with all of Nextdoor's features. However, before you can start offering deals, you should spend some time interacting with people in your service area by answering questions and providing useful advice.

It's important to interact with Nextdoor members to help you set yourself as an authority in the community. When you're a local expert, it's more likely that people will choose you when they need help with their plumbing.

There are other ways to help market yourself on Nextdoor, including some tools that only Nextdoor provides:

Encourage Recommendations

Asking for reviews and recommendations is already something you should be doing, regardless if you have a Nextdoor account. It's pretty simple to ask for reviews: ask your customers to leave you feedback whenever you complete a service.

However, reviews and recommendations on Nextdoor might be more meaningful to other people in the community. Because Nextdoor verifies all the users on their platform, your reviews will be more genuine and representative of your customer's experience. You can even encourage more recommendations by politely responding to the reviews your customers leave!

Create "Local Deals"

90% of consumers make most of their purchasing decisions based on what is within a 15-minute drive from their home or work. This means that it's more important than ever to localize your advertisements.

"Local Deals" is Nextdoor's marketing plan for targeting specific communities with dedicated deals and offers. Creating a "Local Deal" takes minutes and shows up right in the newsfeed for Nextdoor members in the community you wish to advertise.

This can have a tremendous impact on your lead generation. For example, suppose winter is around the corner and a neighbourhood you know has an issue with bursting pipes. You can directly advertise to that community and give them the help they need before they experience even more costly damage.

Becoming a Neighborhood Sponsor

The "Neighbourhood Sponsor" program is an automated advertising system that boosts your posts, "Local Deals", messages, and other content to specific neighbourhoods. Unlike "Local Deals," these are just sponsored posts that will help ensure you stay top-of-mind for your community rather than offering a specific deal to the community.

Being a "Neighbourhood Sponsor" helps you connect with more people, answer questions, and provide you with more opportunities to set yourself up as an expert in your community.

Want To Focus on What You Love? Call ADHOME Today

We get it; marketing isn't for everyone. And we completely understand if you want to ensure you're putting your time and energy into helping people rather than creating ad campaigns.

Our geniuses at ADHOME Marketing will be happy to create a world-class marketing strategy using tools like Nextdoor to bring your services to more people than ever before. Start today by contacting us for a free consultation!

For most HVAC businesses, shoulder season falls between the frigid weather of the winter and the smoking hot temperatures in the summer. Most people only think about their HVAC systems when the weather lives in the extremes. So businesses generally see a slow period in the spring from March-May and again in the fall from September-November. 

We often see clients who want to stop their advertising during slow periods altogether. But this isn’t the best approach, not by a long shot. 

We’re here to show you that marketing in the off-season can boost sales and profits for the next busy season. Plus, bring in some additional revenue in maintenance jobs. So, if that sounds good to you, keep reading. 

Why Market During Slow Season?

We get where you’re coming from. Why spend ad budget when your customers don’t have an immediate need for your services? But there are many reasons why running ads in the spring and fall will get you ahead.

Build Your Brand

Building your brand isn’t achieved overnight. Or in one season! You need to establish a name for yourself in the HVAC industry continually. And once you’ve established some brand recognition, it’s essential to maintain and grow your audience for future success. If you want continued success during your next peak season, implementing a shoulder season marketing strategy is key. 

Good marketing never sleeps.

Become Memorable

If someone’s furnace fails when it’s freezing cold or their air conditioner stops working when it is sweltering out, they don’t have time to compare quotes and price shop. They will contact someone they trust and someone they have heard of. Someone they remember. 

Creating that type of memorability requires consistency in your marketing efforts. Therefore, your brand can’t entirely fall off the map because it’s off-season. The work you put into your marketing in the spring and fall will build your brand so that when someone’s furnace fails in the dead of winter, your company’s name is top of mind.

Get Ahead of The Competition

By marketing in shoulder season, you give yourself enough time to engage with your future customers. You can educate people on what your HVAC company offers and why you’re better than your competition. 

Once peak season hits, you will have created a relationship with your potential customers. They will be familiar with the services you offer and have seen your brand. Your business will be strides ahead of the competition, which will be just waking up from slow-season hibernation.

What Should You Be Spending

We recommend staying consistent with your marketing spend across all seasons to get the best results. Yes, even during the off-season. 

As we mentioned earlier, shift away from lead generation campaigns and more towards creating brand awareness. Focusing on brand awareness will likely change the medium you are spending on (more on that later).  

Depending on whether you want to maintain or grow your business, a healthy marketing budget will vary between 5%-15% of your revenue.

Best Tactics for Shoulder Season

The major differentiating factor between on and off-season marketing will be the type of campaigns you will be running. As noted above, your slow season efforts should gear towards brand awareness. There are many ways to create customer recognition for your brand.

Get Social

Shoulder season is a great time to focus on growing your social media accounts. You can focus on creating engaging content and growing your following so that you will have a larger audience to speak to when peak season hits.

Run Brand Awareness Ads

You should still be running ads during shoulder season! These ads will shift to a branding campaign that will keep your company top of mind with your audience. See below for examples of a branding campaign.

Focus On Maintenance Campaigns

To create revenue during shoulder season, you can also run maintenance campaigns. Focus on the money consumers will save by tuning up their HVAC systems before they cause problems in the winter or summer.

Customer Reviews

Shoulder season is the perfect time to focus on your customer reviews. You likely received many during peak-season you haven’t had time to promote. We recommend blasting positive reviews EVERYWHERE! From your social media to your website, make sure you don’t waste the potential of a good review. 

Reviews build trust with your potential customers and provide social proof that your company does a good job. Take the time to highlight them whenever you can. Responding to reviews is also very important. Especially the negative ones. Learn how to best manage your reviews here. 

Tend To Your Backlog

The off-season is the perfect time to tackle things you’ve been putting off, including cleaning up your database, revamping your website, boosting your social media profiles, and creating promotional emails.  
We recommend spending the time to set yourself up for success during peak season.

To Sum It Up

Marketing your HVAC business is a year-round gig. You will see much better results by simply shifting your spending to branding campaigns rather than turning off your ads altogether. We recommend putting the same budget into both efforts for maximum growth. 

If you want to talk to an expert on leveraging your marketing during shoulder season, reach out to us. We’re always here to help, no matter what season

As much as word-of-mouth is crucial, customers need tangible evidence that they can trust your services. Online reviews have become a critical deciding factor in potential customers choosing your business. 

In 2019, a survey indicated that 82% of customers read online reviews of local businesses. Not only that, but 94% of online buyers said that a negative review persuaded them to avoid the company. As you can see, a positive presence on the internet is essential to stay competitive with other home service businesses. So, You want more reviews?

Here are 4 tips for getting more reviews from your happy customers.

Be in the Right Place

Your home service business needs to have an online presence on prominent social platforms, especially where customers can leave and find reviews. 

The most relevant platform is Google. One of Google's benefits and what makes the platform different is that it can make your business reviews appear if it deems the search "local." Your target demographic is more likely to find your business by having your reviews pop up for local searches on Google. But, of course, they need to be positive reviews to motivate people to book with you.  

 About two-thirds of shoppers will read Google reviews before visiting a company's website. So, be sure your business is set up correctly as a business with google. 

Other than Google, some other places customers might seek out reviews are Facebook, Yelp and Yahoo! With the number of facets to leave reviews increasing and the process becoming more comfortable, positive reviews are easier to come by.

Simplicity is Key

When asking for a review, you want your customers to do the least amount of work possible; they are doing you a favour at the end of the day. Here's how you can go about asking for a review and making it as easy as possible:

• Within a week of providing your services, call your client. Ask them if everything is working and if they have any questions or concerns.

• Kindly ask them for a review. Be specific, ask them if they would be willing to give you a review on Facebook. Let them know if you are looking for a lengthy review, a simple rating or if it's closer to a survey layout where they will be answering questions.

Within no more than five minutes of getting their consent of leaving you a review, you should email your customer with a clear link and guide for them to follow.

Properly Incentivize Your Customers

Businesses are implementing all sorts of incentives to get their customers to give reviews. Be careful when deciding to use this tactic. The purpose of reviews is to get authentic feedback from customers. If your business’ strategy begins to seem like you’re paying for reviews, you need to reevaluate your reviews system. Poorly motivated customers can result in fake reviews- and that hurts your business reputation.

Try these:

• Hand-out point credit to discount your services in the future 
• Offer quarterly draws in which a review enters them into a chance to win

Respond to Your Reviews- Especially the Bad Ones

Using these tactics will increase positive reviews, but it would be naive to think that negative reviews will no longer exist. Online customers are not only expecting businesses to respond to their reviews, but they want to see a prompt response.  
Responding to your reviews increases the likelihood of customers choosing your business. 80% of customers feel heard and cared about when management responds to their review. It also helps web visitors who are reading your reviews.

45% of consumers say that they’re more likely to choose service from a company that responds to negative reviews.

To Summarize

Reviews are the key to success for your home service business. With these above-noted tips, you can find a way to increase the number of reviews you receive from your happy customers. Of course, getting negative reviews is a consistent challenge, but with the appropriate response to criticism, you can continue cultivating a brand that makes you stand out from the rest.