HVAC Blogging Pro Tip: Mention Price Online To Get More Customers
on February 10, 2014
If you have an internet-savvy HVAC company, you don’t need anyone to convince you that a blog works wonders bringing solid leads to your website.
However, if a blog is meant to attract traffic, then why do so many HVAC contractors get nervous about mentioning price on their blog—or anywhere on the website for that matter?
What does mentioning price have to do about attracting traffic, you ask?
Think about this: price hunting is a part of almost every person’s purchase decision. How many times have you googled, “How much does X cost?” or “What is the cost of product X vs product Y?”
I did it this week.
Look in your online forms right now. I bet many inquiries are about asking for a price on big ticket jobs. Think of how many more people would land on your website if you just gave those prices upfront in your blog!
That’s what Rivers Pools and Spa did, and you can see how many qualified leads they got because of it.
No one else in their industry wanted to talk about price, so they did and got ahead of the competition with blog posts like, How Much Does a Fiberglass Pool Cost? (they attributed over $1,000,000.00 in swimming pool sales from this one article) and How Much Do Inground Pools Cost?
That being said, the usual HVAC contractor’s objections to mentioning price online are:
- “Every job is different, so we can’t give an exact price.”
- “We don’t want to scare people off with our prices.”
- “We don’t want our competition to see our prices.”
Let me address each of these concerns to show you why they’re all non-issues.
“Every job is different, so we can’t give an exact price”
Yes, you do many unique jobs that you can’t think of a price until you investigate onsite.
But you don’t want to focus on the super unique jobs. You want to focus on the price of jobs you do over and over again. The services people search for online all the time are the ones you want to provide prices for because those are the ones that will bring you the most traffic.
These include:
- Basic service call
- Preventative maintenance/tune-ups
- Products (especially comparisons between 2 products) and certain features
- Installations of products
- Common repairs (clearing a condensate drain line, for example)
For these types of jobs, a few easy ways to mention price is to give website visitors:
- An average price
- A price range (River Pools and Spa uses this tactic quite often)
- Price changes based on different feature upgrades (furnace with or without a variable speed fan) or energy efficiencies (80% AFUE furnace vs 90% AFUE furnace)
And you can always invite them to contact you for an exact price.
But just giving them general prices will not only bring in more traffic, it causes those customers to trust you right from the start because you’re being transparent.
“We don’t want to scare people off with our prices”
Yes, yes you do.
Well, you want to scare off people who aren’t qualified leads anyway. You see, people are going to find out your prices anyway. Why not tell them now? It’s more time efficient for you.
Think about it like this: What’s the difference between a person who finds out he or she can’t afford a high efficiency furnace on your blog versus someone who finds out on the phone when they call you?
The difference is that you spent extra time on an unqualified lead when they talked to you about it on the phone.
You might respond, “Aha, but I answer people’s specific price objections on the phone!”
This is a valid point. But if you’ve found that people have the same objections every time, you can easily answer those price objections in your blog.
In fact, it may be easier in a blog because you can show them all the facts in one place, including how a particular investment can pay for itself in the long run.
People are going to shop around for prices no matter what. And if you’re not the one giving it to them, then your competitors will—and they’ll be happy to have the extra customers.
Speaking of competitors…
“We don’t want our competition to see our prices”
Ask yourself, do you compete on price? If your competitors find out about your prices, what harm does that really do you? Most HVAC contractors try to differentiate themselves by their quality of service. And besides, you’ll be giving ranges and averages—ones your competitors are familiar with.
By giving potential leads a price right away, even if it’s just an average, you’ll show your quality of service by being open and honest.
Don’t be shy—mention price, and you’ll dominate online
It’s still rare for HVAC companies to mention price online. That’s good for you because if you’re one of the first ones to do it, you’ll be the one ranking for those keyword phrases and getting all the traffic.
Trust me, I’m not trying to get you to mention price so it makes it easier for me to find how much an air conditioner installation costs for my own needs. That would be dubious, immoral, and ingenious.
I live in an apartment anyway.
Leave us a comment on Facebook to let me know how you deal with price online. Or if you feel like your company can’t mention price, let us know and we’ll talk it out.
Till next time.
