Customer newsletters are a simple and effective way to stay top of mind with your customers, share timely and important information, and even boost revenue with new offers.
For HVAC and Refrigeration service companies, your regular customers are the lifeblood of your business. However, it’s very easy for you to become “out of sight and out of mind” when you see customers infrequently. That’s especially true for commercial customers where the owner, manager, or other decision maker isn’t the person who interacts with your technicians when they perform service.
Customer newsletters help you regularly communicate with the people who make the decision to use your services.
WHY create a customer newsletter?
Before you begin developing a customer newsletter, it’s important to clearly define your goals. That way, you’ll be able to measure the results of your effort and the ROI.
For example, in this industry a customer newsletter may serve as part of a program to improve customer satisfaction and provide a great customer experience, with goals like these:
- Retaining loyal, long-term customers (especially for service contracts)
- Getting customers to purchase upgrades, replacements, and additional products and services
- Encouraging them to recommend you to others
Your newsletter can also serve shorter-term goals like feeding the pipeline during slow periods.
During the pandemic, some of the most successful HVACR service businesses in NYC used customer newsletters to stay in touch with customers, remind contract customers to schedule service as buildings began to reopen, and offer IAQ solutions that were suddenly in demand.
HOW to create a customer newsletter that achieves your goals
Once you define your goals for your customer newsletter, it’s time to start planning.
STEP 1: Create a mailing list
Your first step is to set up a mailing list of key contacts in a spreadsheet. (Or if you have a list in your CRM system, you’re a step ahead). These include the customers you do business with regularly. Be sure you have up to date contact information including first and last name, email address, company name, and (ideally) title.
If you have a list but you’re not sure that it’s up to date, you can use a list cleaning service to remove email addresses that are no longer valid.
IMPORTANT: Don’t be tempted to purchase mailing lists! They are almost always poor quality and will hurt your reputation rather than bringing you business.
STEP 2: Choose your technology
If you’ve already got a CRM and marketing software, then you’re all set.
If not, there are some inexpensive (or even free) and easy-to-use tools for sending customer newsletters, including MailChimp and Constant Contact.
STEP 3: Set a schedule
How often do you plan to send newsletters? It’s best to establish a regular send schedule so customers come to expect them. Monthly is a good place to start.
Also consider the day of the week and time when your customers are most likely to open your emails. For example, for commercial customers, Mondays tend to be super busy and emails might get missed. In general, mid week and early in the morning are often good times. But that depends on the customers you serve. You can test different send times and see which get the best open rates.
STEP 4: Create content
When creating content for customer newsletters, always focus on what your customers want and need. If you do, you’ll keep them engaged and they will open and read it every time.
Your email subject line is particularly important, because that’s how people decide whether or not to open your customer email. Make it short, clear, and compelling, telling them what’s in your email and why they should care.
There are many options for the body of your customer newsletter. Here are just a few types of content you can share:
- Business changes that customers need to know about
- Information for new customers about how to work with your company
- Problem solving advice, such as ways to save on energy expenses
- How-to info about HVAC technology, such as how to change filters
- Industry news that may impact your customers, such as refrigerant changes
- Blog articles that you have recently published on your website that may be helpful to customers
- Videos that you have posted on your YouTube account
- Surveys that ask customers to share their experience with your customer service team and technicians (which is a great way to learn more about how you’re doing)
- New product announcements
Don’t forget an option to unsubscribe. Make sure you offer a way for people to opt out if they no longer want to receive your newsletter. This keeps your list clean and respects your customers. Your email technology makes this easy to implement.
Tips for sending your first newsletter
Get permission. It’s important to respect your customers’ privacy rights and get permission to send them customer newsletters. If you don’t, you can end up getting labeled as a spammer, which can really hurt your ability to email customers in the future. (You can learn more about that here.)
Before sending your first newsletter, send a “warming” email asking for updated contact information and permission to send them informative content.
Don’t send too much at once. If you don’t usually send large batches of emails, it’s important to stagger your newsletter sends at first, especially if you have a large list. If you start by sending thousands of emails in one day, email service providers (like Google and Outlook) can label you as a spammer and either block your emails, or deliver them to the recipients’ junk email box.
To avoid that, divide your list and stagger the sends over a week or so. Make sure you’re not sending drastically more emails that you send on a normal day.
Another option is to start with a smaller list of engaged customers, and gradually add more names to your list over time.
More help for HVAC & Refrigeration businesses
If you found this article helpful, you can find more information to help you grow your business here.
HVACR Career Connect NY was created to promote the exceptional quality-of-life benefits of a career in HVAC and Refrigeration service, and also to provide a clear path for getting started in the profession. In doing so, we serve as a resource for employers in the New York City metro area to find and hire smart and capable new technicians. We also serve as an educational resource to support business growth and to help service technicians succeed in their chosen profession.
Learn about technical careers in the HVAC & Refrigeration industry, how to get hired and tips to build your career.