I do HVAC marketing for a living, mostly SEO, but most of the ideas here cost little and do not need me. The point is to use the slow weeks to build things that pay off in the busy ones.
In peak season the phone rings no matter what you do. Your marketing's real job is the shoulder months. There are two ways to fill them: sell work people can schedule (tune-ups, replacements, air quality), and build assets (reviews, pages, memberships) that make next summer cheaper. Every idea below does one or both.
| # | Idea | Rough cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pre-season tune-up campaign to past customers | $0 to $300 | Everyone with a customer list |
| 2 | Offer membership plans on every call | $0 (training time) | Everyone |
| 3 | Review push | $0 to a small monthly tool fee | Shops with fewer reviews than the map pack leaders |
| 4 | Google Business Profile cleanup and weekly posts | $0 | Everyone |
| 5 | One new service page a week | $0 to a few hundred per page | Shops with a thin website |
| 6 | Replacement follow-up list (old systems) | $0 | Shops with 2+ years of job history |
| 7 | Rebate and tax-credit page | $0 to a few hundred | Heat pump installers |
| 8 | Indoor air quality offer | Product cost plus a short campaign | Shops wanting a spring/fall add-on |
| 9 | Referral card with a real reward | $50 to $100 per closed referral | Established shops with loyal customers |
| 10 | Realtor and home inspector partnerships | Your time and a few lunches | Owner-operators who like networking |
| 11 | Door hangers around every install | Low; printing plus labor | Dense suburbs |
| 12 | Truck wraps | Several thousand per truck, one time | Shops with several trucks in one metro |
| 13 | Local Services Ads tuned for the season | Pay per lead | Shops that can answer every call |
| 14 | Start SEO before summer, not during it | From $750/month with me | Shops tired of paying per lead |
Costs are rough 2026 ranges and depend on your market and vendors. Get local quotes for wraps and printing.
Six weeks before cooling season, text and email every customer from the last two years a tune-up offer with a booking link. Repeat for heating in early fall. Cost: free with your list, or a small monthly fee for a texting tool. Suits: everyone. It is the fastest slow-season revenue you have.
A maintenance plan turns a one-time customer into two scheduled visits a year, and you can put those visits in your slow months by design. Train techs to offer it at the end of every call, and put the plan with its price on your website. Cost: training time. Suits: everyone. It is also the first number I would watch when growing an HVAC business.
Slow weeks are when your team has time to follow up. Text every customer from the busy season a direct link to your Google review form. Reviews help you rank in the map pack and help the caller choose you. Cost: $0 by hand, or a review tool. Suits: anyone with fewer reviews than the top three in their map pack.
Check your categories, add every service, upload real job photos, and post once a week. Cost: free. Suits: everyone, especially shops that set up the profile years ago and never touched it again.
If your website has a single "Services" page, you are missing searches like "heat pump installation [town]" or "ductless mini split [town]". Write one page a week through the slow season and you will have a dozen before summer. Cost: your time, or a writer. Suits: shops with thin sites. Here is what an HVAC website that turns visits into calls needs on each page.
Pull every customer whose system is 12 or more years old from your job notes. Call or mail them in spring with a free replacement estimate. Cost: free. Suits: shops with a few years of records in their field software.
Heat pump shoppers search for rebates. A page listing the utility and state programs in your area, updated every year, pulls in people already planning a purchase. Confirm the details on the official program pages before you publish, because incentives change. Cost: one page. Suits: heat pump installers.
Spring allergy season and the start of heating season are natural times to sell filtration, humidifiers or duct cleaning. Cost: product and a short campaign. Suits: shops that want an add-on to fill tech hours.
A $50 or $100 gift card for each referred job that closes is often cheaper than a paid lead, and you only pay when you get the job. Hand the card out at the end of every visit. Suits: shops with loyal repeat customers.
Inspectors flag old systems every week, and realtors need fast pre-listing service. Buy a few lunches and leave cards. Suits: owner-operators who are good face to face.
The neighbors saw your truck. Hang 20 to 50 doors around each install with a tune-up offer. Suits: dense suburbs, not long rural routes.
A one-time cost that advertises for years. Suits: shops running several trucks in one metro. For a single truck in a spread-out area, the money usually works harder elsewhere.
In slow months, focus on job types you can schedule (maintenance, installs) and make sure someone answers every call, since a missed paid lead is money gone. Before you raise budgets, read what HVAC ads cost per call. Suits: shops with someone on the phone all day.
SEO takes months to build, so starting in March is how you rank in July. Every call from your own rankings is a call you did not pay per lead for. If you are buying leads today, see HVAC leads without buying them for how the math compares.
For how these fit into ranking over the long run, see my guide to SEO for HVAC contractors.
Sell scheduled work: tune-ups to past customers, maintenance plans, replacement estimates for old systems and indoor air quality add-ons. Use the spare hours to collect reviews and build website pages.
Texting a tune-up offer to your past customers. It costs almost nothing and reaches people who already trust you.
Usually yes for shops with several trucks in one metro, since it is a one-time cost that shows your name for years. For one truck in a spread-out area, the money often works harder in reviews or a website.
There is no single right number. Many owners set a share of revenue, but the better test is cost per booked job by channel. Spend more where that number is lowest.
For tune-up campaigns, about six weeks before the first heat. For SEO, months earlier, because rankings take time to build.
I will look at your market and tell you which of these will pay back fastest for your shop. Book a free 30-minute call, or get the free 24-hour audit first.
I specialize in home services SEO: taking websites that sit invisible on page three and turning them into the business Google and ChatGPT recommend first. I started on the developer side, writing software and doing SEO on the side, until I saw how much home-service owners were overpaying for work that quietly hurt them. So I built a method that fixes the broken technical work and the outdated thinking behind it.
From garage door companies to plumbers, roofers, locksmiths and cleaning services, the playbook is the same: rank where your customers actually search, earn real reviews, and back it with a fast site that books the job. No PBNs, no bought reviews, no directory spam. Only work that survives Google’s next five updates. See exactly how it’s priced on the pricing page.
Free 30-minute strategy call
Send me your site and I’ll send back a free audit: what’s broken, what it’s costing you in calls, and the first three fixes.
No spam and no sales pitch. Just a clear look at what’s leaking leads.
