Believe it or not, email marketing has been around for almost 50 years. The first mass marketing email was sent in the late 1970s — and companies worldwide have been developing email marketing strategies ever since.
Some companies set up in-house email marketing campaigns to attract new customers while strengthening loyalty among existing ones. Others hire an email marketing service to assist with their email marketing efforts so they can focus more on branding, product/service development, and reputation management.
But does email marketing still work as effectively in 2024 as it always has? Specifically, does it work for HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors interested in implementing it?
We’ve examined email marketing’s effectiveness today to determine whether your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company should make a stronger push to use it. Below, we’ve outlined whether it’s worth making email marketing a big part of your overall marketing strategy.
Spoiler alert: The answer is a resounding “yes.”
What Is Email Marketing?
Since email marketing has been around for so long, many HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors are at least vaguely aware of what it is. However, there are still some who don’t know the answer to the question, “What is email marketing?” It’s crucial that you understand what an email marketing strategy is before entertaining the idea of launching one.
Email marketing is a type of digital marketing that utilizes promotional emails to communicate with a company’s customers. Any email your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company sends out to multiple customers is considered email marketing.
Many different types of email marketing exist. The following are some of the most popular kinds of email marketing in 2024:
- Welcome messages to new or potential customers who may have signed up for your emails but have yet to follow through with a sale
- Newsletters about the latest news related to a company
- Promotional emails about a company’s new products and/or services
- Survey emails seeking feedback about a company’s products and/or services
- Re-engagement emails to existing customers who haven’t purchased a company’s products and/or services in a considerable amount of time
Email marketing has come a long way since its inception. However, at its core, it remains a robust strategy for helping HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting companies connect and build relationships with customers directly.
How Does Email Marketing Work?
Email marketing offers something that other types of digital marketing, such as content marketing and social media marketing, can’t touch. Email marketing is among the simplest types of online marketing available to HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting companies, making it more than worth your consideration.
Before we begin breaking down the various answers to the question, “Does email marketing work?” let’s discuss howemail marketing works to showcase just how simple it is. This alone may make you want to start your first email marketing campaign.
Here is a brief breakdown of how email marketing works:
- Your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company begins collecting email addresses from website visitors, lead generation forms, and existing customers.
- Your small business creates emails that promote your company’s products and/or services while showing off your brand’s personality and voice.
- Your company sends emails to all or at least some of your customers and monitors their click-through rates.
When done properly, email marketing can drive sales for your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company and create more loyal customers. It can also establish long-term relationships with these customers, highlighting why email marketing is one of the most powerful forms of digital marketing.
Does Email Marketing Work?
In 2024, it’s hard to blame the owners of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting companies for wondering, “Does email marketing work?” Email marketing has been around for so long now that some might naturally think it can’t be as effective as it once was.
Even though email marketing has existed for decades, it still works! It continues to play a key part in the email campaigns for many companies in various industries, including the HVAC, plumbing, and electrical industries.
You will need to work a little harder than you may have in past years to make the most of an email marketing campaign. For example, you’ll have to make sure to:
- Craft an eye-catching subject line for every email your company sends out.
- Follow up a catchy email subject line with engaging and relevant content in the body of an email.
- Provide a clear and concise call to action, or CTA, within a marketing email.
By taking the appropriate steps, you’ll see the answer to the question, “Does email marketing work?” come to life. It won’t be long before you experience what a powerful tool email marketing still is all these years later.
What Are the Benefits of Email Marketing?
Not only is the answer to the question, “Does email marketing work?” in the affirmative, but there is also a lengthy list of benefits that HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting companies will enjoy when they invest in this tried-and-true marketing technique.
Doing so will require them to invest time and money in email marketing campaigns. However, the return on that investment will be great when you consider the benefits that email marketing will extend to HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting companies.
Check them out below.
Allows a Company To Increase Brand Awareness and Reach New Customers
Increasing brand awareness is of the utmost importance for new and existing HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting companies alike. These companies should constantly work to establish a strong brand personality and show it off so they can reach new customers like never before.
When you make it your mission to implement an email campaign, more potential customers will learn about your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting business. This will improve the chances of these potential customers reaching out to your business when they need its products and/or services.
Keeps a Company Connected With Existing Customers
HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting companies need to do more than just reach new customers and convert them into existing ones. They also have to keep their current customers close by connecting with them to ensure these customers think to call them the next time they need their products and/or services.
This is yet another area in which email marketing can help. Launching email campaigns lets your company stay in near-constant contact with existing customers between service calls to keep your name top of mind.
You may choose to send out marketing emails to your existing customers in the spring or fall about the heating and cooling maintenance services that your HVAC company can provide. This will remind these customers that it’s time to take advantage of these services while also letting them know that your company is here to help provide them with them.
Whether you run an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company, you can create more customer loyalty when you ask, “Does email marketing work?” and put it to the test.
Lets a Company Deliver a More Personalized Experience to Customers
One of the best ways to connect with new and existing customers and keep them around is to show them how much your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company truly cares. Email marketing can help you create stronger connections with customers by offering personalized experiences whenever they hear from your company.
You can use the data that you collect when gathering email addresses from new and current customers to personalize the emails you send to them. In many cases, you can even incorporate their names right into the subject lines for the marketing emails you send out. This might seem like a small thing, but it can increase the odds of people seeing your email subject lines and opening your emails.
Enables a Company To Earn More Sales
Every aspect of your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company’s digital marketing plan should have one overarching goal: to improve the sales of its products and/or services. An email marketing strategy will help you achieve this over time.
The conversion rates for the different marketing emails you send out to customers will vary. Some will inevitably have higher click-through rates than others, resulting in more sales of your company’s products and services.
Generally speaking, you should be able to get traction when it comes to your company’s sales with just about every marketing email you send. You’ll discover the answer to the question, “Does email marketing work?” by looking at your bottom line in the days and weeks after one of these emails goes out to your customers.
Helps a Company Measure the Effectiveness of Its Digital Marketing Campaigns
Measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns isn’t always easy. In certain cases, it can be tricky to conclude how impactful the social media posts you used as part of a social media campaign were.
It’s extremely easy to figure out how effective email campaigns are simply by using email marketing tools to gauge metrics like click-through rates. You can also see the correlation between marketing emails and sales more clearly than between campaigns launched through other marketing channels and sales.
Serves As One of the Most Cost-Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for a Company
While HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting companies will gain access to many benefits by employing email marketing strategies, this is probably the biggest. You can’t overstate the importance of email marketing’s cost-effectiveness.
When you decide to start putting together a contact list for all your customers, you will need to make an initial investment in email marketing tools. However, email marketing doesn’t have the same ongoing costs as other marketing efforts.
This makes it ideal for those who value cost-effectiveness when choosing which online promotional campaigns to utilize for their HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting companies.
How Can a Company Make an Email Marketing Campaign Successful?
The answer to the question, “Does email marketing work?” might still be “yes,” but this doesn’t mean that every email marketing campaign you start will be successful. You will need to take the right steps to guarantee you get the most bang for your buck when using a subscriber list to target audiences interested in your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company’s services.
Here are tips to help make an email campaign more successful overall.
Invest in an Email Service Provider
An email service provider can assist you in tackling many tasks when you’re implementing a new email marketing strategy. These include:
- Contact list management
- Email design for desktop and mobile devices
- The automation of sending promotional emails
Come Up With Strategies for Collecting Emails From Customers
What is the most effective way to collect email addresses from new and existing customers to reach your target audience with your targeted communication efforts? You may do this by:
- Creating a lead generation landing page for your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company’s website
- Asking customers for their email addresses when putting together estimates and invoices for them
- Offering customers coupons and discounts in exchange for their email addresses
Divide an Email Marketing List Into Different Categories
When you start using email marketing to benefit your business, your email list might be on the shorter side. There won’t be much reason to divide this list into different categories for future campaigns.
As time goes on and your email list grows, you may want to explore dividing it into categories that make sense. For example, an HVAC company might want to list all the customers who arranged to install new heating and cooling systems over the last year. This will allow the company to reach out to this specific set of customers to remind them of the importance of maintaining these systems every spring and/or fall.
Personalize Emails Sent to Customers
If your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company sounds like it’s trying to sell something to customers in every email you send out, it won’t be too long before customers click on the “Unsubscribe” button and ask to be removed from your list of email users. Avoid this by personalizing messages sent to email subscribers and using them to develop a brand personality rather than just always encouraging people to purchase products and/or services.
You can earn customers’ trust by simply sending them links to relevant content on your website that might help them better maintain their homes. It’s better to take this approach every so often instead of making all your emails promotional.
Should You Handle Email Marketing Campaigns Yourself or Hire an Email Marketing Service To Help?
Because email marketing is simpler than other marketing channels, you might be tempted to try to take it on yourself. How difficult could it be to compile customer email addresses and create compelling emails with attention-grabbing subject lines, right?
It isn’t as easy as you might think! Your best bet is to hire an email marketing service to lend a hand.
At Relentless Digital, we can prevent emails from getting stuck in your customers’ spam folders, entice more people to open them with strong subject lines, and keep email marketing cost-effective.
Email Marketing Remains Effective in 2024! Make It a Part of Your Digital Marketing Strategy
After learning the answers to questions like “What is email marketing?” and “Does email marketing work?” are you ready to make email marketing a bigger part of the digital marketing strategy for your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contracting company? Relentless Digital and our team of email marketers will gladly assist you.
Book a free strategy call with us today!
