How To Market Your Appliance Repair Business
February 9, 2021 | Read: 11 minutes
Advertising your appliance repair business effectively will always require you to make a plan. There are many options to choose from, but the biggest challenge is to work out a strategy that works best for you…
We’re here to help you ensure your strategy makes good use of your resources, both in terms of your money and time.
Below, you can see some tried-and-true options for you to use when marketing your appliance repair business. Let’s break it all down!
Start with a Customer Persona
Everything you do in your marketing strategy should revolve around the customer. Developing a customer persona will help you focus your efforts and ensure you’re targeting the right audience.
It’s essential to use your in-depth knowledge to create personas that help you effectively appeal to their wants and needs.
Personas (or avatars) are the guiding light for any appliance repair business looking to improve their marketing strategy. Just as with pretty much anything else business-related, having a clear picture in your head of who you’re targeting will inform every decision and its impact.
This is a great tip to keep in mind, as you’re not creating your advertising for yourself, but for your customers.
As such, it has to make sense to them and most importantly: be relatable. Showing off specific tools or the inner-workings of a compressor isn’t going to mean anything to your average homeowner.
On the other hand, a well-presented technician with a big smile standing next to a clean and working oven is an image they can more easily relate to.
Tersh Blisset, an HVAC expert and business owner, gave this advice that appliance repair managers can easily make use of: he deftly highlights how to separate the ideal commercial customer from the domestic one, something you can do by tailoring posts for each type of customer:
“Once you’ve figured out the avatar [or the persona], then you can narrow it down. So, if we’re going after our commercial avatar, your managers and those types of people, LinkedIn is going to be more appealing because that’s where they’re going to be, most of the time.”
So, if you’re looking to sign more commercial contracts, it’s best to focus on LinkedIn and promote content that appeals to facilities managers, building owners, and other decision-makers relevant to your appliance repair business.
Use Google and Paid Advertisements
When it comes to marketing your business, your appliance repair website is going to take you farther than any other strategy. Your website is a permanent testament to your professionalism, can highlight the effort you put into your business, and it’s often the first thing customers will see as they learn about your services.
First impressions matter. A poor website experience is the equivalent of a tech showing up at the customer’s door with muddy boots and a scruffy face: it doesn’t scream trustworthy, does it? The good news is that you don’t need to hire a web-designer or any other expensive investment. With easy building platforms like Wix or Squarespace, you can have a modern-looking, user-friendly website in no time and (if you don’t mind their watermark) no cost either.
There’s really no excuse for a bad website anymore.
At the same time, a great website experience will also make it easier for you to rank better on Google and make use of SEO tactics. Sending out a press release to a local online news outlet (or to bigger players like these press release distribution services listed on Skills You Need) will provide a great value backlink to your new site, which will help you improve your ranking as well as get your name out there for customers to see.
If you want to take it one step further, now that you’re able to make an excellent first impression, you can also look into local Google ads. This simply means that you choose a search term that’s relevant to you (e.g. “24/7 appliance repair in Chicago”), and pay Google to show your website first whenever someone searches for that.
Use Social Media to Advertise your Appliance Repair Business
If you’re looking for some free methods to advertise your appliance repair business, there are still plenty of options.
The most obvious one is social media.
Facebook is a great way to interact with potential residential customers and even if you don’t use Facebook ads (we’ll get to those in a bit!), it’s still useful for building a brand and showing people you’re legit.
Not only should you make use of your Facebook page to promote your employees’ experience and your values as a company (sponsor a Little League team, maybe?), but also to attract like-minded people.
Additionally, you can create Facebook groups for other appliance repair specialists to discuss relevant topics, or for people interested in DIY, or even industry humour.
Jake Gibson, from Phyxter, runs a popular Facebook page with field service memes and jokes which has brought him to the attention of many potential customers as well as gaining him the goodwill of many industry pros.
If you feel like you’re a better talker than a writer, a YouTube channel where you can show people how to do simple repairs can be a good option, too. This platform used to have higher entry barriers as people were more apprehensive about creating and starring in videos, but nowadays it’s exactly the wholesomeness of simple, low-production-value videos that draw viewers in.
Even if you don’t have access to SEO tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs, you can always just write in the Google search box “How to fix” and read the auto-fill suggestions to get a better idea of what kind of info people are looking for.
Remember that Google will almost always rank a video at the top of the search page when it comes to instructions-related searches.
Test out Paid Social Media Advertising
If you’re ready to create a social media ad for your appliance repair business, what exactly do you put in it? Well, as you no doubt guessed, you’re going to need a winning combo of images and text, so let’s break down what you’ll need to consider for both:
The images
The first element you have to choose is visual – what type of photo or video represents your company? Think of your core values – excellent customer experience, local business – but make it easy for the customer to relate the imagery back to their needs.
A close-up of a compressor is going to draw the attention of another tradesman, but it might go over the customer’s head as to why that’s such a good example of quality work. Instead, zoom out and show a homey space, a clean installation, and a happy customer (if they’ve agreed to it, of course).
Don’t worry if you don’t have such a specific photo – pictures of your employees will do just as well, if not better! With images like this, you’re giving potential customers a better idea of who they might be letting into their homes and it’s an incredibly effective way to build trust. After all, seeing is believing, and so professional & confident techs with beaming smiles will have a big impact.
The text
After the visual, comes your text. It shouldn’t surprise you, but these might take some time to perfect and you’ll most likely tweak them for every batch of ads you publish. A good place to start is with telling a story that’s relevant to the customer and which appeals to their emotions. Self-preservation is a good one.
For example, no one wants to go without heating in the winter, but that’s precisely when most people discover that their system is broken or malfunctioning. The solution? Put out an advert that suggests they get a specialist to check their boiler before it’s too late! After all, why should they find themselves sitting with icicles instead of fingers when you can help them avoid an emergency visit?
At the bottom of the ad goes your hook. What’s in it for the customer? This could be a free quote, a 10% discount, or a next-day/same-day appointment. Anything goes as long as you’re confident you can deliver on the promise and follow through with a “Book now!” button.
Use Review Websites to Advertise your Business
The last time you bought something online, did you receive an email a few days later asking you to review your purchase?
There’s a fair chance you did.
The internet has fundamentally changed how people make decisions about the products and services they buy. The means people use to look for trade companies are no exception.
Having reviews on Google, as well as on other trustworthy sites like HomeAdvisor or Angie’s List, will help your ranking and show customers that you deserve their business.
Keep in mind that while having a listing on some of these websites is free of charge, some do come with a fee and what that fee generally pays for is a set amount of leads each month.
However, these are not guaranteed customers so don’t be afraid to spread out a little at first, try a couple of review websites, then see which one gets you the most customers before you commit.
Partner up with People in Adjacent Industries
If you work exclusively in appliance repair, commercial or residential, you’re probably more than familiar with other tradesmen yourself.
Maybe at some point, you’ve even recommended a good electrician or a plumber to a customer who had more problems than they thought at first.
This is an excellent marketing opportunity for your appliance repair business too!
Leveraging your field service industry network can get you many customers, as well as put you in the favorable position of coming with a recommendation from another business they worked with.
However, if you plan on using this strategy, make sure to pay it forward as well.
If you see great results, you could even make it a permanent part of your business, add a page to your website about how you help younger businesses establish themselves, and start charging a small commission.
Create Personalized Merchandise
There are very few people who don’t like getting a treat. And in the world of customer giveaways and gifts, a treat—or in other words, a small gift, especially an unexpected one—could just be the thing that keeps your customers loyal when they’re considering other options.
This is where personalized merch can really make an impact.
You’ve probably already decked out your trucks or vans with your logo and your technicians are wearing the company uniform with pride, but you can also give the customer a chance to participate in this branding exercise with some well-thought-out items.
Automate your Marketing
We often hear managers complain that they have a lot of appliance repair marketing ideas but little time to put them into action. So why not automate your marketing?
Out of all the marketing ideas we’ve heard, the best one was to take those 15 minutes you waste each day daydreaming or stalking former high school classmates and write down a few social media posts; once these are written, you can schedule them to go out in advance. Facebook lets you do it without even having to install anything else!
At the same time, if you’re using management software to run your appliance repair business, most of the work is already done, which leaves you with plenty of time to create marketing content and build relationships with customers.
Advertising your Appliance Repair Business
And speaking of building relationships with your clients: that’s what marketing is all about.
The task of improving customer loyalty for your appliance repair business is made much easier if you systematically grow and maintain your customer database software, which in turn helps you build your persona and implement the strategies we outlined above.
With more data at your fingertips, and better control of the opportunities that come your way, you’ll be able to more effectively communicate the value of your services.
It means you can stop quoting, and start selling your services, too!
To help you take things even further, we’ve prepared a free guide. It’s free to download and will help you make more of every opportunity that comes your way.
