End-of-Year Downtime? Here are 40 Ideas for Catching up on Marketing!

Posted on 11/19/2020

While the duct cleaning industry isn’t quite as prone to seasonal shifts in demand that other service companies might experience, we certainly see a few ebbs and flows; especially since indoor air quality (IAQ) has been a buzzy topic for quite some time. In fact, it seems that the COVID-19 pandemic helped create new business for many NADCA members as IAQ became front-and-center for homeowners and facility managers alike. 

Regardless of added demand, most HVAC inspection, cleaning, and restoration businesses may enter a slower season as the holidays ramble on. Why not take advantage of downtime and catch up on a few marketing activities that have been on the backburner?

Here are 40 things to do during downtime that will have a big impact.

Your Customers

  • Schedule catch-up calls or lunch with your biggest clients to see how you can better serve them in the coming year.
  • Reach out to a former customer who’s fallen off your radar; try to win their business again.
  • Check-in with a prospect you’ve been nurturing; see if you can get them closer to a sale.
  • Gather client testimonials you can use in your marketing materials.
  • Ask your best customers for referrals.
  • Create case studies to show how your service helps customers.
  • Enlist some satisfied clients to feature in a marketing video for your business.
  • Collect before-and-after pictures to show off your work, and get permission to use them in your marketing materials.
  • Don’t forget to send holiday gifts and/or cards to customers!

Your Website

Dig into your website analytics and learn:

  • Where most of your website visitors are coming from.
  • Which web pages they spend the most time on.
  • Which pages generate the most leads.
  • Which pages have the highest bounce rate? Use this information to fine-tune your online marketing, landing pages, and calls-to-action.
  • Go through your website to make sure all the information (phone numbers, FAQs, etc.) is current and accurate.
  • Check all links to make sure they are current (and work).
  • Go through your listings on local search directories to make sure information is current and that your contact info is consistent across all listings.

Your Email Marketing

  • Clean up your email list. 
  • Brainstorm new ideas for adding names to your email list.
  • Segment your email list in different types of customers.
  • Review your email analytics. What can you do differently to make your email marketing more effective?

Your Community

  • Get together with non-competing local business owners to share marketing ideas.
  • Team up with your local Chamber of Commerce, business association, or other local business organization to plan group promotions for the holiday season.
  • Attend a networking event you haven’t been to before.
  • Find a charitable organization for your business to support.
  • Look for a nonprofit community group that your business can get involved with.
  • Make a list of upcoming community events your business could sponsor or participate in.
  • Research tradeshows to attend in the coming year, either as an exhibitor or an attendee.

Thought Leadership

  • Research community organizations that might be interested in hearing you speak.
  • Contact a blogger who is influential with your target market; see if you can write a guest post for them.
  • Join or start a LinkedIn group relevant to your target customers and contribute to the discussion.
  • Start a business blog on your website to share your expertise.

Administrative/Organization

  • Review your marketing materials, both print and digital. Toss/delete outdated logos, images, bios, etc. 
  • Scan and digitize print materials whenever possible, and toss paper copies.
  • Organize your marketing-related files in a way that makes sense to both you and your employees so everything is easy to find when you need it.

Big Picture

  • Determine what marketing method has the biggest impact on your business (social media, email, paid search advertising, etc.), and learn everything you possibly can about it until you’re an expert.
  • Choose a marketing method you want to use, but aren’t sure how to execute, and learn enough about the basics to give it a try.
  • Review your marketing budget.
  • Update your marketing plan.
  • Create or update a marketing calendar.
  • Research marketing automation software tools that could help streamline your marketing.

Get Help

If you never seem to have enough time for marketing, determine which marketing duties you could outsource. Then look for a freelancer, part- or full-time employee, or local marketing firm to help. No budget to hire or outsource? Contact marketing professors at a local college or university and ask if they can take your business on as part of a class project.

Doing even a few of these marketing-related tasks will put your business ahead of the competition when the new year finally rolls around.

Don’t forget that NADCA members have access to all sorts of consumer and commercial marketing tools to help support your business! They’re available in the “Members Only” section of the NADCA website.