Commercial HVAC Lead Generation: Grow Sales and Recurring Revenue with Powerful Tools

Introduction

As commercial buildings get more complex and government regulations change, HVAC contractors are expected to keep large-scale heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems running efficiently and meeting modern energy standards. Unlike residential jobs, commercial HVAC projects are bigger contracts, require more technical expertise and staff, and offer more opportunities for recurring revenue through service and maintenance agreements.

However, one of the challenges many commercial HVAC contractors face is generating enough quality leads to keep their teams busy and growing the business. That’s where lead generation software and tools come in.

This article will show you how to supercharge your commercial HVAC business by generating leads, managing prospects, and streamlining your sales pipeline.

We’ll cover the best ways to generate HVAC leads, the must-have tools for scaling your business, and how to integrate them into your sales process so you can focus on closing deals and delivering great service.

What is Lead Generation for HVAC?

Lead generation is the art of identifying an ideal customer profile (ICP) (e.g., a property developer, retailer, or contractor) and turning it into a business opportunity. But this is where the “art” comes in. Turning a random person who’s never heard of you into a paying customer is no easy feat. If you’re already in the commercial HVAC business, you know that.

That’s why there are two types of lead generation campaigns: Inbound and Outbound:

Inbound Lead Generation

Inbound lead generation is the process of pulling leads to your products, services and company. Inbound lead generation includes using online strategies like content marketing, social media and SEO so prospects come to you.

Outbound Lead Generation

Outbound lead generation is more active. It involves proactively and directly reaching out to potential customers through online and offline methods like advertising, calling, emailing, or direct mail.

Whether inbound or outbound, online or offline, the goal of an HVAC company’s lead generation campaign is the same: engage your target market until they’re ready to buy. For many HVAC businesses, this means filling out a lead capture form, requesting a proposal or quote, or scheduling a service appointment.

To build a solid lead-gen system, you should strike a balance between both. That way, you can keep the business flowing and also ensure that people searching for commercial HVAC services can find you.

It’s complicated, but don’t worry, we’ll make it simple.

Why is Lead Generation Important for HVAC Companies?

For commercial HVAC companies lead generation is key to keeping the projects and recurring revenue flowing. With long sales cycles, varying project sizes and tight profit margins between installation and service contracts, having a solid lead generation system means you keep your pipeline full – whether you’re targeting new construction with general contractors or smaller service projects with property managers and end-users.

The commercial HVAC industry currently faces a high turnover rate and workforce shortages, making finding and retaining skilled technicians quite difficult. This puts even more pressure on getting high-value, consistent contracts that can support operational costs and help you grow.

Lead generation tools allow HVAC companies to attract qualified leads and nurture them into long-term clients. This is possible due to the industry’s unique challenges, such as supply chain disruptions and the shift towards decarbonization and energy-efficient systems.

Lead Generation Strategies for Commercial HVAC

Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. We’ll start with outbound lead generation efforts because these are more predictable and consistent and then shift to inbound strategies.

First you’ll need a couple of tools to find prospects and turn them into leads. This is where we recommend property intelligence software.

• Property Intelligence Solutions (e.g., Convex): Use property, account, and contact data to find and send personalized messages to decision-makers in your market who are ready to buy.

A few years ago property intelligence solutions like LoopNet were mainly used by property investors and tenants looking for space to lease or banks and lenders for due diligence. But today there’s a whole marketplace of property tools out there – one in particular that was built for selling commercial services like HVAC repairs – we’ll get to which ones can have the biggest impact on lead generation in a minute.

• Pipeline Management Tools and CRM (e.g., Salesforce & Hubspot): These tools organize and automate the lead generation process, making it easier to track leads, follow up with prospects, and close deals.

• Sales Automation Tools (e.g., Zapier and Pipedrive): While there’s some overlap between the services that Pipedrive and Hubspot/Salesforce offer, sales automation tools focus more on the “how” of managing your leads – i.e. creating tasks, sending automated follow-ups, scheduling appointments.

• Ads (e.g., Google Local Services Ads): If you have the budget setting up ads that direct people to your products and services can be huge – but be careful if ad platforms aren’t well managed they get costly real quick!

Now let’s shift to inbound. Inbound marketing is about “being found”. In other words, how will people searching Google, LinkedIn and other platforms for “commercial HVAC repair in Indianapolis” or San Francisco find you?

This is where content is king!

• SEO and Content Marketing (e.g., Hubspot, Contently, WordPress): Write blog posts that answer common commercial HVAC issues and optimize your website with relevant keywords to attract website visitors who may need your services.

• Social Media Marketing (e.g., LinkedIn): Posting content that resonates with your audience and using targeted social ads to generate leads can also help. This means establishing a presence on platforms like LinkedIn.

• Referral Marketing: Encourage happy clients to refer others by offering discounts or special offers.

• Reviews Sites: Ensure you are listed on reviews like Yelp and Google My Business. Positive reviews can go a long way in building trust with potential clients.

So, now that you have an idea of inbound and outbound methods, how do you combine them?

Lead Generation Software: Stacking the Tools that Get Results

As a business owner or sales manager, having the right lead generation tool or software to find prospective customers, streamline the sales cycle, and generate bids makes all the difference – especially if you’re building a sales team and they need to hit quarterly goals.

Let’s talk about building a “stack” of tools for your sales team! These tools help you find prospects, manage lead data, nurture relationships, and close deals. Plus, they make tracking your sales pipeline and managing customer relationships easy.

Here’s a list of lead-generation tools for HVAC companies:

Property Intelligence Software

The first tool you need is a property intelligence solution, not just any solution – you need Convex. (We’re Convex, so we might be a little biased, but here’s why!) 

Convex’s primary tool, Atlas, was built specifically for commercial services sales and marketing teams, and it’s the only tool on the market that includes both sales intelligence and property intelligence data.

Sales Intelligence is important because it tells you who to contact – the properties’ accounts and decision-makers needing your services! Property Intelligence helps you know which specific properties need your services through permit histories and other data. When combined, sales and property intelligence is a powerful lead generation and sales tool.

Here’s how it works:

1. Log in to Convex and go to the “Signals” category (our proprietary lead scoring system) to see who’s ready to buy in your market.

2. Then search for any commercial property type, even multiple types, and get contact information, job titles, account names, property addresses or tenants to know who to contact, and get a list of prospects to pursue.

3. With two clicks, you can use Generative AI trained on their buying signals and your company and contact data to send them an email or draft a script for phone calls. (Pro tip: You can also use the information you learned from Atlas or the AI to make Loom videos to send to prospects- this tactic shows an added degree of personalization and increases conversion rates!)

4. Once you’ve sent the message, set up an automated follow-up (or) reminder and add them to your pipeline in Salesforce, Hubspot, or another CRM of your choice.

Simple!

CRM & Pipeline Management Tools

Next, you’ll need a CRM like Salesforce or Hubspot to manage and organize your leads. This is where all the data from Convex will go so you can track your pipeline and follow up with prospects.

If you have the budget, Salesforce is a great tool for managing the sales pipeline, but Hubspot offers the best free tools to get you started!

Marketing Automation Software

Hubspot also helps with your inbound marketing by automating tasks like email follow-ups and content scheduling. Zapier automates your marketing tasks across multiple platforms so you don’t have to remember to follow up with every single lead.

Social Media Management Tools

Once the outbound part of your business is working well, having a strong presence on social media platforms can generate more leads and increase your website’s domain authority. Tools like Hootsuite or Buffer make it easy to manage and schedule posts across multiple platforms, so you can create content once and share it in many places.

Content Creation & Publishing Platforms

As a commercial HVAC business owner, franchisor, sales leader, or even sales rep, writing may not be your “strong suit.” However, you’ll still want to create and publish content for your inbound marketing strategy, so you’ll need a platform like WordPress or Contently. Hubspot also offers a great option for content creation, and you can include lead capture forms and downloadable resources so potential customers can see your previous work.

These tools make it easy to write blog posts, optimize them for SEO, and share them with your audience.

Reviews & Referral Software

And don’t forget about reviews and referral software! Services like Yelp and Google My Business make it easy for clients to leave reviews for small businesses and refer others to your business. Make sure you have a presence on these platforms and ask satisfied customers to leave reviews.

In summary, Convex finds you qualified prospects and manages them through the early stages of the sales process; once they convert into leads and get into the sales funnel or pipeline Hubspot can help you manage each stage of the sales cycle and automate tasks and Salesforce can be a more robust CRM for larger sales teams.

Having this type of lead generation solution eliminates long prospecting and lead research time, gives you valuable insights into prospects and generates more sales qualified leads to hopefully become sales.

This is the shortest path from total “stranger” to “buyer.” However, there are special circumstances where other tools can also be handy. For example:

Website Visitor Identification and Email Address Lookup Tools

• Leadfeeder: Track visitors to your website in real time and get insights into their behavior.

• Hunter.io: Find and verify emails by typing in a name and company.

• Datanyze: Contact details, company insights, and personalized “icebreakers” for outbound sales and cold calling.

Side note: Convex offers contact enrichment, which allows you to find decision-maker contact data built into our Atlas and Engage tools. So, if you’re already considering our solution, it may be worth demoing the platform to find out which tools will be most beneficial to your team before you pay for an additional tool.

Email Marketing and Follow-up Tools

Email marketing is one of the most effective channels for generating and nurturing qualified leads. Here are some tools to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns:

• ActiveCampaign: Automate email campaigns and use lead assignment features to assign targeted leads to team members.

• MailChimp: Easy-to-use software for designing, scheduling, and sending emails.

• Boomerang for Gmail: Schedule emails and set follow-up reminders to get timely responses.

Landing Page Creation and Lead Capture Tools

To capture leads, you need well-designed landing pages. The best landing page builder tools are:

• Unbounce: Custom landing pages with a drag-and-drop editor. Great for HVAC businesses looking for flexibility in creating custom landing pages and designs.

• Instapage: Integrates with CRM tools like HubSpot and Salesforce, so it’s great for tracking contact data. 

• Leadpages: It’s easy to use and integrates with Facebook Ads, so it’s a top choice for lead gen from paid ads.

Note: If you’re considering Hubspot, their free tools include some landing page tools, pages, and lead capture forms, but once you start mixing the CRM, pipeline management tools, content management, and lead capture, you’ll be paying a monthly subscription.

So now that you have your list of tools, how do you choose the right ones for your business and goals?

Choosing the Right Lead Generation Tool for Your Commercial HVAC Business

Before you choose a top lead generation platform, you need to decide whether to use a marketing/lead generation agency or manage different lead generation software platforms yourself. Each has its pros and cons.

• Agencies: These save time but cost more, and you have less control over the process and the outcome.

• Lead Generation Platforms: These are cheaper to run but require an investment of your time (or your team’s)

If you’re going to do lead-gen yourself, choosing the right lead-gen software is key so you don’t get bogged down in “minutia.” HVAC Contractors who use these tools to streamline and automate customer acquisition will have a clear competitive advantage over those who don’t.

Here’s how to evaluate your needs before choosing the best lead-generation tools:

1. Evaluate Your Current Tech Stack:

• Do you need lead gen, CRM software, or email marketing tools?

• Do you need better data or analytics to get insights on website visitors or prospects?

• Are you looking for marketing automation to streamline your sales process?

These will all be the deciding factors in choosing the right platform to send leads to your business.

2. Determine Your Lead Gen Goals:

• Do you want to increase the number of qualified leads that turn into sales?

• Improve lead conversion rates and lead nurturing.

• Drive customer engagement and retention.

When choosing a platform, consider the best lead generation software, management features, pipeline management, and ease of use.

3. Evaluate Your Budget:

Find a tool that fits your budget, needs, and expected return on investment (ROI). For example, teams using Convex see a 9x median ROI.

4. Research Top Lead Gen Tools:

Here’s a quick summary of the platforms we mentioned above and how they fit into your sales strategy:

1. Convex: Designed for sales reps selling to commercial and industrial buildings that need property intelligence, buyer signals, and AI-powered outreach.

2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Uses professional network data for B2B lead gen and customizable pricing based on usage.

3. HubSpot CRM: Offering full sales automation features with email marketing, contact and customer relationship management tools, and pipeline management, Hubspot is probably the best bang for your buck when it comes to CRMs and content tools.

4. Salesforce: Powerful, customizable CRM for larger businesses.

5. Zapier: Popular lead gen tool that integrates with many other platforms to streamline lead capture and automation.

Now that you have your tools, focus on integrating and automating your lead gen processes.

Remember: platforms like Zapier can connect your software so you can automate workflows, assign scores to leads, and run email marketing campaigns to nurture prospects, leads, and business opportunities.

Measuring and Optimizing Lead Generation Tools

Tracking and optimizing your lead gen is key to growth. Monitor these KPIs:

• Website traffic: How many visitors are coming to your site?

• Lead gen rate: How many new leads are you generating?

• Conversion rate: How many leads are converting into paying customers?

• Revenue per platform: Which platforms are generating the most revenue for your business?

These will help you see if you’re getting your “money’s worth” out of each tool. Using tools like Google Analytics will also help you track these metrics and refine your lead gen strategy over time.

Conclusion

Remember, lead gen is an ongoing process that requires continuous effort, analysis, and adaptation. Use these tools to streamline and automate your processes so you can focus on bidding projects and closing deals.

Whatever tools you choose, generating new leads is key to long term growth. With the right mix of lead gen tools like property intelligence software, email marketing software and landing page builders you can have a steady stream of customers and future proof your business. Ready to supercharge your lead gen?

Schedule a demo of Convex today to see how we can help you take your HVAC sales to the next level.