Using AI to Win the Digital Marketing Race

That’s one reason HVAC contractors might want to stop rolling their eyes at artificial intelligence. Because whether we like it or not, AI is changing how customers search for contractors, how quickly they expect a response, and who ultimately gets the job. 

Embrace Conversational Search 

Like it or not, AI has become part of the conversation in HVAC marketing. During a recent learning lab at the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association (PHCC) trade show, Andrew Adams, director of partnership marketing at Scorpion, broke down several AI must-dos contractors can use to gain an edge in the digital marketing race. 

Apparently, people are no longer typing “HVAC contractor near me” and calling it a day.  

“They are asking more complicated questions like Google’s their friend,” Adams said. 

They type things like: “My a/c is blowing warm air at night. Who should I call?”  

AI search pulls information from your reviews, your website, your Google Business Profile, and social content to generate answers.  

“One of the things that I think is an interesting way to learn about AI search in your business … is this prompt of what are the pros and cons of using [your business name],” Adams said. 

That means contractors might want to start paying attention to what the internet — and AI tools — are saying about them through reviews, websites, and social posts. It can show them just what customers are likely seeing when they search and what AI is pulling from your digital footprint. 

Engage Leads Faster 

As it turns out, most consumers are like me: ticked off when a company doesn’t respond right away.  

According to data Adams shared, more than half of consumers (54%) choose a home service provider in less than four hours. Nine percent expect a response in under 24 hours. Additionally, one-third of website inquiries come in after business hours.  

Of course they do. As a self-proclaimed procrastinator, I tend to put things off — and right as I’m about to fall asleep, my brain decides to remind me of my to-do list. And I’m willing to bet that’s exactly when a lot of homeowners suddenly remember they need a contractor.  

“If they're looking at midnight, they're hoping to have a response back by the time they wake up — or they are looking for a provider at some time when you're too busy, and they don't get a response in 4 hours,” Adams said.   

For a lot of contractors, this is where AI becomes more practical and less abstract. If customers are deciding in hours, not days, then speed is the advantage. And AI tools, like a chatbot, can respond while you are running calls 

If you can respond to a customer within that 4-hour window, it shows them that you can meet their immediacy needs.  

“Using AI to find ways to engage with your customers faster is a really important piece,” Adams said. “It could also be if [customers] fill out a contact form on your website, AI sends off a quick email that is a little bit more tailored to what they were looking for to make them feel like you're responding quickly and you're really there to help them get business.” 

The goal is simple: Don’t leave a lead hanging just because it’s not coming in during business hours. 

“All these ideas to use AI are really focused on how you can connect with the customer faster, and how AI can help you do that so that you're not answering emails at midnight,” Adams said. 

Learn More About Your Customers 

AI can also help contractors by teaching them more about their customers.  

“I always tell people to have your customer service representatives (CSRs) write down the questions they're getting asked all the time, and you could build website content and things around that. Another great way you could do that is if you have email threads or chats or phone transcripts — you could use AI to analyze that and come up with customer sentiment problems that customers are having.” 

AI has the time to read through data and identify the patterns that we humans are just too busy to notice — things like FAQs, common complaints, where the most leads come from, and when the phones ring the most.  

“There's so much information that you could feed to AI to have it help you understand your customers more and then make those marketing decisions,” Adams said. “If you're doing marketing on your own, you could use ChatGPT, Gemini, any of those, to analyze this kind of information so that you can understand what your customers are looking for and really help meet their needs and kind of create that trust and loyalty that all trickles back down.” 

Adapt Quickly For Better ROI  

Understanding exactly where your revenue is coming from — what marketing channels — is a major focus for many contractors. The thought process being: If I can figure out where most of my money funnels in through, I can recreate it.  

“AI allows you to adapt quickly for a better ROI,” Adams said. “Whether that is changing your marketing spend based on capacity, or adjusting your marketing channels based on what's having the best ROI — you can use AI to help you make those decisions and to understand that data more effectively.”  

Something Scorpion recently rolled out with ServiceTitan, within this same vein is a capacity marketing engine. It looks at contractor capacity and, based on whether it’s high or low, automatically adjusts your advertising spend to bring it into a more consistent line. 

“So another step in understanding your ROI could be prompting AI with: what can I do to change this? What ways could I adapt?” Adams said. 

Takeaway

 AI isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, which means contractors only need to use AI how they want to use it. They don’t need to fully hop on the AI bandwagon to reap its benefits for their business. Start small, start slow, and see what AI can do for you.  

“There's so many ways to use AI to help you be more efficient and to really help your marketing in a lot of ways, and even those content pieces will then help your AI search,” Adams said. “It’s a spinning wheel of marketing.”