These guides are written for the person who manages marketing in an HVAC company today, which is usually the owner. Each one covers a job a marketing manager does, step by step, with checklists and worked numbers you can copy. Read them even if you never hire us; they'll make every conversation with a vendor sharper.
HVAC.Management is a marketing and business consulting service, not an HVAC contractor. The guides cover marketing management, never technical HVAC work.
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Fractional, full-time or agency: who should run your HVAC marketing?
An agency does the work, a manager owns the result, and a full-time hire makes sense when there's a full-time job's worth of management. Most growing HVAC companies need the manager before the hire.
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How to manage HVAC marketing vendors without becoming a marketer
You don't need to understand SEO or ad auctions to manage the people who do. You need a ledger, a written scope for each vendor, one shared measure and control of your own accounts.
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The monthly marketing scorecard for HVAC companies
A good HVAC marketing scorecard fits on one page and answers one question: what did each channel cost per booked job, and what are we changing? Here's how to build it from data you already have.
Hire, fractional manager or agency?
Fractional, full-time or agency: who should run your HVAC marketing? helps you decide which model fits your company now.
It explains what each option actually gives you, how to estimate the true cost of each using your own figures, and the warning signs that you've outgrown your current setup. It also covers the in-between stage most growing HVAC companies pass through, when an office manager has been handling marketing on the side. If you're weighing a job posting against outside help, start here. The fractional manager service page describes our version of the role.
Managing marketing vendors
How to manage HVAC marketing vendors without becoming a marketer is the playbook for owners who pay an SEO firm, an ads freelancer, a web developer or software platforms.
It includes a vendor ledger template, a one-page scope format, the monthly check questions, an account custody checklist and a safe sequence for leaving a vendor. It also explains why you should never let any vendor be the owner of your marketing accounts. Pair it with our vendor management service if you'd rather hand the job off.
The monthly marketing scorecard
The monthly marketing scorecard for HVAC companies shows you how to build a one-page summary that connects spend to booked jobs.
It defines each metric, shows how to calculate cost per booked job by channel, explains how to adjust for heating and cooling seasons, and gives a meeting agenda for reviewing the numbers in an hour. It's the same format we use in our monthly reviews.
What the guides assume about your company
They're written for a Canadian HVAC or heating company that already has some marketing running: a website, a Google Business Profile, perhaps an ads account and one or two vendors. If you're starting from nothing, the vendor and scorecard guides will still help you set things up properly from day one, which is far easier than fixing them later.
They also assume you use some kind of field-service or CRM software to book jobs. If your bookings live in a paper diary or a shared calendar, the scorecard still works; you'll just tag job sources by hand for a while.
What the guides leave out on purpose
You won't find tactics for writing ad copy, choosing keywords or designing a website here. Plenty of vendors can do those things well. These guides are about the layer above: deciding what you need, briefing the people who do it, and checking whether it worked. That layer is where most of the money in HVAC marketing gets lost, and it's the layer that rarely gets written about because vendors have little reason to explain it.
We also don't cover equipment, installation, safety codes or regulations. Where a province's rules matter to your marketing, our region pages link to the regulator rather than interpret it.
How to use these guides
Work through them in the order that matches your biggest gap.
- No one owns marketing: read the comparison guide first.
- Vendors but no clarity: read the vendor guide and fill in the ledger.
- Clarity but no numbers: build the scorecard for last month, even roughly.
Each guide links to the relevant services if you'd like help, and to pricing. Regional context, including programs and seasons that affect your campaigns, is on the areas page. Questions about any guide? Call, text or email.
Frequently asked questions
Are these guides useful if I never hire you?
That's the point of them. Each guide is written so an owner or office manager can apply it alone, with templates and worked numbers you can copy into a spreadsheet.
Which guide should I read first?
If you're unsure whether you need help at all, start with the guide comparing a hire, a fractional manager and an agency. If you already pay vendors, the vendor guide will pay off fastest.
Do the guides include technical HVAC advice?
No. They cover marketing management only. We're a marketing and consulting service, not an HVAC contractor, so we stay out of equipment and installation topics.