There’s one worry that keeps Leslie Erickson awake at night: the weather.
As the marketing and communications manager of Air Mechanical, a new construction and commercial HVAC, plumbing and electrical company in the Minneapolis, Minn., area, she knows that nice weather can lead to fewer HVAC bookings.
That’s an issue for Erickson, who grew up in the family business. She’s known some of the team since she was a baby—so she’s determined to make sure her co-workers get “their 40 (hours) with every tool that I have.”
One of those tools is a powerful one: ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro software, which makes it easy to reach customers faster and more effectively.
“My ability to quickly do something about (bringing in jobs) has changed with Marketing Pro for the better,” Erickson said. “If I see that our plumbing schedule is light next week, I can push out an email to people that haven't had plumbing jobs with us in the last year.”
Marketing Pro can’t change the weather. But it does make it easier for Erickson to sleep at night, knowing she can easily switch her marketing strategy to increase bookings.
“(Marketing) has changed so much,” Erickson said. “It is constantly evolving, and just the rapidity of being able to get a message out to your customer base is huge.”
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Better data, better marketing
Before joining ServiceTitan in 2019, Air Mechanical’s team was unhappy with the old field service software they used.
Erickson’s mother and co-owner, Julie Erickson, joked that “it was like the song ‘Hotel California.’ You could check data in, and you could get nothing out.”
That left Erickson with a messy, unsegmented customer database to work from. The team looked outside for help.
“Our email marketing was an email sent from a marketing company that we were overpaying to send one email a month to our entire database,” Erickson said. “It was nonexistent.”
When Air Mechanical joined ServiceTitan, they were impressed by its ability to streamline workflows and organize data. Hoping for similar results, they started using Marketing Pro—and soon dumped that expensive marketing agency.
“Now, we're adding onto our email strategy constantly, rather than a dumbed-down, once-a-month email,” she said.
When she first started using Marketing Pro, Erickson remembers getting excited about pulling customer information based on their ZIP codes. Then she realized she could get far more detailed information, like which customers had water heaters installed in a certain time frame.
“The segmentation we have is just incredible,” Erickson said.
Cutting-edge features
With Marketing Pro, Erickson has a suite of tools at her fingertips. Here are some of her favorite features:
Ad spend: Don’t waste money on ads that aren’t working. Marketing Pro’s performance reports allow Erickson to compare ad campaigns to see which has a better return on investment. “It's every marketer's dream to be able to concretely prove that what you're doing is turning a profit, and this allows me to do that,” she said.
Reputation management: Marketing Pro makes it simple to gather and manage customer reviews. Erickson said that Air Mechanical’s Google reviews “has gone up a tremendous amount” since using the software. Plus, Marketing Pro links each review to the correct technician and job, so her team can reward high performers.
Automated campaigns: Erickson doesn’t manually send every outgoing email. With Marketing Pro, she automates email campaigns, like appointment booking reminders and messages to new customers outlining what to expect from their appointment. That’s boosted efficiency—and job bookings.
Built by those who know the trades
Erickson isn’t just looking to capture customers’ interest. She wants them to actually book appointments.
“As people move more and more online, it's such a detriment to your business if you do not have an easy way to book online,” Erickson said.
It’s why she turned to another ServiceTitan product: Scheduling Pro, which allows customers to book appointments online, whenever they want. Plus, she can use the software to track where these leads are coming from.
Erickson is happy with how seamlessly ServiceTitan’s features work together—and she’s not alone. Everyone from the front office to the field has felt supported by the software in their daily workflow.
If you ask Erickson’s mother, that kind of product can be built only by people who really know the trades.
“Leslie grew up in this business, (just like) the two gentlemen that created (ServiceTitan),” Julie said. “There's something intuitive about understanding these kinds of businesses that comes from growing up in it. That comes through with ServiceTitan from the start.”
