Most furnace companies have a marketing budget; few have a marketing calendar. The difference shows in May. This service gives you a twelve-month plan that ties each month's promotion and spend to the work your crews can take on, so the slow season gets the attention it needs and the busy season isn't overfunded.
We are a marketing and business consulting service. We don't do HVAC work, and we don't give accounting, tax or lending advice. Your accountant owns your financial forecasts; we own the marketing plan that feeds them.
Who this service is for
- owners who know their year is lopsided but haven't mapped it month by month
- companies adding cooling, heat pumps or maintenance plans and needing to sequence the launches
- businesses whose ad spend rises and falls with stress rather than strategy
It's included in some form on our Growth and Elite plans, and it underpins the other three services.
What's included
A capacity map
We start with your crew, not your ads. How many installs and service visits can your team handle each month? Where were they idle last year? That map shows the gap marketing should fill.
A twelve-month promotion calendar
Each month gets a primary focus and a supporting one. For example: February focuses on maintenance renewals with early heat-pump education; April on cooling; August on furnace replacement readiness. The calendar also notes when program details should be rechecked, since many provincial and federal programs change during the year.
A spend plan by month and channel
We set a monthly budget for paid search, maps, content and outreach, weighted towards months where the extra spend creates work rather than buying work that would have arrived anyway.
A simple scorecard
One page, updated monthly: leads by service line, booked jobs, cost per booked job, and how this month compares with the same month last year.
A worked example
Suppose a company spends $60,000 a year on marketing, with $40,000 of it between November and February. Last year, those winter months were fully booked, and April to July had about 30% spare crew capacity.
A planning review might move $12,000 from peak winter into March to June cooling and heat-pump campaigns, and maintenance renewals. If the winter cut costs a few jobs, those are often jobs you'd have struggled to schedule anyway. If the spring spend books even 15 extra installs at your normal margin, the year's total usually improves. Your numbers decide; the point is to test moving money towards idle capacity, then measure.
Timeline
- Weeks 1–2: gather job, capacity and spend data; interview you and your dispatcher.
- Weeks 3–4: draft calendar, spend plan and scorecard; review together.
- Week 5: final plan, with the first quarter's actions scheduled.
- Monthly: scorecard review and adjustments. Yearly: full rebuild.
What the plan looks like on paper
You receive three short documents rather than a thick binder. The first is the capacity map, a single table showing installs and service visits your crew can handle in each month against what they actually did. The second is the calendar, one line per month naming the main promotion, the supporting one and any program dates to recheck. The third is the scorecard template we'll fill in together each month. Owners tell us the value is in being able to see the whole year on one screen, and in having a written reason for every dollar that moves between seasons.
How we measure results
- spare crew capacity by month, compared with last year
- share of annual jobs booked outside the main heating months
- cost per booked job by month, so peak-season overspend becomes visible
- marketing spend as a share of revenue band, if you choose to share revenue
Mistakes we help you avoid
- Copying last year's budget. It repeats last year's gaps.
- Cutting all marketing in summer. That's when the next season's rankings and reviews are built.
- Planning without the dispatcher. The person who books jobs knows where the gaps really are.
- Mixing marketing planning with financial planning. Keep your accountant in the loop for forecasts and borrowing decisions.
Our guide on smoothing the furnace revenue curve walks through the method in detail. To see regional differences that shape a calendar, start at areas we serve. Then call, text or email for the free 7-day review.
Frequently asked questions
Is this financial or accounting advice?
No. We plan marketing: what to promote, when, and how much to spend on it. Cash-flow forecasts, tax, borrowing for your own business and bookkeeping belong with your accountant or financial adviser, and we're happy to work alongside them.
What information do you need from us?
Roughly a year of monthly job counts by type, rough revenue bands if you're comfortable sharing them, your crew size and your marketing spend by month. Estimates are fine to start; the plan improves as real tracking comes in.
Why not just spend more in winter when demand is high?
Because in a cold snap the phones ring regardless, and ad prices are at their peak. Extra money then often buys jobs you'd have won anyway. Spend placed in the shoulder months can create work that wouldn't have existed.
How often does the plan change?
We review it monthly and rebuild it once a year. Weather, programs and your capacity shift, so the calendar is a working document, not a framed poster.