Using Water Heaters to Heat Up Your Business
The new and replacement water heater market presents significant opportunities today in many respects.
Heating Up Your Business with Water Heaters
While Covid 19 continues to wreak havoc on our businesses and our economy it has necessitated the requirement, and in some respects, the opportunity, for plumbing contractors to examine their businesses and business practices from top to bottom. As we do this, it has forced us to look at ways to streamline our operations and also to examine where our best opportunity for profit exists.
The new and replacement water heater market presents significant opportunities today in many respects.
Energy Efficiency…Promote it!
The on-going movement toward energy efficiency was boosted by the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act (NAECA) passed in 2015 which set new standards of energy efficiency for water heaters. And thanks to ever increasingly savvy consumers and effective advertising campaigns by water heater manufacturers, demand continues to grow organically for more efficient models. This trend toward higher efficiency promises to continue. This creates an environment whereby consumers are open to discussion about selection of a replacement water heater. Quite a switch from the old days when the only question a consumer might be faced with is approving a same size replacement or increasing the tank size. Today, consumers can choose between traditional tank water heaters, switching out to a tankless heater or opting for a heat pump water heater. As contractors get more comfortable with the tried-and-true technology behind heat pump water heaters this segment of the market will grow rapidly. The tankless market also continues to grow market share for its benefits of energy efficiency and an endless supply of hot water. The opportunity for contractors today is to engage customers in a conversation about their daily needs in terms of hot water usage and educate them on the benefits of the various options and which best suits their lifestyle. Coupled with the great strides in energy efficiency across the board this creates the opportunity to sell the benefits of preemptive replacement of an aging unit. Why wait until a customer’s aging water heater fails creating inconvenience for the customer and possibly limiting the options for replacement when they can take preemptive action, schedule the install at their convenience…and potentially begin saving energy now versus sometime in the future?
Bradford White’s InfinitiK Series tankless water heaters are one example of water heaters that can currently be offered to homeowners seeking efficiency and rebates.
Access a list of rebates currently offered federally and across the southeast at SouthernPHC.com/rebates.
REBATES…USE ’em!
If the potential savings from the greater energy efficiency a new water heater provides and avoiding the inconvenience that a preemptive replacement of an aging water heater can offer are not enough to move your customers to action then perhaps coupling those incentives with a rebate will do the trick. Rebates, while not available in every municipality, are widely available across the south with every state offering at least one rebate opportunity. Visit SoutherPHC.com/rebates and you’ll find a current list of many rebates offered across the south from Texas to Virginia as well as Federal rebates. Water heater rebates can range to several hundred dollars per unit. Using these rebates in your marketing effort can generate phone calls from customers old and new. It’s a give-away, funded by others, that you can utilize to grow your revenue and your client base.
