During the winter holidays, it’s hard for plumbing and HVAC service businesses to gain attention and new customers when just about every home service business is trying to do the same thing. Many offer holiday specials or end-of-year checkups or tune-ups; others offer discounts or a percentage off yearly contract service signups.

And you’ve seen the TV and print commercials with owners or technicians dressing up as turkeys or Santa and his elves. Those may be good for a laugh, but is that what your home service business wants? 

It’s a competitive industry; home service contractors either try to copy another brand’s marketing ideas (good or bad) or they give up and hope for the best. Neither of those options is going to differentiate your business from your competitors. 

A better way to promote your business, and maybe help a worthwhile nonprofit, is to highlight your charitable giving this time of year. Yes, many companies see this as using a nonprofit to improve their own image within the community, but the truth is, you can do a lot of good beyond the initial donation.

Hiring an experienced plumbing and HVAC public relations team can get you off to the right start. There are minefields to avoid when using PR to promote your company’s charitable giving, though, and knowing how to navigate this carefully is what a PR partner does. 

Leverage your donations

By promoting your charitable giving, a PR professional can leverage your donation into a windfall for an area nonprofit by directing attention to the nonprofit’s website or social media. The nonprofit may not have the ability or the funds to promote its charitable mission; the attention it receives from a press release or social media story produced by your PR agency could make a huge difference in the charity’s impact in its niche area.

Your charitable giving can have another positive effect on the community and your plumbing or HVAC business. A strategic PR campaign recognizes the importance of attracting more business and qualified employees. By promoting your charitable giving, you’ll appeal to potential employees and customers who want to engage with companies that give back. Knowing that you give to a local charity shows the public you care and are committed to helping improve the community.

Finally, working with the right PR partner means your messaging gets to the right people at the right time. Good PR planning means your story gets to the important media and publications well before your competition. Journalists are working on holiday stories well ahead of time, sometimes months ahead, so having a ready-to-go human interest or charitable giving story saves them time and effort during a very busy season. 

Your chances of getting your charitable giving story in front of the public are far better when it’s created and promoted correctly. 

The charity you have chosen also will have the chance to help more people if its name is in the news before everyone else’s, and it will give them an advantage that could mean so much to their organization. All in all, it’s a win-win when you use PR to promote your charitable giving.