The marketing budget chapter answers how much to spend, in which month, on which channel, and what each booked install should cost. It is written last on purpose. A budget only makes sense once the capacity plan says when your crews have room and the baseline says what each job leaves after materials and labour.
What it is
It is a twelve-month table with a row for each channel and a column for each month, plus one governing number: the target cost per booked install. Every row has an owner, a measure and a checkpoint. The table is sized from the bottom up, starting with the work you can deliver, not from the top down with a percentage of revenue.
Who it is for
- Owners who spend on ads, directories or agencies but cannot say what a booked job costs them.
- Companies whose marketing spend is the same every month even though their work is not.
- Companies adding a new line, such as heat pumps or boilers, that needs its own budget and its own measure.
How the budget is sized
Step 1: the affordable cost per booked install
Take your average gross profit per install, after equipment and direct labour. Decide what share of it marketing may consume. Say a furnace replacement averages $9,000 with a 35% gross margin: $3,150 of gross profit. If you allow marketing a fifth of that, the ceiling is about $630 per booked install.
Step 2: the leads you need
If your sales team books 40% of qualified replacement enquiries, each booked install needs 2.5 enquiries. At a $630 ceiling, each enquiry can cost up to $252. If your current channels deliver enquiries at $120, you have headroom; at $300, the problem is the channel or the close rate, not the budget.
Step 3: the months that can absorb it
The capacity plan gives available install slots per month. Multiply the slots you want to fill with marketing by the cost per booked install and you have that month's budget. Months with no spare slots get a maintenance budget only.
The numbers above are an illustration. Your plan uses your margins and your close rate.
What's included
- The affordable cost per booked install for each major job type.
- A monthly budget table by channel: search ads, map listing and reviews, website and content, agreement renewal campaigns, seasonal campaigns, and anything else you already use.
- A measurement setup list: what must be tracked for the budget to be judged.
- Rules for moving money: when a channel underperforms, when to pull a campaign forward, when to pause.
- A note on rebate messaging for each province, as of the planning date, with links to the program administrators.
Timeline and measurement
This chapter is drafted after capacity and the demand calendar, and reviewed at each checkpoint. The schedule for the whole engagement is set in writing in your proposal. The budget is judged on three numbers: cost per booked install against target, booked installs against capacity, and the share of enquiries with a known source.
Mistakes to avoid
- A flat monthly spend. Heating demand is not flat. A budget that does not move with the season overspends in December and underspends in August.
- Judging by cost per lead alone. Cheap leads that never book are expensive.
- Buying demand you cannot serve. If the gap table shows no capacity, spending more lengthens the wait and loses quotes.
- Leaving agreements out of the marketing budget. Renewal reminders and member campaigns are usually the cheapest bookings a heating company can buy.
- No owner for each line. Every channel needs one person who reads its numbers monthly.
To see where a budget fits in the whole document, read the written annual growth plan. The pricing page explains what managed marketing costs if you want us to run it, and the guide on writing an annual growth plan shows the full sequence.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of revenue should a heating company spend on marketing?
A percentage is a poor starting point because it ignores capacity and margin. We start from the cost per booked install you can afford, multiply by the installs the capacity plan says you can deliver, and then sense-check the total against revenue.
Should I stop marketing in the busy season?
Not entirely. Map listings, reviews and your website keep working. Paid campaigns, though, often should step back when the calendar is full, and step forward in the weeks before the peak and in the shoulder months.
Can you manage the campaigns too?
Yes, through the HVAC.Agency plans, which start at $2,998 per month plus GST/HST by province. It is optional; the budget plan is written so any competent provider can run it.
What if I cannot measure where leads come from today?
Then the first line in the budget is measurement: call tracking, a source field in your booking system and a monthly report. A budget you cannot measure cannot be improved.