How to Get More Leads in the Off-Season for Home Service Companies

Google Ads CPCs for HVAC keywords drop 30-40% during shoulder seasons. Plumbing keywords dip 20-25% in spring and fall. Electrical keywords see similar declines when demand cools off. The cheapest leads of the entire year are available during the months most contractors stop marketing.

68% of home service companies reduce their marketing spend during the slow season. They pull back on ads, pause content production, and wait for the phone to ring when demand picks back up.

The other 32% use the slow months to build pipeline, lock in maintenance agreements, and position themselves to dominate when peak season returns. Those are the contractors who never actually experience a slow season.

The off-season advantage most contractors ignore

When your competitors pull back on Google Ads, the auction gets cheaper. Fewer bidders means lower CPCs, better ad positions, and more impressions for less money.

An HVAC contractor paying $45 per click in July might pay $25-30 per click in October for the same keywords. At 100 clicks per month, that’s a savings of $1,500-2,000 while reaching homeowners who still need service.

An HVAC contractor on the Owned and Operated podcast ran a $59/month AC financing promotion during shoulder season and generated 223 leads in a single month at $11 cost per lead. During peak season, the same type of campaign cost $35-45 per lead. That’s a 3-4x improvement in efficiency just by shifting the timing.

Conversion rates often increase during the off-season too. Fewer competitors advertising means fewer options for the homeowner. When only 3 companies show up instead of 10, your odds of getting the call improve dramatically.

We’ve built a seasonal marketing calendar that maps out exactly when CPCs rise and fall by trade. Use it to plan your ad spend so you’re investing more when costs are low and tightening up when costs spike.

Pre-positioning: building your pipeline before the slowdown

The best off-season strategy starts 60-90 days before the slow months arrive. Waiting until January to figure out how to generate leads in February is already too late.

Pre-positioning means planting seeds in Q3 that produce leads in Q4 and Q1. For HVAC contractors, that means pushing furnace tune-ups in September and October. For plumbers, winterization services in November. For landscapers, fall cleanup packages that transition into spring contracts.

The key is shifting your marketing message from reactive (“We fix broken things”) to proactive (“Prevent expensive problems before they happen”). Proactive messaging resonates with a different segment of homeowners, the ones who plan ahead and tend to be higher-value, longer-term customers.

Building the pre-season offer stack

Create service packages specifically designed for the transitional months. These aren’t discounts on your regular services. They’re new offers that wouldn’t exist during peak season.

HVAC example: “Pre-Winter Furnace Safety Package” - inspection, filter replacement, CO detector check. Price it at $89-129. The job takes 45-60 minutes, keeps your techs busy, and puts you inside the home where you can identify larger needs like aging equipment or duct issues.

Plumbing example: “Winter-Ready Home Plumbing Check” - inspect exposed pipes, check water heater age and condition, test sump pump. Price at $69-99. You’ll find water heaters past their lifespan in 30-40% of homes inspected.

Landscaping example: “Spring-Ready Yard Package” - book fall cleanup customers for a spring mulch-and-plant package at 10% off if they commit before December. This locks in spring revenue months before the season starts.

Maintenance agreements: the ultimate off-season revenue stabilizer

Contractors with active maintenance agreement programs retain 75-80% of those customers year-over-year. Those retained customers book 2.5x more service calls than non-agreement customers and spend 30-40% more annually.

A maintenance agreement converts a one-time customer into a recurring revenue stream. An HVAC contractor with 500 active maintenance agreements at $15/month generates $7,500 per month in recurring revenue before a single service call comes in.

The “500 members per $1M” rule comes up repeatedly in contractor forums. If you’re doing $2M in revenue, your target is 1,000 active maintenance agreements. One HVAC company on HVAC-Talk reported that hitting 500 agreements took 18 months of consistent pitching by techs, but those agreements now generate $7,500/month in recurring revenue before a single service call comes in.

During the off-season, that recurring revenue base keeps cash flow stable while competitors scramble.

How to sell maintenance agreements

The best time to pitch a maintenance agreement is at the end of a successful service call. Your tech just solved a problem. The customer is relieved and grateful. Offering a maintenance plan at that moment converts at 20-30%.

The pitch is simple: “We just replaced your capacitor today. A twice-yearly tune-up catches issues like this before they become emergency calls. Our maintenance plan is $15/month and includes priority scheduling, no overtime charges, and 15% off any repairs. Want me to sign you up?”

Frame the agreement around what the customer avoids, not what they get. “Avoid emergency breakdowns” beats “Includes two tune-ups per year” because homeowners buy prevention, not maintenance.

For a deeper look at the lifetime value these agreements create, read our breakdown of customer lifetime value in home services.

Reactivating your past customer database

You have a list of every customer you’ve served in the past 2-3 years. Most contractors never contact those customers again unless the customer calls first.

Email reactivation campaigns sent to past customers average a 15-22% response rate. That’s 3-4x the response rate of cold outreach. These people already know you, already trust you, and have a home that needs ongoing maintenance.

The reactivation campaign structure:

Email 1: The check-in. “Hi [Name], it’s been [X months] since we [service performed]. Just checking in to make sure everything is running smoothly. If anything’s come up, reply to this email or call us at [number].”

Email 2: The seasonal prompt (3-5 days later). “With [season] coming up, now is the ideal time for [relevant service]. We’re booking [month] appointments now and availability fills fast for our existing customers.”

Email 3: The offer (5-7 days after email 2). “As a past customer, we’d like to offer you [specific service] at [price/discount]. This offer is available through [date].”

We cover the full playbook for email marketing for home service businesses, including templates, send frequency, and what to avoid.

One contractor on Reddit reported that a single email campaign to past customers brought in $4,000 in booked work within one week. He sent a simple “checking in” email to 340 past customers with a seasonal tune-up offer. 22 responded. 14 booked. No ad spend. No new leads required.

40-60% of annual revenue for top-performing contractors comes from repeat customers. If you’re not systematically reaching out to past customers during the slow season, you’re leaving the easiest revenue on the table.

Targeting new homeowners in your service area

38 million Americans move each year. Every new homeowner in your service area needs to find a plumber, an electrician, an HVAC company, and a landscaper. If you reach them in the first 90 days after closing, you have a 60% higher chance of becoming their go-to contractor.

Off-season months are ideal for new homeowner campaigns because your team has capacity and your ad costs are lower.

Direct mail to new homeowners converts at 2-4%, which is 3-5x the response rate of standard direct mail. The key is reaching them early. A “Welcome to the Neighborhood” postcard with a first-service discount puts your name in front of them before they start Googling.

Our guide to targeting new homeowners covers data sources for new-mover lists, timing strategies, and offer structures that work.

Content marketing: planting seeds that pay off in peak season

Blog content published during the off-season ranks by peak season. Google typically takes 3-6 months to fully index and rank new content. An article about “AC installation cost in [your city]” published in January starts ranking right when homeowners begin searching in April and May.

Publishing 2-4 articles per month during the slow season builds a content library that generates organic traffic year-round. Each article targeting a long-tail keyword your competitors ignore is a small lead generation engine that runs on autopilot.

Focus on topics tied to upcoming seasonal demand:

Q4 content for HVAC: “Signs Your Furnace Needs Replacement,” “How Much Does a New Furnace Cost in [City],” “Furnace vs. Heat Pump: Which Is Right for Your Home”

Q1 content for plumbing: “How to Prevent Frozen Pipes,” “Water Heater Buying Guide,” “Tankless Water Heater Pros and Cons”

Q1 content for landscaping: “Spring Lawn Care Schedule for [Region],” “Best Plants for [Climate Zone],” “Hardscaping Ideas That Increase Home Value”

Adjusting your marketing budget, not cutting it

The instinct during slow months is to cut marketing spend. The smarter move is to reallocate it.

A well-structured marketing budget shifts dollars between channels seasonally rather than increasing or decreasing total spend.

Here’s what reallocation looks like in practice:

Contractors who added duct cleaning as an off-season service line report keeping installers busy during slow months while generating high-margin revenue. One HVAC contractor on ContractorTalk added duct cleaning and dryer vent services specifically for October through March. Low material cost, 45-60 minute jobs, and an average ticket of $250-400 per house. Reallocating budget toward promoting a new off-season service line can pay for itself within the first month.

Reduce paid search spend by 20-30% (CPCs are lower so you get similar volume for less money). Redirect the savings toward content marketing and email campaigns that build long-term pipeline.

Increase retargeting spend. Visitors who came to your website during peak season but didn’t convert are still potential customers. Retargeting them during the off-season, when they may be planning a project, costs pennies per impression.

Invest in reputation building. Use the slower months to collect reviews, update your Google Business Profile, fix website issues, and build out service area pages. None of this costs much money, but all of it pays dividends when demand returns.

Community visibility during quiet months

Sponsoring a little league team or setting up a booth at a home show during peak season is expected. Doing it during the off-season, when no other contractor is visible, makes you memorable.

Home shows and community events during off-peak months have 40-50% less vendor competition but still draw homeowners who are planning projects. A roofer at a January home show catches homeowners planning spring roof replacements with zero competition from other roofing companies.

An Ohio HVAC contractor formed B2B alliances with 6 property managers and 2 real estate agencies during the slow season. Within 90 days, those partnerships generated 20+ monthly commercial and residential leads at a fraction of his paid advertising cost. He spent the slow months building relationships instead of cutting budgets.

Branded vehicle wraps work year-round, but they’re especially effective during slow months when fewer contractor trucks are visible on the road. Your wrapped van parked at a jobsite in December stands out more than in June when every street has three contractor trucks.

Measuring off-season marketing performance

Track different KPIs during the slow season than during peak season.

Pipeline value over immediate revenue. Measure how many maintenance agreements you signed, how many past customers you re-engaged, and how many new homeowner contacts you captured. These metrics predict peak-season revenue better than slow-season booking numbers.

Cost per lead by channel. Compare your off-season CPL to peak season. You should see 25-40% lower costs. If you don’t, something is wrong with your targeting.

Content performance. Track which articles published during the off-season start gaining organic traffic. By month 3-4, you should see early ranking signals for the keywords you targeted.

Database growth. Your customer and prospect database should grow during the off-season even if bookings are slower. Every new email address, phone number, and mailing address is a future revenue opportunity.

The contractors who never have a slow season

The difference between contractors who panic during the slow months and those who maintain steady revenue comes down to one thing: systems.

On the Owned and Operated podcast, John Wilson (Wilson Companies) describes the off-season mindset shift: “If the board is empty, it’s OUR fault.” His team runs outbound campaigns — direct mail, automated text sequences through Hatch, and phone calls to past leads — specifically to fill the schedule during shoulder months. The philosophy: slow season is a marketing problem, not a demand problem.

Maintenance agreements provide baseline revenue. Email reactivation campaigns bring past customers back. New homeowner targeting captures fresh demand. Content marketing builds organic visibility. Lower CPCs make paid advertising more efficient.

None of these tactics are complicated. Most don’t require significant budget. They require consistency and the discipline to market when business feels slow instead of only when phones are already ringing.

For reactive strategies when you’re already in the slow season, our slow season marketing guide covers immediate-impact tactics. But the real advantage belongs to the contractors who started 90 days early.