The Problem
Penguin Air, Plumbing & Electrical, a prominent Nexstar member servicing the Phoenix Valley, first came to Blue Corona in 2019 in search of a new digital marketing partner. Their previous agency could not seem to generate enough visibility on the web or the volume of calls necessary to keep Penguin’s call board filled in the ultra-competitive Phoenix market.
A once well-established brand in the the Valley community, Penguin was quickly losing rankings, visibility, and customers to competitors that outranked and outperformed them on search engines.
Historically, Penguin grew top-line revenue nearly 40% each year until 2019. Wade and Will were ready to make the leap from the “biggest small guy” in the the Valley to big-time players.
Their first step to getting back to growth: Hire a new digital marketing partner. One with proven experience helping HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies scale their marketing efficiently.
Penguin’s Specific Challenges
After multiple discussions with Wade and Will, it was clear Penguin faced three main challenges in their marketing:
- Loss of Visibility on Search Engines: Penguin was outranked in organic results and was losing impression share across paid ads to competitors. With stiff competition and their previous marketing vendor underperforming, Penguin was quickly losing customers to its competitors.
- Low Lead Volume: Penguin wasn’t generating enough qualified leads to keep their call board filled with the job types they needed. The company was wasting its marketing dollars on unproductive investments.
- High Cost-per-Leads: Metro Phoenix is the most saturated, most competitive U.S. market for HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies. As a result, marketing was getting expensive and new customer acquisition costs skyrocketed.
A Digital Competitive Analysis of Penguin’s website and online marketing against their biggest competitors revealed multiple areas of opportunity.
PENGUIN’S WEBSITE
Penguin’s previous website was limiting their potential to generate leads from the web. It was not built with conversion best practices in mind and limited the company’s organic search visibility.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
SEO is a long-term marketing investment. Ranking number one on Google doesn’t happen overnight, particularly in an uber competitive market like Phoenix.
In August 2019, Penguin Air’s organic ranking scorecard was empty:
- Zero #1 rankings on Google
- Zero keywords ranking #1-10 on Google
- 1 of 620 (0.2%) of tracked keywords ranking #1-20 on Google
PAID MEDIA
Penguin’s previous agency managing their paid media, including Google Ads, was unable to lower the company’s cost-per-lead due to poor impression share against competitors and campaigns lacking optimization best practices.
Combined with a refocused budget, paid media was one definite marketing channel that Penguin desperately needed to improve.
The Solution
A BRAND NEW WEBSITE
Blue Corona designed and built Penguin a new HVAC website–one that has been recognized as one of the 10 best HVAC websites by ServiceTitan in 2022 and 2023.
QUICK WINS SECURED BY SEO & PAID MEDIA
Oftentimes, a poor performing website — one that doesn’t generate enough leads — is the result of underperforming marketing campaigns. It’s not the website that isn’t working … it’s the marketing.
Blue Corona’s SEO and Paid Media teams hit the ground running after Penguin’s new website launched, optimizing localized content found on the site, a complete Google Business Profile overhaul, and a full revamp of Penguin’s Google Ads campaigns.
LONG-TERM CAMPAIGN OPTIMIZATIONS
Although the Penguin team needed to turn results around quickly, they also understood that marketing requires an infinite mindset and were committed to a long-term strategy.
The Results: Four Years Later
In 2019, Penguin did just under $13M revenue. Blue Corona took over their digital marketing in November 2019.
From 2020 to 2023, the Penguin team experienced unprecedented growth, growing their business from a $13M shop to a $30M powerhouse in the Phoenix Valley and generated more than $34M revenue from digital marketing in that timespan.
In total, Penguin’s digital marketing campaigns managed by Blue Corona accounted for more than 50% of the company’s revenue over a four-year span.
From the “Biggest Small Guy” to Phoenix Juggernaut
Today, Penguin Air, Plumbing & Heating has battled its way back against the competition, recaptured previously lost market share, and has re-established itself as one of the leading HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors in Phoenix.
The company still partners with Blue Corona for all of their digital marketing needs.
About Blue Corona
Blue Corona is an award-winning digital marketing agency that helps home service companies grow their business. Founded in 2008 as a tracking and analytics company, Blue Corona has grown into the leading digital marketing agency for contractors, offering a complete suite of marketing and sales solutions to increase qualified leads and sales, optimize marketing costs, and differentiate our clients’ brands in the marketplace.
