Maintenance-plan marketing sells recurring service to people who already bought from you. It's the menu group with the lowest cost per booked job, because there's no click to buy and no stranger to convince. It covers six line items: plan sales pages, tune-up campaigns, renewals, reactivation, referrals and aging-equipment outreach. If your winters and summers are full but April and October leave trucks parked, this is usually the group to fund next. It sits beside the others on the services menu.
What this group includes
Short answer: six items, all aimed at customers you already have.
Plan sales page and offer presentation
A clear page that explains what members get, what it costs per month or per year, and why it's worth it. We write it so a homeowner can understand it in under a minute, and so the price shown is the price paid: the Competition Bureau's guidance on drip pricing is a good reason never to hide mandatory fees.
Spring and fall tune-up campaigns
Short, timed campaigns that book cooling checks before the first hot week and heating checks before the first cold one. These are the campaigns that fill shoulder seasons.
Renewal reminders
Members get reminders by email and text before their plan lapses, with a simple way to renew by phone. Renewals are the quiet engine of a plan; a plan that sells well and renews badly is a leaking bucket.
Past-customer reactivation
Customers who haven't booked in two or three years get a short sequence offering a check-up or plan membership, sent only where consent allows.
Member referral program
A simple reason for members to recommend you, presented honestly and tracked by phone number or code.
Aging-equipment outreach
Using install dates in your records, we contact customers whose furnaces, boilers or AC units are reaching the age when replacement becomes likely. This links directly to the rebate and replacement group.
Who it's for
Short answer: companies with at least a couple of years of customer records and seasonal gaps they want filled. It fits best when:
- you have hundreds or thousands of past customers in a field-service system or spreadsheet
- tune-up season starts late because nobody sends reminders
- you already offer a plan but sell it only when a tech remembers to mention it
Timeline
Short answer: about six weeks to the first campaign, a full year to see the renewal cycle.
- Weeks 1–2: list export, consent sorting, plan offer review.
- Weeks 3–4: plan page, renewal and tune-up messages written and approved.
- Weeks 5–6: first campaign timed to the next shoulder season.
- Months 3–12: reactivation waves, referral launch, aging-equipment outreach, first renewal results.
How we measure it
Short answer: members, renewals and revenue per member. We report new members by month, renewal rate, tune-up bookings per campaign, and replacement leads that came from member visits.
A worked check you can run on your own numbers: say you sell 300 plans at $240 a year. That's $72,000 in recurring revenue before any repair or replacement work. If 85% renew, you keep 255 members and need only 45 new sign-ups to stay level. If renewal falls to 65%, you need 105 new members just to stand still. Small changes in renewal rate matter more than most owners expect, and the profit side of this is covered in depth at hvacprofit.ca.
Consent: the rule that shapes this whole group
Short answer: no consent, no message. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation requires consent for commercial emails and texts, clear identification of who is sending, and a working unsubscribe. Implied consent from a past purchase doesn't last forever, and the government's consent guidance explains the basics. We build every list and sequence around these rules, record where consent came from, and ask express consent at the point of sale going forward. We aren't lawyers, so treat this as context, not legal advice.
Mistakes to avoid
Short answer: the most common errors are about timing and trust.
- Launching tune-up campaigns once the season has started. By then your schedule is already full of emergency work.
- Burying the price. Members who feel surprised by charges don't renew.
- Blasting the whole database. Messages to people without valid consent risk complaints and penalties.
- Selling the plan only in person. Many homeowners will join from a clear page or a reminder text if someone simply asks.
- Treating members like everyone else. Priority booking and a named benefit are what make membership feel worth renewing.
Our long-form maintenance-plan marketing guide goes step by step, and the pricing page shows which plans include this group.
Frequently asked questions
Do you design the maintenance plan itself?
We help you shape the offer from a marketing point of view: name, tiers, what's easy to explain, and how it's presented. What's included technically, and the price you can afford to charge, are your decisions, made with your service manager and your accountant.
Can we email all our past customers?
Not automatically. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation requires consent for commercial messages, and implied consent from a past purchase has time limits. We sort your list by consent status before anything is sent.
How many members should a plan have to be worth marketing?
There's no fixed threshold. A useful test is whether members fill your spring and fall schedule enough to keep techs busy. If tune-ups still leave gaps, the plan needs more members or a better offer.
Will marketing a plan cannibalise our repair revenue?
Usually the opposite. Members call you first when something breaks, and maintenance visits surface repairs and replacements that would otherwise go to whichever company a homeowner found on Google that night.
Sources
- CRTC: Frequently asked questions about Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (2026-10-22)
- ISED: Getting consent to send email (CASL) (2026-10-22)
- Competition Bureau Canada: Drip pricing (2026-10-22)