Marketing Multiple Domains to Deliver Heating and Air Conditioning Comfort

Reading Time | 5 Minutes

We’re well into summer here in Texas, and things are heating up quickly and quite early.

I don’t know if we’ll set record-breaking numbers for triple-digit weather, but things appears to be on track for such a possibility.

Most recently I dedicated a weekend to cleaning our 11-year old air conditioning units in hopes of each lasting one or two more summers before needing to be replaced.

I was fortunate to have cool, overcast weather that weekend to have been able to power off sections at a time of our house. All in all, it took about 1.5 hours for each system, including disassembly, cleaning, and re-assembly.

Afterwards, both units operated as efficient as they could to be for 11 years old, blowing cool air inside while the temperature inched a few degrees away from triple-digit weather.

This was all good until about a week or so ago when I received the dreaded call from my wife about the upstairs AC unit NO LONGER blowing cold air. ?

Living and working in Northwest Austin for nearly 15 years now, I dug deep to remember the last few heating and air conditioning companies encountered by way of TV commercials or driving while out and about running errands.

Fortunately, BlueAir’s familiar logo of a blue dog in front of a fan was the company that came to mind. I likely remembered this company because of driving past their vehicles advertising BlueAir-AC.com. Also, the BlueAir office is located 5 minutes from our home.

Nevertheless, I called and a BlueAir technician came out to troubleshoot our issue. It didn’t take long for him to discover that our 11-year old upstair system was leaking freon and the blower motor had burned up (see and read the thermostat below). YIKES!

Although it wasn’t a hard decision to make, deciding to replace our air conditioning and furnace system for the upstairs, my wife and I didn’t expect the cost of replaced both units to be that of a mid-sized sedan. ?

But in all fairness, my wife and I decided to go with higher end HVAC systems, so that’s the reason for the sticker shock.

We could have attempted to fix the leak and repair the motor, but we were informed our current HVAC system uses outdated freon that is to be banned starting 2020 — might as well replace both now versus being forced later.

Although our upstairs HVAC system went out on a Monday, BlueAir was able to have a BlueAir technician troubleshoot the existing system, a BlueAir home comfort specialist consult the new system and take measurements, and mark the calendar for a Wednesday install.

I was impressed at the quick turnaround, seeing most heating and air conditioning companies based in Austin, Texas are currently booked for weeks with HVAC system installs and replacements.

It’s too hot in Texas for a week or more of wait time, so I’m fortunate BlueAir had and made availability to serve my family and me.

Thank goodness our downstairs unit was functional and able to cool the lower portion of our home with ease until the install date. Wednesday finally arrived and so did the BlueAir team of trucks and vans.

One of the first things that caught my eye was their van advertising a geo service domain: BlueAirAustin.com. Then, I noticed their truck advertising a different domain: BlueAirComfort.com. Yet, visiting both domains redirects to BlueAir-AC.com.

If I had to guess, I would imagine that the company started with BlueAir-AC.com first. Then, BlueAir likely changed to use BlueAirAustin.com, seeing the former domain did not pass the radio test and was likely challenging for customers to remember using the hyphen.

From the looks of their website and based on the truck wrap appearing newer than the van wrap, BlueAir likely used BlueAirAustin.com until a rebranding occurred to focus on their slogan, “Be Comfortable”, branding their digital presence using BlueAirComfort — which qualifies as a brandable domain.

What’s more interesting is that BlueAir didn’t choose to develop and brand BlueAirComfort.com as it’s main website address as opposed to BlueAir-AC.com.

Most companies often are quite reluctant to attempt to change a domain name once one it is in use. Many fear possibly losing search engine ranking slightly or all together — which is a relevant, real concern.

But 301 redirecting entire websites from an old domain to a new domain is nothing new under the sun. In fact, when executed soundly, the newer domain is often times boosted in search ranking visibility.

It’ll be interesting to observe if BlueAir does transition towards making BlueAirComfort.com it’s final digital presence for its website.

As I now sit typing this very article and enjoying cool air from our new systems (both upstairs and downstairs replaced), I couldn’t help but to notice that BlueAir didn’t register the following domains (* denotes available at the time of this writing):

You’re likely thinking that it’s overkill to register surrounding cities when registering geo service domains that contain a brand.

To an extent, you’re right. However, I personally would rather know with great certainty that I own domain variations of my brand rather than leaving all available for registration for the competition to move in and stake their claim — yes, this does happen (right, wrong or indifferent).

Even more interesting and alarming is the fact that BlueAirAC.com IS available for registration at the time of this publication — Update: yes, I registered it and redirected it. ?

This is certainly a grave mistake, and the owners should simply purchase it and redirect it to BlueAir-AC.com as they’ve done with BlueAirAustin.com and BlueAirComfort.com.

If you’re using a domain with a hyphen in it, then be sure to ALWAYS register the matching domains not using hyphens.

Again, you don’t want competition capitalizing on the fact you overlooked something so simple, yet costly to your business and brand.

Well, I’m going to enjoy this cool air, quieter systems, and hopefully a reduced utility bill now that we have optimal HVAC systems.

You stay cool until the next post! That’s all for now…

Alvin Brown

Alvin is a serial entrepreneur and digital strategist with an avid love for domain name consulting. As the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of DNAdverts.com, his assignment is to ensure business and personal brands don't suffer the consequences of common domain name pitfalls.

As a domain investor and business consultant, Alvin actively participates in daily domain auctions. Outside of auctions, he passionately shares his views, opinions, and vision for how businesses should and should not use domain names to generate greater customer growth and revenue.