29 September 2026 · 7 min read · Oscar Markham
Marketing heat pumps is nothing like marketing boilers
Plumbers moving into heat pump work usually carry their boiler marketing across and wonder why it produces nothing. The two are barely the same business. A boiler is a distress purchase decided in days by somebody whose heating has failed. A heat pump is a considered, expensive renovation decision made over months by somebody whose heating works fine.
Nobody's heat pump emergency exists
There is no equivalent of the boiler that died on Sunday. Nothing forces the decision, which means nothing produces an urgent enquiry.
So the search behaviour is different: research terms rather than emergency ones, read before they ring, compare for weeks. A campaign built on 'call now' has nothing to work with.
The house is the job, not the unit
A heat pump in a poorly insulated house with undersized emitters disappoints, and the customer blames the installer. The honest version of this sale involves talking about fabric, radiators and controls before talking about the pump.
That is a harder conversation and a better filter. An installer whose website explains why some houses need work first is immediately more credible than one quoting a unit price, and gets far fewer difficult jobs.
Grants shape the timing, not the decision
Support schemes bring people into the market and set the paperwork, but they do not make somebody replace a working heating system.
What does is a renovation already happening, an extension, a house purchase, or an oil bill that has finally become intolerable. Those are the moments worth being visible for, and they are predictable in a way an emergency is not.
Expect a long follow-up and plan for it
Months, not days. An enquiry that goes quiet in March is frequently a job in September, and installers who write off anything older than a fortnight are discarding most of what they paid for.
A simple list — who enquired, what stage, when to contact again — is worth more than an increase in ad budget.
Show completed retrofits, in Irish houses
Photographs of the outdoor unit on a recognisable Irish house, the cylinder, the finished install. Ideally with a sentence about what the house needed first.
Generic manufacturer imagery is what every competitor uses and it persuades nobody. Your own jobs are the only asset here a competitor cannot buy.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.