What to send past customers this winter, by trade

A lot of winter emails from contractors are a coupon with a snowflake on it.

I get why. A coupon is quick to write, easy to approve, and when the schedule thins out in January it feels like the responsible thing to send. The trouble is that homeowners can spot a coupon from across the room, and they treat it like one.

Some of the best emails we write for contractors teach the homeowner one thing about their own house and ask for almost nothing back. Winter is full of material for that kind of email, because winter is when houses get dangerous and expensive in very specific ways.

So this is a winter calendar for four trades: electricians, HVAC, plumbers and landscapers. Most of these emails have a fact behind them that I looked up at the source, with a link, so you can put it in front of your customers without wondering where it came from. I’m writing this from Minnesota, so if your winter shows up later than ours, slide the dates.

The short version

• Lead every winter email with something about the homeowner’s safety or money, and name where the fact came from.
• Keep the ask small. A reply, a booking link, a number to save in their phone.
• Electricians: power outages, generators, and what the space heater is plugged into.
• HVAC: the federal government tells homeowners to get fuel-burning equipment inspected every year, which is an email that writes itself.
• Plumbers: State Farm customers filed more than 20,000 frozen pipe claims from 2024 through June 2025, and the average payment topped $30,000.
• Landscapers: if you plow, sell the snow contract before the first storm. Either way, thank people and book spring early.

One rule for every winter email

Lead with the homeowner, not the offer. A furnace inspection is a hard sell. A note that carbon monoxide deaths cluster in the cold months, with the federal agency that tracks them named in the sentence, is something people actually read.

Name the source every time. “The Consumer Product Safety Commission says…” reads like information. The same sentence with no source behind it reads like a sales line, and homeowners have learned to skip those.

Then ask for something small. “Reply to this email if you want us to take a look” is plenty. One email a month through the winter is plenty too.

The winter calendar

This assumes a cold-winter market. A shop in Atlanta can push most of it back a few weeks, but don’t skip the plumbing column (more on that below).

Electricians

Late October: generator readiness

2024 was a long year for power outages. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that electricity customers averaged 11 hours of interruptions in 2024, nearly twice the annual average of the decade before. Major events accounted for nearly nine of those hours, and hurricanes Beryl, Helene and Milton alone made up 80% of the total. Outside major events, interruptions average about two hours a year. (EIA, December 1, 2025.)

Be honest with that number in the email. It’s a national average driven by three hurricanes, not a forecast for your customer’s street. What it can tell a homeowner is that long outages happen, and a generator nobody has started since last winter is worth checking now.

Pair it with the safety piece. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says to run portable generators outdoors only, at least 20 feet from the home, with the exhaust pointed away from the house. In its latest carbon monoxide report, CPSC calls generators the single product under its jurisdiction associated with the most CO deaths, and estimates 93 generator-related deaths in 2022 alone.

The ask: if we installed your standby generator, let us service it before the first storm. If you don’t have one and want to talk about it, reply.

Mid November: outdoor holiday lighting

There’s a set of holiday fire statistics that gets passed around every December. They come from NFPA research, and I couldn’t confirm the current figures on NFPA’s own site, so I’m not going to repeat them here. You don’t need them anyway.

Your techs already have opinions about extension cords run under rugs, outdoor outlets that trip every time it rains, and light strings older than the homeowner’s kids. Put those opinions in an email, in their words. A homeowner hanging lights this weekend will read it.

The ask: let us check your outdoor outlets before the lights go up.

December: space heaters, and what they’re plugged into

CPSC estimates portable heaters cause about 1,600 fires a year, with about 70 deaths and 150 injuries a year (2020 to 2022 data, released January 2026). The same release tells people to plug electric space heaters straight into a wall outlet and never into an extension cord or power strip, and to keep them at least three feet from drapes, furniture and bedding.

The heater belongs to the homeowner. The outlet and the circuit behind it are where an electrician comes in, and that angle is what makes this your email instead of a generic safety reminder.

The ask: if a breaker trips every time the heater runs, or the outlet it’s plugged into feels warm, call us.

January: the slow season

January is when panel upgrades, EV charger installs and whole-house inspections fit on the schedule. We covered what to send for those in five emails every electrician should send their past customers, so I won’t repeat them here. Pick one and send it in January.

HVAC

Late October: the annual heating inspection

This one has a federal recommendation behind it. CPSC tells homeowners to have a professional inspect all fuel-burning systems every year, and lists furnaces, boilers, fireplaces, wood stoves, water heaters, chimneys, flues and vents. Quote that in the email. It’s a federal safety agency telling your customer to call someone like you, and it’s a lot more convincing than you saying it.

For context, the U.S. Fire Administration counted an estimated 34,200 heating fires in residential buildings a year from 2017 to 2019, which made heating the second leading cause of residential building fires.

The ask: book your inspection before the first cold snap.

Mid November: carbon monoxide alarms

CPSC’s latest annual estimates, released in May 2026, found 274 non-fire carbon monoxide deaths tied to consumer products in 2022. Heating appliances were linked to 76 of them (28%), the second largest category. And 64% of those deaths happened in November, December, January and February.

CPSC recommends CO alarms on every level of the home and outside sleeping areas. Plenty of homeowners couldn’t tell you how old theirs are.

The ask: test your CO alarms this weekend, and if you’d like us to check them during your inspection, reply and we’ll add it.

December: before you travel

Holiday travel means empty houses with the heat turned down. The American Red Cross says that if you’ll be away during cold weather, leave the heat on, set no lower than 55°F. That’s a frozen pipe tip, but it’s your equipment keeping the house at 55, so it belongs in your email too. (It’s in the plumbing section as well. If you do both trades, send it once.)

The ask: save our number before you leave, in case the heat goes out while you’re gone.

January: what’s stacked next to the furnace

Heating fires peak in January. USFA found 20% of residential building heating fires happen that month, and in 27% of the larger heating fires it analyzed (the ones USFA calls nonconfined), the heat source was too close to something that could burn (2017 to 2019 data).

January is also when the holiday boxes go back into the utility room. Ask your techs what they find piled against furnaces this time of year, and build the email around their answer.

The ask: if the furnace is running more than it used to, or the house won’t stay warm on the coldest days, have it looked at before the next cold stretch.

Plumbers

Late October: outdoor hoses and spigots

The Red Cross tells homeowners to remove, drain and store outdoor hoses close the inside valves that supply outdoor hose bibs, then open the outside hose bibs so the water drains, and keep them open so any water left in the pipe can expand without breaking it. It’s a small job, which is exactly why people forget it until the first hard freeze. If you install frost-free spigots, this is the email to mention them in. They usually don’t have an inside valve, but a hose left on one traps water in the spigot, where it can split inside the wall.

The ask: if you’d like us to look at your outdoor spigots before the first freeze, reply.

Mid November: what a frozen pipe costs

State Farm reported that from 2024 through June 2025, its customers filed more than 20,000 frozen pipe claims totaling over $628 million in paid losses, and the average claim payment exceeded $30,000 (State Farm, January 20, 2026). State Farm is the one paying those claims, so it has every reason to want fewer of them. The number is still the number.

The part worth putting in front of a customer in a warm state: the five states with the highest total claim costs were Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Texas and Tennessee. Totals partly track how many homes State Farm insures in each state, so don’t read that as a ranking of risk. But it isn’t a list of the coldest states, either, and that matches an older study from the University of Illinois Building Research Council, which found the frozen pipe problem is more severe in the southern U.S. than the northern U.S., where homes tend to have more consistent pipe protection (Gordon, 1996).

So if your shop is in Texas or Tennessee, you may need this email more than a shop in Minnesota does.

The ask: if you’ve got pipes in an unheated crawlspace, garage or exterior wall, let us take a look before the first hard freeze.

December: the coldest nights

The Red Cross has a few tips for the nights when the forecast drops hard. Let cold water drip from faucets served by exposed pipes. Open kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors so warm air reaches the plumbing. Keep the thermostat at the same temperature day and night. And if you’ll be away, leave the heat at 55°F or higher.

None of that is a sales pitch, and that’s the point. It’s the email a homeowner remembers when the forecast says nine below.

The ask: if you turn on a faucet and only a trickle comes out, suspect a frozen pipe and call us.

January: find the shutoff valve

State Farm’s advice for a burst pipe is to shut off your main water valve and leave the faucets open, and to know where the shutoff valve is before an emergency. A lot of homeowners don’t. State Farm’s own guide notes the main shutoff is usually outside in warmer areas and in the basement in colder ones.

The ask: reply if you can’t find your shutoff, and we’ll show you where it is (and tag it) on our next visit.

Landscapers

I don’t have a safety statistic for you, and I’m not going to invent one. Nobody’s lawn is a safety hazard in January. An icy driveway is a different story, and if you plow, that’s your one winter email with real urgency in it. For everything else, your winter emails are about staying in touch so your name is the first one they think of in March.

September, with a last call in late October: snow and ice, if you offer it. Snow contracts get signed before the first storm, and your routes, salt and subcontractors all depend on how many you sell, so ask early. Your patio and planting customers may not know you plow, and they already trust your crew on their property. If you don’t do winter work, skip this one.

November: thank-you and season recap. A photo from the season, a thank-you, and a line about what you’d do differently in their yard next year. Short.

December: a short holiday note. If you hang holiday lighting, book the January takedown in the same email.

January: book spring now. If your spring schedule fills up fast, say so, and give them a way to get on it today.

What not to send

Weekly discount blasts. Four coupons in a month teaches people to wait for the fifth one.

Fear. Every fact in this article could be written to scare people. Don’t. State the number, name the source, and let the homeowner do the math.

A safety fact attached to an unrelated sale. A carbon monoxide statistic followed by a promotion on drain cleaning is going to read as manipulative, because it is. Keep the fact and the ask about the same thing.

Before any of these go out

Every one of these emails needs a working unsubscribe link and a physical postal address. If you’re not sure you’re allowed to email customers who never signed up for anything, we answered that in can you email past customers who never opted in?

And check your domain authentication before you send. If it’s set up wrong, the quotes and invoices your office sends every day can land in spam, which is a bigger problem than any marketing email. That’s explained in why your contractor emails land in spam.

If you’d rather not write twelve of these a year, that’s what the Stewardship Program is for. Each month’s email is written for your shop, about your customers’ equipment and your season.

Questions we get

What should HVAC companies email customers in winter?

Start with the annual inspection, because the Consumer Product Safety Commission tells homeowners to have all fuel-burning systems professionally inspected every year. Follow it with a carbon monoxide alarm reminder in November, since CPSC found 64% of non-fire CO deaths in 2022 happened from November through February. Keep each email to one fact and one small ask.

When should a plumber send a frozen pipe reminder?

Before the first hard freeze, which in most cold-winter markets means mid to late November. Send the outdoor hose reminder in late October and the “coldest nights” tips in December. Shops in southern states shouldn’t skip it: the top five states for State Farm’s frozen pipe claim costs from 2024 through June 2025 included Texas and Tennessee.

What should a landscaping company send in the off-season?

If you plow, the snow contract email goes first, in September, with a last call in late October, before the first storm. Then a thank-you and season recap in November, a short holiday note in December, and a spring booking email in January. Outside of snow and ice there’s no safety angle for landscaping in winter, so the goal is staying in front of past customers until spring.

How often should a contractor email customers in winter?

Once a month is enough for most shops. More than that, especially if it’s all discounts, teaches customers to ignore you. One useful email a month keeps your name in front of them without wearing it out.

Safety guidance in this article comes from the agencies named, and every figure links to its source. Run anything technical past your own techs before it goes to customers. If a statistic here stops holding up, tell us and we’ll fix the page.