PSAI Weather is a robust set of tools that allows you to identify storm opportunities and directly advertise to affected homeowners in your service areas—giving you the best chance of reaching customers while extreme weather damage is top-of-mind.
This overview article explains what you can do with PSAI Weather and how this tool can be utilized to grow your remodeling or restoration business.
4 Ways to Use the PSAI Weather Center
To use PSAI Weather technology in any of the ways described below, all you need to do is log in to PSAI and click Weather in the left-hand toolbar.
This will open up your Weather Center, as shown below.
For more details on this main page of the Weather Center, check out our overview of your PSAI weather dashboard.
1. Find Storm Opportunities Near You
You can use the PSAI Weather map to find storms that have affected your area. Simply pull up the Weather map and type in a specific address.
Want to view storm info for a single address? Learn how to capture historical storm data for a single home address.
2. View Recent Storms Nationwide
If you have a wide-ranging service area or work with local partners nationwide, you don't have to narrow down your search to a specific geographic area first. Instead, you can choose to view a list of the most recent storms all across the country.
From the Weather Center dashboard, there are two quick shortcuts to view recent storms:
- Click the button for "View Latest Storm" to be brought to a map with the latest storm information displayed. (You can see storms happening now!)
- Scroll through the panel for "Most Recent Storms" and click on any of the storms listed to view it on the weather map.
3. Launch Targeted Storm Campaigns
No matter how you search the Weather map, discovery is just the first step!
The next and more valuable step to your business will be to launch a storm campaign, where you'll be able to draw a shape on the map and then run custom ads targeting those specific homeowners on Facebook and Instagram (as long as you have connected the two accounts).
Learn more about setting up and running an effective storm campaign in our related resources:
- Why Run a Storm Campaign?
- How to Launch a Storm Campaign
- Best Practices for Drawing on the Weather Map
- Best Practices for Handling Storm Campaign Leads
- How to Use Storm Campaign Landing Pages for In-Person Canvassing
4. View Forecasted Weather Events
In addition to past storms, the PSAI Weather map also offers a view of upcoming weather events! By clicking into the Future tab, you can see forecasted weather events for three days: today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.
Each storm is assigned a "storm class" ranging from 1 to 5, which denotes the expected geographic impact of the weather event. Learn more about storm classes.
Other Ways to Use PSAI Weather Technology
Storm campaigns are one of the most popular weather-related tools we offer, but they aren't the only one. Below are four more ways you can take advantage of our weather insights for both customer-facing and internal purposes.
1. Put a Weather Widget on Your Website
A Weather Widget is one of the site tools or "apps" that you can create within PSAI and add to your website. Widgets can be embedded into the body of your site, or they can be displayed as interactive pop-up elements that capture your visitors' attention.
As you can see above, weather widgets encourage visitors to find out whether their home has been affected by a recent storm. The homeowner clicks "Find Out Now," types in their address, and instantly receives a storm report detailing the most recent weather events, like the one shown below.
In return for providing this extreme weather report, you get the homeowner's contact information. That homeowner is now a lead, and you can start a conversation directly in the Com Portal.
2. Send Weather Returns Through the Com Portal
The previous methods have explained how to use PSAI Weather to attract new leads—either through Facebook ad campaigns or through a widget on your website. But you can also take advantage of our weather tools to interact with leads that are already in your Com Portal.
All you have to do is open the lead's engagement page and click the storm icon to send an instant weather report by email or SMS.
Learn more about how to send an instant weather report to any lead. If you're new to this tool, check out our guide on how to use the Com Portal effectively.
3. Receive Daily Hail Swaths by Email
If you want to get a summary email of hail swaths (rather than searching the PSAI Weather Map manually each morning), sign up for our free weather alerts! Subscribe to Extreme Weather Insights here to receive detailed hail swaths, 7 days a week.
4. Get Weekly Videos from a PhD Climatologist
When you sign up for Extreme Weather Insights, you'll also receive weekly videos from Dr. Victor Gensini, our PhD Climatologist. These videos can help you understand storm paths and will provide actionable insights to support your sales strategies in storm-affected areas.
These last two services (daily hail swaths and weekly expert videos) are completely free, so feel free to share them with colleagues or members of your professional network, even if they don't have a PSAI subscription.