Within the roofing business, one needs to evolve their marketing methods to remain competitive. With the competition becoming fierce in almost every field, if a business remains passive in its marketing efforts, then it is bound to lose its customers to other businesses that are proactive in their marketing. Keeping this in mind, this article aims to list all the working marketing and advertising ideas for roofers who want to grow their client base.
The marketing ideas for roofing companies mentioned here are not equal in their potential. As a general rule, online marketing strategies are much more targeted and impactful than offline marketing methods for roofing companies. Offline advertising methods are more inclined towards brand awareness. Let us get started with the various marketing methods.
1) Press Release
Many small and big businesses use press releases regularly due to the multidimensional benefits provided by them. One instant benefit is the number of views it generates due to a big syndication network. The distribution process itself generates 1000’s of views within 2-3 days for the announcement/article. Secondly, whenever a person types your roofing company name in Google, your press release article will appear on many news portals thereby creating a brand perception. Thirdly, the number of links generated by the roofing press release will also help towards ranking your website in Google which would bring more visitors and sales. It also helps in Google’s local listing ranking. Due to this vast array of benefits, you must utilize press releases regularly to grow your roofing business.
2) Your Website
Any visitor who lands on your website must be able to get all the relevant information easily. Your website must be easy to navigate and must have clear contact details mentioned on the main landing page itself. Since many people nowadays use mobile phones to browse the web, so your website must also be mobile friendly i.e its resolution should adapt to the screen size of mobile. A good way to analyze your website is to keep track of the visitor to call ratio. If 100 people land on your website and 5 people call you, then your visitor conversion ratio is 5%. You must aim to increase this ratio by making changes in your website design.
A good method that you can utilize to increase clients for your roofing business is to offer a free quote or free inspection offer mentioned in bold on your website. People love free offers and this would compel a visitor to contact you. Having a live chat option is another good feature that you can utilize to get more roofing clients.
3) Website Ranking
If you have put great efforts into making a brilliant website for your roofing business, then it won’t provide you expected results if you don’t get a good ranking in Google. Most people searching on Google won’t even visit the 2nd page as their search ends on the first page itself. So if your roofing website is not on the first page, then you are missing many active and targeted leads regularly. The process utilized to rank a website is technically called search engine optimization or SEO in short. There are many factors involved in SEO which you can either learn and apply yourself (through SEO tutorials on YouTube and websites) or can hire an SEO agency to look after it.
4) Google Local Pack
The Google local pack shows 3 local results on the first page for keywords that are aimed at local searches like “roofers in Houston”. It also shows the number of reviews, location and contact number along with the web address. Out of many roofing businesses that a local area has, Google takes various factors like reviews, citations, etc to put a business within the top 3 local results pack. Any experienced SEO firm can handle it or if you want to do it yourself, you can find plenty of information on internet marketing sites and on YouTube.
5) Google PPC Ads
If you want quick results from advertising your roofing services online, then paying for Google pay-per-click (PPC) ads is one of the fastest means to do so. By utilizing these ads, you can show your business ads every time when any user types your predecided keyword in Google. If you have made a bid for the keyword “roofing company in Houston”, then every time someone types “roofing company in Houston”, your ad will show up and you will be charged only if the customer clicks the ad. Though Google ads are costly due to competition, they are targeted and bring good results.
6) Facebook Ads
Facebook also provides many targeting options using which you can show your business ad to people in your desired location. They are cheaper as compared to Google ads for promoting roofing contractors and services but they provide a relatively less engaged visitor profile as these people are not actively searching for roofing contractors on Facebook.
7) Videos
If you have a list of long-tail and less competitive keywords, then using videos can provide a fast and better ranking. Videos rank quickly for low competition keywords and are therefore used by SEO agencies to bring leads to their clients. If you can create multiple videos with each video targeting a small and less competitive keyword in the roofing contractor niche, then you can easily create a web of digital assets that would send visitors passively to your website. Getting a video out about your roofing company is very easy as there are many freelancers that can do it for a few dollars. Apart from using videos, you can also use ads on YouTube which are way cheaper than Google and Facebook ads.
8) Emails
By collecting emails of visitors who land on your website, you can establish a long connection with your customers that would give you sales consistently. To get their emails, you can offer an incentive like a free basic guide on roof-related problems and its solution or anything that is relevant to your business.
9) Spreading Content
If you post content on other sites that are related to your niche, it will help towards roofing business marketing in two ways. It will lead to getting clicks on your link provided in the article/content which will improve visitors to your website. Secondly, it will increase the ranking of your roofing website in Google (backlink factor) due to which your website will get more visitors and orders. It will also enhance the brand value of your site as big sites have links from various sources.
10) Social Media Marketing for Roofers
You can very easily access and communicate with many other local people and businesses on social networks. This makes social media marketing a lucrative marketing opportunity for roofers. To get good results from the presence of your roofing business profile on social networks, do make sure that you do not become overly promotional. You must start roofing business advertising on social media only after spending 2-3 months of sharing interesting content consistently to get a good enough number of people to follow your profile. If you hasten the process and proceed with an aggressive marketing mindset on social media, it won’t provide you any significant results. To boost your audience base, you can also join and engage with local groups from your location on social media.
11) Influence Using Influencers
The trust level enjoyed by influencers on social media is simply great. It is this trust factor that can be anchored to get your roofing business known among the local community where you provide roofing services. Also, people will be more likely to perceive your roofing business as credible if your business gets supported by influencers. You can also add a note on your website and social networks regarding all the influencers who have recommended your roofing services. One vital point to remember while marketing your roofing business using influencers is that you must only pick out those influencers that have a significant percentage of local following relevant to your city/town.
12) Start Growing with Referrals
For every customer that you serve, make a request to refer your roofing services. To add more power to the chances of being referred by them, just come up with the best possible incentives for them. These incentives can be custom printed gifts, gift coupons, referral rewards programs, discounts, etc.
13) Make Your Roofing Different from the Rest
While roofing services by all providers will mostly be the same, you can get a superior and preferable position by exhibiting special features exclusive to you. Some of this can be free periodic inspection, greater discounts of purchased materials for roofing using your affiliated business, free or discounted minor services like plumbing, woodcraft, etc. You can also associate with some leading clubs, events and businesses of your region and can showcase your association for building your accreditation and brand value.
14) Promotion Using Merchandise
Using any of the custom-printing vendors out there, get your business name printed on various daily use items like caps, mugs, pens, mobile covers, calendars, etc. After getting such merchandise, start giving it off to customers who take your services along with other people and businesses who are more likely to receive inquiries related to roofing services. It will allow a person to see your brand name multiple times hence building a better recall value of your business.
15) Use Networking to Get Clients
Make a list of all such other non-competing businesses and services that may occasionally receive inquiries for roofing-related problems. Once you have identified such businesses and services, start networking with them so that they can refer and promote your roofing services. Some of the good candidates for this marketing strategy are real estate brokers, security consultants, painters, etc.
16) Use Local Media to Your Advantage
Since the trust level enjoyed by newspapers is big, getting your roofing business name to be mentioned in newspapers is a great brand-builder and leads generator. For this, you have to initially make connections with a few local journalists followed by asking for contributing content. Once you start publishing content related to roofing problems, more and more people will start knowing your business which will then start attracting customers for your roofing services.
17) Offline Marketing
While more companies are shifting their focus towards marketing their businesses and services online due to low costs and wide targeting options, offline marketing still is a great complement to online marketing. For offline promotion of your roofing services, advertising methods like putting ads on newspapers, billboards, brochures, etc still holds good. It is also a much better means to target that segment of the population that is not much into online activity.
18) Top Directories
Some websites rank just because of the mega authority that they enjoy in search engines. Due to this, they pull traffic in millions and provide many businesses and services an easy platform to capture a chunk of customers seeking various products and services. Yelp, Nextdoor, etc are some of the common big names that do get great visibility online. You can identify such sites and can mark the visibility of your roofing business on these platforms to add a new means of getting leads for your roofing business.
19) Reviews
With the Internet being a fast means of promoting information, it is also a very fast means of breaking businesses and their brand images. If you understand the seriousness of this factor, then you must definitely keep an active watch on all the things discussed about your company online. For any bad review or post about your business, you must immediately take efforts in resolving such issues as they do cause much harm to your business revenues. To keep a watch, you can easily set up a Google alert for the name of your company so that you receive quick information on all the things discussed about your company online.
The list given here to market a roofing business is certain to show you positive returns. For any doubts or discussions on this topic, leave your replies below.
