Roofer Marketing Checklist

Welcome to the Roofer Marketing checklist. We recently wrote this for the FRSA and wanted to share it with everyone.  We work with many roofers and wanted to combine some of the best advertising ideas we have run across and implemented.  Below is a list of grassroots marketing ideas we know have worked for Roofing companies throughout the State.  Regardless of the size of your company & current marketing you are doing, the following list will surely provide you with a great set of ideas to promote your company for years to come. Please contact us for clarification of any items on the list.

Traditional Roofer Marketing Ideas:

1. Every service interaction is an opportunity to advertise.  When you are on a service call, find someone to ride along with you.  While you are on the service call, leave magnets on all doors in the neighborhood advertising your services.  The magnets sick to the entrance doors, and as long as they are powerful enough, will find their way onto a refrigerator door in no time.  Consider making them very specific.  For example create magnets for specific communities.
2. During the rainy season we have found that the old school street signs work quite well.  Just make sure to have a good promotion on the sign.  Don’t clutter the sign with lots of text.  Often a simple message, price and phone number work best.
3. If you are going to provide an on-going service, such as a roof maintenance program, or semi-annual roof cleaning program, consider advertising your services with a daily-deals site (Groupon, LivingSocial, etc). ONLY DO THIS IF YOU CAN UPSELL AND HAVE A LONG-TERM PROGRAM IN PLACE. A single-service call with these services does not work for your business, and only benefits the consumer.
4. Reach out to your past customers during slow times.  Offer a free follow-up inspection.  While at their home, inspect their home for other services you can upsell, or even cross sell.  It can also be an opportunity for you to reach out to their neighbors.
5. The USPS now offers inexpensive delivery of flyers to specific routes.  You should inquire with your local USPS office for details.

Cross-Marketing:
We have never seen much success with traditional networking groups for the roofing industry.  We have however seen roofers become quite successful reaching out to other complimentary services to refer business back and forth.  The best services are those that already visit homes on a regular basis.  Here is a list of several such services we recommend you contact.

1. Pest Control Companies
2. Pool Cleaning Services
3. Yard/Lawn Maintenance Services
4. Sprinkler Repair Companies
5. Pressure Cleaning Services (especially for commercial work)

Up-Selling:
We know of many roofers that have great programs in place to upsell customers on other services.  Here are some ideas for you to use:

1. Attic Insulation – whenever you are at a home or business, check the attic insulation.  Have your supervisor take a picture of it and bring it back to the office.  You could have a form letter ready to go and explain the energy savings.  Place the photo you took into the form letter.
2. Attic Fans – As you know attic ventilation plays a big role in keeping energy costs down.  Consider providing a homeowner with a document explaining the benefits of a solar-powered attic insulation fan.
3. Maintenance Programs – maintenance programs provide you with continued income. You can offer roof cleaning & gutter cleaning services.  These services have you going back out to the house and provide opportunity for upsells.  It also provides opportunities for you to offer cross-selling services for those companies that refer leads to you (lawn service, pool cleaning, etc).  A great way to market your cleaning services is by using before and after photos of your work.
4. Solar – solar is a great upsell as long as it does not interfere with your work and pocket book.  Solar companies will give you great referral fees, but you need to make sure that the customer has committed to you first, before offering the solar services.  The last thing you want to happen, is lose a deal because the customer picked solar over you.
5. Skylights – Many of you are getting into the skylights game.  Even if you are not offering skylights yourself right now, you should always have brochures offering the services with you.  Overcome the “leaking” objection with a solid warranty.  Solar Tunnels are wonderful products to get your foot in the door.  Often customers don’t even know that these products exist, so showcasing them is always a good idea.  Also, Solar Tunnels are easier to sell due to the lower cost.  Finally, Solar Tunnels create buzz.  When people see them for the first time, they love them.  Therefore its always a good idea to ask your existing customers to refer you leads.  Turn your existing customers into your advocates and provide them with a referral fee for every sold product.

Web Marketing:

1. Claim your local Google Maps listing and build it out.  This is very important for your local business to show up on localized web searches.
2. Make sure your reputation is not tarnished online.  Review what people are saying about you on a regular basis.  A bad online rating will often have a potential customer skip over a web listing and go to the next.  Google cares about this very much now.  Your online reputation now factors into your online Google rank.
3. Make sure you are listing on the directories below.  Ask your customers to review you on one of these web directories as well:- Kudzu.com, Angieslist.com, Asktheseal.com, maps.Google.com, Yahoo.com, Bing.com, Superpages.com, Yellowpages.com.  All of these directories are great for roofers to be in.
4. Pay per click advertising should only be used in conjunction with a specific promotion.  We prefer PPC campaigns at the start of the rainy season.
5. Organic SEO, based on content of the website and links built to the website, is a quality, long-term approach to promoting your business on the web.  It should be part of any fundamental web marketing campaign.
6. Utilize the resources available to you through the FRSA.  An example of this would be the CAP (customer assurance program). It builds great value and help you build your reputation.  Contact the FRSA for further details.

Roofing Contractor Website Features:

1. Assure your website has ample offers.  First review the offers of your competitors and make sure yours are just a little better.  Have one offer for the price conscious initial buyer, such as a $ off coupon.  Have a Free Estimate coupon as well as a Value Add Coupon.  A great value-add coupon would be a 10% discount on redoing the attic insulation.
2. Make sure you offer financing, such as the kind provided through the FRSA CU for free.
3. Showcase your warranty programs.  We advocate a warranty page that explains your workmanship warranty as well as any product warranties offered through your vendors.
4. If you are going to run unique promotions, you want them to be on separate pages on your website.  This will accomplish two main things.  First, it gives you the ability to track their success.  Second, it allows you to turn the pages on and off in case you want to offer a certain promotion only during part of the year.
5. Use unique phone numbers for everything you advertise.  This is very important and very inexpensive.  You can purchase a tracking phone number online for under $10 each per month. Consider having different numbers for website, local listing, magnets, newspaper ads, etc.  This will tell you whats working, and what is not.  Especially, for roof repair, people are much more likely to call, than if they are looking for a re-roof.
6. Look at your website traffic reports at least on a monthly basis.  This will take less than 5 minutes.   Look for patterns.  One obvious pattern relates to the rainy season.  Traffic will increase.  Also look at what keywords people are finding you under.  Look at how many people look at your website with mobile devices.  Also carefully review on what pages you are losing visitors.  Often the pages you are losing customers on are the pages that are missing a key ingredient.

Roofing & Social Media:

1. Facebook: Claim your name and have a presence.  We only recommend a mild level of marketing here.  Perhaps a few posts a week is all that is necessary.
2. Twitter: Claim your name.  No marketing needed.
3. Pinterest: Claim your page.  Market only if you have compelling before and after photos of your work.
4. LinkedIn: Claim your name.  No marketing needed.
5. Instagram: Much like Pinterest, only pursue if you have quality before and after photos.

Please share your ideas and successes with us.

Stephan Boehringer

Stephan Boehringer is the CEO of Get The Clicks, a web marketing company. Stephan has over 20 years of experience in the field of web marketing, and has been a speaker and consultant for many years. Stephan is passionate about web marketing and helping their clients be the best they can be.

Stephan Boehringer graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services.