Should roofing contractors include a blog in their marketing program?  The short answer is absolutely!  Why?  Here are 4 reasons why every roofer should have a blog.

1 – Search engines like blogs. If you have put up your shiny new roofing website only to never be able to find it on Google you know that getting the search engines to pay attention is not easy.  Blogs get a lot more attention from them and if you link them into your website they can move you up in the search engine rankings quicker than almost anything else.

2 – People like blogs. If a customer goes to Google and searches for a roofing contractor in their area and finds your blog, they will be able to learn a lot more about you and your company than they would from a conventional website.  This can help you build a relationship with them before you ever meet them.  Post blogs about your views on customer service and quality.  These can really set you apart from other roofing contractors.

3 – Blogs are virtually free (or very cheap).  You can use free services like www.wordpress.com or www.blogger.com that offer free blog sites and hosting.  To download free blog software that you can host on your own site I recommend www.wordpress.org.  That is what this site uses and it is excellent.  If you are new to blogging and you choose WordPress I would check out the book “WordPress for Dummies” it will give you and excellent intro to the world of blogging.  Where else can roofers get effective free marketing?

4 – Blogging makes you think. If you decide to sit down and write about your thoughts on roofing contractors and customer service, you really have to stop and think about how you feel about the subject.  This exercise can really help you communicate these ideas more clearly to your roofing customers in your marketing and in your face to face sales.

Roofing contractor marketing should include blogging.  Even if you are not a great writer you should start today.  It will get easier with time and the resulting boost to your marketing program will be worth it.

I heard an ad on the radio the other day that nearly made me choke on my coffee and wreck my car.  After I regained control I had to think of how few ads catch my attention like this one did.  Then it made me wonder if roofing contractors would ever be willing to use such a provocative method.

When I say provocative I don’t mean in the sexy sense, I am using the definition “likely to bring a strong reaction.”  I can’t tell you the number of times roofing contractors have told me that they will never say anything about the competition or other brands.  They tell me that customers don’t like that.  On some levels I agree, however I don’t know that it is totally true.

So, what was the ad that caught my attention?  Before I tell you the ad I will say that it dealt with a problem that many roofing contractors face – low quality, cheap competitors.  The ad was for the Shane Company (you know, your friend in the diamond business).  The first sentence was spoken by their deadpan spokesperson.  He said something to the effect of:

‘Our competitors diamonds are so cheap that they look like a chunk of frozen spit.’

That is the line that had me swerving down the freeway.  Then he went on to really add the pain by saying that if you were to buy such a cheap, cloudy, milky diamond you and the loved one you gave it too would never really be happy with it.

I love that ad.  You may start thinking that customers don’t really like that.  After some research I have to disagree.  Let’s look at some of the most successful companies and whether or not they use this strategy.  Here are a few:

Apple vs. PC  –  Whopper vs. Big Mac

Verizon vs. AT&T  –  Ford vs. Chevy

I could go on.  These companies call out the competition and people love it and respond to it.  This gives them the chance to identify with the company they prefer and helps them to really buy into it.

Would this work for Roofing Contractor Marketing? If done properly.  The Shane Company ad did not specifically mention any competitor.  What it did do was point out an easily identifiable difference between their product and the competitors (in a humorous way).  It also explained how the customer would likely feel after they purchased the inferior product and reminded them that they can easily avoid that pain and embarrassment by shopping with them.

These are principles that could easily be incorporated into a roofing companies marketing materials. Take some time to identify points of difference between you and your competitors and then don’t be afraid to talk about and advertise those points.  But what if my competitor just copies me?  That is o.k.,  in my next post I will talk about a little utilized marketing fact “If you say it first. you own it.”  It never sounds as good to a customer to hear “Oh yeah…, we do that too.”  So, go ahead, be provocative, your future customers may just like it, even if your competitors don’t!

Do you have a neighborhood that you would like to dominate? Maybe it is that 25 year old upscale housing tract that is 75% shake roofs and you want to be the one who gets to re-roof them.

How can you use niche marketing to help you dominate your target market or neighborhood? If this niche is really worth targeting, meaning it has enough work (or high dollar/profit work) that if you were to get 15-25% of the re-roof’s it would justify the cost of marketing then some of the suggestions below could be worth your time.

First – define your niche. For most residential roofers it would be a specific neighborhood. Other examples of good niches could be HOA’s, schools, community housing projects, etc. After you have defined your niche take a look at who your target customers are. The benefit of marketing to a niche is that most members of it will have common traits. The main trait you will be looking for here is: How do they make their buying decisions?

• For example, most residential home owners really value the opinion of their neighbors and additionally are likely to use the internet to research contractors and materials. With that in mind it could be good to look at how you can precisely target those areas.

One good place to start would be to register a domain name that includes the name of the subdivision or neighborhood. For example if the neighborhood is called Mira Vista you could look into registering www.roofingmiravista.com, or something like that.

Then you could set up a free blog at www.wordpress.com and easily build a small site that targets that niche and links back to your main site. On that site you should make sure to include photos of all of the jobs you have done in that niche and also include as many testimonials from your other customers that live in that area as possible.

In addition to the customized site I would recommend sending a monthly newsletter to your niche that contains information that is beneficial to your target market. This will go a long way to making your company the company of choice in your chosen niche.

Another good idea would be to create a Facebook page just for that niche where you could post pictures of the jobs you have done just in that neighborhood or market segment. On that page you would also want to set up a reviews tab and have past customers in that area post reviews of your work.

Then, whatever other marketing you do for that neighborhood make sure that you include the domain name for your customized site, or Facebook page on it. Make yourself the expert for your niche and target your marketing. This will have you on your way to dominating it. Your competition will have no idea what happened.

When you look at all of your options for marketing it can be overwhelming and expensive. However, one very overlooked source of marketing assistance is your roofing manufacturer. You should be asking your local manufacturer’s sales reps for marketing assistance. This assistance should be available to you even if you are not a certified or preferred roofing contractor. If you don’t know who your local rep is just ask your distributor for their contact information, or better yet, to set up a lunch for you with them.

What sort of marketing help can they offer? It really depends on the rep and how much of his budget he is willing to spend. Every manufacturer’s rep is given a marketing budget to use to promote their products to contractors. One of the most common items that you can get from your rep is yard signs. As I have mentioned yard signs are a very powerful marketing tool and should be used on every job (use the QR code generator in the Roofer’s Marketing Membership site to create QR codes to put on your yard signs). You can also ask your rep for such items as bid proposal folders, magnetic truck signs, truck lettering, business cards, direct mail pieces, home show promo items and more.

Who is willing to spend the most to help you market your roofing business? Usually this will be whatever rep of the big manufacturer’s that is not the market leader. For example, if everyone uses brand X & Y you should call the brand Z rep and talk to them about what they can do for you if you were to start using their products. On the other hand, if you are very loyal to one brand you should contact that rep and see what they can do for you to help maintain (and earn) that loyalty.

What if no reps are willing to help you (or they won’t help you unless you sign up for a program)? That would be surprising but possible. In that case I would talk to your local distributor and see if they will set up a local promo with the manufacturer to provide yards signs or some other marketing item with every purchase (or with a minimum amount of purchases). For example, I have seen promos that give you five yards signs with every 50 Squares of material purchased. This is something almost every rep can set up with his distributors, even though they may not do it very often (usually because it creates some extra work for them).

The bottom line is; don’t be afraid to ask for help in this difficult economy. If you do you may be surprised at the amount of marketing help that is available to your from your manufacturer.

You have probably heard a lot about Twitter recently. It has been mentioned in connection with major world events and even on Oprah. But how can it help you grow your roofing business?  If you were to do a quick search for “Roofing” on Twitter you would see that there are already hundreds of Roofing Contractors trying their hand at this new form of marketing. Are you one of them? If not, you should be. Why? What is Twitter and how can you get started?

Let’s start with what Twitter is. Twitter is a combination of a blog and a phone text message. It is sometimes referred to as “microblogging”. When you send someone a text message on your phone you have probably noted that you are limited to how long the message can be. The same is true of Twitter. You can type a mini blog post that is limited to 140 characters.

What is the benefit of this form of marketing? Twitter is easy to use, free, very popular, free, and it doesn’t take a lot of time. Does it get any better than that? Once your account is set up you can use Twitter to let your “followers” know about new jobs, new products, promotions, discounts, important news about your business, direct them to your website, encourage them to sign up for your newsletter and more.

So now that you are ready to get started. Here are Five things to keep in mind.

1 – Make your “Tweets” meaningful. I have seen a lot of roofing contractors put out messages that are annoying and excessive. You will soon see that if you start following someone and you start getting a ton of useless messages every day you will quickly “unfollow” them. You don’t want your “followers” to quickly tire of your messages and stop following you. If you are constantly selling without providing some valuable or interesting content your followers will soon loose interest.

2 – Don’t send too many “Tweets” each day. I currently follow one person who just today sent over 50 messages. If this keeps up I will have to unfollow them so that I can keep up with other messages. This is just my opinion, but if you are sending more than 5 messages a day, you may be sending too many.

3 – Spend some time on your Bio. Here you get 160 characters to describe yourself or your business. Take some time to really think about making this a meaningful statement that encourages people to follow your Tweets or to click on your web site link and check you out.

4 – Pick a good Avatar. Your Avatar is not a large blue version of yourself, it is the small 48 x48 pixel square image that goes next to all your Tweets. Spend some time making sure that the image looks good once it is shrunk down to that small size. You also want to make sure that whatever picture you choose gives a professional impression of you and your business.

5 – Look into using some of the Twitter Tools out there. These can really make your efforts on Twitter more effective and efficient. Here are a few to check out. www.tweetdeck.com www.hootsuite.com www.twhirl.com www.tweetie.com

Make sure you follow Roofer’s Marketing on Twitter by clicking the button at the top of this page and then send a Tweet to say “Hi”. Please let us know how you have used Twitter and what has worked, or not worked, for you.

What are some of the biggest complaints people have about roofing contractors that you can easily avoid, and at the same time leave your competition in the dust?

These may seem simple and obvious but you would be amazed at how many roofing contractors do these exact things! Avoiding these should be part of your marketing program.

1 – Being late or not showing up at all for your sales appointment

This is one of the biggest complaints that consumers have about roofers (before the work is done). This is also one of the easiest ways to loose a potential customer and hand the sale to your competition. If you are going to be late or need to reschedule, make sure that you let the homeowner know as soon as possible, or better yet, show up on time as scheduled! Advertise that you guarantee on-time sales appointments. Think of Dominoes Pizza “delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free.” That powerful statement catapulted their business to the #1 pizza chain in the nation, just because they promised to be on time.

2 – High Pressure Closing

How many of us like to be closed? When you need a new car or other major purchase what is it that you dread the most? High pressure salesmen. You may close some sales with this technique but you will dramatically lower your chances of having a truly satisfied customer that will refer their friends and family to you. One high pressure sale now could cost you many sales later.

3 – Unprepared sales presentations

The customer needs you to be the expert. The only way that you can build that confidence in your prospect is to be well prepared and ready to answer their questions and provide them a meaningful reason to do business with you.

4 – Unexpected charges

Help calm the customers fears that you will stick them with extra charges after the job is started by doing a thorough inspection of the job before providing a proposal. In addition to this you should provide some sort of assurance that your bid is complete and if there are areas for potential increases make sure you are clear about them upfront.

5 – Lack of Communication

Before, during and after the sale. Customers want to know what is going on and what to expect at every step of the way. In your marketing and sales presentations clearly outline the steps and time-frames of their roofing job. Letting them know what to expect, and then living up to it is a sure fire confidence builder and one of the best ways to ensure a steady stream of referrals.

Always remember that what seems normal to us in the industry may seem strange, uncomfortable, or downright aggravating to our customers. If you can assure the customer that they will not experience these hassles with your company you can ensure that you have the advantage over your competitors who are content to do business as usual.

With so much attention being given to Social Media as the preferred marketing method for small businesses, and an increasing number of roofing contractors, you may be wondering if E-mail is dead. E-mail marketing can take a number of different forms from a Monthly Newsletter, to a well crafted Auto-responder series, to just a quick follow-up. Is it still worth the time and effort to create an E-mail list and regularly send E-mails?

Here is a very interesting examination of this topic from Duct Tape Marketing that I wanted to share with you. Notice what the experts are saying about E-mail marketing and how to get the most out of your E-mail marketing efforts:

No matter how enamored you may be with social media, email still outpunches just about every tool out there when it comes to cost effective lead conversion.

Now, what this really means is effectively using email communication in conjunction with efforts to produce educational content, amplify content throughout social media channels and turn Twitter followers into email subscribers.

It’s integration as much as anything that makes email work, but there are a handful of things that you need to do to get the most out of the email component of the mix.

Grab Attention

It’s not enough to have an email subscribe form tucked into the sidebar of your home page. If you’ve got a great offer to put in front of your visitors you need to make it impossible to ignore, without being obnoxious.

A new breed of popups makes grabbing visitor attention and turning it into email list subscribing almost pleasing. I’ve been experimenting with a rather new WordPress plugin called Pippity.

Once installed and configured this tool will note when you have a visitor that has not been offered your email subscription and briefly take over the screen to make them an offer. The visitor still has lots of control over the screen, but this tool positions your list in a way that’s hard to ignore.

I know there are some that don’t like this tactic, but Pippity gives you so much control, including A/B testing, that you can fine tune the tool’s use to make it work for you. Like it or not, with the right offer, most people see 300-400% jumps in subscribers using this kind of approach. (One tip: Turn it off for mobile browsers, as there’s no way to make it a pleasant experience on a mobile.)

Exchange Value

Giving people a reason to subscribe is even more important than simply grabbing their attention. In order to get willing subscribers these days you must sell the value of what you have to offer and most likely exchange something like a free ebook or report that sounds too good to miss right at the point of subscription.

The act of giving an email address comes with a price these days because all of our email inboxes are jammed. Your free stuff better sound as good as most people’s paid stuff if you want to get subscribers.

Be Sharable

Smart marketers have always employed tools that made it easier for people to share their email newsletter with friends, but these days that means making your content easy to share in social media as well.

Most email service providers have added social media sharing options that you can embed in your content so that a reader could tweet that they just read your article.

The content itself must exist online in order to use this most effectively. Most service providers also allow you to create an online archive version of your newsletter and I recommend you use this approach to socialize your content sent via email.

So, what do you think? Here at Roofer’s Marketing we believe that in order to have a well balanced marketing campaign for your roofing company you need to have both Social Media and E-mail. When you combine the two you have a very powerful and low cost marketing combination.

Please share your thoughts about E-mail marketing for roofing contractors.

We hope you found this tip useful!

Have you developed a marketing strategy for your roofing business? Many roofing contractors look at marketing as an event instead of looking at it as an important part of their overall business strategy. What I mean is that many will let business fall off, then spend a bunch of money on marketing until business picks up, and then stop marketing until business falls off again.

This start and stop marketing method is very expensive and does not allow you to have a predictable and regular flow of business. A much more effective strategy is to incorporate marketing into your regular business routine just like you do with other essential business functions like accounting and safety. This allows you to use less expensive and more effective forms of marketing.

Here are a few points from an excellent article on Duct Tape Marketing that can really help you grow your roofing business in a consistent and predictable way.

Create a Content Road Map

The term content conjures up a great deal of frustration with business owners, mainly because it’s vague enough to be misinterpreted and cited by experts enough to create exhaustion.

The idea of content in marketing isn’t simply a generic way to refer to your need to blog, it’s a strategic approach to creating the assets your business needs to communicate strategy and facilitate lead generation and conversion.

With that description in mind, you need to view your approach to content creation much like a publisher armed with an annual table of contents, otherwise known as a list of important keyword search phrases.

Your content creation plan must be very intentional and must be installed as an ongoing practice instead of viewed as a one-time event. Your plan must include provisions for content that builds trust, content that educates, customer generated content, other people’s content and content that converts. You can find a deeper discussion of these five types of content here.

Build a Total Web Presence

No longer is it enough to build a Website and expect to compete these days. Prospects, even those that are looking to do business locally, turn to search engines to find every kind of business and solve every kind of problem.

Today’s marketers need to approach the Web with an eye on creating the largest presence possible in order to stand out, or merely show up, when a prospect goes hunting for a solution.

Building an online listening station, optimizing brand assets in sharing services, claiming valuable social and local network real estate, participating in ratings and review sites, and maximizing social media activity are the foundational elements of total web presence building.

This is how you begin to make your content strategy pay. This is how you begin to activate the know, like and trust elements of your Marketing Hourglass.

Mix and Match Your Lead Generation

Active lead generation comes about through multiple touches initiated through multiple channels.

There is rarely one dependable way to generate all of the leads a business might require to meet objectives. It’s the careful blending of advertising, public relations and systematic referral generation that creates the repetition, credibility and control needed to get a prospect motivated enough to pick up the phone or schedule an appointment.

The key to making this blended approach work, however, is the commitment to valuable, education-based content distribution. Advertising that promotes content gets viewed, a referral made by way of content gets action, and PR generated by way of content gets shared.

Orchestrate a Lead Conversion Process

If you’ve followed the steps outlined so far in this system, your prospects aren’t really sold so much as they become ready to buy. In order to continue the experience your marketing has promised to date you must also give intentional marketing driven consideration to the steps in your lead conversion process.

What is your systematic response when a prospect requests more information? What is your systematic method for communicating how you deliver value? What is your plan to nurture leads in your hourglass? How will you orient a new customer? What is your plan for measuring the results a customer actually received?

A fully developed lead conversion process doesn’t consider a sale complete until the customer receives the expected result.

Live by the Calendar

The basic premise behind the notion of a system is continuous operation. You can’t build a marketing system and hope to be done at some point.

There are elements that you may build and use continuously, but the fact is that operating your marketing system must become habit.

Have you implemented a sound marketing strategy in your roofing business?  If not, now as the roofing season is coming to an end, is the time to start so that you will be ready to start next year with a pipeline full of leads.  Sounds good doesn’t it?

Please comment on what strategies are working for your roofing business.

Social Media – what works, what doesn’t, why does it work for some Roofing Contractors and not for others?  Unfortunately, there is a lot more to an effective online marketing campaign than just setting up your profiles and hoping that they bring in the customers.  Here are three essential tips from Social Media Examiner to help your social media campaign work as hard as you do.

#1: Attraction: How to draw people to you

For most of us, we want to attract qualified traffic to our website. While there are many ways to do this—including search engine optimization, traditional advertising and referrals—I’ll focus here on social media.

To succeed with social media, you’ll need to have a content strategy.

• This means talking to your ideal customers about what they’re interested in, and having those conversations where they hang out.

Depending on your audience, you may need to become more active on Facebook or join groups where your customers talk on LinkedIn.

Chances are that LinkedIn has a few groups where your ideal customer hangs out.

If they’re not active on social networking sites—or can’t access them during the working day—you’ll need to create blog posts and videos that help them solve their biggest problems.

While developing your social media profiles, a few things to keep in mind:

• Brand your profiles: It’s free or nearly free to set up a blog, create a YouTube channel or build a profile on popular social networking sites.

Because of this, everyone does it. To rise above the pack and establish your credibility, you’ll need to create a branded experience that will immediately help build trust with your audience. This may mean a custom Twitter background, a Facebook landing page or a detailed work history on your LinkedIn profile.

• Go deep, not wide: Don’t try to be active on every social network out there. Instead, focus on becoming great at one or two platforms where you’re most likely to engage your prospects. Once you’ve mastered those, you can add more to your plate.
• Be consistent: One blog post, one video or one tweet won’t save your business, no matter how clever it is. Success comes from consistency. Your customers don’t want to work with a one-hit wonder; they want to work with someone who has consistently established credibility and expertise over time, which shows that the person should be around for a long time to come.

#2: Retention: How to keep people coming back

If you’re selling a big-ticket item, chances are your prospect isn’t buying from your site without looking at your competitors’ sites as well.

How do you stay top of mind and keep the lines of communication open after someone has left your website? This is where retention comes in.

While “traditionally,” email marketing has been the favored tool of the Internet marketer, these days social media plays a critical part.

From the home page, we’re asking people to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our blog posts or YouTube channel… all of which send them offsite.

This goes against everything we used to know: You never send people away after you’ve captured their attention! (It’s like the Vegas casinos: Never show a gambler the exit sign.)

However, getting people to like, follow and subscribe to us gives us the opportunity to continue to engage with them. We can build a relationship by better understanding them through listening and helping them.

To maximize your retention activities, make sure that it’s easy for someone to engage you in your social media activities right from your home page and every other page on your site.

Remember: Always provide value to your ideal customer with your social media activities. You’re only one click away from being unfollowed, unsubscribed from and unliked if you’re not providing value.

#3: Conversion: Moving from liker to buyer

Improved conversion rates (whether it’s a “buy now” button or filling out a contact form) are a natural outcome of being active in social media.

The latest HubSpot “State of Inbound Marketing” report showed that companies that blog more have more consistent sales. Companies also report that social media has made the biggest gain in lead generation activities.

Social media continues to grow as a lead generation tool for businesses.

Social media is quickly becoming the marketing avenue of choice for small businesses.  It is quickly replacing traditional forms of advertising.  When used properly with a solid strategy it is very effective and very inexpensive compared to those same traditional forms of advertising.

Are you using Social media to grow your Roofing Business?  If so, have you used any of the above strategies?  Please share your thoughts.