18 Ways to Get More Roofing Leads

How do you go about getting new roofing leads? Are you still relying on word-of-mouth, counting on your existing clients to bring you new ones?

Referrals alone don’t bring in much business in today’s fast-paced technology climate. If you don’t have a presence on the web, you could be losing half your potential clients to competitors who post roofing ads and market their business online.

There are two distinct approaches to modern marketing — offline and online. The best way to market today is to ensure your offline approach is working in conjunction with your online marketing efforts.

Get More Roofing Leads Offline

You may already be familiar with advertising roofing services via offline methods. Here are a few of the most effective ways to market your business without the use of the internet.

1. Personal selling aka free roofing lead generation

Also known as face-to-face selling, personal selling includes door-to-door marketing and cold-calling, where you or a salesperson tries to convince a potential customer to buy the service.

2. Outdoor roofing advertising

Roofing ads in specific locations can be a highly effective way to draw attention to your business. Location is everything when it comes to out-of-home advertising. Target your ad at the demographics of people who are more likely to be interested in local roofing services.

3. Yellow Pages for roofing marketing

Whether you advertise in the book itself or its digital counterpart, the Yellow Pages is a tried-and-tested marketing method that still works well today. There are also many other online directories where you can post your roofing ads for free.

4. Canvassing for roofers

Canvassing is old-school, but it works, providing the opportunity for you to add a personal touch to your roofing advertising. Choose your moments wisely to make the most of this method — for a roofing company, perhaps the best time to canvass would be after a storm.

Here are some tips that will help you canvass.

• Prepare answers to any questions you’re likely to be asked.
• Set clear objectives — appointment, contact information, or sale.
• Follow up.

5. Direct Mail for residential roofing jobs

Direct mail can still get you quality roofing leads if done correctly. Long-form, copy-heavy letters don’t work well in the age of instant gratification, but postcards and leaflets can still grab the attention of prospective customers. You can tailor your mail to include a specific offer or call-to-action that helps you measure its effectiveness.

6. Trade Shows for commercial roofing leads

Trade shows don’t just provide the opportunity to check out your competition; you can also create business partnerships, company awareness, and new leads. Make sure anybody who stops by your booth gets a freebie they will consider valuable. Perhaps you could provide educational content on residential roof repairs and home improvement. Finally, ensure you properly follow up with anyone you meet.

7. Networking for roofing companies

Go to local meetups for business owners and tell other attendees all about your roofing company. It is also a good idea to try and forge business relationships with property management companies and real estate firms who may require your services, as well as joining your local Chamber of Commerce.

8. Alliances with other contractors

DIY stores, home improvement businesses, landscaping companies, and handymen are all potential partners. You never know when their customers may need a roofing expert. Supply contractors with brochures or business cards to give to their clients.

Ask them if they would be willing to refer any of their customers in need of roofing repairs to your company. It is a two-way street; offer to buy supplies from them or provide referrals in return. Make it mutually beneficial — after all, everybody needs more leads.

9. Free roof inspections and estimates

Your offer can make or break a campaign. By offering free inspections and estimates, you’re opening the door to new business. Make sure you follow up with each customer.

Get More Roofing Leads Online

You can also gain a great deal of traction through online roofing marketing strategies. Research shows 85% of customers search for products and services online. If you don’t have a website, you could be missing out on a considerable number of roofing contractor leads.

10. Get a roofing website

You don’t need a fancy site with multiple pages to get online leads. In fact, you only need one, called a “landing page” — the key is to optimize it. Here is a breakdown of all the vital information you should include, with an aim to convert visitors to leads.

• Your logo and phone numbers at the top‍
• ‍A captivating headline — This is the first and possibly the only thing visitors will read. Explain the benefits you offer in a single sentence. Don’t discuss features; discuss what customers can achieve with your help.
• ‍An enticing offer — If your offer sucks, visitors aren’t going to convert. Give something away for free like a roof estimate or inspection.

• ‍Eye-catching images — Prospective clients who may need commercial roofing services won’t read your headline, but a relatable image may persuade them to give you a chance. Think of your image as a second headline.
• ‍An informative video — Research from Eye View Digital shows using video on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%. You could detail the process of a roof repair and show a before-and-after. Be creative!
• ‍Trust indicators — These can include anything from testimonials and reviews to high-profile customer logos and industry certifications. Trust indicators are especially powerful for persuading visitors to utilize your roofing service.
• ‍A clear call-to-action — Your call-to-action should be clear, prominent, and assertive as it can increase your converstion rate. “Call us on 555-555-5555 and get a free estimate today!” is an excellent example of a compelling call-to-action.

11. Try Google Ads for roofing

Google Ads works in a different way to most other forms of roofing advertising. Whereas most marketing involves businesses paying a one-off fee for an advert, irrespective of whether it works or not, companies that use AdWords campaigns pay a small amount of money each time a prospective client clicks on their ad.

Using this method — known as pay per click advertising or PPC — it is even more important to target your campaign toward people in specific demographics and geographical locations where it is most likely they will have need of your services and act accordingly.

PPC advertising tools make it simple to measure the results of your campaigns and keep track of how much you’re spending. Make sure you’re giving browsers some incentive to click through and visit your websites like a free resource or exclusive discount.

Try a variety of different methods and measure the results of each one to find out which is most effective. Here are our tips for a successful Google Ads (AdWords) campaign.

• Optimize your location settings

When you post an online ad, roofing customers located in the areas where you operate your service should be able to find it. The search engines which host your adverts will determine whether they should appear in any given search or not based on their specified location settings. In a way, the location settings of an ad work as an extension of its keywords.

There are two different location settings you can use to manage your PPC campaigns. A business can use keywords to ensure its adverts only appear when a browser specifies a geographical location in their search. Alternatively, you can tweak the location settings of the adverts, so they only appear on searches within a particular area.

For your roofing business, it is wise to utilize both approaches. Mention your location in the keywords of your ad. Let’s say you are in Brooklyn, New York; you should use something like “Brooklyn roof repair” or “New York roofing company.”

• Optimize your keywords

There could be thousands of people looking for roof repair or replacement services in your area, so choosing the correct keywords for your ad is essential. To save money, make sure you’re only targeting keywords that have buying motivation behind them. Don’t choose keywords that are too broad like “roofing” alone — use other, more specific keywords, like:

• “residential roofers”
• “commercial roofing”
• “residential roof”
• “commercial roofing companies”
• “commercial roofing contractors”
• “commercial roof repair”
• “commercial roof installation”
• “roofing installation”
• “roof leak repair”
• “roof fix”

When using the internet for advertising, roofing companies need to sell themselves. Capturing the attention of potential clients with a text-based ad might seem like a difficult task. Here are some basic principles to follow to ensure your online advert works for you.

Make the best use of the space by including a headline such as “Professional Roof Repairs in Brooklyn, NY” and a sub-headline like “Get A Free 24-Hour Estimate!”

In the body of text below, briefly mention your warranty and BBB rating, and include a call-to-action like “Call now to get a free, no-obligation roofing estimate!” You can get an even better idea of how your ad should look by checking out the online ads your competitors are posting. Analyze their ads and think of ways you can do it better.

• Optimize your budget

Not setting the correct budget is one of the common mistakes a lot of AdWords beginners make. We recommend choosing the daily option, so you don’t spend too much too quickly. If you only spend $10 a day, you will get very few leads, and it will take a long time for your campaign to provide any meaningful return.

• Test your campaign

Make sure each element of your Google Ads campaign is working as it should. Check your ads multiple times for errors and view how they will look when they appear on a search. Create up to five variants of each advert for testing purposes, to see which of your approaches is the most inspiring, informative, and capable of generating quality roofing leads.

Something which businesses often overlook is the need to check their website before launching a campaign. AdWords advertising delivers the best results when the site it is attached to delivers on what adverts promise.

12. Setup Google My Business to start your roofing SEO

Formerly known as Google Places, Google My Business is Google’s online directory of businesses that connects customers with local service providers.

Google My Business is the platform you need to register with to have your business show up on Google Maps, Google Search, and Google Earth. Even if you don’t have a website, you should have a Google My Business profile. It’s a crucial requirement for local search engine optimization and an excellent place to kick off your roofing marketing campaign.

Setting up Google My Business is free and easy. First, it’s worth checking your business isn’t already listed. If you do find a listing, simply follow Google’s process to claim it. Google also provides useful instructions on how to adjust your Google My Business listing.

13. Get legit roofing reviews on Yelp

Yelp local business listings are another way of promoting your roofing business for free. You’ll need to add a range of information to your Yelp page such as the services you provide and your business category to help users make an informed decision when they are comparing local roofing businesses. We advise providing a detailed description of your services and warranties. You can even add photos of roofing work you’ve done in the past.

14. Try email roofing marketing

Every company should supplement its marketing efforts with an email marketing campaign. Despite being around for almost two decades, email marketing continues to be one of the most effective online marketing channels.

Email marketing is one of the better roofing sales strategies you can utilize. For every dollar spent on email marketing, companies see an average $40 return on investment.

Companies using email to generate roofing leads can get up to 50 percent more sales at a 33 percent lower cost. If you send 2,000 emails or less each month, you can use the excellent Mailchimp service for free.

15. Use free roofing apps: Angie’s List, Thumbtack, and others

The more information your business profile includes, the better your chances of success. First, claim your profile and add as much relevant information as you can. List your services, photos, information about your warranty and rating, your phone number, and website. Don’t hesitate to add a call-to-action. Consider a listing like a simplified version of your site.

No matter which platform you use, be it Angi (former Angie’s List), Thumbtack, Home Advisor, or any other, your number-one priority as a business owner should be a fast response. People who take the time to engage with your listing are looking for a quick follow-up.

16. Start your blog for roofing SEO

Blogging is one of the best ways of increasing your website’s visitor count by taking advantage of search engine optimization. Regularly uploading blogs to your site that include keywords your customers are likely to search can, over time, boost your page views and increase the number of potential leads for your roofing business.

Create blogs that are both informative and engaging and aim for a word count of 1,300 to 1,500 words per piece. An article of this length works best for search engine optimization, as it helps to keep your keyword densities within acceptable limits. If you’re unsure about how search engine optimization works, a roofing SEO specialist can be worth their weight in gold.

You can boost the performance of your blog posts by sharing them via your social media accounts as well. To save time, you can use a social media posting tool such as Hootsuite to share your blog to all your online profiles at once.

17. Use social media to get the best roofing leads

Companies first began using social media to promote their brand and create an online buzz. Increasingly, businesses are using it to generate exclusive roofing leads.

The likes of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook can be powerful advertising tools that are all — for the most part — free to use. Being active on social media allows you to engage prospects directly and can give you a lot of valuable insights into how they talk and what challenges they face.

If you have a general sense of what you would like to see if you were in need of roofing repairs such as how to clean your gutters or carry out basic maintenance, you can showcase these snippets of information in short how-to posts on social media. You could go one better and film brief videos that provide quick, useful tips for homeowners.

Here are just a few tips that you can use to boost your social media strategy:

• Answer customer questions on Facebook Live — A live video can quickly generate interest on Facebook. Take questions from potential customers and provide informative, thoughtful answers.
• Post before-and-after pictures and customer testimonials — To prove your mettle in the roofing business to your social media followers, post images of past projects and quotes from your previous clients.
• Create a blog and share posts to your roofing company’s social media — Sharing blog posts is an excellent way of adding value for your social media followers and encouraging users to visit your company website.
• Scan other pages for ways you can help users who don’t follow you — Leaving helpful comments on another page — one about home improvements, for example — will encourage not only the person you helped to “like” your Facebook business page but also anyone else looking through the comments.

While these methods may not consistently generate new leads for your business, they play a valuable role in your overall marketing efforts. Social media tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social allow you to manage all your social media platforms in one place.

18. Promote posts on social media

You can pay to boost your social media posts, so they show up on the newsfeeds of users who don’t necessarily follow you. Internet users spend an inordinate amount of time on social media, none more so than Facebook. In fact, Twitter and Instagram’s daily user count combined are no match for the number of web users that log on to Facebook every day.

By grabbing the attention of a subset of Facebook users, you can get ahead of the many businesses like yours who are still funneling their total online budget into other systems like Google Ads. How much you will need to pay to promote your roofing ads depends on the level of competition in your area.

Allocating a decent amount of advertising dollars on roofing Facebook ads can provide an incredible return on investment, especially if you take advantage of the platform’s powerful targeting tools to ensure your ad ends up in front of the right people at the right time.

Using storm-chasing apps to determine which areas are likely to be hit by inclement weather can be extremely useful when figuring out which areas to target your marketing efforts in. People who live in cities affected by storms may be in desperate need of roofing repairs.

Planning your marketing efforts around the weather forecast can be highly beneficial, both for your business and those whose homes have been damaged by the elements. After all, these people will desperately want their roof fixed as soon as possible. It does not even need to be a storm necessarily; it could be heavy rainfall or hail.

Final words

With this guide, you now have plenty of helpful hints and tips on how to market your roofing business, both offline and via the internet.

Do you have any other questions? Perhaps you’re unsure what keywords to choose or how to test your Google Ads campaign. Maybe you want to optimize your website or generate even more roofing leads.

At Lasting Trend, we continually monitor roofing SEO and social media trends. We can tailor a detailed and influential marketing campaign to meet the specific needs of your roofing business. Contact us for a free consultation today.

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