For many roofing businesses, door knocking is one of the main methods used to recruit new customers. The face-to-face interaction is a tried and true technique for increasing roofing sales via the ability to cover a large area with relative ease. However, the current coronavirus pandemic has made this approach more difficult than in the past. Many homeowners are reluctant to let others into their home, especially after they have been to every other house on the block. Not to mention, local regulations may restrict your ability to engage in typical door-to-door sales tactics. So, how can you gain customers when your typical sales strategies are no longer viable? See below for sales alternatives to door knocking that will help you continue to gain new customers.
Use Virtual Platforms
We’re lucky to live in a time where we have the resources to meet virtually. Platforms like Zoom, FaceTime, and Google Hangouts make face-to-face interaction possible without the risk of actually meeting in person. Use this fact to your advantage and hold Zoom meetings with your potential customers. For more informal meetings, FaceTime or Google Hangouts are great options for getting in touch with customers. By using these virtual meeting platforms, you can make your interactions with potential customers just as personal and successful as they would be face-to-face.
If you’re unfamiliar with how to use virtual platforms to run your roofing business, we can help. We’ve created a guide to show you how simple it can be to take your roofing business digital. Read our guide How to Run Your Roofing Business Digitally here.
Advertise Through Social Media
More and more people are spending significant time online these days, particularly on social media. Promoting your roofing business through social media is a great way to extend your reach and gain new clients without going door to door. Social media allows you to prove yourself to potential customers through your posts. Simply documenting the work you are doing can show prospective clients the quality of your work and why they should choose you for their next repair or project. People tend to like to see what they the result would be prior to moving forward, and social media is the perfect platform to show them. Even posting pictures and information about your workers can help build trust between your company and potential clients, increasing the amount of people who come to you for business.
Many roofing companies already have a Facebook page, so using facebook as an avenue to advertise your services is a great starting point. On Facebook, you have the option to “boost” your post or run an ad. This feature allows you to set your own budget, pick a specific audience you want to target, and choose how long you want the post to remain active. By targeting a local audience that matches the demographics of your typical customer, you can continue to reach the communities you would be canvassing through door-knocking with Facebook ads.
Resource: Why Roofing Companies Need Social Media
Other social media platforms besides Facebook can be used to promote your roofing business online as well. Posting pictures and stories to a company Instagram account is another great way to show off your work and lure customers in. Paid ads on Instagram are another way you can use it to spread the word about your company. LinkedIn can be used to send individual, targeted Message Ads. LinkedIn even provides you with information on which companies take action on your ad so that you can measure the impact your efforts are having.
Social media was already dominating the marketing world, but now that we cannot see each other in person it has become an even more important method of connecting to one another, making it the perfect tool to network and pick up new customers.
Network Through Current Customers
Current customers are invaluable as a resource right now. As people who you have worked with before, they can vouch for your business and quality of work. Your pre-existing clients can spread the word for you, even when you cannot spread it yourself door to door. So when you finish a job, be sure to ask the client to recommend you to their friends and family or even write you a review online. These techniques can have customer after customer asking for your business. You can also reach out to former customers and ask them to review your business on a service such as Yelp or HomeAdvisor. Many past customers will be happy to do so, especially if your work made a favorable impression on them.
It’s easy to find information about current customers and connect with them if you have roofing software like AccuLynx. Since AccuLynx keeps all the information about current and former roofing jobs in our cloud-based platform, you can pull up a job file and refresh your memory about the work you did for any customer. This will help you reconnect with customers and make a more specific request when you ask them for a review. The better connection you can re-establish with former customers, the more likely it will be that they will want to review you and tell their friends about you.
Coronavirus has brought a lot of changes with it, especially when it comes to interaction with customers. However, just because you cannot meet in person does not mean you have to sacrifice the face to face interaction that your sales team depends on. Virtual meeting platforms are the name of the game right now and provide a great alternative to door knocking. You still get the face to face interaction, but you do not have to risk yourself or your potential customers in order to do so. In addition to these virtual meeting platforms, you can be pushing the use of online ads and social media, such as ads on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, to spread the word about your company and gain some new customers. Also, although you might not be able to use the traditional method of knocking door to door, you can still make use of the tried and true technique of asking customers for referrals and reviews. Personal referrals can bring in tons of business, making them a great resource right now. COVID-19 has certainly added some difficulty to gaining new customers, but by using these alternative meeting and advertising methods, you can keep business moving along.
