Whether you’ve been in business for years or are just getting started, marketing is an important component of any roofing company. Beginning or expanding your current program can be overwhelming.
In this guide, we’ll cover 87 roofing marketing ideas you can implement into your business. These tips can help you get your name out there and generate more leads. With 87 roofing marketing tips, you can easily select the ones that will work best for your team and goals.
Make it a priority to always deliver outstanding customer service.
Cultivate a friendly, reliable company presence.
Answer phone calls promptly.
Share key project updates in a timely manner.
Remember important customer details.
Set up automated reminders for customer appointments and meetings.
Place your company logo prominently on your contracts.
Why Roofing Contractors Need Marketing
You could be the most innovative roofing contractor with the best price, but without marketing, no one will know you exist. Marketing introduces your business to the world. It connects you with potential customers and shows homeowners how your services can help them. Roofing marketing builds your brand and boosts sales. In fact, 38.4% of companies say that marketing impacts revenue growth.1
Types of Roofing Marketing
When looking at the overall marketing umbrella, there are two basic types of roofing marketing strategies that your company can implement: traditional and digital marketing. Traditional marketing includes things like referral programs, door knocking, direct mail and other advertisements, as well as events. Digital marketing is as the name suggests. It’s everything digital: your website, social media, online reviews, and more.
One form of marketing is not better than the other. Rather, contractors need to take a holistic approach to their roofing marketing strategy.
Traditional Roofing Marketing Ideas
Customer Service as a Roofing Marketing Technique
When you think of the most basic marketing techniques, does customer service come to mind? If not, it should. How you treat your customers sets the stage for how your brand will be perceived and how likely customers are to recommend your services.
Customers want to work with friendly, reliable roofing contractors. Most of us understand this, and can even list what we should be doing— promptly answering phone calls, sharing key project updates, remembering important customer details. But it’s easy for these things to fall through the cracks, especially once busy season hits.
So, what’s the solution? Implementing roofing software like AccuLynx can help you manage and automate some of these efforts. AccuLynx stores customer and job information in one convenient location so you’re prepared to answer any customer questions. It’s also packed with features designed to support your customer service efforts like automated customer reminders and branded digital contracts to name a few.
Referral Based Roofing Marketing
Referral marketing is one of the best strategies that you can implement. It generates 3-5x higher conversion rates compared to other avenues and it requires relatively little effort on your part.2 Referral programs don’t need to be overly complicated or expensive. Instead, focus on targeting customers and/or vendors that align best with your market.
Customer Referral Programs
Customer referrals are the ultimate prospect. They’re familiar with your work and have spoken to someone who has actually used your services.
If you don’t have a referral program in place, you may have received one of these unicorn leads once or twice from customers who have happened to mention you. You’ll notice that these prospects already trust your brand and are easier to sell to. Plus, they’re likely to buy more as referral customers bring you a 25% profit margin on average.3
One way to drive customer referrals is to offer an incentive. This could be something like a free gutter cleaning, $250 off their next service with you, or something simple like a gift card. The value of the reward should be determined by the value of these leads.
Once you’ve established your referral bonus, it’s time to promote your program. Aside from verbally mentioning it to customers, you can include your program in your email signature, on your website, and in other roofing marketing materials.
Tools like AccuLynx can help you start a referral program. You can use the system to send automated texts or emails at specific project milestones that prompt customers to recommend your service.
Vendor Referral Programs
Vendor referrals vary from customer referrals in the sense that the relationship is more quid-pro-quo. You’ll both be passing referrals back and forth. To create a vendor referral program, start by identifying a few potential businesses that could be a good source of leads. This can include organizations like your local chamber of commerce or insurance agency.
After you’ve identified a list of potential partners, broach the idea of a referral program with a meeting, phone call, or email. You’ll want to illustrate the benefits that each partner could receive from a program.
For example, when contacting an insurance agency, you can mention that you’ll pass along homeowners who may be needing insurance, or are looking for a better price on their policy. In return, the insurance agency would send you referrals of customers in need of exterior repairs.
Third-Party Referral Sites
If you don’t have the time to create a referral program, or are intimidated by the task, you can try listing your company on referral websites. A quick Google search will turn up a number of sites related to home repairs, roofing projects, or more general queries.
The leads coming from these sites will likely be less qualified, as they aren’t being referred from an actual person, but this is a good option for roofers who need a quick and easy roofing marketing program to implement right now.
Measuring Referral Program Success
After launching your referral program, you’ll need to track its success. Business management software like AccuLynx can help you report on the success of each program. With ReportsPlus in AccuLynx, you can easily create custom reports that break down your leads and customers by lead source.
Door Knocking & Word of Mouth Roofing Marketing
If you’ve been in the roofing industry for any amount of time, chances are that you’ve knocked on a door or two. Decrease the number of “no’s” you receive by attacking your canvassing efforts with a plan.
Create a Unique Pitch
You have just a few seconds to grab someone’s attention, so you need to make sure you stand out. When pitching yourself, start by introducing yourself, illustrating a problem, and then sharing what you can do to help them. Focus on the benefit for the homeowner whether that’s mitigating safety issues, increasing the home’s value, or just fixing some cosmetic damage.
Bring Eye-Catching Marketing Materials
Your initial encounter may be short, so what you leave behind matters. You want to bring pieces that show you’re professional while also illustrating your past work. Things like business cards or pamphlets are great examples of printed materials.
Target Specific Homes
Head out with a plan! Before you leave, identify who you’re targeting and why. For example, you may want to canvass homes recently impacted by a storm or older homes in a neighborhood where you’ve previously worked.
Track Everything
When canvassing, you may knock on dozens of doors and talk to many different people. You can try to keep paper notes or remember everything in your head, but chances are high that you’ll forget at least one key detail.
We’ve already touched on some of the materials that you can leave behind, but business cards and flyers are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of advertising!
Yard Signs
Putting a simple sign with your company name and phone number can help promote your business to neighbors while turning your current project into an advertisement for future business.
Car Decals & Truck Wraps
Your company vehicle will likely be parked on the job site throughout the duration of the project. Turn it into an advertisement with truck wraps or magnetic decals. Include your company name, phone number, and website in visible places.
Direct Mail
Target specific geographic areas using direct mail. You can reach prospects located near current or past projects, or target homeowners living in older properties that may need repairs. USPS and a number of online businesses offer direct mail services. Some will even design the mailers for you!
Event-Based Roofing Marketing
Types of Roofing Marketing Events
As a roofing contractor, you can benefit from industry events as well as local ones within your service area. Events can help you better understand the roofing industry and offer you opportunities to talk through challenges and ideas with like-minded roofing professionals. Local events can help get your name out to homeowners who may need your services now or in the future.
How to Tackle an Event
Create a Plan. Regardless of the event, you’ll want to head in with a plan. Focus on what you want to get out of the event. Is it knowledge? Leads? Connections? Identify your goal and devise a way to execute.
Bring Materials. For both industry and local events, you’ll want to bring marketing materials. Business cards and pamphlets can be great resources to have on hand.
Follow Up. After the event, follow up with contacts! For industry events, connect with new contacts over email or on LinkedIn. For local events, follow up with a phone call, email, or text. Be sure to add prospect information to your CRM with relevant notes like details about their home. Consider sharing an incentive with prospects.
Digital Roofing Marketing Ideas
As you read this page, you’re engaging with digital marketing. Over 85% of Americans use the internet. What other platform gives you access to that size of an audience?!
Many marketers and business owners turn to digital marketing for its ability to reach large audiences, but many also enjoy its tracking capabilities. With digital roofing marketing you can measure email open rates, see how many people filled out your “contact us” form, and track web traffic over time. It’s easy to see how your campaigns are performing and the effect that small tweaks can have on your overall revenue.
Here are a few simple ideas of different digital marketing platforms and strategies that your business can use.
Set up a profile. You’ll want to create a business page or business profile. Upload a profile picture and cover photo. This can be something like your logo or an example of your work. Add in your contact information, a short bio or about us section, and begin posting.
Post! Now that your profile is ready, make your first post. You can share photos of past projects, highlight your services, or post a customer testimonial. Creating a weekly or monthly content calendar can ensure that you’re consistently sharing content as you grow your audience.
Google My Business
Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses to manage their online presence across Google Search and Maps. It helps customers searching in your area to find you business. You can house reviews, hours of business, details about your services, and more here.
Your website is your home base. It should house everything from basic information about your business (contact information, services offered, about your business) to project photos, blog posts, and customer testimonials. You can even give advice for homeowners or share roofing basics in a downloadable guide.
To start a website, you can contract out to a web developer or agency, or you can take a DIY approach and use popular platforms like Squarespace or WordPress.
What to Include
Like the rest of your roofing marketing strategy, you don’t need to start with an overly complicated website. Instead, focus on the basics. Your website should clearly show your company name, how to contact you, your service area, and what type of services you provide. Once you’ve nailed down the most basic information, you can expand to include photos of past projects and customer testimonials.
With a basic website, focus on graphics and clear language to help you catch a customer’s attention. Ideally, you’d use actual project photos (don’t be afraid to ask homeowners for those) but if you don’t have any on hand, check out sites like Shutterstock or iStock for stock photos. When selecting stock photos, make sure they depict the type of work that you do. You wouldn’t want to show someone doing landscape work when you only offer roofing repair services.
If you’re looking to take your website up a notch, consider adding blogging to your roofing marketing strategy. Your blog can be used in a variety of ways. You can post about projects, answer common questions, highlight team members, or share general information that would be helpful for homeowners to know. Whatever you post, it’s important to post consistently. That can be a few times a month to a few times a week. Play around with different schedules to find the ideal timing for your business.
When to Update
Check in on your website from time to time. Your website isn’t static. You can’t just create it and forget about it. Instead, a few times a year, set aside time to make sure that everything is still up to date. You may have better testimonials or new services that you offer. Make sure to update your site with that information.
Email Marketing
Email roofing marketing campaigns can help you stay in front of your target audience. With email, you can share promotions, blogs, helpful tips, and customer stories. In fact, most of the information you regularly post on your website can be repurposed into email content.
When investing in email marketing, you have plenty of options for platforms. Mailchimp and Hubspot are two that offer free email marketing options. Many platforms come prepackaged with templates that you can easily customize to fit your brand. Choose a platform, create a schedule, and build your list to get started!
You’ll also want to make sure that your profile has awesome, 5-star reviews. To get reviews on your page, reach out to customers through an email campaign. You can create an automated email within AccuLynx that prompts customers to share a review after you’ve completed service. By automating this process, you’ll be able to easily and consistently receive feedback from customers.
Taking it to the Next Level – Paid Opportunities
If you’re relatively advanced in your digital roofing marketing strategy, you may be looking for additional ways to generate leads. It could be a good time to evaluate paid opportunities like PPC advertising. PPC advertising, or pay-per-click advertising, is a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked on.
Many platforms offer this type of advertising like Google, Bing, Facebook, and YouTube just to name a few. To get started in this field, you can either take a DIY approach or hire a digital marketing agency. If you opt to go it alone, most PPC platforms offer free certification and education tracks that will help you better understand the platform and how to create ads that work. These programs will help you set up your account, create ads, identify objectives, and launch your roofing marketing campaigns.
One Tool to Boost Your Roofing Marketing Efforts
With 87 unique roofing marketing ideas, it can be overwhelming to start or add to your company’s marketing efforts, especially if you don’t know what’s already working. Business management software like AccuLynx gives you the tools to track, automate, and execute your efforts.
Reporting
Track company performance and drill down into specific marketing data with built-in reporting capabilities in AccuLynx. This includes pre-built and custom reports so that you can see the data that matters to you, like the lead source report. This can help you clearly understand the most valuable lead sources, identify opportunities for growth, and narrow in on what’s not working. AccuLynx can help you assess your marketing budget so that you can put more money towards what’s working and stop funding anything that’s not.
Automations
With the Automation Manager in AccuLynx, you can set up automated messages that are triggered by events, such as a text message reminder to a homeowner the day before a scheduled meeting, a welcome email when a contact is moved from a prospect to a customer, or a notification to your team members when a material order is delivered.
Instead of spending hours composing messages and double-checking whether a contact has already heard from you, you can set up automations in just a few minutes and see a full record of your automated messages in the AccuLynx job file.
Texting
Send and receive text messages in AccuLynx with our powerful SMS tools. Our automated and two-way texting features let you connect with team members and customers while storing everything in the system you already use to manage your business. Use texting to increase your customer service or prompt a review.
Photo Sharing
Easily capture and upload project photos directly on site with the mobile Camera App. Aside from simplifying the job documentation process, this app can help you store, manage, and edit project photos that can be later used in marketing materials, like on your website or in a testimonial.
Track Everything
Track Everything
Social Media
Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, and LinkedIn are among some of the most popular social media platforms. Your roofing business doesn’t need to be on all of these sites in order to be successful. Instead, start small and focus on one or a few platforms to start.
How to Set Up Your Social Media Presence
Google My Business
Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses to manage their online presence across Google Search and Maps. It helps customers searching in your area to find you business. You can house reviews, hours of business, details about your services, and more here.
To get started, set up a free business profile and add in your information.