Conducting effective lead generation is no walk in the park. It will take time and hard work; When done right, your brand will be seeing the benefits for many years to come.
Follow these 8 simple tips to ensure you beat out the competition and bring in more roofing leads in 2022.
8 Ways To Generate Roofing Leads
1. No Leads? Create a StoryBrand!
If you haven’t gone through the StoryBrand exercise, you should really consider it prior to making any marketing moves for next year. The StoryBrand comes from Donald Miller and is an exercise in helping to clarify your messaging. While at a glance, roofing services are fairly simple, there are plenty of nuances to the industry. Going through the StoryBrand exercise is a great way to make sure that you’re marketing to the right people with the right message.
There are StoryBrand workshops you can pay for. But, if you don’t want to pay for that, reading or listening to the book and going through the brand script (which you can find in this article) will get the job done too.
Every business owner should, in some capacity, become familiar with StoryBrand, as it will be the foundation for all your marketing strategies. If you don’t have a clear, powerful message, your lead generation will not improve in 2022.
2. Differentiate Your Services
In addition to figuring out your messaging, you also need to figure out how to better differentiate yourself from the competition. There are likely many, many different roofers that are nearby and cater to the exact same homeowners like you. For this reason, you have to do some soul-searching and find out what makes you unique. This can be one key differentiator (like offering solar) or multiple smaller ones (local, family-owned, offering a wide range of products, and can do storm damage services).
Typically, having one or two key ways in which you can differentiate your services is better than a bunch of smaller ones, as it’s easier to articulate in your marketing and lead generation efforts. But the bottom line here is that you need to find some way to separate yourself from all the other roofing companies out there. Otherwise, it’s going to be damn near impossible to improve your lead gen numbers if you come off as the “same old, same old.”
3. Build a Solid Network of Peers and Others Within the Industry
Don’t be afraid to get to know your competition or other service providers within the home improvement/construction industry. Here’s why: referrals. By building a solid network of peers and others within the roofing industry, you can easily get more leads while doing minimal work on your part. Here’s how it works:
You reach out to a home remodeler to grab some coffee and chat about business. You show them how professional your business is and that the quality of your work is unmatched. That home remodeler then gets a client who wants to redo their siding. But, halfway through the project, they decide that their roof could use an overhaul as well. Because you’re on good terms with the remodeler, they recommend you to their client, and you get the job.
The same can be said for networking with a direct competitor, as long as you offer slightly different services. For example, if you network with a roofer that doesn’t offer GAF shingles, but you do, that would make for a great pairing. If they ever have a potential client that decides they want to go with GAF, your roofing peer can refer you.
There are certainly some roofers out there that don’t like to mingle with the competition, and that’s fine. But, there are plenty of roofers that do want to share their knowledge as well as refer homeowners to other respected roofers. This type of networking helps build up the industry.
4. Figure Out How to Qualify Your Leads
It might be crazy to say that there is such a thing as “too many leads,” but that is an issue that many roofers run into. However, the problem isn’t so much the number of leads, but rather the quality of the leads.
Perhaps you’re killing it in the marketing department, and you keep getting all sorts of leads from homeowners. However, when you meet with the homeowners, you find that the services they require don’t fall under the services you provide. So, you’ve wasted your time following up on a lead that turned out to be a bust.
For reasons like this, it’s important to find ways to qualify your leads. One of the best ways to do this is by making your services crystal clear on your website. In addition, on the contact form submission on your website, consider including qualifiers.
For example, have potential clients fill out where they are located, the size of their home, and what their budget is. In addition, have them explicitly say what the service is they require. If there are any other qualifiers that apply to your business, include those as well. This will ensure you can easily decipher which leads are worth following up on, and which you should reply with a “sorry, we’re not equipped to handle your needs” email or phone call.
5. Make Sure Your Website is Up to Snuff
Your lead capture forms are a huge part of your website, but it isn’t the only section of your site that should be optimized. According to a recent study, 75% of website users make judgments about the credibility of a company based on the visual design of the business’ website. Therefore, consider spending some of that lead generation budget towards revamping your website if it needs to be cleaned up.
Now, it doesn’t have to be an extremely expensive site that starts from the ground up (although that is a smart decision, especially when it comes to the long-term success of your business). Instead, it can just be cleaned up a bit.
That study referenced earlier outlined 10 tips for improving your website to make it more engaging and improving the conversion rate of users:
- Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.
- Show that there’s a real organization behind your site.
- Highlight the expertise in your roofing business.
- Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site (accreditations, partners, sponsors).
- Make it easy to contact your business.
- Design the site to look professional (doesn’t need to be extremely modern or cutting-edge, just clean and seamless).
- Make your site easy to use.
- Update your site’s content regularly.
- Use restraint on promotional content, focus on the consumers’ needs, and addressing them.
- Avoid errors like typos and grammar mistakes.
Try and hit as many of those as you can with your website before 2022 to kick off the New Year on the right foot and set yourself up for more leads. Many smaller companies tend to undervalue the importance of a high-quality website. However, every business, regardless of its size, can benefit from a strong website. This includes other digital marketing initiatives like social media, SEO (search engine optimization), and PPC Ads (pay-per-click). This brings us to our next tip…
6. Consider PPC Ads + Other Digital Marketing Strategies
Many roofers are stuck in the past when it comes to their lead generation strategies. Whether it’s going door to door or paying for radio ads, there is plenty of time and money wasted on marketing efforts that never pan out.
Today, digital marketing is one of the best ways to bring in new leads while directly seeing your ROI on these strategies. Whether it’s Pay-Per-Click ads to organic SEO, or something else, if you’re not implementing digital marketing today, you’re in danger of falling behind the pack.
Curious about learning more info on PPC and SEO? Check out these helpful guides here:
7. Get Listed on Quality Roofing Directories
In line with SEO and PPC, finding reputable roofing directories to get your roofing business listed on is a surefire way to bring in more leads next year. Roofing directories allow you to be seen by your exact target audience while requiring very minimal work on your part.
When looking for a roofing directory to get your business on, make sure they don’t just allow anyone and everyone on their list. If there are low-quality roofers on the directory, your services will be associated with them, which is not what you want.
Instead, you want to get on a directory that only has the best of the best. For example, the Roofing Insights Directory has strict criteria that must be met by every roofer that makes the list. We believe in our brand and the quality that comes with it, so we don’t want to bring our brand down by associating ourselves with low-quality roofers. We also wanted to create a directory that high-quality roofers could use to ensure that the same doesn’t happen to them.
8. Start Your Application Process Today!
If you think your roofing company is the best of the best, reach out to us today to start the application process by texting “DIRECTORY” to 612-254-9849. If accepted to the directory, you can expect the leads to come rushing in.
Check Out Our Educational Roofing Blog!
And there you have it. Follow most—if not all—of these lead generation tips, and you’ll be on your way to record-breaking sales. Don’t forget to check out the rest of our blog, especially the educational/lead generation section, for more marketing-related tips and advice!
Good luck in the upcoming year and happy roofing!
