Is Your Email Address Causing you to Lose Roofing Jobs?

My email address is Chris@RoofPal.com. Based on that alone, if you had to guess the number of employees who work at RoofPal, would you estimate it is a large, medium or small business?

As you interact with potential customers, often your email address becomes visible - in the email you send, on your social media profile, on your business card, on your website, etc. Depending on the kind of customer you are looking to attract, the way your company structures email addresses could be sending the wrong impression.

Scenario

Let's say you are a commercial roofing contractor and are trying to get work with a large property management company that makes capital improvement decisions on several shopping centers and professional buildings in your metropolitan area. The property manager wants to know that your roofing company is competent and capable enough to handle the business you are asking for.

The Problem with Your Email Address

If your email address is Bob@TheRoofPros.com (or God forbid something like TheRoofPros@gmail.com) and the guy from the other roofing company trying to get that same work has the email address Jim.Smith@SuperRoofers.com, if you both are recommending the same systems at a similar cost, the final major category of consideration would be capability. The property manager who will make the decision as to which roofing contractor to award the business might (even subconsciously) wonder if The Roof Pros has enough roofers and backoffice staff to adequately support this increased volume of work.

Perception Issue

What most property managers likely don't know is that the in-the-field roofers themselves typically make up the largest % of headcount and don't typically have a company-issued email address. Most single-state or regional roofing contractors don't have enough backoffice personnel (those who typically are the ones with company-issued email addresses) to require first and last name email naming standards unless there are a couple people with the same first name. It doesn't matter that they don't know this - if his or her perception is that you are a small roofing contractor and the other guy is a medium or large roofing contractor, then the assumption will likely be that either you aren't big enough to handle all this new work, or you do have enough people ready to take it on, but only because you have little else to work on right now (neither is a perception you want). I'm not saying that is true, but you may spend unnecessary time disproving this perception and in some cases may not get a job (or even the opportunity to bid a job) simply because of this perception.

The Solution

To eliminate this perception, the easiest strategy is to simply issue company email addresses using both first and last name - even if you only have 3 people with company-issued email addresses. If you are reading this blog post and have the first name only email address issue, I would recommend speaking with the person who manages your email accounts about setting up first and last name accounts and linking them to your first name only accounts. It will take some time to get those who already have your first name only account to update their contact list (or you can just use both and have one forward to the other), but the short-term pain should be worth it in the end if you can avoid losing a big job in the future because the perception is your roofing company is "too small".

Questions?

If you have any questions about this blog post or would like to discuss roofing marketing strategy concepts in detail, please email me at Chris@RoofPal.com (yes, RoofPal is a very small company - if you are looking for a large, expensive marketing firm you might want to look elsewhere).

Internal Linking on your Website and Blog is Critical for SEO

In terms of search engine optimization (SEO), internal linking on your roofing website and blog is absolutely critical.

Here are four reasons why doing a good job at this is so valuable to a roofing contractor:

1. Internal linking tells Google, Yahoo! and Bing that you think your own webpage you are linking to contains valuable content. If you aren't endorsing your own content, why should anyone else do it?

2. Internal linking enhances the visitor's experience on your website. Leading home/building owners and property/facility managers to other related content and information will give them all the information they need that you have to offer.

3. Internal linking reduces your bounce rate. When someone views a page on your website, giving them additional pages to link to will keep bounce rate at a minimum since they aren't going to one page and leaving. This helps your pages rank better in search results.

4. Internal linking improves indexing. Google and other search engine bots can easily travel from one page to the next, contributing to that web page being indexed quicker than normal. Again, this helps your pages rank better in search results.

There are two major types of internal links. First are in-content links, which are links in the page that lead to other related pages on your website or blog. Second are navigation links, which are related keywords and categories for your pages which are usually listed in a navigation-style sidebar or header/footer.

Every page on your roofing website and blog is its own entity. In the SEO world, that means every page must have its own keywords that tells search engines what it is about. Many blogs prompt you to add keywords so searchers looking for content on a specific topic know that your page is relevant to their search.

Establish internal linking when you create the page
For in-content links, I recommend incorporating those in your new web page or blog post for any words you use to similar content throughout your website and blog as you create it. Upon publication, your next step should be to build at least two internal links coming in to the new page or post from your existing pages where there is a natural fit.

I recommend you set up navigation links as part of your website framework (so they appear on all pages).

Can you have too many internal links?
Too much of anything is bad. Having no internal links is obviously not good, and having too many isn't good either (you need to strike a balance).

A general rule of thumb is 1-5 internal links per 500 words, so if you have a 1,500 word blog post you should have 3-15 links. It is not recommended to link multiple words to the same page, but sometimes it is helpful if that page you want to link to have multiple extremely relevant keywords.

If you have any questions about internal linking or search engine optimization, or would like help with creating roofing website content or blogging, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

20 Ways to Promote Your Roofing Facebook Fan Page

How are you spreading the word about your Facebook page?
Your fan page can be one of a roofing company's best sources of customer interaction and lead generation. The only problem is making people aware of it. You definitely need to educate your customers and potential customers on how to find you on Facebook.

To help you out, below is a list of 20 different ways to promote your Facebook page. Even if you only do a few of these things, you should start to get more fans and begin to increase your return on time invested.

1. Put your fan page URL in your email signature. How many emails do you send every day? That is how many chances you have for someone new to find out about your page. Free publicity!
2. Write a blog post about your new fan page. Give your blog readers five compelling reasons why they should join your fan page (tell them about the kinds of information you share on your page).
3. Tag well-trafficked fan pages in your status updates. Fans of those popular pages your target customers visit (that are at least semi-relevant) might see your page and click over, giving you some additional cross-traffic.
4. Ask your Twitter followers to join your fan page. Give some compelling reasons why your Twitter followers should join your Facebook community. If Twitter is the new water cooler, think of your fan page as an invitation to come in and chat. Maybe Tweet something like "Want more conversation than 140 characters will allow? Join us on Facebook at ” and leave the URL to your fan page.
5. Invest in Facebook ads. They are a lot easier than you might think and you can spend as little or as much as you want. You can pinpoint fairly accurately the demographic you are targeting.
6. Put a Facebook fan page widget on your blog and website. Have your website developer put a basic widget on your website and blog that automatically displays the last 5 or so Facebook status updates from your fan page. Visitors will see this content and a) know that you have a page and how to find it, and b) get a sense of the kind of information they have been missing out on.
7. Customize your fan page URL. Vanity URLs are a fantastic way to make your fan page memorable. For example, my Facebook page URL is http://www.facebook.com/RoofPal.
8. Put your fan page URL on your business cards. Combine offline and online by letting the people you meet in real life know about your fan page.
9. Put a link on your personal Facebook profile. You can put a link to your company fan page under the “Links” section of your personal page. This may remind your friends and family to share the link to your company page with their Facebook friends.
10. Leverage the power of your team. Ask everyone in your company put the link to your company fan page link on their personal profile.
11. Ask your Facebook fans to post a link. Simply ask all of your current Facebook fans to post a link to your company page on their personal profile. As long as you don’t ask this often, often times people are willing to help you out. This becomes a personal recommendation, or word-of-mouth advertising (the very best kind).
12. Put a tag in your YouTube videos. If you make compelling videos as a part of your content marketing strategy, throw in a well-timed Facebook fan page link at the end of your YouTube videos.
13. Put your Facebook fan page URL on your Twitter profile background. Many people still use the web-based version of Twitter, and your profile background is a prime piece of internet real estate. Cross-advertise and use one social network to promote another!
14. QR Codes for your page. Create a QR Code that takes people directly to your Facebook fan page and use that code in your marketing, stationary, email signature lines, etc. If you aren't sure what a QR Code is or how to create one, please read the article I published, titled QR Codes for roofing contractors.
15. Actually use your Facebook fan page. Use the “Tell Your Fans” feature on Facebook. With the tools built in, Facebook allows you to import a contact file or import your contacts from your email account. This is particularly good for when you’re just starting out and want to tell people you already know.
16. Add a Like box. Place a Like box in your blog and website sidebar so people can "Like" your content automatically when they are signed in to Facebook and browsing the web.
17. Use targeted keywords in a Google AdWords campagin. Use a keyword-based ad and direct people to your fan page. This is like Facebook Ads on steroids. If you’ve never used AdWords before, it’s fairly straightforward. Google the term AdWords to set this up.
18. Redirect your webinar guests to your Facebook fan page. If you use GoToWebinar, you can choose to send registrants to a URL of your choice after they sign up. This is where you can direct them right to your Facebook fan page.
19. Put your Facebook fan page URL in your Keynote or PowerPoint presentations. When you present, the last slide can be your contact information, complete with your company's Facebook fan page vanity URL. Most people are already on Facebook, so it’s a no-brainer to give them an easy way to connect with you.
20. Invite all of your friends. Facebook automatically suggests people and pages based on the connections and Likes of your friends. The more of your friends who Like your Facebook fan page, the more their friends will have your page recommended to them without you lifting a finger.

These are just some examples. What are some of the most interesting ways you’ve seen people or businesses promote their fan page? Let me know in the comments box below and share what you have found.

Why Email and Direct Mail Campaigns Fail (and What to Do Differently Next Time)

Direct mail has the potential to reach people that are difficult to or simply cannot be reached online, but it costs money and the response rates are typically low.

Email marketing is immediate and inexpensive, but open and click-through rates are often low and if done poorly can flag your domain as spam to ISP's. So what do you do?

If you have experienced failure in direct mail or email marketing campaigns, it is likely a result of a combination of factors:

You are targeting the wrong prospects. The most critical factor for successful email and direct mail marketing is targeting people who match the profiles of your best customers. Marketing to people who don't have a strong interest in what you have to offer (or don't have the authority to purchase) is a waste of time and money.

Your message doesn't stand out. When potential customers are sorting their mail, size definitely matters. Small postcards are cheap to print and send, but they are also more likely to be dwarfed by the larger pieces of mail. To make sure your direct mail isn't thrown away without being looked at, think big. Oversized postcards are more expensive to print and send, but they are more likely to get noticed.

Me, me, me! Your message should be focused on what you think they should know about you - focus on what's in it for them and why they should care.

My name isn't John. If you have the recipient's name listed incorrectly (or flat-out wrong), it will immediately be deleted or go into the shredder. Personalization is a great way to make messages more effective, but for God's sake make sure you have the names right!

Boring! Interactive isn't just for digital media. Direct mail pieces can slide, unfold and open to create an experience for the recipient. Interaction gives the recipient a reason to engage with your direct mail piece.

Bad timing. Often, timing can be everything. Receiving your marketing piece just as there is a need for your product or service can significantly impact their purchasing decision. Since you can't always predict when that is, frequency (within reason) is your best bet to keep you top-of-mind and stimulate action. If you send an email or postcard about emergency roof leak repairs two months before a storm hits, there is no urgency. If you have your campaign ready to go out the day before a massive rainstorm, monsoon or hurricane they will receive your message exactly when they have a need.

Shotgun approach (blast messaging). Smart direct marketers know how to target who exactly gets their emails and direct mail pieces by more than just geography or location. Develop and then use real analytics with your list. Everything you know about your current and potential customers should go into a searchable database that you can use to segment your list based on the message you are about to send.

One and done. It takes more than one email or postcard for you to get noticed. Send out different messages with unique offers in different formats to become memorable and non-repetitive.

No sense of urgency. Put an expiration on your offer four to six weeks after they receive it to create a sense of urgency.

More is less. Don't write a novel or make the reader work to figure out your message. Going through the mail and reading unsolicited emails is not the highlight anyone's day. You have an extremely limited amount of time to get someone's attention, so get to the point.

If you have sent out unsuccessful direct mail or email campaigns before, here is the order of importance to figure out what went wrong and correct your mistake(s) the next time:

1. Improve your list. Make sure you are targeting the right people and that names are correct (and spelled correctly).

2. Improve your content. Get to the point with a well-written, easy to read, relevant, compelling, time-sensitive offer that the reader quickly understands what the value is to them.

3. Improve the physical look. Make sure the look of your email or direct mail piece looks professional, is appropriate for what you are communicating, and is well designed.

If you have any questions about direct mail or email marketing, would like feedback on a campaign you are about to launch (or recently launched) or would like assistance planning your next campaign, please email RoofPal@gmail.com. We can help you build and improve your mailing list, actually write the content and/or design and coordinate printing of the physical piece for you.

Why You Should Blog

Simply having a static webpage and social media presence is no longer enough in today's rapidly changing digital world of marketing - you now also need to blog!

A website may be an important component of your online presence, but it doesn't engage your customers and can be cumbersome to keep updated. Social media is great for building relationships and trust, but you are limited to the depth of information you can post at one time. Alternatively, a blog enables you to easily update your website with fresh, relevant content and engage your customers (and can be shared via social media to attract readers back to your website).

Similar to social media, customers can leave comments on a blog which you can respond to. But unlike a status update, the discussion is centered around a specific, detailed topic that you have shaped and encourages ongoing community conversation and debate far after the post was uploaded.

Some business owners are concerned about the time it takes to properly maintain a blog. The good news is that a blog can actually take the place of many of your existing static pages, and they become interactive (not "brochure material"). Blogs can also be easily integrated into your static website as a dynamic component, giving you the best of both worlds. Blog posts don't have to (and shouldn't) just come from your marketing department - your employees who are experts at various components of your company should be encouraged to write blog posts (published with management review and approval, of course).

A blog enables you to attract new customers, build brand awareness and compel more prospective customers to buy from you. There are also great search engine optimization (SEO) benefits when using a blog. Due to its dynamic nature, a properly set up blog can attract twice the visitors your website can, and blogs get indexed by search engines like Google 4x more often than static websites.

My challenge to you is to set up a blog today and post something - almost anything, just to get started. RoofPal uses Blogger.com partly because it is free, but mostly because it is owned by Google (and I assume as a result, Blogger.com blogs are indexed more frequently and ranked higher in search results).

If you have any questions about blogging or would like assistance setting up and even managing your company's blog, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

Stop Selling! Social Media is for Creating Relationships Through Communities

Social media marketing must be approached very different than traditional marketing. You should not login with the intent to sell your roofing products or hail storm repair services - instead, you should login to create relationships through communities. If people feel you are part of their community they will support you and recommend you to their peers, colleagues and friends. Word-of-mouth marketing at its very best!

Here are 6 simple tips to get you started on creating relationships using social media:

Dedicate Resources
Building relationships in social media requires resources (both time and people). You need to dedicate the time of a person (or team of people) who are responsible for communicating with your network. This person (or persons) should read status updates/Tweets, read blogs, manage friend lists, write comments, join groups, upload photos, participate in forums, write blog posts, field questions, etc. - in other words, be active.

Be Real
Building relationships in social media requires trust. Be yourself, and let your employees be who they are as representatives of your company. Building fake profiles, writing fake reviews and blogs, lying about who you really are, etc. are pointless activities and a waste of time. Don’t underestimate the intelligence of your connections - they can smell a fake a mile away and will crucify you when you are found out.

Communicate Early & Often
It doesn't matter if you send email newsletters, write blog postings, update your status, send a Tweet, or post to a group discussion, be sure you are communicating. By communicating early you can get a jump start on topics that are hot in the industry and respond to them a lot earlier than your competitors. Communicating often helps to build relationships with your audience that they can trust you will be there and will inform them of the valuable information they need or are looking.

Get Involved
Don’t just post links to your blog posts, website pages or press releases. People will start to ignore you because it’s not a two-way conversation. Get involved with your community - if people are looking for assistance, point them in the right direction. If someone posts something funny, interesting or personal, Like it, comment on it, re-Tweet it, etc. That will gain you much more respect rather than slapping a link to your website that isn’t related to what they asked.

Reward Your Audience
As much as you are involved in building relationships in social media, so is everyone you are connected to. Your audience is also spending time and effort to post updates, leave comments, write blog posts, do research to answer questions, establish new connections, and so on. Reward them for their time and effort by personally thanking them for doing so.

Remember to Listen
Building a relationship requires that you listen more and talk less. As much as you want to spend time promoting your products and services, that is the last thing you should do on social media. This forum offers a unique opportunity for you to get real reactions, learn about real issues or problems as well as successes straight from your customers’ perspectives without the stigma of a focus group where people think they need to give you the answers you want to hear. It is amazing what you can learn just by listening to what your customers are saying. Take the time to read their posts, the comments they leave on your blog, their Tweets, what they say in reviews, etc.

If you have any questions about this blog post or would like to discuss strategies for improving your social media marketing, please contact Chris@RoofPal.com.

Roofing Customers are Extensions of your Marketing Department

People trust the opinions of their friends much more than corporate marketing messages, hence the growth of social media networks such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+, Foursquare, and so on.

In fact, a recent AdAge study found that 90% of American consumers trust recommendations from people they know and that 70% trust recommendations of general consumer opinions posted online.

I began thinking this morning about how personal recommendations relate to the roofing industry... and I came up with an idea!

Because of what I do, I happen to see a lot of the content that roofing contractors post on social media. Most of it is sell-sell-sell posts and links with the occasional pictures of jobs in progress or recently completed. BORING! On my personal social media accounts I don't follow any contractors because there is almost no content shared that is value-added for me, let alone anything I would care to share with the rest of my network. But I know that there could be.

On Facebook for example, I almost never see contractors tagged in their customers' posts, photos, or videos. Why is this? My guess is it is a combination of a) we don't ask them to, and b) they don't have anything interesting to post about us. Essentially roofers do their job, leave, and send the customer an invoice. What's the fun in that for the homeowner, property/facility manager or building owner? Nothing. So here's an idea: give your customers content they could share and ask them to do so.

All roofing contractors (and especially residential roofing contractors) can get their customers to become extensions of their marketing department by doing a few simple things that could go a long way. Here is a simple 4-step recipe for engaging your customers on social media and getting some free advertising through personal recommendations (the best kind of marketing):

1. Take at least 5-10 pictures of every job you do. There should be before, during and after shots - as well as a few from interesting angles (from vantage points the customer wouldn't see from the ground).
2. Take 3+ videos (30-60 seconds in length) of every job you do. Videos should give the viewer a "peek behind the curtain" of what was found (i.e., why you are doing roofing work), an idea of exactly what you did, and how it turned out.
3. Email only the best pictures and the videos to the customer(s) of each job with a simple note thanking them for their business, asking them for feedback, and letting them know you thought they might enjoy seeing exactly what was done and how it all turned out. Give a brief description of each picture and video and then encourage them to share those photos and videos on Facebook, Twitter, etc. using the descriptions you have provided (and to tag you in them). If you aren't connected online with them already, provide them with links to the pages of the networks you participate on and ask them to send you an invitation to connect (so they can tag you, and so that you have a newly established ongoing connection).
4. Once you are notified that you have been tagged in content they shared, acknowledge their efforts by "Liking", leaving a positive comment, re-Tweeting, etc.

Not all of your customers will do this, but even if just 10% did wouldn't that be a huge improvement in obtaining personal recommendations that you never had before? For the minimal investment of time required to do this, I think it is definitely worth trying. My challenge for you is to do this consistently for the next 60 days. Then please come back and leave a comment on this blog post and let everyone know how it worked for you. Worst case, you will show your customers that you care enough to follow-up and share with them details of what was done, which is much more personal and thoughtful than just sending them a bill.

If you have any questions about this blog post or would like assistance in implementing a strategy to get your customers to become an extension of your marketing department, please email Chris@RoofPal.com. I would be more than happy to discuss this with you. Best of luck!

8 Ways to Improve Collaboration in the Roofing Industry

You and your employees/co-workers all work for the same company and share common business goals (revenue, profits, jobs per month, etc.), but your drastically different individual roles (and in some cases different offices or locations) can easily prevent you from coming together and collaborating. The perspectives of colleagues in different functions like service/repair, new construction, project management, marketing, accounting, estimating, etc. may prove to be valuable though.

Collaboration is an essential business activity that is often overlooked in the roofing industry. The bottom line is that the employees of your company can not operate effectively in individual silos - they need to work seamlessly across the various functions. Leadership should ensure employees are working across functions to accomplish the company's goals and put less emphasis on organizational structure and hierarchy.

One thing to keep in mind is that when it comes to collaboration, more is not better. There is a right way to collaborate and a wrong way to collaborate. My challenge to you is to figure out and implement the right way to do this for your particular company.

To get you started, here are some tips on getting collaboration right:

1. Collaboration is not about gaining consensus. Encourage debate among everyone involved, but make sure you have defined decision-making responsibilities.
2. Not all collaboration is good. Ensure the benefits outweigh any potential costs (like time and resources).
3. Don't reinvent the wheel! Leverage your network (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or even ask RoofPal to survey annonymously on your behalf) to see if similar work has already been done elsewhere.
4. Recognize where you'll get the greatest value from collaboration. Three key areas to focus on include innovation, customers and efficiency.
5. Build your network out further. Come up with ideas for 'building bridges' into different geographies, industry functions or related businesses.
6. Share goals across other functions of your company to identify where you can combine efforts to create mutual value.
7. Create a shared goal that is simple, concrete and stirs passion.
8. Recognize and reward. Everything from a simple 'thank you' to a happy hour or lunch with the boss to your annual employee review/bonus process are ways you can reinforce the value of collaboration.

If you have any questions about or would like assistance with improving collaboration in your roofing company, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.