Social media helps test email subject lines to improve open and click rates

If you are looking to improve the open and click-through rates of emails your roofing company sends to out, one idea to increase the likelihood of success is to use social media to test out potential subject lines.

Email subject lines are a major influence on whether or not someone even opens an email in the first place. They can either entice someone to click it or prompt them to delete it completely unread - or even worse, clicking the dreaded SPAM button (for more on preventing people from flagging your emails as SPAM, please see my blog post titled "Reduce Spam Reports of your Marketing Emails").

I recommend before you send out a mass email or newsletter, test potential subject lines with your connections on social media. Using a URL shortening service like bitly, Google or TinyURL, post multiple times in a close period of time to the exact same page but each time have a different description or "title" to the link, and have each one use its own unique shortened URL to the destination page so you can track in your analytics which one got you the most clicks.

For example, here are Tweets for one of my own recent blog posts:

• 5 specific things to do that will help you get new #roofing customers from your social media accounts: http://t.co/kLDg3dNQ
• How you can get new #roofing customers from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn: http://t.co/kLDg3dNQ
• 5 specific ways to get new #roofing customers from social media: http://t.co/4FSs68cN [blog post]

Each of these links go to the exact same blog post, but in my blog analytics tool I can see exactly how many clicks came from each unique subject line/link combination. The one that ultimately performs the best will be what I base an upcoming RoofPal eNews email campaign subject line and podcast title on.

For your experiment, the one that resonates most with your social media connections in terms of a significantly higher amount of click-through's is going to likely be your best candidate for your actual email campaign.

This strategy works particularly well on Twitter where people are used to seeing Tweets that lead them to click a link, but you can do the same thing on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or any other social media platforms you participate on.

If you decide to try this out, let me know how it goes for you. If you would like additional help planning this out or even executing it, please feel free to email Chris@RoofPal.com. Best of luck!

2012 Marketing Campaign Planning Tips for Roofing Contractors



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If you haven't already, it is time to begin planning your 2012 marketing campaigns.

One aspect roofing contractors might not always consider is timing. When is the best time to put up a billboard? When is the best time to mail out a postcard? When should you send out email communications?

A tool I always find helpful is Google Insights. This handy offering allows you to dig in to when people search for very specific terms. Whether your campaign is digital or print, knowing when people are interested in what product or service you are offering is extremely valuable. Here's another helpful hint: don't launch marketing campaigns when people get interested - time it to be delivered just before they are so your brand is in their minds when the need arises.

The United States search history over the past 3 years for the term "roofing" demonstrates that people consistently most search for that term during quarters 2 and 3 (April through September). When is the best time to launch your marketing campaigns? I would say February or March, right as the ramp-up of search begins (circled in red).

Go down further in the tool and you'll see geographically where the term is most searched. The middle section of the picture in this post shows that Oklahoma has the highest interest for the term "roofing" (you can drill down to the state(s) you do business in to make this relevant).

Click on your state and you'll see an even more granular geographic detail as well as the top search terms and the search terms that are more recently quickly rising. Are you using these terms as SEO bait on your website, blog, tweets, Facebook posts, etc.? If not, you should be as this is what people in your geographic region type in when trying to find information about roofing.

Feel free to type in any term you want this data for, and specify the timeframe you want to look at (I suggest at least 3 years to get a full sense of the trend). Drill down until you are seeing the relevant data for the region(s) you serve.

If you have any questions about or would like help with marketing campaigns or search insights for your geographic area, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

Idea: Start a Social Media Recap Newsletter

According to a recent report by Sysomos, the average length of a tweet’s effectiveness is about 3 hours, with 92% of re-tweet's happening in the first hour or not at all. What this means is that if those you are connected to on social media don't see what you post soon after you post it, they likely won't. We are simply connected to too many people on social media. So how do you get more value out of all the hard work you put in to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, blogging, etc.? An email newsletter recapping the best of what you've shared over the past week!

First of all, make sure that you are creating and sharing content of value to your audience. Next, use whatever methods you have available to you to aggregate your social media activities. Once you have a selection of content that’s worth sharing again, set up an email newsletter that is devoted solely to sharing this content. And of course you can use a small amount of space in that newsletter for promotion of your other marketing efforts as well.

Weekly may or may not be the right frequency for you. Depending on how much you share valuable content, try daily, weekly, or even monthly — whatever makes sense. The point is that social media attention span is short and continues to diminish. There are days that no matter how valuable your content is, your audience simply isn’t able to pay attention because they are on vacation, busy doing other things, everyone else is over-posting, etc. But using email to close the loop and get them your content in another way is a simple, easy way to maximize the value of the time you are putting in to social media.

If you have any question about this blog post or would like help creating an email newsletter campaign, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

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).

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.

Reduce Spam Reports of your Marketing Emails

What is the worst button in the world - the one button you don’t ever want your customers to press? The "Report Spam" button when they receive an email from you.

The moment anyone presses this button, it automatically begins to drastically affect your ability to deliver communications to all of your customers. Subscribers who press this button endanger your entire email marketing campaign and the whole list ongoing.

How do you prevent this behavior?
Make unsubscribing easy and obvious! This is deeply counterintuitive to most of us. It is even offensive to some; having worked so hard to build up their lists over time. They ask why they should make it easy for people to diminish the results of their efforts.

Here is the bottom line: someone who doesn’t want to receive emails from you for any reason will take the easiest way out of getting email from you going forward. If your unsubscribe option isn’t obvious, they’ll just flag you as spam and put your entire list in jeopardy. Make it easy and obvious to opt-out, and people will press the “report spam” button a lot less frequently.

Besides, offering a way to unsubscribe from an email list is the law. Making it easy to do this means that yes, you will lose a little bit of your list but you are guaranteed to retain the people who want to receive email from you and preserve the quality of your reputation.

If you continue to provide value in your email communications, you’ll be able to make unsubscribing easy without significantly reducing the size of your list, and you’ll keep your subscribers away from touching "the worst button in the world".

If you have any questions about this topic or would like to discuss it further, feel free to email me at Chris@RoofPal.com.