5 specific ways to get new roofing customers from social media

There are several books and probably tens of thousands of web pages and blog posts vaguely describing concepts about converting social media connections to customers. I thought I would cut through the crap and give you 5 specific things to do that will help you get new roofing customers from your social media accounts.

Certainly there are plenty more things you can (and should) be doing to attract new business, but  this is what I came up with on a Monday morning. I hope you try at least one of these today (and if you do, please leave a comment below with a link).

1. Search for new customers

On Twitter, especially when it is raining and after a big storm, do an advanced search for key terms such as "roof is leaking", "roof leak", "need a roofer", "recommend a roofer", "recommend a roofing", etc. within the appropriate radius (i.e., your service area) of the city you are based in.

Reply to their Tweet with something like "Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help. Feel free to call ... or email ... to schedule a quick repair to stop the damage."

2. Post interesting pictures

On Facebook, posts with pictures drive twice as much engagement as text-only posts. I would recommend creating an Instagram, Flickr or similar photo sharing account, then post the best ones to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and any other social platform you are participating on. Explain what the picture is of, and why you think it is interesting.

3. Make each social media platform different

Don't post the exact same things to Facebook as you do on Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn. Once people begin to notice, most will only follow you on one platform since there is no difference anyway. Define the purpose of each platform for your company and use it accordingly.

For me, LinkedIn is about finding new connections based on job title, industry, company name, etc. I use Twitter to share links and re-Tweet pictures of the work other contractors are doing that day. Facebook is a mix of pictures, blog posts, samples of work I am doing for other contractors, etc. I use Google+ purely for SEO benefits to my website and blog, so everything is about keyword optimization for sharing links to posts and pages.

I also reference what I'm doing on other platforms with a link. For example, on Twitter I posted recently: "On Facebook we have a good discussion about #roofing door hangers going on: http://vsb.li/R0K9mx" to entice people to check out the conversation, and if they aren't already connected with me on Facebook hopefully they would see there is something different going on there and send me a friend request. I do this kind of thing on all platforms periodically to attract cross-platform connections because some people are more willing to engage in certain ways and I want to make sure I have the opportunity to do so.

4. Be personable

Regardless of the platform, do not be robotic with your posts or responses to what others are posting. It is perfectly OK for people to visualize a real person posting updates or responding to questions.

Take the time to post originally (not from auto-posting services), Like a status, Re-Tweet, +1, and otherwise comment on things that people post (even if it has nothing to do with roofing). Social media is as much about building relationships and trust with people as it is about shouting into a megaphone "HIRE ME TO DO YOUR ROOFING!".

5. Promote your customers

While your crew is working on a roofing job, do some homework on your customer. If it is a commercial job, write up a short blog post about what you did and how you helped keep that business running without the burden of roofing problems. Describe what the business does (you can get this from their website in most cases), and link to their website. Make this more about them than you.

Before you share the post, email your customer a link - both to make sure you have everything correct, and to ensure (s)he is OK with you posting it. Assuming it is fine to post, don't forget to ask him/her to share the link on their website, in their newsletter (if they have one) and with their social media connections as well. And if you can get a testimonial from them before you post it, all the better! This works really well to show potential customers that you aren't just about promoting yourself but that you go out of your way for others, and gives the connections of your customers a chance to get word-of-mouth advertising from someone they already trust.

If you have any questions about roofing social media strategies, please email RoofPal@gmail.com. Best of luck!

How much would you pay to stay anonymous?

I am going to be launching an experiment soon that has multiple benefits: educate the roofing industry on marketing while either building my private contact list or making money, and to see just how valuable your privacy is. I hope you'll play along.

The experiment involves writing a short but comprehensive e-book that gives the "secret formula" for using social media to create exposure of your roofing company, to engage deeper with your customers (past, existing and future), to improve your online communications, and to increase your sales. It is a formula that I know works because multiple roofing business owners pay me handsomely to do this for them (and they are seeing tremendous results).

Here's the catch: you will be able to download the e-book for free, provided you fill out a form with all the contact information I request (which is verified prior to you receiving the download to ensure you aren't making up a fictitious identity). If you prefer to not give up that information, you can just pay $19.95 and get the e-book immediately without having to provide any information.

Provided you wanted to read this e-book (which is non-transferable and can not be posted online for others to read for free), which path would you choose? Is keeping your information out of my contact database worth $19.95? Is it worth $39.95? More?

Please leave a comment below with your thoughts. I want this to be educational, valuable for all, and a fun experiment. You can also email me at Chris@RoofPal.com if you prefer.

Commercial and residential roofing contractors have success from different online lead generation avenues

What makes the biggest impact on your online potential customer lead generation goals if you are a commercial roofing contractor? What about if you are a residential roofing contractor?

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According to the 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report, business-to-business (B2B) companies like commercial roofing contractors get the most online lead generation from search engine optimization (57%), followed by pay-per-click (25%), and finally social media (18%).

Business-to-consumer (B2C) companies like residential roofing contractors get lead generation in the same order, but with slightly different weighting (41% from SEO, 34% from PPC, and 25% from social media).

B2B companies like commercial roofing contractors are most active in Facebook (35%), Twitter (26%), and LinkedIn (25%). B2C companies like residential roofing contractors are by far primarily active in Facebook (75%), with Twitter (9%) and LinkedIn (6%) being significantly less important when it comes to generating online customer leads.

Of the companies in the study, 55% of companies have actually cosed deals from a social media lead. 41% closed deals from fans or friends on Facebook, 21% closed deals from connections on LinkedIn, and 20%  closed deals from followers on Twitter. There is no guarantee that this reflects the success of roofing contractors, but I would imagine it is directionally accurate.

In terms of digital marketing budgets, B2B companies like commercial roofing contractors spend 33% on SEO, 28% on PPC, 10% on social media, and 29% on other avenues. In contrast, B2C companies like residential roofing contractors spend most of their budgets on PPC (43%), 22% on SEO, 15% on social media, and 20% on other avenues.

2012 digital marketing budgets appear to be planned to increase or at least stay the same from 2011:

• For search engine optimization, 53% said they would increase their budget, 43% said their budget would stay the same, and only 4% said it would decrease.
• For pay-per-click, 40% said they would increase their budget, 51% said their budget would stay the same, and only 9% said it would decrease.
• For social media, 60% said they would increase their budget, 36% said their budget would stay the same, and only 4% said it would decrease.

Finally, the topics that digital marketers said they would most like to learn about include overall cross-promotional digital strategy (62%), followed by social media marketing (46%), then search engine optimization (38%), and finally pay-per-click (29%).

The take-away is that most companies (i.e., your competitors) are spending real money in digital marketing. What did you spend in 2011? What are you planning to spend in 2012? Do you feel you have the right strategy?

If you would like to discuss your digital marketing budget or needs for 2012, 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).