Working in the roofing industry for over a decade has allowed Art Unlimited to identify the dead giveaways which hurt a business’s marketing. We are passionate about ensuring businesses succeed at their marketing. Here are some mistakes we hope to help you avoid as you plan your upcoming roofing season.
1. Not Having A Mobile-Friendly Website
Why should you have a mobile-friendly website? One word: Google. You need to play by Google’s rules if you want your website to be found by their search bots. It’s no secret people are using mobile phones more and more to search the internet. According to Hitwise, roughly 60% of searches come from a mobile device. Within the roofing industry, this cannot be ignored. For roofing websites across the board, mobile traffic has climbed from mid 40% in 2016 to continue its consistent upward trend to 50% in the third quarter of 2017.
In 2021, 55% of all roofing industry web traffic was from mobile devices, with 91% of people accessing the internet from their phone.
Google has noticed this trend and has changed its algorithms to make sure mobile-friendly websites are found more quickly than non-mobile-friendly websites. So, what makes a website mobile-friendly? The simplest way to explain this is your pages are responsive to a smaller screen. Is there enough room between the pictures and buttons, so they don’t all overlap each other?
Check out Google’s mobile-friendly test to see if your website passes. If it fails, you’re likely missing out on a lot of leads.
2. Not Sharing Your Charitable Giving
Why should you share your charitable giving? This seems like a very private thing not very many people talk about. It can, however, have a significant impact on the future of your business. The newest generation is entering the workforce, and “Generation Z” is starting to shape society’s purchasing behaviors. Sharing your contributions to your community expresses your business’s strong values, something new consumers don’t take lightly.
According to Vision Critical, Generation Z is much more “culture” minded than previous generations. They will turn down a job or refuse to purchase goods from a business based on what it values and does for their local communities and how they contribute to social justice. If you want to attract new customers and job applicants, display how your business impacts your website and social media platforms.
3. Jumping Into Adwords Without Understanding
Adwords is Google’s pay-per-click advertising. When you Google something, ads automatically come up first in the search results. One might say, “Hey, an easy way to make sure my business comes up first. Let’s do it!” While Adwords is a place to gain traction with customers in the roofing industry, doing it without a lot of knowledge can be incredibly expensive and have little to no ROI. The horror stories are real!
The bottom line of Adwords is bidding on keywords. This can be tricky because the cost of keywords can vary widely depending on what location you are in. High population areas will usually turn up higher costs for similar words than in lower population areas. You want to make sure you are targeting the correct keywords before you jump into using this tool, or you could be losing more money than it’s worth.
Before you start using AdWords, think about these things:
- You should have clearly defined goals: What are you using AdWords for? Leads? Brand building? To get people to buy something?
- Figure out your audience’s preferences. What kind of device are they using? When are they actively online? What gender are they? What county or zip code do they live in?
- Utilize keyword research. You want to bid on keywords which are not only applicable to your business but are the words people are actually using to search for your business. Keyword tools will help you find the keywords which offer the most bang for your buck.
- Set your budget, and limit yourself to only bidding on those words within your budget.
- Spend your budget on keywords converting at a high rate, and remove low-performing keywords to avoid spending on worthless ventures.
- Make sure your ads and corresponding landing pages have high-quality content. Ads should be laid out according to Google’s rules for maximum reach. They should be attached to a landing page on your website with equally relevant content.
- Track your ads conversion rates. This is critical to make sure you are bidding on the correct keywords.
- Connect your Adwords account to your Google Analytics to track goal conversions
- Do not use Adwords until you have a mobile-friendly site! It’s just a rough time, and nobody wins except Google because Google will take your money all day long and not shed a tear if you don’t get leads.
- Monitor your campaigns regularly. This is vital to ensure you are not overspending or putting money towards the wrong keywords.
- Consistently test and adjust the wording of your ads.
- Consistently test and adjust your landing page wording to ensure the action you are requesting of your user is clear. This will reduce your bounce rate and, in turn, can lower the cost you pay for ads.
4. Turning On and Off Your Adwords Account
As a roofing contractor, if someone consistently gives you business and you love working with them, sometimes, you give them a deal or a discount on something if they are a good client. Well, Adwords is the same way. If you turn it off during your busy months because you say, “Well, I’m booked out till next February, I don’t need any more leads,” or, “It’s the winter months. Nobody is calling about a new roof. I don’t need to keep spending money in Adwords,” we start getting a little twitchy. Here’s why:
Whenever you discontinue all your spend with Adwords, you tell Google you’re ending your work with them. This means the following:
- You will spend more than your competitors to bid on keywords when you start up your campaign again.
- Your quality score is lost (thus giving you higher pay per click costs)
- You will lose data about how your campaigns perform if you delete your account and have nothing to compare it to in the future.
- You lose brand recognition to your competitors in the off-season.
- Google won’t give you any special treatment.
We could go on and on, but basically, you end up spending more in the long run. It’s just not healthy for your account to start from square 1 every time you turn it on again. We recommend you keep your spend running on a low amount in the off-season with ads more about customer goodwill and brand recognition than just pushing for more hard leads. This allows your account to stay active and your customers to stay happy.
5. Chasing Broad Keywords
This is another aspect of SEO changing over the last few years. The rise of mobile users has also generated an increase in personal assistants, such as Siri and Alexa. Using a personal assistant requires asking it a question. “How much does a new roof cost?” “What are the roofing businesses near me?” Because this is how people are searching, you can no longer go after one or 2-word keywords.
Keywords like “Roof” or “Roofer” are no longer being used by themselves. People are searching for very specific and conversational phrases, not just one or two words. Your keyword research and tracking should include “long-tail keywords,” such as the questions mentioned earlier. Ranking for searches by voice activation is a huge shift in how you should write your website content.
Think about the common questions your customers have all the time. The answers to those questions should be on your website. Google is using common language to answer the questions people ask. Keep your content conversational and avoid using technical roofing terms without explanations. It might look smart to you, but your customers will not be using those words when asking those types of questions.
6. Not Claiming Your Google Business Listing
If claimed, your Google My Business listing is the first thing people see about your business. This contains your address, a map to your business, business hours, and pictures. Again, if you want to rank in Google, you need to play with their toys. Google has also been adding more features to the Google My Business listing options, letting you have one place for all your business updates, sales, and information! If you don’t claim your listing, you miss out on one of Google’s most useful, easy-to-use, and free tools.
Fact: People will directly call you off of your Google Business Listing. If you don’t have the correct number listed, you are losing customers.
7. Not Posting Your Certifications
Certifications build a level of trust for your customers. It tells them you know your stuff, and you’re not just some fly-by-night contractor looking to take all their money without actually doing what you said you were going to do. Promising good quality work is easy, but you need something to back up what you say.
Having (and displaying) your certifications is like saying, “Don’t take our word for it; here’s what this company has to say about us.” You spent time acquiring those certifications–be proud of them and put them on your website!
8. Having Camera Phobia
People process visuals 60,000 times faster than words, and pictures are much easier to remember than text. People are tired of reading. They have information overload. According to Live Science, it only takes the human eye 13 milliseconds to process a picture, proving images are more powerful than words. Images are, to date, the fastest way to communicate with a possible customer.
We’re not saying don’t have ANY words on your websites, but keep in mind, for the most part, people are visual, and the adage “A picture is worth 1000 words” rings true. In addition to showcasing your work, your customers also want to see pictures of your crew. Say you have a lead, and you tell them, “John will be coming to meet you tomorrow at 3 pm.”
The customer can go to your website, look for John’s picture, and know he is who he says he is when they open the door. Having pictures of your crew also makes your company more relatable, as if they have known you and your crew for a long time. These photos don’t need to be of professional quality. You can usually take them with your phone! Make sure you take them AND put them on your website!
(If we had a nickel for every time a roofer said, “I took photos but forgot to send them to you to put on the website,” we’d no longer need to have a job!)
9. Not Answering The Phone
You would think this would be a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how many contractors let this one slide. Just because you are a hard-working person busy running your business doesn’t mean your team is too busy to not answer the phone. Your phone is the first (human) connection your customer has with you. This interaction will determine if they buy your services or not. If you don’t have the time, hire a receptionist or a call service to handle your phones.
10. Not Having A Clear Training Process
Training all staff to know your processes is essential, especially when it comes to customer communication. Make sure whoever is answering your calls knows enough about your business to be helpful. Training them on your systems, processes, current marketing efforts, and what is on your website is vital to ensuring a consistent customer experience.
Having someone incapable of answering the simplest questions is unfair to your customer and the team member on the phone. Everyone should be aware of your marketing efforts so they can work in unison.
Pro Tip: Monitoring your calls and spot-checking them for quality assurance creates accountability with your call team and ensures your customers have a great experience.
11. Not Following Up With Happy Clients
This is another often overlooked and common mistake. Happy clients will spread the word about you to everyone they know. Follow up with them a few months down the road and make sure they are still happy. Building relationships with your customers will ensure they think of you whenever anyone they know needs home repairs, including themselves.
If they are still happy, ask them to leave you a review! This boosts your ranking digitally and spreads the word others trust you openly.
12. Not Responding to Reviews
This includes good and bad reviews. Good reviews are your bread and butter. Just like your certifications, they show off how trustworthy you are. What’s more, consumers are heading right for them online. People are doing more research when they are choosing a product or service. The main criteria consumers use to evaluate your business are your reviews and how you respond to them.
Not responding to a bad review on your website or any listings is just asking for trouble. These things can go viral very fast. Be diligent about checking your reviews, and if you do happen to get a bad one, respond to it with concern about their issue on your listing. Also, offer the customer a way to email you privately or tell them to call the office and talk to you directly about this concern.
This takes the conversation off the internet where everyone can see it, allows you to get to the root of the problem by talking to the customer personally, and ensures people can publically see you are taking responsibility to correct the situation. Talking with a customer and your team about issues can deflate hurt feelings and misunderstandings.
Most customers are happy to update their reviews when their concerns have been dealt with quickly and professionally.
13. Not Making Your Social Media Relational
Social media should be just that: social. People don’t check their Facebook page to check their stock portfolio performance. They want to see what people are doing. The point of social media pages is to give your company a more relatable feeling. Try not to make the majority of your posts about sales-related information.
There are lots of platforms you can use to highlight your current roofing deals. Social media allows your roofing business to showcase you are real people too, just like your customers. Did your company have a Christmas party? Recently celebrate a milestone? Did one of your sled dogs have puppies? Take pictures and post them! This is not to say you can’t post informational blogs, educational material, or updates you’re hiring on social media. These are excellent platforms for these; just make sure the majority of your posts are socially related.
14. Not Tracking Your Lead Sources
How can you set a good marketing strategy if you don’t know where your leads come from? Being able to track where your leads come from tells you where to put your marketing dollars. Leads come from many places such as pay-per-click marketing, Facebook, the form you put into your website, and your Google business listing.
Setting up conversion tracking with Google Analytics’ goal completions is incredibly important to track where you are getting your leads. If you don’t know whether a marketing platform is profitable, you don’t know if you should keep using it. Apply this to your traditional marketing material with URL and phone number tracking to ensure your print efforts are effective.
15. Not Communicating With Their Marketing Agency Regularly
So you set up your quarterly goals with your marketing agency–why do you need to contact them again? Your marketing agency should be your right-hand man. They will be the ones driving leads for you. Form a relationship with them. You are paying your marketing agency for a reason, and if you don’t trust them to do what they say they will, what’s the point?
By having regular “check-ins,” your marketing agency can perform at higher levels because they can know more about your business, are aware of your current business needs, and coordinate with your traditional marketing efforts more effectively.
By communicating with your marketing agency frequently, they will have a better handle on what’s essential to your specific business and the personalizations reflecting the unique aspects of your business. As an agency, we can tell you every top-performing account performs well because of regular client communication.
16. Not Marketing When Leads Are Strong
This reminds me of the adage “Strike while the iron is hot.” It alludes to a blacksmith forging the steel when it is hot and pliable. If you wait too long, the opportunity is lost. The same principle applies to marketing. You should always be marketing, not just when the leads are strong. You don’t want to miss any opportunities, so you still need to continue your marketing strategies even when your leads are strong.
This allows your brand to have great recognition and allows you to avoid downtime. Some businesses choose only to do marketing when their leads are slow, but if you do it all the time, you will see much less of a lead slowing movement! The more leads you have, the more capable you are of picking the right leads which fit your business. It is much healthier to go into a project knowing your project was a great fit on both sides rather than taking on every job which comes your way because you need the inflow.
17. Not Budgeting For Their Marketing
Just like everything else, the cost of digital marketing fluctuates. As we learned with AdWords, the price of keywords you’re bidding on is contingent on the area. Similarly, the same principle applies to the cost of acquiring leads, which is, in essence, marketing. Knowing how much acquiring a lead costs you, either by using AdWords or other means, will help you determine your marketing spend.
18. Not Having the Capacity to Grow When Marketing Works
This is something most contractors struggle with. The labor shortage is a real problem. Getting a big enough crew to meet the needs of a strong-flowing marketing effort can be difficult, but being forward-thinking is even more challenging. Having an “About Us” or “Employment” page on your website could help with this.
Be consistently marketing to grow your staff, even when you don’t have current openings. Doing this lets your customers know about your culture and how happy your current employees are and can help when you need employees. Knowing how much you plan to grow your business by allocating the correct amount for marketing means you should also be planning to recruit and train staff before they need to be in high-performance mode. Throwing someone into the fire is not the best form of training and can lead to bad reviews about your business (and more expensive hiring costs in the future because of it)—plan for your growth.
19. Not Being Foundationally Strong Before Paying for Marketing
This is where you want to take a hard look at your company, products, and services to see if they are as great as you think they are. If you’re offering shoddy products and so-so service, all the marketing in the world isn’t going to fix the lack of quality. Having a great team and products begins with you, the business owner.
If you need to, take some time honing your management skills and developing your company’s core mission and values, so you have some benchmarks for what is expected of all employees. Craft clear objectives and goals for the coming months and years. If all the employees in your company aren’t sure of its goals, how can they help you get there? Being transparent helps you lay the foundations a future marketer can work with.
When roofers come to us for help, many times, 50% of our educational effort goes into coaching you through strong business practices in order to have a strong marketing presence. This isn’t to say you don’t know how the roofing industry works at all; it commonly happens because roofers are good at what they do and are focused on the actual functions of the work rather than the growth mindset which helps them plan for the future. Getting out of the day-to-day work and planning your business’s future will help you grow, and your employees will appreciate all the aspects, such as clearer training, better company policies, and a clear vision of where they are going.
20. Planning Your Growth Around Third-Party Lead Services
One of the hardest things about starting a roofing business is gaining leads. For the roofing business, as with most, great referrals come by word of mouth. The problem with hiring a 3rd party lead generation is they focus on getting sales. You’re thinking, yeah, so am I, duh. But stay with me. As a roofer, you’re providing a service. Your customer wants someone to work with them to provide a service, not a sale.
Think about what people say when they write you a review or refer you to their friends. Do they rave about the great sales pitch you gave them? Not usually. They will refer you based on the quality work you did, your professionalism, and your efficiency. When generating leads, you’re focused more on building relationships with your clients rather than what you can sell them. Often, third-party lead gen services aren’t focused on this. They want fast, cheap leads who want fast, cheap work. This is not the clientele you want.
The additional caveat: Third-party lead services make you pay per lead, and at first, it seems like a dream come true. This strategy usually works for about three months to a year. After this, the leads start to be less quality. You find people calling to ask questions about services not even related to the ones you offer, people looking for a different company altogether, the list goes on! Eventually, you find you’re paying a whole lot of money for a whole lot of worthless calls. Sure, there might be a good one here and there, but not the ROI you signed up for.
We tell people this all the time; they don’t believe us and come back a year later saying, “Yep, you were right.” Are third-party leads all bad? Not at all. They can be an excellent backlink for your website and help Google vet you as a trustworthy business if they are a digital company. Still, you shouldn’t fully rely on this type of marketing effort to sustain your business. It’s not a good long-term strategy.
21. Having a Vanity Number
So it looks pretty on your TV commercials and has a catchy jingle on the radio. Great. Use it for your traditional marketing and have a quality tracking system to know all the calls you get from it, but please, don’t put it on your digital marketing or ad copy.
Here are all the reasons why:
- It is confusing for the customer user experience.
- It is horrid on mobile when someone just wants to call you (yes, you can add a click to call coding, but it still has lower performance).
- It will mess up your Google Business Listing call-able features.
- If you try to call someone, you don’t go searching for their vanity number.
- User experience is about making immediate gratification. Vanity numbers do not help the speed of conversion.
- It is harder to track those calls through Google Analytics.
If you still are not sold, please at least have the actual alternative numbers on your website. Customers will be happier, and marketers will be happier too. It will just make the world a better place.
22. Having Too Many Goals
Imagine if a space shuttle used a whole bunch of bottle rockets, all pointed in different directions at the base of the rocket to get it launched off the ground and into space. It’s a 4th-grade science project gone wrong. The same goes with having too many goals for your marketing. You will not see a lot of movement in the right direction if your focus is pointed at too many things.
We suggest starting with three main goals broken down into actionable steps you can take to achieve them. Here’s an example goal: Increase calls from the website by 20%. What are actionable steps to take?
- Review current performance of calls from the website and record the information.
- Test the positioning of your phone number on web pages on desktop and mobile.
- Create a click to call the number on the website (for easier mobile use).
- Track calls through Google Tag Manager.
- Evaluate performance (If you’ve increased by 20%, keep the same and select a new goal; if it can be improved, test again).
Keeping your focus narrow can allow your overall efforts to see traction. Doing too many things simultaneously can also make it hard to know which action is helping.
23. Not Using Education to Sell Your Roofing Services
Consumers today are researchers. They are looking for information everywhere to better understand their problem before calling in an expert. You gain their trust if you can offer important, helpful information to your customers when they need it.
Your roofing website content should be all about helping your customers:
- Identify what their problem is
- Offer them ways they can go about solving this problem
- Tell them how to avoid this problem in the future
- Advise them to connect with help when the problem is too big for them to handle alone
If you can hit all of these points before your customer even picks up the phone to call you, your sales team needs a pay cut–your website has done half of their job for them! (If your sales team works with your marketing team to help create this website content, then maybe you can keep their pay the same). Customers are getting educated before speaking with a representative about a service and are more ready to purchase. Honest education is your pathway to proving you care about your roofing customers.
Don’t believe us? Well, you read this entire article, didn’t you? This is what we do best! Educating customers to help them make the right marketing decisions for their roofing business. Interested in learning more about how we can help your roofing business grow? Contact us today!