Get Noticed: 8 Effective Roofing Lead Generation Strategies
Main topic: roofing lead generation
One of the most challenging things about owning and operating a roofing business is generating new leads that you can convert into paying customers. Lead generation is often the goal of content marketing and email marketing campaigns. Attracting qualified leads is the key to roofing company growth.
At Select Funding, we provide small business financing that can be used to pay for digital marketing that is designed to help with roofing lead generation. It’s essential to choose the most effective roofing lead generation strategies if you want to get results. With that in mind, here are eight generation strategies to generate more roofing leads.
How Do You Get Roofing Business Leads?
Before we get into some specific lead generation strategies to try, let’s look at the big picture of where roofing leads come from. In the broad sense of the word, a lead can be anybody who makes contact with your sales team. If you want to achieve your growth goals, your best bet is looking for qualified leads: people who you know have a need for roofing services and are ready to hire a company to repair or replace their roofing.
Leads can come from any source, but some of the most common sources include direct mail marketing, social media, online reviews, and social media. While some companies buy lists of leads, we don’t recommend this strategy since it’s likely to return far fewer qualified leads than a targeted strategy that focuses on people who need to hire a roofing company.
The most effective way to generate qualified leads is with information. The more people in your service area know about your company and the roofing services you provide, the more likely they are to choose you over one of your competitors when they need roofing services. Creating content that informs people about who you are and what you do will help you attract a steady stream of qualified leads.
8 Strategies to Generate Roofing Leads for Your Business
If you need to attract qualified leads for your roofing company, here are eight strategies that are effective.
#1: Turn Your Website into a Lead Generating Powerhouse
Your website is your home office on the web, and it needs to do everything it can to introduce visitors to your company and let them know what makes you better than your competitors. Since finding your website is often the first challenge, you should start by optimizing it using local keywords.
For lead generation, the key is building one or more dedicated landing pages and using them to collect contact information from qualified leads. You can do this by running Google ads or social media sites. The page needs to be related to the ad and offer visitors an incentive to provide you with their email addresses. Two examples might be a free guide to winter roof maintenance or an overview of different roofing materials.
#2: Qualify Leads with Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most affordable and effective forms of content marketing, and it can be hugely beneficial to roofing companies to build an email list and use it to nurture leads. This strategy ties directly to the previous one because you’ll need a landing page on your website to get people to opt into receiving your emails.
Email marketing should be informative and engaging. Many roofing companies create an email series that provides useful information about roofing maintenance, repair, and replacement. Each email should include a call to action with a link or button people can click to set up an appointment with you.
#3: Build a Community on Social Media
Social media networks like Facebook and Instagram sometimes get negative attention in the news, but the truth is that they can be extremely useful for lead generation. If your work is primarily on residential roofing, then using these two sites to build an audience and collect leads is one of the best (and most cost-effective) ways to grow your company.
On the commercial roofing side, LinkedIn is the best option. Whichever sites you use, we recommend boosting or promoting your best content to an audience of people who are looking for roofing services—or may need them in the future. For example, on Facebook you could target homeowners in your area, and on LinkedIn, you might target businesses and property management companies.
#4: Make Review Management a Priority
There is no way to overstate the importance of online reviews for any company, and particularly those in the service industry, including roofing businesses. Research shows that nearly all consumers in the United States read at least one online review before hiring any service provider, so you can’t afford to ignore your reviews as a lead source.
A good review management strategy should start with claiming your profile on review sites such as Yelp, Angie’s List, and your Google Business Profile. Make sure to include all relevant information, including your business hours, photos, and contact information. After that, put someone in charge of responding to reviews quickly. You should respond to all reviews, but the way you handle negative reviews will show prospective customers that you care about the work you do.
#5: Create a Referral System
Referrals are one of the best ways to attract qualified leads. While people trust online reviews, they are also likely to ask their friends and family members for recommendations when they’re looking for a company to repair or replace their roof.
Setting up a referral system is easy to do and doesn’t cost much money, either. If your focus is on residential roofing, your referral system should focus on your current or previous customers and provide them with an incentive to refer their friends and family to you. Commercial roofing companies can use the same method. You can also cultivate relationships with real estate agents, who may be able to refer their clients to you.
#6: Pay for Advertising
A lot of content marketing strategies rely on organic traffic: people who find your content without seeing an ad or promotion. While this strategy can certainly be effective, it may not be enough to generate the leads you need to grow your business.
Paying for advertising allows you to target the people who are most likely to hire you to work on their roof. You have multiple options, including the following:
- Boost your content on social media or pay for social media ads
- Bid on your most important keywords and advertise on Google
- Pay to have your company featured on a billboard in your service area
- Pay for ads on relevant podcasts (think home improvement) or sponsor a podcast episode. (You can also run ads on YouTube!)
#7: Partner with Other Businesses
There are some services that pair naturally with others, so it makes sense to consider that when creating a roofing lead generation strategy. We already mentioned the idea of getting referrals from real estate agents, but you may want to consider partnering with other businesses in your area.
General contractors, electricians, plumbers, and many other service providers come into contact with home and business owners every day. If you partner with them, you can create cross promotions, discounts, and referral programs that allow you to collect quality leads at a far faster rate than you could on your own.
#8: Work with Insurance Companies in Your Area
One of the best ways to attract qualified leads for your roofing company is to get to know insurance companies and insurance agents in your area, specifically those that provide homeowners and property insurance.
This strategy may take a bit of time to bear fruit but it’s undeniably a worthwhile one to pursue. Once insurance agents become familiar with your services and work, they will be happy to refer their clients who are in immediate need of roof repair or replacement to your company, giving you a leg up on your competition.
What is Lead Nurturing?
Some of the new leads you collect will be people who are in immediate need of roof repair or replacement, and when that’s the case, you’ll likely skip the lead nurturing phase and go right into providing a proposal and agreeing to a price. When that’s not the case, you’ll need to nurture those leads.
Lead nurturing is the process of taking someone who may be on the fence about replacing their roof or simply not ready to spend the money, and moving them along to the point where they’re ready to hire you. You’ll need to give some thought to the best methods to use, including email, phone calls, direct mail, and text messaging.
It’s essential to have a lead tracking system, so you know where various leads are in the sales pipeline and what methods are most likely to get them to engage your roofing services.
Get Small Business Financing to Pay for Lead Generation Strategies
Lead generation is an essential element of roofing business growth. With the right strategies, you can get all the leads you need to achieve your most important business growth goals–and small business financing can pay for it!
Do you need working capital to pay for your lead generation strategies? Select Funding is ready to help! Click here to read about our small business financing and apply today
