Most roofers understand the importance of roofing leads, in general. However, targeting a commercial audience for leads can be quite a challenge, especially if your roofing company is the new guy on the block. With thousands of competitors around the country, how is your business to stand out and earn commercial roofing leads? While there’s no shortage of ways the clever can start earning clients, we’ve crafted a helpful list of 17 effective strategies for your team.
Idea #1: Competitive Analysis
One of the fastest ways of identifying opportunities for stronger roofing leads generation is to compare your strategy to other competitors in the industry. Frankly, it can be challenging to pick apart our own company weaknesses, especially when you’ve spent so much time willing it succeed. That’s why an honest look at an opponent opens up new doors so frequently.
For one, most of the marketing research will have already been completed by the competitor in question. This allows your business to tackle new ideas with more confidence. Now, this inspiration can come from competitors both on a local level and at a national level. Take some time to keyword search (ex: “plumbing repair in San Jose, CA”) in your local area first. While there’s a lingering temptation to go after national-level keywords right off the bat, local businesses are typically your most important competitors.
Second, a competitive analysis gives you the threshold that you’ll need to beat in order to rank up in Google Search. We’ll talk more about this in a little bit.
Local SEO
Idea #2: Study Top Local Opponents
Do you ever wonder how those lucky few in the local pack managed to secure their spots? While Google rarely provides explicit advice on how to take advantage of their SERP (search engine results page) features, it’s easy to glean some information from the current top performers. Even before starting a deeper inspection, you can know that these top performers have thoroughly completed their Google My Business profile. That’s a must for ranking!
As we’ve mentioned in our podcasts, you don’t have to be perfect to compete in roofing SEO. You only need to be better than everyone else in your service area. Start by crafting a simple baseline strategy that the majority of your competitors are following.
- What keywords are they using?
- How old is their business?
- Do they offer insightful pages for each service they provide?
- How often do they blog?
- Is their website design straightforward and easy to navigate?
Other Competitors
Idea #3: See Other Industry Champions
Don’t limit your sources to roofers in your immediate service area! Go ahead and expand your competitive research to other high ranking businesses in your state (or even beyond). See if you spot new keyword combinations and helpful design features that your local rivals haven’t adopted yet. These could be some powerful tools for earning commercial roofing leads.
You can even analyze major industry publications for ideas. Magazines are especially adept at crafting “listicle” articles, which rank for dozens of relevant keywords. These resources provide valuable insights and guides for potential commercial clients, and they bring in valuable traffic for your website! While there are many paths towards ranking #1 in Google, a listicle could earn you a featured article slot. That’s one of the most prestigious awards and positions Google awards in SERPs.
Beat the Baseline
Idea #4: Beat Your Competitors’ Baseline!
Examine website design, advertising platforms, and content marketing quality. Are they focusing on Google Ads, or are they spreading their budget through multiple channels? It’s easy to tell how much effort a company puts into a website, but it might take some keyword searches to find where they advertise.
There are a handful of tools most businesses can use to get ahead.
- Diversified Keyword Strategies
- Schema-Rich Website Design
- Consistent, Diverse Reviews Collection
- Ongoing Content Production
Remember, you’re going up against experienced companies. They probably already have a handful of very positive reviews and a decent website backing them up. You have to top these businesses, not just imitate them! You must be willing to go the extra mile while providing the excellent services that all long-term successes do.
Idea #5: Low-Cost Social
If a channel provides commercial roofing leads at low cost, why not give it a try? That’s the logic that’s driven thousands of companies towards social media. While homeowning consumers are particularly keen to explore social media for their essential roofing services, commercial organizations aren’t far behind. Your roofing company’s social media profile offers an open invitation to anyone curious about your brand.
Are your social accounts encouraging new commercial roofing leads, or preventing them?
Idea #6: Reassess Your Facebook Business Profile
While new platforms and enticing features continue to pop up, Facebook still enjoys an enormous user base (in the billions). With such extensive volume, it only makes sense that a few local commercial roofing leads could trickle down to your Facebook Business profile. When they get there, will your profile be ready to receive them?
Key Facets of an Optimized FB Business Profile
- Up-to-date Contact Information
- Tactfully Answered Client Reviews / Recommendations
- Clear Calls to Action
- Relevant Pictures
- Links to the Main Company Homepage
- Posts with Pictures of Your Recent Work
- A Well-Written About Page
If you haven’t gotten around to completing these portions yet, try to do so as soon as possible! You may have missed a lead or two, but these are easy fixes that a potential commercial client would appreciate.
Idea #7: Retarget With Facebook Pixel
Ad retargeting uses cookies to track website visitors once they leave a specific site. A Facebook Pixel notes the user activity on the tracked website and generates a related ad for that user. That’s why you often see ads for marketing companies after visiting their sites. These retargeted advertisements enjoy a much higher rate of conversion, which is what makes them so prevalent.
Facebook offers extremely helpful demographic data to speed you on your advertising way, making it even more appealing for many businesses. If you haven’t tried your hand at Facebook Ads, it’s worth the small learning curve!
Idea #8: Get Hyper-Visual With Instagram
As Facebook’s more visually-oriented sister platform, Instagram offers unbelievable opportunities for earning commercial roofing leads. It’s the perfect place to show off your team’s craftsmanship skills and handiwork. Posts are based on images or videos, with captions offering room for relevant keywords. According to Statista, Instagram’s user base is projected to rise up to 125.5 million in the US alone by 2023!
Let your custom photos tell the story of an expert roof replacement or original installation.
You can spend a little time each month uploading quality photos and videos from your latest projects. Try to paint a broad picture of your team’s commercial work. Your most compelling work can be promoted into custom ads. Instagram grows more and more essential as younger generations climb the workforce ladder. Having a presence ready for them will certainly funnel some commercial roofing leads your way.
Idea #9: Expertise Branding
There are thousands of commercial roofing companies out there. What separates your brand from the rest? Perhaps you’re a seasoned expert in metal roof construction, but (again) so many roofers offer metal installation. The way you present that expertise can make all the difference in generating commercial roofing leads.
Turn your expertise into a branding tool for your business.
Employee Branding
Idea #10: Advertise Your Employees
Your top roofing professionals are more than just employees. They’re the face of your company. Think of the countless roofing projects they’ve installed, repaired, and restored over the years! Instead of promoting a service, what if you promoted the seasoned professionals behind the service?
Take a little talent inventory to see what sort of experience you could take advantage of. This method of advertising employees isn’t for businesses with constantly shifting personnel, but it’s perfect for companies with many long-time employees. Try going beyond the traditional “About Us” or “Meet the Team” pages and linking your employees directly to their areas of expertise. Have a green roofing pro that you’re extremely proud of? Tie them into a relevant service page, and sprinkle in some related keywords.
Expert Content
Idea #11: Turn Expertise Into Content
Your seasoned roofing professionals have so much insight to offer! They’ve probably answered the same old questions hundreds of times too, making them a great resource for lead-driving content. You don’t need them to write a 5,000 word blog post, but they probably have some interesting facts and quotes to enrich your next how-to article.
Take 10 to 15 minutes. Have your content writer and project expert talk through some of the popular questions your commercial roofing leads are asking. Whether it’s metal roofing or PVC installation, your roofer’s expertise offers the sort of fresh insights that rank well in local search. Simply present it in an optimized format, and chase after those featured snippets we talked about earlier!
When the article is ready, add your roofer’s name and bio to the publication.
Promotion
Idea #12: Promote Your Content
Articles, guides, and how-to’s all have a lifespan of their own. How you manage that content during that lifespan ultimately determines what sort of traffic you get out of them. If you want to generate more traffic and commercial roofing leads for your business, try taking your best content resources and harnessing them as advertising tools.
There are so many ways to advertise and promote your content!
- Share them as downloadable e-books on & off your website
- Promote the content in Facebook
- Create Instagram stories
- Share them with an industry publication
Idea #13: Hunt the No’s
Understanding why people turn down your amazing services is an essential part of persuading them in the future. We all have our reasons for saying “No.” Whether the root lies in fear, distrust, or simple confusion, there are ways to overcome initial disinterest. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of consumers come across your website every day, but commercial clients often have different reasons for giving the big “N.O.”
Reasons Commercial Prospects Say “No”
- Their company budget can’t handle an expensive roof service.
- They need further encouragement that your company is the right choice.
- They aren’t in the purchase phase of their study.
- There’s a negative perception that needs to be overcome.
- There’s confusion or uncertainty regarding the right solution.
Thankfully, many of these potential “no” sources can be proactively addressed right within your website design and local search content. Roofing companies unknowingly create all sorts of reasons for doubt as they promote their services. Grammar errors, unnecessary jargon, and lack of clear descriptions create further distance between your readers and their destiny as commercial roofing leads.
Uncertainty
Idea #14: Eliminate Fear of Uncertainty
There are dozens of facts, points of comparison, and internal company matters to consider when a business needs a new roofing system. All those considerations add up to a whole lot of uncertainty, which naturally creates resistance to weighty purchases. Think of every consideration as a brick that lays between your prospect and saying “yes” to a new roof.
What if you could eliminate most of that uncertainty?
The process begins with your company providing clear and consistent information. Where does your service area lie? Does your roofing team provide the necessary solution and requisite experience to perform the job? Answer these questions directly (and honestly, of course). Many businesses unintentionally confuse would-be clients by mixing up their service hours and solutions across their various listings. While they update their website or Facebook page regularly (for instance), they may neglect other sources that clients rely on.
Loss-Aversion
Idea #15: Minimize Fear of Loss
A commercial roof replacement is more of a fleeting expenditure. It represents a significant investment in a building’s energy-efficiency and weather protection. For some, a replacement also means substantial disruption to day to day operations. When the time finally comes for a business to undergo this crucial project, there’s no room for error or wasted effort.
Your business can do many things to mitigate the fear of loss for potential clients. The most powerful tool is feedback from past customers. Homeowners and business owners alike increasingly rely on online reviews and word of mouth in the decision making process for essential services. Back in 2015, half of adults under 50 already consulted online reviews before making purchases (Pew Research). That segment only grows as we head towards 2020. Continue to ask businesses for reviews after each project, and you’ll notice that commercial roofing leads are much less hesitant to convert.
Generous warranties and careful expectation setting go even further to turn “No’s” into clients. Take some time to establish the time and resource requirements of your project. You’d be amazed how much clients appreciate this, and how often it shows up in reviews.
Repurpose
Idea #16: Identify Losing Content
Local SEO is an ongoing process. That’s particularly true for promoted business practices regarding website content and keywords. A page that ranks at the top of local search results today may require serious updates to maintain that position down the road. That’s why continued research into Google Analytics is so important for your website!
Take time every quarter to inspect your website metrics and identify underperforming pages. This content may show a few signs of decay:
- Lowered page visits over time
- Increasing bounce rates
- Increasing exit rates
- Dropping time on page
When you discover a weakly-performing page, don’t rush to scrap it. Some of the most value-driving industry content comes from repurposed, consolidated, and re-released pages. You can use premium guides from past years, update them, and watch the commercial roofing leads come in!
Idea #17: Experiment With CTAs
Your calls-to-action (CTAs) have much more power than you realize! In a series of fantastic CTA case studies, Moz showed that changing the offering, hook, and/or phrasing of a call to action can turn a dormant page into a highly productive lead generation tool. If you are unfamiliar with the science behind CTA design, you need to read these amazing resources.
Calls to action rely on four key elements:
- Clarity on the services being offered
- Placement in the page
- Timing in the user’s buying cycle
- Motivation to answer the call
A well-crafted CTA acknowledges where a potential user is in their buying cycle while ensuring the value of the services being offered has been clearly explained. It stands out clearly from the rest of the page, and users have little friction preventing them from answering the call. Experimenting with new CTAs presents opportunities for huge conversion rate improvement.
How can you re-word your call to action to turn interested readers into commercial roofing leads? Do your downloadable resources provide enough value to deserve a company’s email? These are the sort of questions you’ll need to ask as you experiment!
Find Your Commercial Roofing Leads
Need help promoting your business through local search? Our team at Roofing Webmasters would love to partner with your team to create outstanding new growth. Not only do our clients enjoy fantastic rankings in organic and paid search, but they also earn better traffic and more commercial roofing leads.
Consult with one of our experts for free at (800) 353-5758, and you’ll see the difference one dedicated marketing team can make!
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