Every person measures success with different standards. That holds true in the case of the roofing industry. Some professionals may be content with ten sales every month, while another may land over 50 without even trying. Thus, when a prospective SEO client calls and asks, “How many leads can I expect to get with your services?” we inevitably have to answer…
“Well, that depends.”
Instead of panicking, packing up shop, and pulling out the phone cord for a couple of days, we do our best to provide an informative explanation. So that’s what we’ll do today! As Nolen and Jason delve into the process of estimating how many exclusive roofing leads you could generate with SEO, be sure to keep a few factors in mind.
Critical Factors for Estimating Potential Roofing Leads
- Service areas (especially your hometown)
- Age of your domain and website
- Relevant storm seasons or trends
- Current marketing efforts
- The size of your crew and staff
You Get How Many Leads?!
What’s the number you have in mind right now? Would it surprise you that some roofing professionals are ecstatic to earn ten sales a month? We’ve cheered on a Pittsburgh roofing company earning three to four large commercial jobs a month with a consistent stream of commercial leads. Their company may also work residential jobs for added revenue.
At the same time, we’ve danced with outrageously busy roofers as they knocked out over 750 projects after one terrible San Antonio hail season. They earned another 300+ jobs in the following year too! Fort Collins is another storm arena in which our clients operate.
We’ve talked with clients used to earning over $5 million in a year. These sorts of environments offer explosive growth opportunities. So what point are we trying to make here?
Your market heavily influences your lead generation potential.
Developing a Reliable Standard for Leads
As much as we love to talk about our wildly successful clients, not everyone experiences the same level of success. If you judge your South Dakota residential firm by the standards of a Houston storm roofer, you’re always going to come up disappointed. But, on the other hand, you can earn outstanding lead numbers in the right city with the proper marketing!
Let’s walk through how you can develop a reliable estimate of lead potential.
Step #1: Estimate the Size of Your Market
Step one is easy! How many people live in your service area? For this example, let’s say that your town holds 60,000 people. At an average of three people per residence, that’s a potential 20,000 roofs in your community. Now, if you have a smaller list of services – perhaps you focus on metal roofing – that number could be much smaller.
Consider how many roofs in your market fall within your list of solutions. Then, keep that number in mind as you move on to the next couple of steps.
Step #2: Consider the Lifespan of Local Roofs
How often do people in your local market replace their roofs, barring an act of God? Not all your local homeowners and businesses replace their roofs at the same time. For simplicity, let’s take Nolen’s example and say that a tenth of local homeowners replaces their roofs each year. Take the size of your market from step #1 and determine how many roofing projects are up for grabs every year.
If 10% of homes in a city of 20,000 need replacements each year, that’s 2,000 jobs every year. So your business will earn a percentage of that total.
Once you’ve figured out how many jobs are ripe for the taking each year, we come to the last phase of estimating how many potential leads you can earn.
Step #3: Set Your Potential Market Share
This final step is a little more complicated. First, you need to consider how many competing companies exist in your market, then set a realistic capturable share of online leads. Don’t give up, even if you’re a new entry into the market! We’ve seen brand-new roofing professionals earn a dominant market share within a year or two.
If you don’t know how to estimate this percentage, don’t sweat it. Our SEO professionals would love to run through the process with you and help you come up with a reasonable estimate. For now, let’s say you have 2,000 leads up for grabs each year or 166 each month (we know that’s not how life works, but whatever).
If your business is just starting, you may earn three to five leads a month from your brand-new website. Once your company brand grows and people recognize your name, that number will start to rise. Then, a couple of years later, you could be earning a dependable ten leads a month!
A Note on Storm Markets
One side note: if you live in a storm-prone environment, it’s easy to get carried away with speculative booms. However, we highly recommend that you heavily discount your estimated leads if you are trying to factor in storm markets. “The next big hurricane” could be next year. It could also be four years from now.
In the meantime, start laying the digital groundwork to prepare for that future storm. Even if your city experiences the worst storm in decades, companies with no online presence to speak of won’t magically strike it rich. Instead, people need to find your business in Google Search, which means developing an optimized web presence.
Your Part in Lead Gen
That’s right! Your business has a role to play in the process of earning leads. Get out there! Market your business, serve the community, and ask for reviews! Please take pictures of your projects and share them with your website developer. Ask for reviews again! Continue spreading the word and being active in your school, neighborhood association, etc.
If you team up with our skilled developers at Roofing Webmasters, use DataPins. Our content developers, programmers, SEO experts, and other pros can do a lot of work. But collecting reviews, taking photos, and providing excellent customer service are things we can’t do for you. By working together, we can produce results that you’ll be proud of, no matter your market.
