At Roofing Marketing Pros, we often get asked: where do we find the best roofing leads? Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer here. Finding the best leads depends on your overall strategy. However, successful lead generation is possible for your roofing business and may be easier than you think. As a roofing company or contractor, you can identify what this looks like for you by understanding a few important points below.
Defining Leads
A lead is any person or organization that has interacted with your company or become a contact and has the potential to turn into your customer. Leads can be anyone who’s been introduced to your brand, from your followers online to people calling you to ask about your services. Leads can also include people who click on your ads or sign up for your emails. However, just because people have made contact with your business does not necessarily mean that they will become your customers. That’s where marketing comes in: to turn your roofing leads into qualified prospects.
Lead Qualification: Leads vs. Prospects
All of your customers start off as unqualified leads. Usually, someone will become aware of your company or services, and if you’re lucky, they will choose you to solve their problem for them. However, there is no way of knowing if a roofing lead will buy from you without engaging them first. Lead qualification involves asking your roofing leads the right questions that will help you guarantee whether or not they have the potential to turn into your customers. After you’ve gathered all the necessary data from a roofing lead, you can then determine if it’s time to graduate them into a prospective customer.
If you’re not sure where to start, here are some sources for roofing leads that you can explore.
Top Sources for Roofing Leads
Former Contacts
Revisiting closed or even missed opportunities can be an effective way to generate new roofing leads from existing contacts. Remember that customers go through cycles in their buying process; you may not have been available for them once, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t be. Additionally, former clients you’ve already done work for are excellent relationships to maintain in case they ever needed roof maintenance, roof repairs, or even additional weatherproofing done. Consider setting up a loyalty program or a discounted roof maintenance plan for your existing clients.
Referrals
Word-of-mouth is still the best source of business, and personal referrals among your roofing leads encourage trust in your reputation as a roofing services provider. You can leverage this by creating incentives for referrals. You can offer discounts on services for your loyal customers that refer their family and friends to your company. You can also provide referral promo codes that partnering businesses or influencers can share with their followers.
Competition
Pay attention to what your competitors aren’t doing right. Look at their portfolio, track their social media, or read their reviews to see where you can set yourself apart. Use this information in your marketing language or when you offer special promotions to your roofing leads.
Social Media
Keep track of your social media contacts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or wherever else you have signed up for a business account. Make sure you are constantly engaging with your roofing leads by sharing useful content and responding to their comments or messages. The mere fact that they’ve followed you or cared enough to comment on topics you’ve shared means they’re already somewhat interested in your business. By regularly nurturing your relationship with your followers, there is a high potential for you to convert them or their friends and family members into your customers.
Affiliates
Partner with different businesses, blogs, or media outlets to cross-promote your services in creative ways. You and your partners can agree to write guest posts on certain topics surrounding your respective fields of expertise or even sponsor fun community events that get the word out about your business.
Networking
Attending business networking events allows you not only to brainstorm new creative marketing ideas but also to get to know commercial roofing leads in your community. Your firsthand knowledge and experience with roofing are invaluable assets that you can share with business owners in your area. When the time comes for a business owner to get a new commercial roof replacement, you’ll likely be their first call.
Lead a Seminar
Reach out to community organizations and volunteer to be a partner or speaker at storm preparedness or HOA events. Public speaking is a great way to develop your confidence as a roofing business owner, as well as establish yourself as an expert in your field within your community.
Reviews
Read your views, good or bad, and use them to your advantage. A negative review shouldn’t be treated as something bad; use it as an opportunity to improve your services and even offer complimentary remedial services to encourage the customer to update their review. Additionally, more than just publishing good reviews on your page, you can even reward customers for their 5-star reviews by mailing them discounts on your services.
How to Get More High-Quality Roofing Leads
Focus on Your Target Audience
In any business, you must identify your target audience. This could be, for example, large-scale commercial roof or warehouse clients within a particular industrial area. Additionally, finding your niche within your target market allows you to really hone in on your unique products or services that may not be within your area, such as a line of EPDM roofing solutions and accessories. Avoid just opening shop and waiting for your roofing leads to pour in; instead, focus on your ideal customer, find out where they are, and strategize to make your services available to them.
Run Compelling PPC Ads
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are one of the most effective methods of sparking brand awareness and increasing revenue through measurable results. In contrast to traditional advertising, PPC allows you to only pay the publisher whenever someone clicks on your ad. This makes it easier to find out how well your PPC campaign is performing in terms of who is clicking on your ad and when.
However, in order to run successful PPC campaigns, you need to have a combination of the right words, market research, and value offerings. The best PPC ads are targeted to a specific market, provide a valuable product or service, and feature a direct and catchy call to action (CTA).
Produce Targeted Content: Understand the Buyer’s Journey
The buyer’s journey involves the different stages a customer goes through before they make a purchase. There are three main stages: awareness, consideration, and decision.
In the awareness phase, the buyer has identified a problem that requires a solution. This is an ideal opportunity for you to answer any paint points (persistent problems, inconveniences, or unmet needs) that the buyer may be experiencing. Next, the consideration phase is when the buyer begins to research how to solve their problem, weighing all the pros and cons of your service and possibly comparing you to your competitors. Finally, the decision stage—also called the conversion stage—is when the buyer decides whether or not to purchase your services. This is usually regarded as the last opportunity to try and make a sale.
Understanding the buyer’s journey will help you craft the right content that speaks to your target audience. By placing yourself in your customers’ shoes, you can strategically map out your content to provide information that meets your customers at every stage of the buying journey. Basically, it’s how you nurture a lead.
What Is Lead Nurturing?
Lead nurturing is the process of maintaining relationships with your roofing leads at every stage of their buying journey. This usually involves consistent marketing communications in the form of paid ads, email campaigns, social media posts, helpful blog content, or even reaching out to them directly. Many effective lead nurturing strategies today make use of both organic and automated lead nurturing techniques.
The success of your lead nurturing campaign depends heavily on the connection you make with your roofing leads. Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you listen to their needs?
- Are you providing the answers or solutions they are looking for?
- Are you providing information about your brand and increasing awareness for your services?
- How can you build trust with your roofing leads?
- What is unique about your services that they can’t get anywhere else?
Lead nurturing campaigns are wonderful tools for collecting information about your potential customers, allowing you to strategically make the most out of every marketing effort you make in your business.
Why Is Lead Nurturing Important?
According to Forrester Research, companies that have successful lead nurturing strategies in place are able to generate 50% more qualified sales leads at a 33% lower cost than not having any lead nurturing strategies at all.
Lead nurturing is important because it puts you in a better position to sell to your customers. It increases the chances that a potential roofing lead will convert into your customer, and it also allows you to retain them as repeat customers. Lead nurturing is about loyalty; by being there for your customers at every phase of their journey, you will remain top-of-mind when it’s time for them to make a purchase.
Unlock Exclusive Roofing Leads for Your Business
Don’t pay for roofing leads that you have to share with your competitors; Roofing Marketing Pros has your exclusive roofing leads to drive more traffic and revenue to your business. With our proprietary strategies and marketing systems, we’ve helped roofing companies and contractors nationwide increase their ROI up to 5-10x. Check out our different packages for residential or commercial roofers here, and schedule a call with us today.
