One of the hardest lessons to learn in the world of business is how you need to spend money to make money. Parting with dollars just to make them strikes many as counter-intuitive or even ironic. Yet, as you have likely learned, using a marketing budget can make your roofing business money.
The question is, does your marketing budget actually work? Spending it wrong can backfire badly, especially if you make one of the three worst mistakes:
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1. Paying for Listings
As a roofing company, you think you want your phone ringing off the hook. That would mean you’re getting a lot of business, right?
Unfortunately, you might get flooded with lots of phone calls, emails, and messages about signing up for subscription services designed to give you leads. In the roofing industry, this can mean:
- Yellow Pages
- Yelp
- Angie’s List
- HomeAdvisor
Directories such as these and others aren’t looking to give you lots of clients, though. What they want is lots of clients, and that means getting you and other roofers to subscribe to a monthly fee. To keep you around, they have to keep you wanting more.
When you put a roof on a new home, you want it to last as long as possible, because a great roof convinces that homeowner to spread the word about your company’s service and value. Your business model isn’t how paid directory services work.
Free directories are still cool, especially local ones that can help boost Google Maps ranking for your company. Be sure to write a good description that’s keyword rich for every listing you create online, and you’ll have a leg up against the competition.
2. Paying for Leads
If you’ve spent money already on buying leads from HomeAdvisor, then you might be able to write this section better than us. On the other hand, if you have yet to fall for their act, then maybe it’s not too late.
Leads are great to have if you want roofing clients and contracts. HomeAdvisor leads aren’t always so great though, for two reasons several of our clients have brought up:
- You’re paying for them.
- Those leads are being shared with several competitors.
Whoever those leads are will start getting multiple phone calls at the same time, and then the bids are a race to the bottom.
Where can you look for leads? You can get them for free from:
- Bing
- Yahoo
Google accounts for more than half of all online traffic. Facebook accounts for a quarter of it alone… Just being active on those two is easy and effective.
Your leads will be:
- Much cheaper to produce.
- Educated on your brand.
- Exclusive!
3. Picking the Wrong SEO Company
If you choose an SEO firm with experience serving roofing businesses, then their work will drive plenty of business your way without needing listings and leads. You’ll just tap into the constant online traffic of homeowners and businesses looking for roofing professionals.
Then again, if you choose the wrong SEO company, you’ll waste time and money. You might even wind up with your website being blacklisted or penalized by Google and other search engines.
You know that homeowners have to watch out for scammers in the roofing industry. Unfortunately, as a roofing business you have to watch out for scammers in both the marketing and SEO sectors.
When looking for an SEO firm, watch out for the following warning signs:
- They employ the same cookie-cutter SEO tactics for clients of all industries.
- They think all you need is lots of backlinks or are otherwise outdated.
- They can’t explain Google’s most recent algorithm updates in plain English.
- They talk about cheating or using black-hat techniques.
Most homeowners are advised to get at least three quotes from various roofers before choosing the best one, and you’re used to that competitive process. Turn it around, and make sure you consult several SEO firms before you choose one.
It might be that the very first one you find has experience in search engine optimization for roofing companies and home services professionals, but the odds aren’t in your favor.
Key Takeaways
It’s okay if you skipped to the end of this content to read the summary bullet points. Many people do that just to see if an article is worth reading, and it’s a tactic those of us in the SEO world know all about!
If you’re in the roofing industry, then the three biggest mistakes you can make with your marketing budget can be:
- Paying for listings
- Paying for leads
- Paying the wrong SEO company
The right SEO firm can knock out all three of these at once. If you’re in need of such an SEO firm, then sign up for our free website audit. Give us the chance to show you what your website’s true potential is and how to reach it.
