Running a successful business can be accredited to many things: your ability, professionalism or even customer service. However, marketing plays a key role too – after all, unless your business is very well known in the community, it can be risky to rely on word-of-mouth referrals alone. Whilst there are many forms of marketing, digital marketing enables you to communicate more simply and quickly all that’s great about your roofing services; and, in doing so, create credible awareness for your company and for what you do – ultimately increasing sales.
With around five billion Google searches every day and over one billion active Facebook users alone – digital marketing gives you a range of platforms that you can use to attract new customers and grow your business. Better still – it’s not pricey or time-consuming! Here, we consider some basic and cost-effective digital marketing techniques that can help grow your business and that should be a staple of every roofing company’s tool bag.
Develop a plan: What better time than the New Year to take stock of your business by reviewing your past year and setting some new goals for the year ahead? By creating a marketing plan, it will help you to identify and schedule activities to achieve the results you need for your business. And, by only working on items that you know will work for your business, it will help you to avoid spending time and money on activities that won’t give you the results you need.
Firstly you need to decide what you want to achieve and then consider the type of customers you need to target. For example, do you want to target local homeowners, housebuilders, or construction companies? The more accurate you are in defining your ideal customer, the more you will be able to focus your marketing efforts with precision and hone your marketing messages to attract your desired customers. It also pays to study other roofing contractors in your local area – and even those further afield – who are successful in their digital marketing activities.
A web…site of opportunity: your website is the first port of call for any prospective customer, meaning the faster you can engage, intrigue and convert them, the better. The best websites are often the simplest, so it’s important to keep your site straightforward and easy to use. As more and more people use tablets and phones to search the web, make sure your site works across all devices and search engines.
Content is king: you need to ensure that the text you include is valuable and relevant to what people are searching for. Using key word search terms in your copy, such as your local town and your specific roofing services, will help improve your position in search engine results. It’s also worth registering with online business directories so people will be linked to your site from there too. Make sure you promote membership of any trade associations – to promote your credibility. It’s also the best place to showcase jobs that you have done and include testimonials from past customers that display a wide range of completed roofs with impressive photos.
Be strategically social: social media is one of the few digital marketing tools that every business can use and doesn’t require a big budget. Whether it’s Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter, any small investment in social media marketing can produce hundreds of new followers, as well as increased web traffic and brand awareness. The goal is to provide your followers with something that’s useful, interesting, and shareable. Social media can also act as a customer service portal for queries and general engagement.
Social media advertising: advertising via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn offers real opportunities to build your audience and they are surprisingly affordable. Not only can you be extremely detailed and accurate with your targeting, you can see how well your ads are performing, and even monitor the number of ‘click-throughs’ to your website.
These are just some of the ways in which you can grow your business through digital marketing. By being savvy you can increase your visibility way beyond traditional marketing methods and gain new customers, all without spending a vast fortune. For those contractors who are new to digital marketing, it may sound daunting at first, however getting left behind could prove even scarier. Remember, once you get on your potential customers’ radars, it’s more likely that they will contact you; then your reputation will grow, your business will expand and sales will soar.
