What Did You Say?

I heard an ad on the radio the other day that nearly made me choke on my coffee.  After I regained control of my car I had to think of how few ads catch my attention like this one did.  Then it made me wonder if roofing contractors would ever be willing to use such a provocative method.

When I say provocative I don’t mean in the sexy sense, I am using the definition “likely to bring a strong reaction.”  I can’t tell you the number of times roofing contractors have told me that they will never say anything about the competition or other brands.  They tell me that customers don’t like that.  On some levels I agree, however I don’t know that it is totally true.

So, what was the ad that caught my attention?  Before I tell you the ad I will say that it dealt with a problem that many roofing contractors face – low quality, cheap competitors.  The ad was for the Shane Company (you know, your friend in the diamond business).  The first sentence was spoken by their deadpan spokesperson.  He said something to the effect of:

‘Our competitors diamonds are so cheap that they look like a chunk of frozen spit.’

That is the line that had me swerving down the freeway.  Then he went on to really add the pain by saying that if you were to buy such a cheap, cloudy, milky diamond you and the loved one you gave it too would never really be happy with it.

I love that ad.  You may start thinking that customers don’t really like that.  After some research I have to disagree.  Let’s look at some of the most successful companies and whether or not they use this strategy.  Here are a few:

Apple vs. PC  -  Whopper vs. Big Mac

Verizon vs. AT&T  -  Ford vs. Chevy

I could go on.  These companies call out the competition and people love it and respond to it.  This gives them the chance to identify with the company they prefer and helps them to really buy into it.

Would this work for Roofing Contractor Marketing? If done properly.  The Shane Company ad did not specifically mention any competitor.  What it did do was point out an easily identifiable difference between their product and the competitors (in a humorous way).  It also explained how the customer would likely feel after they purchased the inferior product and reminded them that they can easily avoid that pain and embarrassment by shopping with them.

These are principles that could easily be incorporated into a roofing companies marketing materials. Take some time to identify points of difference between you and your competitors and then don’t be afraid to talk about and advertise those points.  But what if my competitor just copies me?  That is o.k.,  in my next post I will talk about a little utilized marketing fact “If you say it first. you own it.”  It never sounds as good to a customer to hear “Oh yeah…, we do that too.”  So, go ahead, be provocative, your future customers may just like it, even if your competitors don’t!

How Much Money Does Each New Customer Cost Your Roofing Company?

In November’s newsletter I wrote an article entitled “5 ways to beat your competition without spending a dime”.  The first item was to show up and be on time for your appointments.  When I wrote that I thought it was so obvious that I almost did not put it in.  But then I had the following experience.

A friend of mine called and told me he needed a new roof on his duplex.  I told him that I knew a great roofer in his area and that I would have them contact him right away.  I called the roofer and told him that my friend was expecting a call from him.  He did call and set up an appointment to check out the roof.  I later contacted my friend to see how things had gone.  He said that the roofer I recommended had called but them never showed up for their appointment and that he ended up getting someone else to do the job.  They did not even show up for a pre-qualified referral lead. Needless to say I was embarrassed and will probably not recommend that roofing contractor again.  But, the experience led me to write this post.

How much money did that roofer waste by not following up on that lead? I am not talking about his potential profit, I am talking about his cost of acquisition for a new customer.  I know that this roofing contractor actively markets his roofing company including yellow pages, a web site, and direct mailing.  That amounts to a lot of money each year to acquire new customers.

Let’s look at how you can figure what each new customer costs you to acquire in terms of marketing dollars.

First - take your total marketing spend for the year.  Add up all that you spend on your yellow pages, web sites, direct mailing, and other marketing.

Second - divide that number by the total number of jobs you closed in that same year.

Here is an example:

Total of all Marketing expenditures for the year
Yellow Pages – $1200 per month = 14,400.00
Web Site – $50.00 per month = $600.00
Direct mailing – $300.00 per month = $3,600.00
Newspaper Ad – $300.00 per month = $3,600.00

Total Marketing spend for the year = $22,200.00

I know that there are some roofing contractors who spend that much just on their yellow page ads!

Now lets figure the total number of customers acquired in that same time period
1.5 re-roofs per week = 78
Total repair jobs = 50

Total customers acquired = 128

Total Marketing Spend = 22,200.00 divided by number of customers 128 = $173.43 per customer.

So in this example it costs $173.43 to acquire a new customer.  If that were the case for the roofer I mentioned above he wasted $173.43 by not showing up in addition to the amount of profit he could have made.

This is an important number for all roofing contractors to know.  This is an important number for all of your employees to know as well.  Every time someone does something that costs you a new customer you just wasted that much money in your marketing expenses.

This is also a good number to know when you are analyzing new marketing opportunities.  You can take the cost of the marketing item and divide it by the total number of customers you expect it to bring and find out if it is a good spend.

Marketing is a major expense for roofing contractors.  Knowing the exact value of a new customer can go a long way to helping you to bring those costs down.

Hold those selling you marketing accountable for the results

When you agree to install a new roof you know that you will be held accountable for providing the results your customer expects.  Shouldn’t the same be true of those who sell marketing to your roofing company?

All too often we just take the salesperson’s word that their marketing program will be the best money we’ve ever spent.  Then months and thousands later when we are getting no results there is no way to hold them accountable.

What can a roofing contractor do?  Here are 5 Questions to ask your marketing salesperson (especially yellow page ads) before you spend the money.

1 - How much growth can my company expect to see as a result of this marketing campaign?  Get this number either in a percentage of increase or number of jobs.

2 - What system do you have to show me how much business your program is bringing me?

3 - How long will it take to reach these increase goals?

4 - What will you do if this program does not achieve these goals?

5 – What do you mean there is no way for you to answer these questions?

If a company wants you to spend your hard earned money on a sure fire program, but will not back it up with a way to measure results and provide some guarantee that their program will work, you may want to think twice before buying.

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do”

- Thomas Jefferson

Stand Out from other Roofers with Simple Messages - that Really Say Something.

I like that quote.  This is an important principle to keep in mind when developing marketing messages for your roofing services.  Roofing contractor marketing does not need to be complicated or lengthy.

“Great, I will just put a bunch of simple bullet points in my ads and people will surely read them”  Not true.  Along with being busy we have also become immune to most advertising.  I was looking at an ad for an electrician in my area.  His bullet points were:

Clean professional service – Experienced, friendly electricians – Free quotes

If you were looking for an electrician what would go through your mind as you read those bullet points?

My thoughts are: “Really?  Wow, I’ll hire this guy because the other electrician advertises ‘dirty unprofessional service done by grumpy guys with no experience’!”  Or in other words – “What else would I expect?  Everybody says those things!”

Keeping it simple does not mean saying the same old thing that everyone else says. You could have taken the ad for that electrician and inserted his competitor’ name and the ad would have been fine.  You could have taken his ad and inserted a plumber or a roofer and the ad would have been fine.  This is not a good ad.

Keeping it simple is hard work.  It means really taking the time to figure out what makes you different from other roofing contractors (saying something they cannot say) and then finding a way to say it quickly and convincingly in language the customer will understand.

TAKE ACTION:

1 - Review your ads and see if your are saying things that make the reader say “Of course, everyone says that!”  If you have them, change them.

2 - Take time to review what makes you different from other roofing contractors and  find a way to explain these differences in two or three sentences.  Then replace your old generic points with these.

In future posts we will discuss how to develop these statements often called your “USP” or Unique Selling Proposition.  Please share your thoughts.

There it is, you are so proud.  The shiny new postcard is ready to be sent.  How could anyone resist the beautiful pictures and bullet points?  You can hardly wait for the flood of calls this will surely generate.  This was a mistake I made and thousands of dollars later I still had no calls from that beautiful postcard.  What should I have done?  Tested it first!

Split Testing can Help Roofers Find a Message That Matches Their Market

No matter how perfect you or your graphics design person thinks your marketing is, you should test it.  How?

Roofers should take advantage of a long known marketing strategy called “split testing”.  How can you use split testing to improve the rate of return you get on your marketing?  Here is an example:

Lets say you have identified a specific neighborhood with 500 houses as the perfect re-roof opportunity, you have developed a direct mail piece and are ready to send it out.   Ideally I would recommend that you have two different mailers and send each one to 100 homes.  Wait 2-3 weeks and see which one gets a greater response.  If one mailer gets 1 call and the other gets 2 you will have identified a message that is 100% more effective than the other.

If neither mailer gets a response take some time to analyze what your message is and if it is really matches up with the targeted market.  Is the neighborhood you are marketing to made up of smaller homes and the ad you sent contains pictures of beautiful mansions and high end roofing (or vice-versa)?  If this is the case your marketing may be sending the wrong message.

Does your marketing contain a specific call to action?  Are you trying to get people to call or maybe to visit your web site?  Either way make sure you make clear what action you would like the reader to take.  You may want to incentivize this by offering a free report or other item that will encourage them to contact you.

Once you have revised your message for your market, test again!  Send it to 100 homes and compare the response to your previous mailings.  Once you have a message that is working, then mail it to the entire area.

Marketing for Roofers is expensive, especially direct mail marketing.  Make sure that you don’t spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on advertising that is not effective.  By split testing first you can make sure that your next roofing ad campaign will be effective and bring the results you want.

Remember – Test it first!

Targeted Marketing Can Launch Your Roofing Business

How would you answer the question “Who are your target customers?” The common answer to that question is “everyone”.  However, it would be very expensive and time consuming to try to advertise your roofing services to everyone.

Even though it may seem that “everyone” needs a new roof, not everyone needs one right now, and not everyone is your target customer.  If you take the time to really identify the type of customer that matches up with your roofing companies style you can target your marketing towards your most receptive audience and dramatically increase the effectiveness of your marketing.

Start Here.

1 - Ask yourself: “Who are my customers?” Take a look at your last 10-20 roofing customers and see what traits they have in common.  Do they all live in a similar type neighborhood?  Do they all have similar economic profiles?  Did they all have similar types of roofing problems leading them to call you in the first place?  If you can’t get a clear picture looking at your last 10-20 customers go farther back in your records and you will begin to see some patterns.

2 - Once you have some patterns identified ask yourself what is the best way to reach these people.  Have you been successful in attracting younger tech savvy clients searching for roofing on the web, or does your niche seem to be older non-tech users?  The answers to these questions will help you begin to see what advertising methods could be the most effective for you and keep you from advertising in places your best customers are not looking.

You may find that you have a few distinct groups of customers that you have been successful with. This means that you have  a great opportunity to develop different marketing pieces tailored to that specific group.  Now you can send out a few targeted marketing pieces to customers that you can be confident you can have good results with instead of sending out one generic message to the masses that may or may not have the results you were hoping for.

For example if you find that you are having good success in re-roofing mid-level housing with asphalt shingles would it be as effective if your ad featured pictures of large homes with tile roofs?  The opposite would be true as well.

This is just scratching the surface of how you can use your past customer data to help you fine tune your marketing campaigns.  If you do you will be able to save a lot of time and money, things we could all use a little more of!

Take Action:

Identify patterns in your existing customer base and use this information to tailor your marketing to better appeal to customers like them.

Hit the target with your marketing!

Marketing goals?  I want to make money!  Ultimately that is the goal, however, there are a number of questions you should ask before laying down your hard earned money on an advertising campaign that does not really accomplish what you hope it will.

1 - What is the goal of this marketing piece?  Is it to build brand awareness in my community or is it to bring an immediate rush of business.  Your answer to this question should really affect the look, feel and message of your ad.

2 - How can I measure the results of this ad to see if it meets my goals?

3 – How much business am I expecting to gain in order to consider this ad successful?

4 - If it doesn’t work what changes will I make?

5 - Does this ad harmonize with other marketing pieces you have done in the past to help build name brand recognition?

6 - Do I need to change the way my business is seen in my market, is my image outdated?

7 - Do I have a consistent message to the market that people will remember?

8 - Have I completed a marketing plan and set specific sales and profit goals that will help me measure the effectiveness of my marketing efforts?

Remember:
- “The only gauge of success we have is profit – honest profit”  REX BEACH

Setting marketing goals can help your roofing business succeed.