Roofing Success
The Roofing Success Podcast is a show created to inspire roofing contractors to achieve optimal success in their roofing businesses. The host, Jim Ahlin, is the co-author of the book, "Internet Marketing For Roofing Contractors, How to TRIPLE Your Sales and Turn Your Roofing Website Into an Online Lead Generation Machine", and Co-Founder of Roofer Marketers, the Digital Marketing Agency for the roofing industry. On each episode, Jim will be sitting down with industry leaders to talk about their processes, the lessons they learned, and how to find success in roofing.
Roofing Success
Why Your Competitors Are Winning: Your Brand is Forgettable! with Jim Ahlin
Unlock the secrets to becoming the most unforgettable name in the roofing industry. What if instead of striving to be the best, you aim to be the best-known? Learn the art of creating a robust brand identity from my personal journey—from crafting digital marketing strategies to establishing Roofer Marketers and its eventual merger with Job Nimbus. Explore how consistent customer impressions and achieving omnipresence can elevate your roofing business to new heights, ensuring you're always top of mind for potential clients.
Through the stories of extraordinary guests like Travis from Planet Roof and the late Dustin Beigler of Apple Roofing, discover the power of unique branding elements and the role they play in making your business stand out in a saturated market. From bold visual choices to consistent messaging, I'll share how these companies have successfully carved out a niche in the industry. We'll dive into the effectiveness of social proof and client testimonials in building brand credibility, much like trusted personal referrals, giving you actionable insights to enhance your marketing strategies.
Enhance customer communication and loyalty with practical tools and insights designed to improve your customer relationships. I discuss the essentials of instant scheduling, rapid estimates, and clear communication to keep your clients informed and satisfied. Plus, explore the importance of multi-channel marketing, setting the right expectations, and using data-driven decisions to track performance and optimize your strategies. Join me and the community in the Roofing Success Facebook group, where together, we continue to learn, grow, and achieve long-term success in the roofing industry.
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Have you ever thought about what really fuels a brand's power in the roofing industry? Today's episode brings a unique perspective straight from my journey Over the years, from building niche websites to launching roofer marketers, I've seen firsthand that brand and omnipresence are more than just buzzwords they're the foundation of success. So in this special episode, I dive into what I believe every roofing company needs to thrive Establishing a strong brand identity, creating consistent customer impressions and leveraging omnipresence. It's all about becoming unforgettable in your market. As the host of the Roofing Success podcast and a digital marketing coach for the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance, I've spent years helping contractors master lead generation, brand visibility and customer retention. Today, I'm sharing those insights directly with you. What sets my journey apart is my hands-on experience from every piece of the puzzle, from real estate lead funnels to making the phone ring for roofing businesses nationwide. Building a powerful brand presence, especially in a crowded field like roofing, has been both my passion and my mission. So get ready for a conversation packed with actionable strategies, from brand consistency to customer loyalty, all aimed at helping you become the best known roofer in your area. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. All right, today's episode is going to be a little bit different. I have been getting a lot of feedback recently from uh, from some of my team, from uh members that I coach in the roofing and solar reform Alliance, and and it's a little bit different they're like Jim, how come you don't talk on the podcast, right? How come you don't share your thoughts as much? You know I enjoy the interviewing aspect of it. I promise you it's one of my favorite things to do. I love to learn from other people. But today I wanted to share some things that I think we're missing, some gaps that I'm seeing in what we're. You know what, what we're, what, the content that we're creating here on the podcast, and so today are my thoughts.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if everyone knows you know, my background is in digital marketing man. I started doing web development in 2002. It's been a long journey. I learned, you know, facebook ads along the way, google ads along the way, seo along the way, mainly by working on my own stuff. Right, I learned SEO by building a bunch of they were back then we called them, niche websites and real product specific websites that I would get ranking in Google and and I would, I would throw Google AdSense on it and and I would make some money. And you know, I was, I did pretty good. At one point in time I had like 43 of these sites ranking. On a good month, I'd, you know, I'd I'd make, you know, 10, 10, 11 grand. On a bad month, I'd make like three, four, three, $4,000. And you know, but that was my introduction to SEO.
Speaker 1:And then I was in the mortgage and real estate business and and one of the things that I did, you know, with my mortgage teams, would, would would be to help them develop relationships with realtors, and so so I would help them. One of our strategies was we would do lead generation for realtors and then, you know, essentially get to work the loans that we that for, for those buyers that we, that we helped create, and so that's how I learned how to run Google ads. I learned Google ads building, you know, kind of inbound lead funnels through Google ads for realtors, for people searching for homes, and then turning those into customers. And then I learned Facebook ads selling t-shirts on Facebook. I sold thousands of Facebook, thousands of t-shirts on Facebook and all of this, all of these little things. It's really fun to me looking back and saying man like connecting the dots, all of these little things. It's really fun to me looking back and saying man like connecting the dots.
Speaker 1:All of these things led to this certain place, and you know so I was in the mortgage and real estate industry and, you know, post crash, I did a lot of real estate investing and then I built up a new mortgage, a mortgage branch, and during that time, man, mortgages really sucked and if any of you went through, you know, getting a mortgage from 2008 to 2000,. You know, probably still to today the mortgage process was really terrible and it and every day was just like unhappy customers. And so I, you know, I pivoted a lot of the when I was doing my real estate investing. A lot of people, a lot of contractors that I worked with, friends that I had along the way, everyone was like, hey, you know how to build those website things Right. So so I started doing that for other people.
Speaker 1:I started doing lead generation for companies, mainly contractors a couple roofing contractors, electrical contractor and all through that I started building my skill set in, you know, in marketing, what I learned about myself is that my favorite thing to do is make the phone ring. And so you know, when you think of the customer journey, that awareness stage of the customer journey, that consideration phase, you know those two is where I live, man, I love that, I really, really enjoy it, and and that's what led to Roofer Marketers, and then, of course, we exited Roofer Marketers so that to Job Nimbus, and now now Roofer Marketers is a Job Nimbus company. And through all this journey, man, I've learned so many things. But the first thing and the main thing is that brand and omnipresence is the core of everything. The way I like to put it is brand is greater than everything.
Speaker 1:If you look at the successful roofing contractors in your area, they're the best known. Right, it's not the best, and you know we wrote the book on it, the Best Known Roofer. And I started hearing this terminology. You know, I know it's a, you know I've heard it from Grant Cardone and you know, best known beats best, and and it's not new terminology that I'm using, but but it's omnipresence and becoming best known has entered, entered the language of, of marketing for roofing contractors and other contractors. I see, you know there's there. There's a lot of books now on. You know, after we did, the best known roofer there's, there's best known X Y, z on on Amazon. There's other books around there and and it's really, it's really a Testament right that that, that, that this is the core of it. Man Brand is greater than everything.
Speaker 1:You know, if you pull up to a house you know you've heard me with this analogy before I heard it. I learned it from a podcast guest that I had on you know, if you pull up to a house and a rusty Ford F-150 with a magnet slapped on the side, and you know, you know a dirty shirt and you know, you know writing everything on a piece of paper, your brand tells that homeowner you can be negotiated with. If you pull up in that nice, you know well, very well presented, maybe a nice wrap truck, you know good nice polo shirt tucked in, you know very, you know very professional. You know that speaks differently to the consumer. So that's brand. That's, in essence, is brand right. And brand can be measured in a few different ways.
Speaker 1:You know, as your roofing journey, as you go through your roofing business journey, or in any business journey, you'll start to learn how strong your brand is based on the foundational business that you have for the year. The way I like to think about it is man, if I didn't do any marketing, what do you think we would hit from a revenue basis this year? That's what I'm looking at, right Like what is our baseline. If we didn't market ourselves, what would we hit Just from past customer referrals and people knowing that we exist? That's brand. So let's say that's you know. Maybe you know you've been in business for 15, 20 years and no matter what you do, the phone will ring and you'll do three $4 million in business, right Like. If that's the case, that's your brand. That's the effect of your brand. If you're new to business, no one's calling right, so your brand is small, you don't really have brand. So we so we really want to make sure that we we build a strong brand identity.
Speaker 1:I've had guests on the podcast like Travis with Planet Roof, out in, out in Pittsburgh and man he he's. When they did their brand change to Planet Roof and like, just driving the trucks down the road, all of a sudden they were having different conversations than they were before. It really differentiates you in a saturated market. One of the really early episodes of the podcast I had Dustin Beigler from Apple Roofing, who has, you know, since passed away, but, man, what an amazing mind for brand and for marketing and an amazing business owner, and with Apple Roofing they're in.
Speaker 1:You know they started it in like Lincoln or Omaha I can't remember where they started but you know, in the Lincoln, omaha area and everything in Nebraska is red and white, right Based on the. You know the, the college and the. You know that's the. Those are the colors of Nebraska. They went against the grain and they went with this bright green color. And I remember him telling me about a storm that happened in the mid-2000 teens I think maybe it was 2015, 17, whatever. It was somewhere in there that there was Google Earth shots. They had custom felt paper, custom felt and a custom underlayment and they like that was bright green, with the Apple logo on it and and you could see like pictures of Google maps and things. Like you could see where they were just doing so many houses in a neighborhood that it was just like green with this, with, with their, with their custom underlayment, and that's like those types of things, right, as their trucks are driving around town.
Speaker 1:People see them and differentiate them. It's a big deal, man, and that's one of the thing. And so some things about brand for you to start to think about brand, some actionable tips for you to start to think about brand. You know some actionable tips for you, you know, to start with. Start with having consistency in your visuals and messaging, right? So, if you're saying the same thing over and over again, you know, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're just ending election season here in the United States and, boy, you're hearing the same things over and over again, aren't you? It's the same taglines, the same slogans, the same verbiage being used every time. It's one of my biggest pet peeves with politicians, right, is that they don't answer a question. They're just so, they just use these like pre-canned messages. But they do that for a reason. They do that because it gets in your head, right, it gets in your head that, that that same message over and over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1:Consistency, consistency in visuals, right? So you know, really defining your brand from a visual perspective, brand colors, getting a really good logo designed. You know, every roofer, you know the majority of roofers, have that little outline of a house with their, you know, with their company name in it. You know the majority of roofers have that little, a little outline of a house with their, you know, with their company name in it and it you know how can you differentiate yourself and stand out. You know, apple roofing did the Apple and it's like they put together something that everyone knows. Apple with roofing right, planet roof has has a really cool planet and, you know, really cool logo. Planet Roof has a really cool planet and a really cool logo. There's so many more examples of this out there, but it begins to differentiate you from the others in your market.
Speaker 1:But you have to be consistent, right? All of your trucks look the same, all of your colors, your logos, shirts for your reps, for your production team, for your install, for your installers Everyone has the same, the same identity. Right, it's very uniform, very uniform on your trucks, on social media, on your Google business profile, all across every platform. Anywhere someone sees you, you want to have that brand consistency. And so slogans if you're using a slogan like my friends at MHI Roofing, we do this every shingle day If you're using that a slogan, using that across all touch points, using that over and over again, and it's amazing how much we will remember that consistency. It is amazing.
Speaker 1:I remember we were working with one of our clients in Roof, for Marketers was a Lowe's preferred contractor and, and I remember we were doing this Facebook campaign that was co-branded with Lowe's, with them and, and Lowe's sent over their what's considered what's called a brand guide, a brand guide and so a brand guide. You know, as a small company, you might not have one, but it's something that you should look into. But it's down to what fonts to use, what colors to use, where, what slogans can be used for this, and that it was 115 pages of how to represent the Lowe's brand in any situation, right? So that's not something that you have to do as a small business, but think about that. You know that's not something that you have to do as a small business, but but, but think about that. You know, like looking, taking the cues from these large, large corporations. They know what they're doing and they've built, you know, billion dollar, multi-billion dollar businesses, and it's all about that branding.
Speaker 1:Other things that I think really add to brand, or add to emphasize your brand, I'll say, is more emphasizing your brand, is social proof and client testimonials. You know, having hearing from someone else that you know that you are good, right, it's like a referral right, and people trust online reviews as much as a recommendation from a friend or family member, right? So, and that's just your Google review, right? If there's a video that goes along with that, that says how they you know how this person felt the problem that they were trying to solve when they started looking for a roofing contractor to work with. And so, you know, maybe after each job, you know, request a review, of course, on Google, but also see if they're willing to. You know, do a video with you.
Speaker 1:Pull out this phone, right, everybody has one of these in their pocket. These are 4K cameras these days, right, decent mics on them already. Pull it out and and start, uh, start filming that. You know, one, one of the one of the one of the episodes we had Rabinsky roofing and um and, and they used to. I don't know if they're still doing this, but they did it for you know you'd go to their social media and it was just customer review after customer review after customer review.
Speaker 1:I mean the amount of emphasis that that, or, you know, trust that that will build with a future customer man that it's amazing. And then you know from there, you know, once you know you have your brand consistency, you're emphasizing your brand, the trust in your brand, through social proof and customer testimonials, and then we're going to. Then we need a content strategy for omnipresence, right? And so you know, we want to use social media, youtube, google effectively to get your brand in front of people. So the fundamentals of marketing it's something for everyone to think about the fundamentals of marketing are who? Who are you trying to speak to? Right, the demographics of your perfect customer. Not everyone is your perfect customer. So the who is it? Is it the suburban? You know? You know soccer mom, is it? You know who is your perfect customer If you're on the commercial side, you know the property, maybe a property manager, building owners, you know things like that. Who is your perfect customer? And the next thing that we do in foundational marketing is the message right. So it's the who and the what. So that, what is the next phase that we're going on? That's what we're saying, that's your slogans, your taglines, that's your core value, expressing of your core values. It's the things that the words that you feel will resonate with those people that you consider your perfect customer. And so then we move on to the how, right, and that's how are we going to take? How are we going to get this message that we've created in front of these people that we want to target? These are our people, right, these are the very specific people that we want this message to go in front of. So, in that we're going to, you know we're, we're.
Speaker 1:You know most of your customers are on Facebook, instagram, tiktok, but they also may be, you know, at local events, right, they may be. You know, at the little league fields in town, if they're, or at the local soccer fields, like we said with the soccer mom. You know we have to think about where these people are and where we can get our messaging. You know you think about radio and television. You know the demographic audience that listens to a sports radio show is different than the audience for that daytime or that morning news or the local news morning show. Right, that's the. You know there's different audiences. It's easy to segment that way but, like with digital, you can really segment that very easily, right, it's much easier to get to that.
Speaker 1:The people that you want showing up, you know, on Facebook, even if you're doing just the strategy of local, you know being, you know five mile famous, as Joseph Hughes puts it, or you know getting locally. You know micro famous is another way to put it. Like realtors do this all the time. They call it farming. So they'll farm a neighborhood, they'll choose a neighborhood and they'll just market to that neighborhood over and over again. They'll send newsletters and you know they'll send magnets for your fridge that have the local sports schedule on it and they'll. You know there's all this stuff, but it's just a consistent message to those people. And on social media, I think it's very easy to find those people and get to those people. And on social media, I think it's very easy to find those people and get to those people you know. On Google also, if you're, you know you can write blog content for your website, create YouTube videos that match up with your local area and you'll really get in front of people.
Speaker 1:But for omnipresence and I love the term omnipresence, I know it's a, it sounds like a challenging word, a big, challenging thing to to accomplish, but but it's really just being in front of your perfect audience as much as possible wherever they are at Right. So so, wherever, wherever you can get your message in front of them. Wherever you can get a brand impression right, you know a brand impression, maybe on a billboard on the major thoroughfare in your area that you know all of the people in your area drive up and down my friends at you know. Getting your building, having a building on a major road and having your signage there also is another idea. There's a couple of great roofing companies I know that have done that and they really get a lot of attention right. A lot of people driving up and down those roads. That's an easy way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1:But but another way is just a social media post. Every time you open up your Facebook, you know, or your Instagram, you will see. You know, the stories of, of, of, of that people are posting and, and if, if you can show up in those stories, if you're posting one story a day, every time people that follow you open up that phone, they are going to see that. They're going to see your brand right, they're going to see your logo. If you have your logo as your profile picture for your page and so you're always getting these brand impressions. You're always, if you're sending a newsletter, you know, to past customers, just you know may just talk about what's happening in the community, locally, things like that, but every time that that newsletter hits their inbox, that's a brand impression. Every time they see your a yard sign in someone's yard while they're driving up and down the street, every time they see your truck driving down the road, that's a brand impression.
Speaker 1:So we want to accumulate as many brand impressions as possible and we can do that in so many ways, but it takes doing all of it at once. Right, do just. But but start with one thing. Right, start with your trucks, your yard signs, move on to doing some social very, very quickly, you know, you know from this. But also not just quickly, but but sustainably. Also, because as you're as you're just you know iterating on your business, you're doing the next thing and doing a little something, a little bit better. And now you're starting to do some Facebook and Instagram posts. And then now you're starting to, you know, get some blog articles published on your website. Now you're sponsoring the local little league.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to happen all at once, you could do one thing at a time, but but make sure that you're adding it to your repertoire, right? So once you add it. It's part of what you do on an ongoing basis. So omnipresence is the goal become the best known roofer in your area. You know we wrote the book in 2021, the Best Known Roofer check that out. It's on Amazon. But that's the fundamental vision of what you want to do. And then we want to move on, and the next phase of this is you know your current customers and really making sure that they are becoming raving fans, right? So having great communication is the key to all of this.
Speaker 1:The way that I like to put it is if your customers are wondering, you are losing. Let me put that again If your customers are wondering, you are losing. So let me give you some examples of this. A customer goes to Google. They type in best roofer near me. They go to your Google ad and click on it, or they go to your Google business profile and call you. Or they go to your website and call you and they get a voicemail, or no, let's say, your team answers the phone.
Speaker 1:I see a lot of contractors doing this. Their team answers the phone. Team answers the phone. I see a lot of contractors doing this. Their team answers the phone, but whoever answers the phone doesn't have the schedule of the sales team. So they say, hey, you know, great, I got all your information. You need our services. I'm going to have Jim call you back and let you know when he has time to maybe come out during when you have time, to see if we can solve your problem.
Speaker 1:Now it's said, of course, a little bit differently hey, I'm going to have Jim call you and get on his schedule, right, like it's something simple as that. But it's really not that. It's. You are letting people wonder. So now they have to wonder when is Jim going to call me? Is Jim going to call me? Is he going to have a time that's convenient for me? There's a lot of questions that start coming up in that process. So just at that point in time you're losing, right.
Speaker 1:But if you get that, if you get that, that that appointment booked on, that call, now they're not wondering anymore. They know, hey, wednesday at 4 PM Jim's going to be at my house and he's going to do an inspection, and so but now, now I come out and do the inspection, right, and let's say it's a retail job and I'm like all right, great, I did the inspection. I'll get you your estimate as soon as I can, right. And so again, think about it. Right, like, I'll get you my, I'll get you an estimate when I have time. You know, when are you going to get me this estimate? Right, like you know that now the question they're wondering when are they going to get, when's Jim going to get me this estimate? What's the cost going to be? You know, can I afford it? Like, all of these things start going through their head.
Speaker 1:So, getting you know, putting together a process where you can get that estimate to them instantaneously or as quickly as possible, right, they're not wondering Now. They're not wondering. Great, they signed the contract, we're good to go. Now they start wondering well, when am I going to get on the schedule? When is my roof going to be replaced? What do I need to do? Do I need to have the dogs put away? Can I have my car in the driveway? Do I have to move things around? Can I be home? Man, I work from home. Can I work from home that day when they're putting on the roof? How many things are they wondering.
Speaker 1:So now you have an opportunity in that follow-up communication to really define exactly the process and how things are going to work and when they'll be on the schedule and when their materials were ordered and all of the wonderful things were ordered and what like all of the wonderful things, and then once, once, once the job is complete, you have such an opportunity to, you know, explain to them how to communicate with you if they have an issue, what their warranty is, how to communicate referrals, how to how, how to refer people to you. You know you never want them wondering how to, how to refer you, right? So all of these things, that, that that consistent follow-up that builds that strong customer relationship turning people into raving fans. So you know that's an important, such an important part, right? You know other aspects of it.
Speaker 1:I've seen I've had some guests on the podcast that have very successful customer loyalty programs where you know they'll I mean they'll give gifts for referrals or they'll give cash for referrals or not just for referrals and not just for closed jobs. A lot of times people will give, like you know, give Starbucks gift cards just for a name, right? So it doesn't have to be tied to the job. But I promise you no one will refer you if they feel like they're not sure if you're going to do a good job, because when they refer you they put their name on the line, right. Other things to do in that follow up and we kind of talked about it in the omnipresence a little bit around omnipresence, but you know, maybe an email newsletter that goes out to them and it's just talking about things that are going on and it doesn't have to be specifically all roofing all the time, but within that newsletter you can have seasonal roof care tips, signs of roof issues, maintenance reminders. If there was a recent storm, you can include that hey, there was a recent storm. These are some things to look out for. So lots of things that you could customize and tailor that ongoing communication to those people. So now we have omnipresence. Right, we're focused on omnipresence. We're really focused on the consistency in your brand and visuals and messaging. We're focused on the social proof, customer testimonials, the content strategy for omnipresence. We're focused on that customer retention and building of raving fans through good communication, not good communication, exceptional communication. Maybe. Some built some customer loyalty programs, some custom tailored content for past customers to keep in touch with you. Now I think we.
Speaker 1:I think the next really important thing is learning how to make data driven marketing decisions. It's really challenging when you have an omnipresent approach. I promise Okay, because you know maybe you're knocking doors and you put a door hanger out or a letter, leave a letter. Then they they're driving in and out of their neighborhood and they see your guard signs a couple of times. Then you know the house, you know across the street and down, for you know that you guys are doing a build, so all your trucks are out there and everything's going on. And then maybe they see a Facebook ad from you and then you know they Google you and then they get in your retargeting funnel and there's all these like it's very challenging to know where everything comes from.
Speaker 1:But the foundation of everything from you know, but the foundation of everything from you know to me is is call tracking, and I know so many contractors that are so against call tracking. They hate call tracking phone numbers because they think that people know your phone number. I promise you no one knows your phone number Right Like there are. So there is so very few people that know your phone number. You know, once the cell phone was invented, we entered a phone number in and we forgot our mom's phone number, we forgot our grandma's phone number, we forgot our sister and brother's phone numbers. We forgot everyone's phone numbers. Of course, there's a few of us that still remember a few. You know some of these numbers, but, my goodness man, like people just do that and they'll just go and call from somewhere, like they'll Google you and then grab your phone number and call you from there, right so? But you want to have call tracking. You want that's kind of the foundation of everything is your call tracking. So you know having different phone numbers and you don't have to have 500 different phone numbers but it but at least you know really separating it.
Speaker 1:If you're running Google ads, like Google local services ads, google guaranteed you know Google's going to have a call tracking number on there. You don't have a choice in it, right? So you know that that phone number came from there. But on your Google business profile you're going to want to have a call tracking number. You're going to want to know that someone came and called from that phone number. You're going to want to know if someone called from your website and if you have a sophisticated call tracking system, it will show you what page they called from. And if you have a sophisticated call tracking system, you can. It will show you what page they called from and sometimes, if the data is available, if Google shares the, the, the data which it it doesn't always, but it could sometimes they'll pass on what the person typed into Google that led to them finding your website. That led to them calling you. Right, you can see what page on your website they called from.
Speaker 1:You know, there's so many cool things that you can learn from call tracking. If you're split testing ad, copy that messaging right we talked about the who, the what, right, the what. When you're split testing your messaging, you may have, you know, differentiators in your call tracking. For that. I've seen companies that do that really want to reward their sales reps and they'll give them, you know, a specific phone number or a call tracking number that goes on their yard signs and different things to really get. So this could get really granular in the beginning. I would just say have call tracking, have it set up, have your you know, have your very, your foundational things of where people are calling you from all separated so that you can start to make good decisions as to where, or at least know where, that customer is coming from. Google Analytics and social media insights and things like that are some all other things that you're going to be able to track with. In Google Analytics, you're going to get to learn a lot about how people are finding you. Analytics you're going to get to learn a lot about how people are finding you. We talked a little.
Speaker 1:You know a lot about brand in the beginning here and one of the ways, one of the measurements of brand is how many people are searching for your brand name. So over time, you want your brand name to increase in search volume. That's telling you that people know who you are. Right. They're typing in MHI Roofing or Apple Roofing, right, they're typing in the actual name of your company. That is an indication of brand. So tracking brand through how many it's in, you can do that through Google Analytics and the Google Search Console, making sure that you're just following along and maybe you have some goals along with that, right, maybe you have some goals along with that, and those goals are set through your KPIs.
Speaker 1:So having great KPIs, understanding what you're tracking, like if you're doing social media, you know I, you know I struggled with this for years. My goal was always quantity, so I just put a lot of posts out there and and over over the years. What I've learned is is is learned is I should have been measuring better. I should have been looking at these specific posts and, hey, which one really connected? Right, and what you're looking for? A great social media strategist, a great, you know. He's kind of a very big figure in social media, is Gary Vaynerchuk? Kind of a very big figure in social media, is Gary Vaynerchuk?
Speaker 1:And now, with the way that the algorithms behind social media have gone more to an interest-based algorithm than a connections-based algorithm, like before, only people that followed you or were friends of yours would see your posts. Now it's if people are interested in it, the algorithm is going to show it to different people, and so, instead of quantity, you may have a goal of views, right? So maybe you have a goal of a thousand views a week or a day, and so if you could get one post to a thousand views, that is just as good, as you know, or it's even better than getting five posts at, you know, at 200 views a piece, because you're you're you're getting something that's connecting a little more. So, as you are, as you're building this up, as you're building out your KPIs, you really want to take a look at that. You want to take a look at measuring your followers. How many followers are we adding and having goals for this, right, having goals for how many views you're getting per week, how many interactions maybe comments, things like that and when you have these types of goals and you're measuring this on an ongoing basis. Now you know, now you have a better idea, right? So some things from your website perspective that you can measure, impress, impressions. You want to have more and more impressions over time, but then you want to also have clicks, right. So Google, google will measure impressions and clicks. So maybe you show up in a lot of searches, but if no one's clicking on your website as the choice to go to for that search, that's something that you want to focus on. So you want to make sure that you're getting the clicks. You want to make sure that, like I said, we're looking at brand searches and that's getting you know that those are increasing over time.
Speaker 1:In social media. You're looking at reach and impressions. You're looking at, then, lead volume by channel. So you're looking at how many referrals you got, how many leads came from SEO or from your website, how many came from emails, how many came from your social media, your Facebook ads. How many came from your Google ads? How many came from your Google local services ads? How many came from that radio ad or that TV ad?
Speaker 1:And and and sometimes, like I said, when you're focused on an omnipresent approach, a multi-channel marketing approach, it becomes different, it becomes difficult, but but you have, you kind of do your best and and what we look at in that is first, first, first impression, like first impression and last impression. So was it the first thing that they saw? Was it the yard sign that led to them Googling you and going to your website and then calling from your website, like there's a first attribution and last attribution, right, and there may be a few touch points in the middle. A last attribution, right, and there may be a few touch points in the middle. But just getting you know, just getting a good understanding and a feeling of where that comes from.
Speaker 1:Something else in the KPIs that I think everyone should focus on is proper expectations. So you know, if you're looking at a new marketing channel, maybe you're looking at doing telemarketing right, and you're looking at it. You know you have to say, man, how much time am I going to give this? And being honest about how much time it's going to take. Right, like, if you're focused on brand, if you're, you know, if you're. If you're, you know it's gonna, it's a long-term play right there, you know, if you're. Even if you're turning on Google ads, you know you need three, four, six months to really optimize Google ads campaigns.
Speaker 1:That not that you can't get things going and leads coming in sooner than that, but but there's a learning period and so if you have an improper expectation about what's going to happen from this marketing channel, I don't think that you would expect to put up a billboard and just the phone would ring off of the hook from the day that it went up. We have to have proper expectations. If you're doing direct mail, you know, kind of in the traditional way of hey, we're going to send out 10,000 postcards, don't, I hope you wouldn't have the expectation that you're going to be. You know all 10,000 people are going to call you the first time that postcard lands, right, very few people are going to call you first time that postcard lands, right, very few people are going to call you. But after they've received, you know, 10, 15, 20 postcards from you over a couple of year period of time boy that builds up. Right, those brand impressions build up, so you have to have an expectation.
Speaker 1:Hey, is this a short term marketing strategy, a midterm marketing strategy, a long-term marketing strategy? Are there things that we can measure and focus on to improve? So maybe you're running Facebook ads and you get to a customer acquisition cost of $1,000 through your Facebook ads. I'm just making up a number here. Then you have a benchmark. Now you can say, okay, now let's run another ad and see if we could get it to be better or worse. Right, let's see if this ad performs better or worse.
Speaker 1:I just helped someone with their Facebook ads recently who you know he had multiple ads running, but he wasn't paying attention and and so he went back. After we sat down and talked I was like, well, which audience are your? You know he had multiple audiences that he was targeting on Facebook. I was, well, which? Which audience is turning into the best leads for you? Which you know? Which ad copy is turning into the best? Which ad creative is turning into the best leads for you? Which you know? Which ad copy is turning into the best? Which ad creative is turning into the best lead for you? And he went back and he sent me a Facebook message. And he's like man, that old 80-20 rule applies, that Pareto's principle, right? Like 80% of his leads were coming from this one ad targeted at this one specific audience, but without looking at it, without having multiple ads running at the same time, he wouldn't know which one was the most effective. So now he can take that as his control group and start to iterate on that and that's what we want to do. That's what we want to do.
Speaker 1:Marketing is not magic, right, marketing is not magic. If you need leads in your business, I feel for you, but that's not marketing. You know, if you need leads in your business, if you need a job today, knock doors until you have a job. Right, there is a direct route to a job, and so you know. I hope that that really, you know, kind of gives you guys some good things to think about.
Speaker 1:It's my first solo episode that I've done, so really excited about this. You know it's a little bit different. Like I said, I love that, I love the interview, I love to learn from other people, but hopefully you guys learned a lot. Like we said, you know, for your actionable items, man, work on that branding. Work on that. Brand consistency and messaging becoming omnipresent, you know, for client retention and referrals building raving fans. Work on that. Effective communication. Become a master at at your customers, never wondering what you know, what's happening or what they're what's going on. And then and then build a skillset around around data and measuring the, the, the key performance indicators, measuring the effectiveness of different things, and understanding that this is a journey. There's not just one magic pill that's going to take you to the moon with everything, and so I hope everyone learned everything.
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Speaker 1:It's been a journey really getting this show. You know, as we've kind of gone, you know, gone on our own with the show away from roofer marketers. You know there's been a lot of work that we've had to do and it's some things have taken a little bit longer than others, but but man we're, we're back at it. You know we want to continue to provide, to provide the industry with great content, you know. You know, check out the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance. You know we're going to stomp the scum out of the industry.
Speaker 1:I promise you and and leave a comment. You know, leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Shoot me a text message my phone number's in a lot of the descriptions and let me know what you think. Let me know if you want to hear more episodes like this. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast. Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast. For more valuable content, visit roofingsuccesspodcastcom While there, check out our sponsors for exclusive offers, shop for merchandise and sign up for our newsletter for industry updates and tips. Also join the Roofing Success Facebook group to connect with other professionals and stay updated on the latest trends. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, share and leave a comment. Your support helps us continue to bring you top industry insights. The website link is in the description. Thanks for listening.
