One thing that is quite obvious is that Marketing your coating business is of the utmost importance. But sadly the vast majority of contractors are unprepared for this aspect of their new business and thus suffer and sometimes even fail because of it.
In order to accumulate qualified roof leads, a Marketing Strategy that is tailored to your business, resources, demographics and even your personality needs to be implemented into your business as soon as possible.
Plan to invest a minimum of $5-$10k in your business if you want to accelerate your results.
The sooner it is implemented the sooner your return on investment will happen. Many marketing techniques exist in today’s business world. However with our 20 years of fluid applied experience we have settled mainly on 4 marketing strategies that have consistently proven capable of producing substantial business within 2 years and often see great results in year one. The single greatest hurdle to seeing success is the failure to initiate a strategy quickly and thoroughly.
Marketing & advertising are designed to produce leads & from these leads if properly nurtured Sales will result. But first you must set your course with a strategy and invest into it to see the fruits of your labor.
Here are the strategies that we have see work in our industry.
- #1 Direct Mail is a staple for our guys efforts and should definitely be entertained in yours. Here are a few highlights on DM. The list, the piece and the mailing house. The list is the names and addresses of the potential buildings that you are interested in bidding roofs on. You can use your own list if you have one, but if not there are a multitude of list companies out there that can provide you with a list.
- The piece is the actual postcard, trifold or other piece of mail that will physically be delivered to your list. Whatever you choose to use, here is a tip, put your face on it so it builds rapport with your client so they feel they get to know you in your branding campaigns.
- The mailing house is where the work gets done. You deliver your piece and have your list sent to them electronically and they will do the hard work. They will run your piece through their equipment that will print your address and the postage onto the piece and then they will combine the common zip codes and deliver them pre-sorted to the Postal Service to help reduce your postage costs.
Warm up those doors.
- #2 Cold Calls are an easy way to drum up leads as well. Cold calls allow you to take rain days and build your own lists that you can then use as your own verified DM campaign list.
- All a Cold Call needs to consist of is simply stopping in and getting a business card or name of the decision maker for the buildings maintenance. You are not necessarily trying to sell anything, mainly making your name known and seeing if you can get the decision makers info for later use. TIP: Use one of your pre-printed direct mail pieces as something to leave the secretary so when they get your next piece they now have see it 2x at minimum.
Don’t give up on face to face.
- #3 Trade Shows can still be beneficial lead generators. One Main reason is that you are typically the only commercial roofing contractor there at the show and all of those that attend the show either own, work at or know someone who owns a commercial or agricultural building that could use your services. This alone is a good reason to attend shows as it builds your brand for typically a small cost. Combining DM and tradeshow’s is also a very effective combination.
- #4 Lead generation through social media. Having a business page that you consistently post pics of your work &/or problems that you solve for building owners is a very effective method of lead generation. Using Facebook ads targeting audiences that are in your geography and fit the profile of the type of customer your after has become a large player in the service based industries.
Using these strategies all at the same time playing off of each other builds credibility and Brand awareness and can often maximize the dollars you are spending for best ROI. Whatever you do just implement one as soon as possible so you can start seeing results.
If your interested in more details on these methods we share things in way more detail with our Roof Coating Life clients and would love to help you build your business.