Roofing Leads
If you're a roofing contractor looking for roofing leads, keep reading, because on this page I'm going to go into great detail about the roofing leads industry, how it works, some of the biggest pitfalls and mistakes roofing contractors make, and finally what actually works.
Roofing Leads from Home Advisor, Angie's List, and companies similar to them are usually a nightmare
I talk to roofers every single day, and 99% of them say the same thing:
They've tried the roofing lead selling companies like Home Advisor, Angie's List, Thumbtack and the like, and it's been a nightmare.
Why?
Many reasons, but the main one is that they are shared leads.
Meaning...
The leads those companies sell to roofing contractors are sold to multiple roofing contractors.
This creates obvious challenges, but the main one is that homeowners are typically inundated with estimates and it ends up being a race to the bottom in terms of pricing.
In other words, the cheapest contractor tends to win.
But the problem is made even worse when you factor in how annoying it is for a homeowner to be contacted by several contractors in a short amount of time.
If you're quick enough to call them and get them on the phone, you're still rarely the first roofing contractor they've spoken to.
They are annoyed before the conversation even begins.
"I've already spoken to multiple contractors. Why are you calling me?"
These roofing lead companies often get the leads they sell you by, for lack of better words, misleading homeowners and getting them to opt into having their info sold to multiple companies.
Not cool at all.
It's the reason so many roofing contractors are opting for other lead sources.
What are those other lead sources and which are actually good?
Keep reading...
Roofing contractors are hiring digital marketing companies to generate leads, but the results are all over the place
There's no way I could possibly overstate how crazy this industry has become:
There are countless marketing companies and marketing "gurus" who claim to be the best at generating leads online for roofing contractors.
Here's how 99% of them work:
The vast majority of these companies do the exact same thing as one another.
They use Facebook to get leads for roofing contractors.
And there's nothing wrong with that at all.
Facebook is an amazing platform for lead generation.
The problem is that Facebook's advertising platform offers a wide range of options for lead generation, and they aren't all created equal.
So how do you know which ways work best?
Well it just so happens that the easier the system is to set up, the junkier the results tend to be.
I'll explain:
Facebook WANTS to get you good results.
If they do, you'll continue paying them money.
But they also want it to be as easy as possible for people who aren't very technologically-inclined to be able to use their advertising tools.
So, they've created super easy ways for anyone to pay them money to have their content put in front of people.
The result is that basically anyone can figure out how to advertise using Facebook.
For instance, have you ever heard of "boosting" a post?
If you have, or if you've done it before, you've "advertised" on their platform.
Unfortunately, your boosted post was doomed for failure from the very beginning.
It wasn't using any of the power the Facebook's professional ads platform has to offer.
Believe it or not, most of the marketing agencies out there do little more than that when they market your business using Facebook.
One of the things these marketing companies do is create Facebook ads for you that have people fill out forms.
Facebook created what are called "Instant Forms" which allow advertisers to create forms in a flash that are part of Facebook's advertising system.
The problem is that they almost always result in low quality leads.
Remember how I said that Facebook wants to get you results?
Well believe it or not, that is WHY the results are such low quality.
See, when you tell Facebook you want leads, you are telling it you want as many leads as possible for as cheap as possible.
There's literally no way to specify that you want what you consider to be high quality leads.
So when Facebook gets you a lead, they pat themselves on the back, so to speak, and then get you a bunch more just like those.
Meanwhile, the leads happen to be horrible.
They don't pick up the phone.
They have no money.
They didn't even remember filling out the form.
But Facebook has no idea that they aren't good leads.
They just know they filled the form out and that's all they care about.
That's what nearly every marketing company is setting up for roofing contractors for lead generation.
So how do we solve that problem? How do we get high quality leads from Facebook?
Keep reading...
How to get high quality roofing leads using Facebook's ad platform
To get high quality roofing leads using Facebook, you need to layer a marketing system on top of Facebook's existing ad platform that does one important thing:
Qualifies the lead and then teaches Facebook if it is a good lead or a bad lead.
So how is that done?
It's done by sending the traffic generated by advertising to a landing page OFF OF THE FACEBOOK PLATFORM.
As opposed to what most marketers do, which is use the lead forms within the Facebook platform.
But that's only half the battle.
Now that the user is off the Facebook platform, and onto a landing page (which is just a web page, by the way), we can use our own forms (actually questionnaires) to qualify them.
So instead of filling out a simple form that asks for their name, email, and phone number, we ask for all of that PLUS their full address, AND other questions that tells our system if it's likely that they have money, are ready to buy, etc.
Depending on how they answer those qualifying questions, we will either tell Facebook's ad platform that that person is likely qualified or likely not qualified.
If they aren't likely qualified, our marketing system tells Facebook, essentially, thanks for the effort, but that person isn't who we are looking for. Figure out what it is about that person and stop showing our ads to people like them.
And conversely, if they are likely qualified, our system tells Facebook, yes, that's what we are talking about. Figure out what is unique about that person and show our ads to more people like that.
This is a game changer.
Now, Facebook is learning how to get better over time.
How to make sure you are able to get in touch with the roofing leads you end up getting
One of the most frustrating things is getting a roofing lead from Facebook and not being able to contact them.
Now, as explained above, the main issue is usually that the lead is low-quality because the roofing lead generation system itself is low-quality.
If that's the case, there's no amount of strategy that can rectify that particular issue other than building a roofing lead generation system properly.
Assuming your roofing lead gen system is built properly, what can you do to increase the likelihood you're able to get in touch with the lead?
Simply put:
Speed.
When a lead comes in, they need to be contacted immediately.
But that's easier said than done.
What if the lead comes in after hours when your secretary isn't working?
What if you are the person who responds to leads, but you are busy talking to someone else and can't attend to the newest lead that just came in?
One of the easiest solutions is to fire off a text message immediately to the lead that lets them know you got their information and that you're going to call them if it's an appropriate time, but also that if they'd prefer to text that that is a fine option also.
Then, you should be able to two-way text that lead OR call them from the same number.
Why is this so important?
First of all, when someone gets a call from a number they don't recognize, they aren't inclined to pick it up.
Sending them a text first from that number makes getting a call from that same number much less scary for them.
Getting that immediate text also reassures them that the information they sent in to your roofing company made its way there, and is being processed accordingly.
It also makes it super convenient for the roofing lead because they are given the option to text at first.
Maybe they're at work, or somewhere else where they aren't able to talk on the phone.
Accommodating them is one easy way to stand out in a big way.
The ONLY way to make this manageable on your end, however, is with software called a CRM that is built with that functionality.
And that's exactly what we've built here at my company, Minyona.
Soon, it will be available on the app store, but if you're interested in it now, start a live chat right here on the website.