Covid-19 has taken many things away from our society. However, it’s also given us something important: perspective. We now know just how quickly our daily life, routine, and business can change.

The roofing industry was a relatively lucky one. Even during the crisis, homeowners continued to require roof repairs, installations, and replacements. What Covid-19 did change was the marketing options roofers had to work with. The practice of door knocking, in particular, took a big hit, forcing countless roofing professionals to explore other opportunities for sharing their brand.

Today, we’ll explore the death (or at least the induced coma) of door knocking and what that means for your roofing business. We’ll also dig into your other options for marketing your company in the meantime. Listen in to our latest podcast and take notes as we discuss the changing landscape of the industry, and how your business can continue to thrive.

Takeaways for Enterprising Roofers

Even before the crisis, door knocking effectiveness had waned.
Today’s newest generations don’t answer the door for many people.
Covid-19 is an opportunity to reevaluate your marketing strategy.
Local SEO offers more lucrative gains than it did a few years ago.

Table of Contents

Is Door Knocking Effective Now?

In the throws of Covid-19, door knocking has come grinding to a halt. Put simply, door knocking isn’t even an option right now. If you happen to come back and read this article in the future after the crisis has resolved itself, odds are door knocking still hasn’t recovered to its former glory.

It’s not your fault. Much of society has shifted away from answering the door bell anyway.

Even prior to the Covid-19 crisis, the death of door knocking seemed to draw ever closer and closer as younger generations took on the mantle of home ownership. The practice may never fully pass away, but its waning effectiveness means that your roofing company will likely need to focus in another direction for your marketing efforts.

What are My Marketing Options?

We could pour over the dozens of advertising options available on the market right now, but that would take too much time. Right now, your number one goal should be putting your brand in front of the people who are most likely to need your services. This begs a couple questions:

Where do you need to put your brand so that those people see it?
How do you focus specifically on people in your service area?

More than ever, homeowners (and commercial prospects) are looking online for their day to day needs. That includes big budget purchases like roof replacements too. So if you want to get your brand in front of the right eyes, that’s going to happen on a digital landscape.

Connecting with people in your specific service area is going to force you to think locally. This limits false leads from outside your community and maximizes your chances of converting to sales. No more driving an hour from your office just to perform shingle repairs (unless that’s something you really like doing).

Now that you’ve established online marketing offers the best brand exposure and you know locally-targeted marketing offers the best sales potential, that leads us to our final question. What digital marketing solution targets the greatest number of people within your service area?

The answer is Local SEO.

How Local SEO Works Now

If you want to develop a consistent stream of roofing leads, the most practical method to do so is local search engine optimization (local SEO). That means getting your company website to the top of Google Search results specifically for the people in your community.

Now you might say “But our company is already on Google. We have a website.” Unless you are literally the only roofing company within a 30 mile radius, simply having a website isn’t going to get you the sales you crave. With local SEO however, your website will start to deliver actual (qualified) leads for your business.

As your rankings improve on Google, you’ll naturally start to receive more calls from homeowners and/or commercial prospects in your community. More calls means more lead potential for your company.

How to Improve Local SEO Rankings

While Google uses hundreds of signals to determine ranking potential, there are a handful of areas that impact your local search rank the most.

These include:

Roofing Website Design
Google My Business Listing Optimization
Local Citation Creation
Domain Naming
Content Creation (Writing, Pictures, Etc.)

Thanks to industry changes over the last few years – Google’s Local Search Update of November 2019 was especially impactful – it’s easier than ever before for roofing companies to make large gains in local rankings. So don’t let unfamiliarity or inexperience stop you from earning more revenue for your business. Even if your team doesn’t have the time or resources to pursue it, there are several amazing marketing teams out their with the skills to manage it for you.

Ultimately, local SEO provides the best marketing opportunities for your business because it allows you to make quality connections with people within your community. If you’ve traditionally relied on door knocking until now to grow your company, it’s not too late to get started online. Of course, our team at Roofing Webmasters is always here to help!