Advertising

MetroRoof

Suprisingly, we do very well with Craigslist still too! It is definitely time well spent. By far the easiest and cheapest GOOD advertising you can get. A free craigslist add will probably get you more calls than any phone book ad.

PTROOFING

I used to do Billboards, website, soccer and baseball team sponsers, on and on and on. My only advice is a small add in the yellow pages, business card size. And hope to get word of mouth referrals. 90% of our business is referrals and the Yellow Pages dont hurt, for other installs and repair calls. We spend $300 per month on Yellow Pages add and prob get $2,000.00 in repair calls plus 3-4 re-roof installs per month.

daviddeschaine

Your right Grumpy - Online advertising is the best way to fine new customers looking for getting their roof replaced.

24 Hours A Day 7 Days A Aweek!

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David J. Deschaine
http://www.startmyroofingbusiness.com

http://www.roofingbusinessblueprint.com

daviddeschaine

Grumpy what do you think of the Online Phone Books?

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David J. Deschaine
http://www.startmyroofingbusiness.com

http://www.roofingbusinessblueprint.com

rwcrozier

Hi There,

I'm new to roofingtalk.com - This is my first post.

I am curious to get the opinion of a number of roofers.
I have been in real estate for a while and have begun basically generating leads online and referring them to other agents for a commission of the possible sale.

I have a good friend that is a roofing contractor here in Indianapolis. He's talked to me about doing the same thing for him.
(I do a mix of Search Engine Optimization & Pay-per-click ads)

If, I was going to do something similar for a roofing contractor what kind of percentage would be acceptable? For example... he pays nothing... I generate leads and he follows up with them. When & IF he closes the lead what percentage is fair for him to pay me?

I am thinking 10%... would that be fair and something most roofing contractors would be interested in? I am thinking about doing this in other markets with roofers if it works.

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

Ryan Crozier
317.313.4240

acc

When your from an area with only 70-80 thousand people, word of mouth and truck decals are the way to go. I've had so many customers told me that they were referred from family of friends to our company, and beleive me that is a great feeling to hear something like that !!! I've tried the Yellow Pages, it created me some leads, probably because our company name starts with an "A" lol, seriously did hear some feedback on the yellow pages, which is not a bad thing.

lou

hey i'm new to this- but have been looking for ways to advertise myself.

So far online seems like the way to go- i have had good luck with craigslist and recently found this site that's gotten me some work www.aaoa.com - its free to sign up for a listing

its a website for apartment owners and has a vendor directory that's available online to anyone. It seems like a good site and a great audience to be in front of as many of the people have multiple properties.

this is the link for getting the free ad:
https://secure.american-apartment-ow...ter_step_1.php

morrissey roofing

THe phone book was done 15 years ago, I recycle them
Craigs list is tooo much work

Google Maps is where its at for us
If you want to get your name out there for the spring, this is what I did last year, bought 10 prepaid cell phones, made 1 google map going to that cellphone per each town I wanted to be found in, I renamed my company a bit for each town, For inbstance, Bacon Roofing is my company name, For my CHicago listing, I would name that google maps, "Bacon roofin CHicago Roofing Contractor" that name bumps me to the top on chicago as a key word, and I used roofing twice, So i am super relevant. THe initial work, with 10 phones took me a day, all the phones now forward to my main number, and well, I am still getting leads, and normally the phone dies a month ago.
This only works for 8 months. If you dont add content to your maps they become less relevant, O and as for the adresses, I have used places that are up for rent. Seedy, yes, but hey, gotta do what ya gotta do!

buildpinnacle

When you are in a small area such as this, branding is a must. You should have coroplast job signs at every roof before and two weeks after they are completed. Truck signage is great too. Big names with big phone numbers and websites and an easy short call to action. People will tell you they've seen your 'trucks' driving around town. Billboards advertising is cheap right now. I don't think it is that great for our business but in a small area situation, it will donut your other means of advertising and you will quickly look like the biggest roofer in town. People are going to flock to who they see the most. You should be spending a total of 3-8% of your sales on advertising. It's the ONLY way to grow you business. The internet is good for pressence but in small areas like this you cannot make a living off of it.

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vtroofing

My wife and I are traveling back from a mini vacation and the first thing I do in every hotel is open up the phone book to see what others are doing. Last night was in VA and many, many double page ads so here it must be working.
In VT I do not advertise in the phone book but newspaper (not the free ones), gets many calls. Folks with second homes, or just from out of town Google.
Job signs and canvassing local jobs are where its at. We live i a town of less than 10,000 people and everyone has seen the signs. Cheapo signs that blow over are exactly that and people don't want them there long- heavy duty real estate signs are what I use, they stay for weeks. Generally speaking there will be more than one in a row signage on a street. I like 4-5 and the phone keeps ringing.

More on the Google- one can be pretty lazy about it in smaller towns, there is only a couple of us there so its easy to stay on top, funny too when tele marketers call and try to put us top page. Ha ha there is no page 2 for my town!