How To Make A Digital Transformation In 2019

By Mauricio Cardenal, Roofing Marketing Pros.

Do you want your roofing business to start making money online?

If the answer is yes, keep reading.

The internet has been around for decades, but despite this, the vast majority of roofing companies have yet to embrace digital marketing.

In terms of digital marketing, construction as a whole lags far behind other industries. The reality is, of the small businesses that do venture online, most fail to see a positive return on investment. There are several reasons for this:

• They see digital marketing as too complex, and as a result are afraid to dive in too deep.
• They fail to invest enough capital in digital marketing.
• They don’t know how to close a sale.
• They don’t answer the phone (No follow up strategy in place for leads.)
• They are not tracking their results.
• Their videos are boring and unengaging.

If you want to make a real digital transformation and get the most out of marketing online, you first must make a mental shift in your business. You have to be willing to invest resources in understanding the digital marketplace as it will exist in 2019.

I’m not just talking about pouring thousands of dollars into an online marketing campaign. I’m talking about investing BOTH your time in learning how this works, and investing your money strategically into online marketing campaigns to generate maximum ROI.

So now that we understand that it takes a financial and mental commitment to succeed in online marketing, here 10 strategies that will help you achieve this objective.

1. Your Website is Your Online Foundation

First, let’s get three important points out of the way:

• Your website alone will not make your business any money.
• A website without traffic is just an empty store front.
• No traffic means no leads, and certainly no sales.

Your website is really the foundation of your online presence. Everything starts with, and extends from, the website.

Think of your website as a business card. It should contain general information about you and your business, however it won’t generate more business unless you get traffic – people arriving on your site looking for the information you provide.

I recommend that you use the WordPress platform to build your site. WordPress is relatively easy to setup and use, freeing up time to focus on your business. The easiest way to design a great website is to look at what your competitors are doing – those who you think are doing a great job – and model their layout.

2. Online Reviews are More Important Than Ever

The internet has changed the relationship between consumers and businesses forever. Most significantly, it’s made interactions more transparent.

With nearly endless options for any product or service simply a few clicks away, people want to know who they’re doing business with. One of the most popular ways for customers to decide who they should do business with is through online reviews. Surveys have shown that over 88% of customers trust online reviews – making a good review a very valuable commodity.

Your online reputation is everything, and a few bad reviews can significantly hurt your business.

Where can I get online reviews?

The easiest way to generate online reviews is through automation software such as Podium. Podium integrates with 25 different online review sites including Google My Business and Facebook pages, so that no matter where customers are talking about you, you can collect those great reviews and display them on your site.

3. The Costs Keep Increasing

The cost of advertising online is getting more expensive all the time. Google Ads were extremely cheap 10 years ago. Back then, Facebook ads were about .25 cents per 1000 impressions, now it’s between $6-$10.

Advertising is the lifeblood of your business, and its success often depends on how much you’re willing to invest. The longer you wait, the more expensive it will be. As more and more businesses advertise online, the ones that will succeed are the ones willing to invest fully in the process.

4. Dallas will be the Future

Dallas, Texas is known as the most competitive market in the United States. As an unlicensed state and a magnet for hail storms, it’s attracted over 8,000 roofing companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area.

This sea of competition has made the Dallas market the most expensive one to enter online.

Most of the companies that are advertising online in Dallas are more advanced than in other markets. I believe that Dallas will serve as glimpse of what future competition will look for every market in the country. Companies hoping to succeed will have to adapt by either outspending their competition or by being more creative with their advertising.

What this means for you is that it will take a larger investment to see results with your online marketing campaigns. Even relatively inexpensive platforms like Facebook has increased in pricing significantly the last five years. The next five will be no different.

5. More People Will Demand to See Your Face

Gone are the days of the faceless company. More and more, your face has become your personal brand. Businesses without videos or pictures of their teams online are missing a huge opportunity to differentiate from other similar companies.

Transparency is everything today. The work no longer speaks for itself – you must be able to speak for it as well.

In the end, people connect with people, not with products. That personal connection will help your business stand out in an increasingly crowded and competitive market. As mentioned earlier, customers looking for a product or service have an unprecedented amount of choice within the space of a mouse-click. Every advantage will be needed to ensure they choose you over someone else.

6. Google and Facebook Dominate

The truth can’t be denied: Google and Facebook dominate digital advertising today.

According to Ad Exchanger, “The global digital advertising market grew 21% to $88 billion in 2017. Facebook and Google account for 90% of that growth.”

Google is the most powerful company in history and Facebook is not that far behind. Whatever your beliefs about this power, you must understand that your customers use these companies products every single day. As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to promote your services where your customers are.

Google is like a shopping mall.

When a company dominates the first page of Google, it’s like having the biggest store in a shopping mall. That store usually gets the most foot traffic, which means more people likely to buy their products.

With Google, landing on that first page means increasing the possible traffic to your website, which results in more leads, which in turn results in more opportunities for sales.

Facebook is like a party.

People who are outgoing at parties are usually better at getting (and keeping) people’s attention. This is generally because they have a lot interesting and engaging stories to tell.

Facebook’s “party” works much the same way. You have to get people’s attention and communicate your message in an entertaining and engaging way which can lead to increased leads and, of course, sales.

7. Make Videos That Sell

There is no single strategy as effective as creating videos that sell. Video salesmanship is an extremely powerful strategy that allows you to sell your products/services to many people at once.

Creating videos that sell can be boiled down to two deceptively simple ideas:

• Get people’s attention.
• Connect with that audience by telling a story.

Facebook Ads guru Billy Gene warns that when it comes to making sales videos in today’s iPhone-addicted world, you can’t afford to be boring.

He believes that the three core strategies to any successful video are: Educate, Entertain and Execute.

Videos that don’t engage a viewer will be skipped over, and all your hard work will be for nothing.

8. Watch Out for YouTube Ads

YouTube is the second largest website in the world. It’s even ahead of Facebook. Their ad platform has matured and gotten much more sophisticated and more effective over the last few years. Considering the effectiveness of video salesmanship, YouTube is becoming a powerful option for marketing.

For the moment, YouTube ads are relatively cheap, but, like Facebook Ads, it will increase in price as more and more businesses take advantage of this platform.

9. The Best Companies Will Combine the Best of Both Worlds

Online marketing is powerful and a crucial tool now and in the future, but the most successful roofing companies wil, combine both the online and offline worlds into a single marketing strategy. This means combining traditional door-knocking with the digital world to dominate a neighborhood.

Our most successful clients understand that a lot of internet leads open the doors to gated communities. For example, if you have an appointment in a gated community you can door-knock the rest of the neighborhood after the appointment. This allows you maximize your results by combining both online and offline strategies.

You can blitz entire neighborhoods with mailers, Facebook Ads, and door knocking to be omnipresent.

10. Digitize Your Salesmanship

Many of the roofing companies I work with have strong sales teams. One thing that can help you make a digital transformation is to transfer that salesmanship online.

Start building relationships with your prospects by building rapport and providing valuable information through online platforms such as Facebook. These relationships build trust, and quite often will blossom into future work.

When the time comes to replace or repair a roof, where will people go? To a stranger? Or to a company who has provided valuable information over time?

Make 2019 the year you decide to make a digital transformation for your roofing business. With the right strategies and investment, it can help you increase leads and sales, allowing you to stand out and dominate your local market.

Learn more about Roofing Marketing Pros.

Source: Roofing Marketing Pros