Marketing for roofers

A roof is one of the largest checks a homeowner writes for the house, and they usually write it to a company they found online. That makes your Google profile and your recent posts part of the sales process, even if you never think of them that way.

A re-roof in Lakewood

Picture Ray's Roofing, a crew of eight in Lakewood, Colorado (made up, to show the flow). After a hail season, the crew tears off a 22-year-old three-tab shingle roof and installs impact-resistant architectural shingles with new flashing and ridge vent.

The crew lead takes a before shot from the ground showing the granule loss and bruised shingles, and an after shot from the driveway. In the app: "Full tear-off, Class 4 impact-resistant shingles, new ice and water shield at the eaves, new ridge vent, Lakewood, two-day job."

The drafts arrive in about a minute. The Facebook post is written for local homeowners dealing with hail, and the Instagram post leans on the before and after. The owner approves both and edits one sentence.

Three days later, once the final cleanup is done and the magnet sweep has been run, the homeowner gets a review text. A big job ends with a review that names the work and the town.

Retail roofs, storm work and the long sales cycle

Roofing splits into planned replacements and storm-driven repairs, and the two behave differently. Planned work has a long sales cycle. A homeowner thinks about a roof for months, gets quotes, reads reviews and asks the neighbor. Storm work moves in days, and the homeowner calls whoever looks reachable.

For planned work, the best asset is a set of reviews that describe the job: the crew showed up when scheduled, protected the landscaping, cleaned the yard. Those details come from the customer, and a review text sent a few days after cleanup is the cheapest way to prompt them. For storm work, recency matters. A post from last week about a similar repair in a nearby neighborhood tells the homeowner you are around.

Seasonality varies by region. Many roofers are slammed from spring through fall, with a surge after severe weather, and slow in deep winter in the north. Keep sending repair jobs through the slow months so the profile does not go dark.

Shots that work: a straight ground shot of the whole roof, a close shot of clean flashing and valleys, a before shot showing real damage. Leave out photos of the homeowner's belongings and anything that shows an alarm panel.

For more, see the reviews guides.