You may not be out in the field much these days, but you can still take one look at the drip edge of a roof and tell if it needs to be replaced. You can assess complex structural issues and then break them down to explain to a concerned homeowner exactly why her roof is leaking. You are skilled in your craft but also in your communication, and this matters to your clients.
Marketers aren’t so different from you. Look, we’re not strapping on a tool belt and harness and most of us generally avoid ladders, but we know our craft: that includes all the digital solutions like programmatic, paid ads, social media, email, and video that can be used to support your business. We also know how to clearly communicate those solutions to our clients.Â
You don’t expect your homeowners to understand the nuances of flashing and underlayment or the step-by-step process of laying shingles. But you do expect your homeowners to understand that these elements and methods are designed to provide them with a strong, durable roof that won’t blow off during a storm.Â
In our opinion, some marketers are making programmatic advertising way too confusing for roofers. In the same way, you don’t want to confuse a homeowner with detailed descriptions of your roof installation processes, we don’t expect you to understand all of the algorithms involved in running a programmatic campaign or specific audience-building strategies like geofencing. We just need you to understand the big picture: Why is programmatic worth the investment to drive awareness for your business? And that is on us to communicate and convey to you through examples, case studies, and data. Â
As an example, Pristine Clean and The Gutter Boys, two Northeast Ohio-based home services companies, began running programmatic campaigns in early 2021. They sensed that homeowners were changing the way they made decisions about their services—as well as how and when they made them—as a result of the pandemic. So, instead of just doing business as usual, they turned to programmatic marketing. Using flexible budgets and dynamic bid adjustments—made possible through AI—the home services brands were responsive to consumer demand in real-time, even adjusting the spending on rainy days compared to sunny days when conversion rates were very different.
Both Pristine Clean and The Gutter Boys were able to use programmatic effectively to add new consumers into the sales funnel and leave a lasting impression, something best illustrated by the high number of consumers who converted after seeing an ad in the last 90 days. In fact, the brands realized that over 25 percent of homeowners who contacted them had seen the ad in the previous month. When these homeowners were ready to buy, they visited the website without clicking on another ad—they simply remembered the brand! Not sure if there is a better way to illustrate how programmatic can influence decision-making when it is done right.Â
If you’re unsure of what programmatic advertising is, think first about traditional advertising. For example, if you were to buy billboard space for your roofing company, you would need to negotiate the terms and costs offline. You might also have trouble understanding how you will measure the effectiveness of a traditional ad: How many people saw it? Did it compel them to call and schedule roofing maintenance? Programmatic in many ways is the opposite of traditional advertising: It all happens in a digital space using real-time, automated ad buying. And while you may struggle to calculate the return on investment of a traditional billboard or print ad, you won’t have that problem with programmatic: There is highly detailed data available, and you can continually change and improve your ads and audience targeting.
Some marketing campaigns will tell home services companies like yours to do all the basics: social media, email drip campaigns, and SEO. That’s all good, but you need to diversify between passive and active channels. Active channels are like valves where you control the flow of leads. What are you doing to actively drive awareness of your brand to highly engaged leads?Â
Remember that your roofing company isn’t selling a product; you’re selling a one-time service. Once you work with a homeowner, he or she is likely not calling you back for another roof repair or replacement anytime soon. There is a quick lead decay in this industry. If you don’t continually engage the lead, you will miss your opportunity. It is critical for roofing companies like yours to get in front—and stay in front—of your leads as much as possible by taking an ongoing awareness approach.
Programmatic campaigns are an awareness play. They are designed to offer your brand a ton of exposure. Think of programmatic as another layer on top of your other digital marketing activities that is constantly putting your brand in front of prospective clients. You want to be top-of-mind for homeowners at the exact moment they notice a leak or discover loose shingles in their yard after a storm. The best way to achieve this is using programmatic ads.Â
You can work with a marketing agency to finely pinpoint your target audiences and then design compelling ads with strong graphics and copy. Your agency will handle the ad buying and placement process to make sure your ads are shown at precisely the right moment to reach your ideal customers where they are, whether that’s on their mobile devices or while they’re streaming their favorite show on their smart TV.
Here’s the other benefit of programmatic for your roofing company: You can respond quickly to changes in weather conditions. Let’s say that a strong hail storm hits one of your target neighborhoods. If you have an ad ready to go, you can quickly turn on your programmatic campaign to market to customers who are likely already on their phones searching for roof repair services.Â
This was another benefit to the programmatic campaigns for Pristine Clean and The Gutter Boys that we referenced earlier: When the weather was cold and rainy—and no one was thinking about power washing their home—we could turn the campaign off. At the exact moment the weather conditions improved, we turned it back on. That meant no wasted ad spend trying to reach customers who weren’t looking for their services. Programmatic allows greater flexibility and customization than nearly any other advertising platform.
The best way to see what programmatic can do for your business is to run an actual campaign, and that will require finding a digital agency to serve as your partner. An experienced programmatic agency will help you talk through the process in a way that is easy to understand. They will rely heavily on data to inform their decisions and get the best return on investment for your roofing business. We recommend finding an agency that tells it to you straight and doesn’t expect you to listen to or understand all the programmatic terminology and inside baseball. Your focus should be on doing what you do best: Roofing.Â
If you’d like to talk to our team about launching a programmatic ad campaign, we’d be more than happy to share more about our work with Pristine Clean, The Gutter Boys, and other clients in the home services industry. Reach out at any time.
