Website, PPC, SEO For Smaller City, Pop. 60K

JohnnyRoofs

We are in the midst of revamping our whole marketing, sales, advertising etc. scheme for our roofing bus. Previous to this we've had an ad in the yellow pages and worked referrals and thats it. It was my partner and I only and we've always had enough work to keep us semi-busy. Basically enough to pay the bills and keep us broke . We're trying to refocus and bring in enough work that we can split into two crews and build our bus.

Our main market is Iowa City, Ia, a college town with a population of 60k. Cedar Rapids isn't too far with a population of 120K. We focus on residential reroof shingles.

I hate the yellow pages. Same reason as many of you here. Too much $ for BS leads. I want to only have an ad big enough for people to find us if they are looking for us specifically. I'm hoping to generate leads with a new referall system, jobsite and truck signs, doorknob hangers, etc and potentially internet leads.

My question is will I get enough internet leads from PPC, adwords, SEO etc to make it worth while in this relatively small market? I definately want to upgrade my website at some point, and if I thought it would bring in good numbers I'd put in the time and money to do it right. I read great things from a lot of you on this site but you all seem to be in metro areas. Is anybody having good success with this in smaller areas?

So far I did a 10 day free trial on Service Magic and got 1 bogus lead (price shopping for a project 12 months away). I've been on Contractors.com for 2 weeks or so and got 1 potential lead in Cedar Rapids in that time. Also posted on Craigs List for both cities, havent got any leads and am still at the top of both lists after 2 weeks. As of now our website is basically a landing page with our contact info.

SuperiorBuilt

Craigslist in NY has produced nothing lately here too. I am going back to handing out flyers and reminder cards to previous customers to keep me busy. I tried Service magic back in 2005. That was a waste of time and money. I am now looking in PPC ads on the internet to generate more business.

JohnnyRoofs

How big is your market?

PressurePros

Its highly unlikely you will generate enough leads to keep you busy unless you are willing to travel good distances. I'm talking hundreds of miles. Couple that with what you said about your website being little more than a phone book ad placed on the interent and you will be staring at your phone much more than answering it.


One thing you are going to find when adding a second crew is that your net profit will not rise exponentially, although expenses will sure seem to. So if the company is netting $30K per year as is, don't expect it to go to $60K when you double work output. It might go to $40K if you do things right.

You are going to have to use the tried and true as well as some out of the box marketing attacks if you want quality leads (high margin) while at the same time doubling your output.

If you are not making money now (as indicated by your first paragraph) the first thing I would do before adding crews and headache would be to increase my prices. I don't mean 5% I mean like 25%-50%. Yes, you will lose bids but you will probablly make just as much, if not more money than you did last year and you won't be working nearly as hard. Eventually, you will again max out your labor pool. At that point you either test your market and raise prices again or if you are happy with the margins, start adding more employees and crews.

I base my assessment on what you have written. It sounds like you are operating on a shoestring marketing budget and that, to me, sniffs out as dissapointment, if not utter disaster.

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Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

SeanATL

in just about 5 mins of research I did, i'd say your market is way too small to get much out of internet traffic. It doesn't appear to me that people in Iowa City or Cedar Rapids use search engines to find roofers.

It wouldn't hurt to try a ppc campaign on google, but i don't think you're going to see much from it.

JohnnyRoofs

Thanks for response. Where did you get that info (5 min of research)?

Thanks

PressurePros

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Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

MattCoops

You HAVE to advertise your business.
A website can be used as marketing material, but a website in itself HAS to be advertised as well.

If you're comparing your website to a small business card size ad in the yellow pages you are missing the boat.

You pointed out internet lead generation.
Imagine if you focused your attention on developing your existing website into your own online lead generation tool.
This can be done on yourself. But if you'd like to focus more on working on jobs, you could sub out the work into building your website.

What is your existing website?

Also,
Door Hanger / Flyer campaigns can be much more successful than direct mailings.
Although sending regular mailers to your past customers, updating on "specials", offering discounts, giving incentives on refferring work to you, would be of benefit to you.
Close proximity marketing with your door hangers and/or flyers in areas where you have already done work, did estimate, are currently working, will yield more calls than canvasing new terrirtory.

Other than that, always be talking up your business and keep your cards on you at all times.
Someone sees a company shirt, sees your truck lettering, is helped by you with loading their car with mulch at Home Depot, and asks for your card.
Business cards are probably the cheapest and most effective way of marketing, if used right and present quality.

Good luck in your endevours

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Matt with Cupan Custom Tile & Paint of Lowell, Massachusetts
Design and installation of ceramic tile and natural stone for floor, wall, and countertops
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SeanATL

I really don't want to post it in the forum because its such a sensitive "trade secret" in my opinion.

We're not in the same market, but someone searching the forum may be in my market and I don't want to tip them off too badly

There are ways, tools, etc to determine things like how many times people search for certain keywords (i.e iowa city roofer or something like that).

I'm in a huge market, so its a little different for me, but if I had to guess, I would think most smaller places (i.e. 60k pop cities) aren't going to have much search engine traffic.

But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a good website.

PressurePros

Sean, I wouldn't worry too much about that. If you put a link in your signature you will get higher Goole organic ranking. I'm surprised more guys on here don't take advantage of it. I guess a downside is you can't rant and rave too much on here or prospective customers will also probably find it.

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Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

parkerfairfield

Me = Cat.
You = Curiosity.
Result = Death.

I'm internet savvy but leave the "5 mins of research" to others. Would you mind listing the SKELETON points of sites / search strings run you did to establish this? I ask for ONE (o n e) reason. I wanna be able to <grin>

Thanks for the education. The checks in the mail.

PAF

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