# Advertising



## ROOFWORKSLTD

Gentlemen, I'm debating placing an add in the local phone directory.
The add is a good size and worth over $12,000.00 cdn. I've met with the salseman several times, he seems like a nice enough guy and pretty much had me sold until...He invited me to a local pub for a few drinks, I know people have loose tounges and make bad desicsions when drinking so I only drank two beers. He informs me that he forgot his paperwork and when the meeting was over didn't pick up the tab. I didn't expect him to but I know if I take a potential customer out, I always pay. He said he would have payed but couldn't afford it. Something rubbed me the wrong way at that point.

Looking passed that, the facts and figures he provided me showed that even if I landed only 10% of the work from the estimated calls, I would proffit over $300,000 from the ad.

Do any of you have ads in your local directories and have they worked for you?


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## 4 seasons

Well there is no possible way for him to possibly know the volume of business your ad could make. From what I have heard it is hit or miss. I have thought about it myself, but was never promised anything like that from the SALESMAN.


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## English Roofer

I would have to agree with 4 seasons, but if you know another contractor that your friendly with who does advertise with them why not ask them if its as good as the sales guy makes out? they might lie to you, most people are honest though, but you should be able to work it out.
Cheers
Dave


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## Grumpy

My advice about the phone book: Don't do it. 

But that advice is based on my experiences and your experience will vary based on many factors. Specifically how many competitors in your area, how large an are does your phoen book cover, and how expensive. My 2nd year in bus the phone books almost put me out of bus. I was paying something like 8-900 a month for 12 months and got I think 3 calls and all were for repairs and I didn't sell a single one. Let me rephrase that, I paid about $10,000 for NOTHING! 

In my area there are over 40 pages of roofing in any book you choose. Fug that! 


Get any promises in writing. When I called to complain the people on the other end of the phone said it wasn't part of the contract. further more when I called the sales rep he denied saying I'd get no less than 5 calls per week per add and no less than one sale per add per week. Get a guarantee in writing or don't believe it. It's all hype. I promise you!


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## tomdaleh

I'm near the St. Louis area and I advertise almost exclusively on Craigslist; it's free and the results are worth the efforts in posting. It is the third most visited website on the internet and I've pick up both good commercial and residential accounts with it. The biggest drawback with Craigslist are the flagging procedures are too lenient; one flag and the ad is removed (could be a competitor, etc, nothing legitimately wrong with the ad posted). So I would suggest saving part of the phone book advertising money and trying Craigslist if you are not already doing so.


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## Sheppy

The best way to advertise on the internet bar none funny as it may seem is through a process called geo-target marketing. It is a method to which the content of the search itself is matched with a local company or service that provides a need specific to that search. Ex. In roofing someone in chicago might type in cook county roofing or chicago roofers where someone in NY might just type in roofers or roofer ny etc... There is a company out there now that is qualified as an adwords company directly through google themselves to handle this type of need to small to med size business all over america in every trade. Def something worth looking into. Contact me with any questions.


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## newmercy

sorry brother but I haven't looked in a phone book in 10 years. Have you? 12,000 could drive you so much more business in other area's. 

As for sheppy, being a google qualified adwords company doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to. All that means is...you maintain a certain amount of money every month and you took a test. 

Google adwords is a great way to market your company but keep in mind you need to be VERY careful who you use. Couple things you need to hold your adwords company to is click through rates, cost per click, conversion, and placement. Don't get stuck with someone willing to take a flat rate for first page placement for x amount of dollars. 

I have been doing adword campaigns for many years and I wouldn't mind answering any questions.

I am part owner of a roofing company, not someone looking to drum up business.

I joined because I wanted to find some help from others on if the penny ads work. Any suggestions you guys may have for print ads would be great. I am also looking at neighborhood directories etc...


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## Grumpy

tomdaleh said:


> I'm near the St. Louis area and I advertise almost exclusively on Craigslist; it's free and the results are worth the efforts in posting. It is the third most visited website on the internet and I've pick up both good commercial and residential accounts with it. The biggest drawback with Craigslist are the flagging procedures are too lenient; one flag and the ad is removed (could be a competitor, etc, nothing legitimately wrong with the ad posted). So I would suggest saving part of the phone book advertising money and trying Craigslist if you are not already doing so.


 You mind posting a link to one of your adds? This is mine... http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/sks/1573708568.html

LOL I posted this one today about 4 pm and there are already 10 posts following mine at 9 pm. 

I mostly get junk from craigs list, but a simple question gets past that. "When would you like to meet?" LOL after those plentiful hang up on me, what's left are pretty good.


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## cavesrus

i have never placed ad in our big book or metro book i get a # of guys saying oh yea you can make 300k to 500k more a year. First it is always Gross #'s. 2nd i had a sales rep give me a tracked call list from a company in my area and he was getting less calls a day than i was alreayd getting and he was spending close to 20k a year for ad.

We have always had ads in smaller phone books few are doing well in our key market area. how ever this last year i place in most of the area books smaller add but not the smallest and return sucks but it is our busy season yet so im crossing my fingers.


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## tomdaleh

Grumpy here's the link to one of my Craigslist ads:

http://stlouis.craigslist.org/bfs/1572642461.html

I rotate between about a half dozen different ones in the St Louis Craigslist and Southeast Missouri Craigslist. I usually spend about 15-20 minutes a day reposting, etc. I have a file in Microsoft word with my different ads already laid out and it's just a matter of copying and pasting from that file to the Craigslist ad. I feel it's time well spent as we are staying up on roofs working this winter. I use some other websites such as Backpage.com and Kiiji.com, but they don't have the traffic that Craigslist does.


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## Sheppy

Um sorry to burst your bubble but if you dont know what being an adwords qualified company through Google, you dont know much about keywords. There are only a total of about 100 companies in the United States today that are stamped by google direct as being an Adwords company. In fact every single PPC campaign that I am able to set up is built by a team of experts directly at google. Which means what I am able to do for a roofer or any business is take all of the local searches that customers are typing in that area for the type of service they are looking for and put that business on the first page of google within 7 days for all of those searches. I also get companies on bing yahoo myspace facebook twitter cnn bloomberg and about 110 other major sites. Also I get these same companies on google and yahoo maps as well as all the gps services as well for less than the cost of an average newspaper or flyer ad. So please Sir I understand you are trying to help but when I have a team of experts at google directly building these campaigns and monitoring them 24/7, I think that makes alot more sense than someone setting up there own PPC campaign that will end up costing them more money and time away from doing thier job. Ive generated over 35 million impressions for my clients nationwide in under 6 months!!! The best part is that in the end it truly helps the business owner and thousands of satisfied business in 6 months swear by my service. So while I do respect your opinion, your knowledge is severly lacking in the Adwords category. I have spent most of my life with adwords and sponsored links and own some of the most prominent positions in the country for service industries. I now provide a service thats called Geo Target Marketing and my company was the fastest company in the history of the world to be regocnized by google as an Adword Qualified Company. Took only 5 months. I think I know my stuff. Dont want to be brash but anyone on here looking for a way to have a real solid internet presence, not just a position on google or a lesson on Adwords. If you want customers to recognize your busines for local search results in your area please contact me and i will be glad to show you my website. Oh BTW My service is so good it comes with a money back guarantee. If you have any coupons that you get from google for your PPC campaign You can redeem them with me through my Company direct.






newmercy said:


> sorry brother but I haven't looked in a phone book in 10 years. Have you? 12,000 could drive you so much more business in other area's.
> 
> As for sheppy, being a google qualified adwords company doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to. All that means is...you maintain a certain amount of money every month and you took a test.
> 
> Google adwords is a great way to market your company but keep in mind you need to be VERY careful who you use. Couple things you need to hold your adwords company to is click through rates, cost per click, conversion, and placement. Don't get stuck with someone willing to take a flat rate for first page placement for x amount of dollars.
> 
> I have been doing adword campaigns for many years and I wouldn't mind answering any questions.
> 
> I am part owner of a roofing company, not someone looking to drum up business.
> 
> I joined because I wanted to find some help from others on if the penny ads work. Any suggestions you guys may have for print ads would be great. I am also looking at neighborhood directories etc...


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## aceremodels

I agree that the phone book is dead. Anyone looking for services will usually go to the internet first. Save that money and try to get on the first page of a google search in your area. Craigslist also. We've used print advertising in the past and have had poor response, it's too expensive now and has a limited target market.

Good Luck!


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## garabar

We've had some success with Yellow Pages but we've found the calls are mostly from people wanting the best price. When we get a call from the YP we have to expect to work for slim margins.

Roofing Florida


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## Ansel

We use them more to help Customers find our phone number, especially the older Customers ..... 

As for our ads we have never had over a "dollar bill" size display ad ..... As for carrying your ad to the internet,they do help some but most of our web traffic comes from organic and some paid ad ($15 month) searches ......


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## 4 seasons

I place myself in the regular listing for the same reason. So an older customer can find us if they lose our contact info. Although I just don't see myself dishing the dough out for a large add along with a million other of my competition.


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## storm-finder

Phone book is good, but only the small ad. Still some people use it as a source of verification of your true presence in an area. We have found through the years that a simple listing is definatley worth it. Aside from that, use your $$$'s elsewhere.

L.


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## croof

I have several ads in the yellow pages, thinking that the "big guys" are doing it, so it must be working. But to this date (one year) I have yet to receive a shingle phone call. This includes their so called internet marketing as well. The worst being the "real yellow pages" who have turned out to be quite the double talkers. I am likely not going to place ads in the yellow pages again, they are going out and the internet is coming in. Spend your hard earned marketing money on internet marketing and you will be much better off (in my opinion)


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## croof

I have hired a few "web guys" who said they where the best and could get the job done. They failed me ... it was when I took the time to read up, do some homework and then do it myself did I see a result. I was up in the search with in only a few days, when the other guys said it would take weeks. Of course, I am talking about PPC advertising. Still working on the SEO for my site, and strugeling with the maps things, that is a place I would welcome some advise.


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## Jimian

croof said:


> I have hired a few "web guys" who said they where the best and could get the job done. They failed me ... it was when I took the time to read up, do some homework and then do it myself did I see a result. I was up in the search with in only a few days, when the other guys said it would take weeks. Of course, I am talking about PPC advertising. Still working on the SEO for my site, and strugeling with the maps things, that is a place I would welcome some advise.


Each situation and each industry is different... and getting ranked within the local market will depend on the competition.

This site about SEO will help you:
www . webconfs . com


JIM


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## Grumpy

Google has a pretty informative booklet available for download that will help you out. if you browse around you can find it at their site.


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## MetroRoof

tomdaleh said:


> Grumpy here's the link to one of my Craigslist ads:
> 
> http://stlouis.craigslist.org/bfs/1572642461.html
> 
> I rotate between about a half dozen different ones in the St Louis Craigslist and Southeast Missouri Craigslist. I usually spend about 15-20 minutes a day reposting, etc. I have a file in Microsoft word with my different ads already laid out and it's just a matter of copying and pasting from that file to the Craigslist ad. I feel it's time well spent as we are staying up on roofs working this winter. I use some other websites such as Backpage.com and Kiiji.com, but they don't have the traffic that Craigslist does.


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.


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## 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.


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## daviddeschaine

*Great Information About Advertising*



Grumpy said:


> Google has a pretty informative booklet available for download that will help you out. if you browse around you can find it at their site.


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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## daviddeschaine

*The Phone Books Online Seem To Work OK!*

Grumpy what do you think of the Online Phone Books?



Grumpy said:


> My advice about the phone book: Don't do it.
> 
> But that advice is based on my experiences and your experience will vary based on many factors. Specifically how many competitors in your area, how large an are does your phoen book cover, and how expensive. My 2nd year in bus the phone books almost put me out of bus. I was paying something like 8-900 a month for 12 months and got I think 3 calls and all were for repairs and I didn't sell a single one. Let me rephrase that, I paid about $10,000 for NOTHING!
> 
> In my area there are over 40 pages of roofing in any book you choose. Fug that!
> 
> 
> Get any promises in writing. When I called to complain the people on the other end of the phone said it wasn't part of the contract. further more when I called the sales rep he denied saying I'd get no less than 5 calls per week per add and no less than one sale per add per week. Get a guarantee in writing or don't believe it. It's all hype. I promise you!


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## 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


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## 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.


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## 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. :thumbup:

this is the link for getting the free ad: 
https://secure.american-apartment-owners-association.org/vendors/register_step_1.php


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## morrissey roofing

*this is what i did*

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!


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## buildpinnacle

acc said:


> 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.


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!


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## Billy Luttrell

got my 1st call off the new yellow pages ad that has been out 3 months. 3 months payments in and 1 call.

at one time, the yellow pages was the best way to advertise around here for roofing, but my how times change.


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## daviddeschaine

*Google Maps is Powerful - Google Is #1*

Great Free Information Morrissey Roofing!

All roofing businesses need to claim their Free business listing On Google Maps!

Thanks,



morrissey roofing said:


> 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!


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## kadesmith

I've been doing SEO on some of my personal sites and for others for a couple of years. If I were you I would take the 12,000 and invest about 2,000 in a targetted website/domain for your area of business. Then I would use the remaining $10,000 for slow and gradual link building services. I wouldn't spend more than $400-$500 a month on some SEO services. You should start to see results in about 2-3 months if it is done right. After about 9-12 months you should rank on the first page of google no problem. Then you could scale it back to $200-$300 a month just to keep you there. I would view that as a much better investment strategy because people will look for roofers at work, at lunch on their phones etc. Young home owners might not even have a phone book and they are often the ones that live in fixer uppers.


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## Acubis

*what kind of customers do you have?*

One of my client spends over $25,000 a year with ATT yellow pages and get 50% of their business that way.. They are over a 50 year old company and get tons of senior citizens - all day time appts etc... OLD people still look in the phone book FIRST and then remember you.

Newer company - legit good business practices, you'll never compete in the phone book without being willing to lose money for a few years or more on this medium.
Try targeted internet advertising and non traditional social media, events, etc...

THE SALESMAN: He's probably not lying or intentionally deceiving you in anyway. And depending on his seniority and territory and not to mention skills, he could be Broke or making over 100k a year.


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## kadesmith

@Acubis You point out some really good logic there. I even catch myself doing this. If I know about the company I go to the phone book, if I don't know a company to do my work, I go to the internet.


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## dougger222

I gave up the yellow book a couple years ago for two reasons,
#1. Very few leads (repair and snow removal only)
#2. They ripped me off about $500 (paid for web advertising and was never placed online). For compensation they credited me one month. When asked why only one month they stated it was because I couldn't prove it was not on the month before! Who looks up there own company??? As a result when they call me now they get yelled at... Won't go into any more details.

Craigslist for advertising localy for roofing is a real waste of time. Tried it and the only leads are like phone book leads, "Can you do my roof for $50 a square?" Or "$300 an hour to steam away my ice dam? You have to be kidding?"

What has worked great for my company recently is angies list. It's free for you as a business owner to get reviews. Once a comment is posted you can log on and modify your company profile. In the past week have gotten three calls on ice dam removal of which two jobs were secured which resulted in A rating feedbacks. I know a couple g.c's who are on AL and they get a lot of leads that turn into jobs from it. Once you get some positive feedback you can advertise on it and they allow only 14 companies per trade. Going to pull the trigger on it soon. Unlike CL which anybody can go on you have to pay a few dollars a month to go on AL. The users of AL are how do you say much higher end than CL. For ice dam leads on CL it's "My roof is leaking due to an ice dam how much an hour do you charge to remove it". For ice dam leads on AL it's, "My roof has large ice dams and I don't want them to cause a leak, how backed up are you?"

Going into Spring of 2011 roof replacement season going to ask all my home owners if they are members of AL and if not going to credit them the $6.50 fee to join for two months then going to credit them another $40 to write a good review. Of course they will be happy with my work to go along with it!

The more recent A ratings on AL will get you higher to the top of your field of contractors. The other day when you hit ice dam my company was number 1!!!


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## morrissey roofing

you want page one on google? blogger is the way to go, its googles blogging service, u make new content, they rank it number one, like in a few hours, works for me!
I started my own thing 3 weeks ago, just wanted to start to get the ball rolling slowly, break away easy does it, my phone is ringing for solid leads, for tpo roofs, and I aint complaining, i got page 1 in my town just from my content on my website, and i didnt even try, once i get a bit of capital, 2 roofs under my belt, i will own page 1 for the surrounding 50 miles, maps and blogging


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## kimboy

I place myself in the regular listing for the same reason. So an older customer can find us if they lose our contact info. Although I just don't see myself dishing the dough out for a large add along with a million other of my competition.


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## Karl

The yellow pages looks like it's dying....

http://www.webpronews.com/yellow-pages-dying-off-in-ten-years-2008-07

Unless you are already a big company who can afford a multi page color ad as part of their marketing strategy which would consist of 5-6 different methods simultaneously I would suggest using telemarketing or SEO because both have a better return on investment.


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