It’s common knowledge that marketing and business work hand-in-hand. HubSpot’s Co-founder, Brian Halligan, was 100% on point when he said, “It’s not what you sell that matters as much as how you sell it.” 

Suppose you carefully observe successful businesses in your local market today. In that case, you’ll find out that each has a series of first-rate marketing principles in formulating their marketing strategies. 

If your marketing strategy does not catalyze exchanges between you and potential leads or previous customers, you must improve your understanding of marketing principles. Let’s look into some of these principles.

Principle 1: “Who Is Your Marketing For?”

We see many roofing business owners putting their time, money, and effort into things that are for the wrong target market. They’re investing their time in businesses rather than in their local market or spending time on other roofers. 

They need to ask themselves the most important questions. 

• Who is it for?
• Where do my IDEAL CUSTOMERS hang out? 
• What do they care about?

In his altMBA course, American Author Seth Godin said, “Most inventors and marketers start with what they have, the stuff, and try to work backwards to the ‘who is it for’ question. 

It makes a lot more sense to go in the other direction. Identify a set of fears, dreams, and attitudes and then figure out what sort of story fits that lock in a way that delights the customers, then go build that”.

So, identify your customers highest wants, then build them the product, the service, or marketing experience as the situation demands. You are trying to answer the questions of your consumers and provide solutions through marketing.

Principle 2: Make Customers the Hero

For this marketing principle, we recommend Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand. A little fact about human nature – we are all obsessed with ourselves, and if you’ve got customers, they’re on “me FM” all the time. 

If you don’t tap into that radio station before persuading them, anything you say or do will only look confusing or lose their attention. It’s either that or you blend into the background because all other roofing companies do the same thing. 

The ideal way is to talk about your customer’s problem and the solution in the headlines on your website. Talk about the challenges they must overcome and who they will become if they conquer them. 

MAKE THEM THE HERO.

By doing this, you’re creating this success story and adding elements of “story” to your website. 

Generally, your goal should be to increase the compelling elements that’ll get people to stay on longer and enjoy reading your website’s content instead of just telling them how awesome you are, which most folks naturally do.

Principle 3: Answer Sales Process Questions 

When customers ask, we often avoid questions like “Why are you more expensive?” We’re asking you to answer the questions you receive primarily throughout the sales process. Answer these questions with content or be blunt with the people asking. Don’t shy away from what you can and can’t offer. Lean into it.

It’s scary because they won’t get into the sales process if they get the answer there. However, that’s okay, especially if you go hard on lead generation. This principle is best paired with going hard on lead generation to ensure you have multiple streams covered.

Our favorite method of handling this is to make a spreadsheet; we insert every common question and objection into the spreadsheet. Then we make video content to address these questions. 

Usually, each spreadsheet is about a month’s worth of questions. Note that these videos don’t have to be fancy. We recommend They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan to further substantiate this marketing principle.

Principle 4: Benchmark Your Marketing Efforts Through “Closed Deals” 

Imagine how it feels when you invest money and time into marketing, and the salesperson says, “Uh, these leads aren’t that good.” For some, it can be a motivation killer. 

To efficiently order our marketing effort, we analyze our closed deals regularly with our sales team. Let’s say we had about five closed deals last week; we closely assess every one of them and find out where each one came from — whether from YouTube, referrals, or other sources generating leads.

Whatever your results are, you want to stay updated on that and have standard metrics to push into what works best for you. 

If you look at where all your closed deals came from in the last month or weeks and push effort into those areas, your marketing will be much more effective. Grant Cardone’s 10X Rule explains this more in-depth and at a higher level if you are interested. 

Principle 5: Uniqueness Makes You Memorable 

How “visually” can you be different from other business owners? And how can you “message-wise” say something completely different from what others say? For this, you should check out Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

As marketing agencies or roofers, we often look at the people around us, see what they’re doing, and then go, “I’m just going to do what they’re doing because they must be right.” Some roofers win with this attitude. However, it’s way more effective to be visually different and UNIQUE. 

Godin’s illustration of this was a purple cow. Imagine crossing paths with a purple cow! Even if you’ve seen hundreds of cows before, you’ll still pay attention. That’s the level of visual difference we’re talking about. Set yourselves apart from the people doing the same things as you. 

Principle 6: Find Untapped Spaces and Own Them

We recommend Blue Ocean Strategy by Renee Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim for this marketing principle. Regarding marketing, business owners generally prefer to follow the majority. As a roofer, the smart move for you would be to identify entirely different playgrounds where the customer wants to be or exists. Then attack these areas with marketing efforts around strategies that work best for you.

Take red oceans as an illustration, where you have sharks all around. You think you’re supposed to go there because of the buzzing activity, but it’s red with blood, meaning if you rush in, you might get slaughtered!

The point is that you can go to YouTube or Instagram if everyone is on Facebook. You can go to the other area if all your competitors are in one area. Strive to be UNIQUE and DIFFERENT. 

Principle 7: Minimize Steps For Customers to Close

Don’t Make Me Think (a Common Sense Approach to Web Usability) by Steve Krug is the book for this marketing principle.

Many roofers need to realize that for every field you add to a form on your website, you decrease the likelihood of someone doing business with you by two percent. Through experience, we’ve found out that browsers prefer the usual field form to that of your website. Requesting more than your customer expects to give you, and you risk losing their attention and sale.

Having your customers or lead flow go to the website to navigate their way down to scheduling a call. You’re giving your lead a lot of work to do, and the goal here is to capture as much information as you can without asking too much of them.

As a roofing business owner, one of your goals is to speed up processes. You can send them a Calendly link to the schedule, and when you have a proposal, always put the sign at the top. Also, create opportunities for your customer to pay you quickly. 

When dealing with leads, everything you do should shorten the distance to “purchase.” You have to shorten the distance between when someone becomes interested and when they purchase. Because otherwise, the whole process would be time-consuming for you and your sales team. 

In Conclusion

When studying marketing principles, keep in mind that buyer-to-seller communication is vital. Observe what your customer wants, then build upon that, rinse and repeat. Keep your content fresh, engaging, and unique so the customer wants to return for more. 

Generally, as much as customers want to see value in what you’re offering, they also want the process and solution to be easy. Ask yourself, “How can I make essential steps in my sales process as simple as possible to decrease the friction of working with me?”

If you didn’t already know, this is the help we offer at Hook Agency. We possess the skilled team and means to facilitate and improve customer rapport while generating ways to bring in more leads for your roofing business through proven processes of Fully Custom Websites, PPC-driven ads, & SEO optimization for all your website’s content. Schedule a call with us today to learn more!