Project Overview

Roofing Co. was started 30 years ago and has grown to service a larger portion of the greater Midwest. In the past, their client base has grown substantially through word of mouth and traditional advertising tactics. However, due to increasing competition and an economic downturn, growth was stagnant over the past few years. Like a lot of companies Roofing Co. lost track of its customers and failed to communicate beyond the initial sale. This is due to a combination of the limited marketing resources, and a primary focus on generating new customers instead of engaging with old ones. With a customer base over 20,000 Roofing Co. believes that they could boost sales by re-engaging past customers to cross-sell them on maintenance work and other services.

Goals/Challenges

Roofing Co. implemented marketing automation to accomplish the following goals:

• Increase sales of roofing maintenance programs to existing customers.
• Cross-selling existing customers additional services such as: a.) Scheduling routine (annual or semi-annual) inspections with existing customers and providing comprehensive maintenance evaluations. b.) Gutter repairs, cleaning and replacement c.) Skylight or solar tube installation d. General repair work or repairs after storms
• Encourage customers with old roofs that now is the time to upgrade to a new roof.

Tactical Philosophy

Roofing Co. believed that they could identify segments of their customer base that are more likely to buy specific services. They agreed that regular, targeted communication with each customer segment will likely lead to the most conversions and highest revenue. The agency suggested using marketing automation for its ability to dynamically segment customers easily, and to automatically notify the sales team when a lead appears to be ready to buy. The agency employed a marketing automation platform, and built out several workflows based on the segments they identified.

Recommended Tactics

Segmentation Using Dynamic Lists

Roofing Co. used Dynamic Lists to identify and segment their extensive customer base into distinct groups, based on:

• Consumer or business
• Age of roof
• Type of roof installed

In doing so, Roofing Co. identified groups that were more likely to buy specific services that they offer, and targeted each of these groups with individual, personalized communication to provide the best chance of conversion.

Once set up, these Dynamic Lists automatically sort customers and add/remove them from segments as needschange, creating a permanent growth engine for Roofing Co.

Targeted Marketing Communication Drip Campaigns

Once Roofing Co. identified these distinct groups they created email “drip campaigns” that regularly communicated about the products and services that met the segments exact needs.

For example:

• For businesses with asphalt roofs older than 20 years, the drip campaign encouraged them to consider a new roof, citing statistics on the energy savings of new roofing materials, offering a free estimate, and information on various government rebate programs.
• For a customer that purchased a roof more recently, Roofing Co. targeted them with messaging about how regular maintenance programs could extend the life of a roof by many years and prevent leaks and other costly problems.

Proactive Sales Engagement with Lead Scoring and Notifications

Roofing Co. used lead tracking,lead scoring, and notification features to identify and notify the sales team about leads that exhibited signs that they were more open to a purchase.

For example:

• When a lead with an old shingle roof opened an email and clicked back to the website to read an article on the energy saving gained by installing a metal roof, the sales team was automatically notified. The sales team called the lead the next day armed with the information that they were considering a metal roof, and that “energy savings”appeared to a be a hot button issue for them when deciding to purchase.
• When another lead who recently purchased a new roof clicked to the website to read an email about the federal rebate programs on solar panel installation, the sales team was notified to call the lead, and an additional email specifically speaking about the benefits of solar energy was sent to the lead automatically.

Roofing Co. identified dozens of these automation and communication opportunities and in doing so, allowed the sales team to focus on the few hundred customers (out of the 20,000) that were truly interested one or more of the products and services that Roofing Co. offered.

Specialized Campaigns to Target Consumers

Roofing Co. determined a few of the top reasons other than life of the roof that customers would need repairs or replacement. They created specialized campaigns and built out workflows that sent targeted content to customers when the campaign launched.

For example:

• Prior to storm season, Roofing Co. built out a workflow that ran for 2 months targeting users based on their segmentation. For customers that had purchased any roof type between 2-10 years ago, they sent out information on quick repairs that could prevent costly damage when storms hit. For business that had their roof for less than 1 year, they provided information about their maintenance plan that covered repairs of small damages caused by storms. After storm season, they used rules-based automation to determine the users that did not opt in to storm coverage,and automatically send them emails offering repair services.
• Energy companies in Missouri increased their rates,and Roofing Co. wanted to offer free estimates to costumers with asphalt roofs that are older than 10 years, to try to sell them a new and more energy efficient roof. They created a drip campaign that ran for 6 months following the announcement that provided statistics on the benefits of a new roof, testimonials from customers with energy efficient roofs on the savings they have seen since they got their new roof, and data on the tax breaks they can receive from going to a green roofing option.

In The Future

Roofing Co. plans to not only engage previous customers, but to reach out to a new customer base through lead generation techniques and automating social media.

The results that Roofing Co. can achieve using are not possible with traditional ESPs and a basic CRM system. Integrating all of their marketing efforts into a single marketing automation platform allows them to have near one-on-one communication with their customers in a high-converting process. The end-to-end tracking ability allows Roofing Co. to see the ROI of each of their efforts, allowing them to effectively allocate resources to the highest performing.