The world has gone digital, with more and more people searching for businesses online year after year. To top things off, the roofing industry is becoming increasingly competitive.

Is your roofing business still relying on referrals and neglecting its online presence? If so, it's time to build a digital marketing strategy that helps you be found by more customers.

Don't get me wrong; traditional marketing techniques still work. But, if you want to reach more customers than your competitors, you need a digital marketing plan for your roofing business.

Here are two reasons: 

1. Paid advertising can get your roofing business more jobs and generate leads.

Are you still spending money on billboard advertising or an ad in the phone book? You may be spending more money for fewer results.

Sure, some people still use the phone book and billboards can create jobs for your roofing business. However, it's actually much cheaper and beneficial to use digital, online advertisements. 

Take a look at these statistics:

• 70 percent of Americans don't open the phone book
• 41 percent of clicks in search results go to the top three paid ads
• Advertising in the phone book has a conversion rate of less than one percent

Paid ads, on the other hand, have a much higher conversion rate and can create a lot of opportunity for your roofing business.

You can use paid advertising to:

• Target local consumers who are looking for roofing services
• Retarget users who have been to your website in the past, bringing them back and keeping your roofing business fresh in the customer's mind

And, unlike the phone book, you don't have to commit to a full year; you can choose when you want to advertise, planning for busy seasons and maximizing your budget. 

2. Online reviews can make or break your roofing business. 

Because a lot of time, work and money go into roofing jobs, customers want to ensure that they're getting the best service for the price. So, they're turning to the Internet to read your reviews.

Even if it seems like all your business comes from referrals, people will research your business online after a friend or family member tells them about your roofing business. They want to see what others are saying about you.

In fact, 97 percent of people read online reviews of a company before doing business.

The reasons that so many people look at online reviews is that they want transparency from the businesses they purchase from and they make their purchase decisions based on what other people are saying.

So, you'll want to try to get as many positive, recent reviews as you can. Start asking your customers to leave you a review on your website, Facebook and Google. 

If you receive a bad review, we have some advice on how to respond to negative online reviews. But, the two most important things are to respond quickly and to solve the problem with courtesy and respect for the customer. 

Final Thoughts

As we mentioned, you don't want to completely abandon your traditional marketing strategy; some people still use those traditional means to find out about a local business.

However, because a majority of people are on the Internet daily, you'll miss out on reaching many potential customers if you don't have a digital marketing plan in place.

And, if you'd like to learn more about digital marketing, check out these resources:

• Why Should You Give Local Search Marketing a Chance?
• How to Build a Better Review Marketing Strategy
• Why You Need to Give Paid Advertising a Chance