Do More with Your Marketing with Sandy Sykora

Pete: All right everybody, we are back. I'm your host, Pete McKendrick and my co-host Nic, and we are joined today by our Marketing Wizard. I love that title, Sandy.

So welcome, Sandy.

The season's kicking off here. Everybody's getting rolling, things are starting to get busy.  

Yesterday we had a pretty decent sized hailstorm, I mean, quarters size hail throughout the county surrounding us.

If you're close and you guys wanna work some hail damage. I'm in western Kentucky, north of Nashville  

Nic: Process Pete's got the leads!  

Pete: Got all the leads you need probably five years worth of leads between last year's storm and this one, right?

But yeah, let's jump into it. Sandy, I'm gonna let you introduce yourself really quickly here, so if anybody doesn't know you.  

Sandy: Hi, I'm Sandy Sykora.  

I am heading up our marketing team here at Roofr. I've been with Roofr now just over a year, but I have been doing marketing for almost 20 years now. I was so excited, when Joel invited me on and Nic and Pete, I actually ran my own consulting business as well, and I did a lot of digital and traditional marketing with small business owners.

Nic: Yeah, it's perfect timing too. You mentioned like the storms and stuff, and what we're seeing across the nation is that spring has sprung a little bit early.

Having this conversation now about marketing is huge because for everybody who's out there and wondering what it's like in other markets, and Pete and I have the benefit of seeing that across North America and how the markets kind of rise and fall.

The Spring Springs in March, April, and you see a huge influx at that point, then it plateaus for a couple weeks as everybody kind of catches their breath, and then it goes up again.

We're coming in and around that first spike right now. So this is a perfect time for this to have Sandy here, talk a little bit more about marketing and let us kind of see what we can do with it.

Sandy: One thing that we've been kind of seeing on our end as well is just like the lead uptick, especially like proposals coming in for some of our customers and making sure like you're staying on top of that. Getting that point where you have that predictability as well, I think is very important.

When it comes to like just business cycles in general. It'd be great. Just take an understanding of everyone on the call, like what are you hoping to get out of the session today. What level of familiarity and like what sophistication level are you in your marketing chops?

Are you just getting started? Are you seasoned vet? And then that way we can make sure we tailor, our responses and what we talk about.

Pete: I know big things that always come up when we talk about marketing in this industry is budget, right?

I think there's some big disparities in budget and some misconceptions around budget as well. It's like, oh, I've gotta go all in and have this huge marketing budget to be successful. Hiring a marketing agency versus doing some DIY type of stuff.

It's a good topic to kind of cover and maybe squash some of the misconceptions, you know, that we run into.

Nic: Not just like, how much money should you be spending, but like, there's different levels of marketing that I know Sandy will get into. Yeah. Mm-hmm. How much should you be spending on, you know, brand versus paid ads versus stuff like that. Where you're getting the most bang for your buck, now and in the long term.

Sandy: Knowing where your leads are coming from is also important. Mm-hmm. To dictate like what percentage of your budget, should be allocated to where, especially for those, who might have businesses that are a bit more established. You have that digital presence, you have that tracking in place.

But I think for the folks on the call that are kind of just getting started, you also don't need a massive budget.

That digital presence is very important. Today's day and age, like the face-to-face piece, very critical as well, just as important.

But if you don't have a website, if you're not on Google reviews, you're missing leads and that validation process too. If a homeowner's, you know, in that, decision making phase, they're gonna try and vet and obviously assess. And a website is that first gateway.

Even if you start with Google reviews, like that's a great low cost starting point. Encouraging any new customer to do that follow up post, post job and just ask for that review. And it can go a long way.  

Pete: One of the things that I talked with Michael Sterns from Ascend Digital, back at IRE we did a podcast, one of the biggest misconceptions with marketing is that it's set it and forget it.

Right. Like that I'll, I can put some money into some paid ads and then just let 'em run. Mm-hmm. I had a conversation last week with another contractor and he's like, yeah, we literally started to analyze what we were focusing on, and who we were marketing to.

But we started to break it down by how was that performing month over month? Because he said, as the seasons change, it was changing what services were performing. And he's like, and we were able to hone almost like month over month, where we could target with different services, a different type of ad.

And so we've constantly evolving, constantly changing it throughout the year. And it's, it's constantly changing.

We had hail here last night, right? So now that's a whole different way of marketing, right? If I'm marketing to the people who potentially got hit versus a week ago when we had no hail damage and you're marketing to a straight up retail customer.

Sandy: I saw a great question in the chat. What if you work mostly in new construction. That kind of made me think about being in the right place at the right time, right?

If I'm putting my marketing hat demand gen hat on. You probably wanna get and build those relationships earlier on. Make sure that you have the right decision makers and the relationships built there.

Do your market research, like try to find all the new developments that are happening in your locale. Pick up the phone, try to book some meetings. And if you do have the budget, run some paid ads to those people that are working at that company or the development company. There's definitely a lot of tactics there that you can do.

Some are low cost and some, you know, if you have a Rolls Royce marketing budget, you can definitely pump some ad dollars there as well. And also just content as well.  

Nic: Content is huge.  

Sandy: Knowing who your buyer is, like what type of roofing business, like who your ideal buyer is like. Tailoring your content strategy around that. So then again, if you have a website and the content's tied around, like all the keywords, and geo-targeted keywords as well is very important. You do need a regular engine for that.

So whether you do it yourself or you hire it, also ai, if you invest like in a Claude account, depending what your budget is, you can build agents to do that for you automatically. It's a great time to be a marketer right now with ai.  

Nic: I worked a lot on New Con doing that, and it's all about that relationship building. I talk to a lot of New Con roofers here at Roofr, and one thing I notice is content is huge.

But I was talking to other ones and they were like, why do I need a CRM? Why do I need a website and stuff like that. I was like, for people to find you, because there's a lot of work that goes into building those relationships and making sure those new con builders are aware of you and then could hire you and your crew.

Being able to get in front of them means that you need to do that market research, like you said, Sandy and AI is fantastic for it.

So going on to, you know, chat or claude or whatever that you're using.

Finding out the places that are doing the developments and or existing buildings, the age of those buildings, the contact numbers for those people and letting it do the legwork for you. And then whether you're doing paid ads, targeted ads, like Sandy said, or print media sending out to their areas,

there's a lot of ways that you can market for New Con. You just gotta think a little bit outside of the box sometimes. I think content and website is a necessity. 'cause people, when they see your name, say Bob, you go up and you meet Pete, who's a developer and you're trying to get work from him, he's gonna wanna know your past work.

So on your website, you could have all the past work you've done, the content that you filmed and everything. It would make a huge difference.  

Sandy: Yeah, and I do know, like homeowners, they do need that human element.

So I think Nic, to your point, like having that social presence on your site and the content and the validation there, that helps tell the story too, and helps the decision making.  

Pete: You know, it used to be, if I needed to find a roofer, I'm looking for a referral.

But now online has become that, right? You've got Facebook groups, we've got some roofers that have leveraged Facebook groups to essentially build their entire business.

That's where everyone's going to get the information, right. Where I would ask my neighbor in the past, now I'm going to Google and reading reviews, or I'm, going to the local facebook group and asking for a recommendation.  

Sandy: Yeah.

Pete: That kind of leads into Matthew's question there. Matthew asked, what's more important right now, Google or social media?

Sandy: 82% of homeowners surveyed actually checked online reviews before hiring a Roofr. So I think for me, if I were to pick one just based off of that, you'd probably wanna start at Google and then build your reviews there.

Organic search traffic. Reddit is increasingly important as well, in dictating how your website ranks. Locally, and in general for search terms. Having visibility in local Reddit threads within your municipality I think could be an interesting tactic too.

And, you know, linking back to your website, just having, making sure that the content and the posts that you share are organic. And not necessarily like advertisements, so to speak, but, Reddit is also an interesting channel. I think also local Facebook groups too, very important from like a lead gen standpoint.

But I think again, going back to that validation, how people choose. Google, I think still is quite important.

Nic: The power of the social, I see it in my local community as well. Just going out there and, and having them post at the jobs that they're doing at the things that they're doing in the community and stuff.

It really makes a big difference. But for me specifically, I'm renovating a house right now. When I'm looking out at finding an electrician, finding a plumber, finding whatever home services, first thing I'm looking for is Google reviews.

Second thing I'm looking for is web presence and time in business and seeing how professional they look. And the third thing I'm always looking at after is just like social media. What's the community looking at? Going into those Facebook groups. Like a good feature is being able to use that search feature in that Facebook group and search out that trade that you're looking for.

So Roofrs, then you'll be able to see and compare and contrast like what year is your competition? What are you guys up against and how do I kind of make a difference?

Having that presence online is going to make you be remembered and make people refer you more often.

You wanna be top of mind so that when somebody asks that, you get that referral. And it's not just done by word of mouth. Word of mouth is done by building that framework from Google, from social and everything else to really make sure that you're ubiquitous with whatever trade you're in.  

Sandy: For sure. And I think, um,

Nic: Every time.  

Speaker 2: I saw a couple questions in the chat here. And I think this ties nicely into kind of the importance of data and tracking and getting into like UTMs and more technical pieces.

Making sure that you're knowing where your leads are coming from. When they're coming in. Just more from like a definition standpoint, UTMs help you track and measure where your leads are coming from online.

It's like a digital footprint, so to speak. There's free UTM builders that you can find online. They're, you know, a dime a dozen. So I highly encourage for the people that do have web presences, make sure your UTMs are accurate in place.

The better data you have coming into, whatever reporting system you have, the better quality of decision making you can have in terms of what's closing and from which channel. And then investing more in those channels.  

Pete: I wanna see where everything is coming from and understanding like what we're spending on.

I always think about marketing as renting, you're renting space on Google, Facebook, and you're paying monthly for it.

And if something's not producing, I don't wanna pay rent there anymore. I wanna take that money and allocate it to something that is producing. So UTMs allow you to know how much am I getting from Facebook from google from Pinterest, from whatever social that you're doing or whatever paid ads you're doing.

There's only so much money you can spend, especially when you're starting out a business and growing. You can't be spending 50% of your GMV that you're pulling in your net rev to marketing. It's just not gonna be sustainable.

So how can you kind of divvy that up?  

Sandy: I think there's one question I actually do wanna address. 'cause this is such a common one and it's a bit of a misconception. Kerlin asked if it's more valuable to increase your number of followers on Facebook before running lead campaigns.

So. I wanna caveat that followers don't necessarily equate to leads and, business, outcomes. It's a gauge, obviously, to see whether your presence is growing online, but I think ultimately, like the metric you wanna look at is really the leads that you're getting from your social channels, whether it's Facebook, X, whatever you may be on.

I would run. Lead campaigns on Facebook. You don't even need to have a Facebook page for your business. But if you don't have a website, that's definitely good, like low cost alternative, and then drive traffic to that.

Make sure that you have a lot of good content on there to what Nic was speaking to earlier, to validate like the projects you've worked on, you know, show examples of your work. I think that, again, goes back to the validation piece, but I would suggest strongly not to use the metric of, volume of followers as like, equating to success and you know, how many leads you're going to get.

What I would look at also is just how many local Facebook groups can you post on and share your services. A lot of local groups where I am have small business Sundays or Business Sundays and you share a post to your page. So look out for those in your communities. If you're looking at a more grassroots approach, that would be my suggestion.

And then tying it back to the leads generated from that program.  

Pete: I think one of the things that often gets overlooked too is the cost of acquisition, right?  

There could be some place where we're getting a ton of leads from it, but it could be costing us a ton of money. And so it may not be as cost effective to do it there, as we think it is. We need to keep top of mind when we're doing this and we're looking at where those leads are coming from and how they're performing.

Like we said in the beginning, that's always changing too, right? So you gotta constantly be looking at it and updating it.  

Nic: The, other thing too, you gotta look at your process as well.

How quickly are you getting to these leads? How effectively are you servicing them? Because if you're getting leads in and you just don't have a process to handle that volume or just like a good SLA on getting in front of them, then you're going to lose that on those leads and you're spending money for no reason as well.

Sandy: If you're on a site, maybe you can't pick up the call, having a system in place to handle any inbound, you know, leads that are coming in.  

Pete: I talked before about a friend of mine that got into real estate and killed it, like in his first year. And I asked him like, what did you do? How did you get so successful so fast? And he said, I literally just answered my phone.

That's all I did.  

Nic: Again, I'm going through a renovation process right now. I'm calling electricians and stuff. At least five in a row answered the phone with hello.

And I'm like, are you an electrician? And he's like, yeah, my number. Cool dude. Like, like just simple stuff like that too.

Having an answering service as a backup is going to make a big difference and really kind of set that professionalism. 'cause you want that customer to think, okay, I looked at their reviews online, they look fantastic. I look at their website and now I'm gonna give 'em a call. You want that first impression to continue on because if you do have a crappy experience on the phone or a voicemail that's not connected or whatever the case is, it's going to die there and they're gonna move on to the next one.

Sandy: Looking in the chat too. I think there's an appetite also to touch on referrals.  

For those that are just getting started, that's kind of the natural starting points, like friends and family, right?

I do wanna tie it back to like, again, the importance of having that validation online. And again, people buy from those that they know, like, and trust and there's that, there is that human element.

But having that digital gate check, which most homeowners are doing, to validate your credibility online and like, what type of work your business does.

Pete: You want to be like that neighborhood Roofr. The key to that is visibility. You need to be there, present all the time, right?

In that conversation with Dave, from Dope marketing, he said in the beginning, we had no money. So what we would do is when we would land a job, he said, I would find. The closest exit on the highway to our job. And I would find the gas station at that exit and I would park my wrapped truck in the parking lot, like just completely ridiculously across like three spots in front of the road.

So everyone coming in and out of the gas station and everyone driving by would be like, look at this asshole that took up three spots. He said, but they're all looking at my truck. They're all seeing the name.

If you're targeting specific people, you know, a specific neighborhood, where are those people getting coffee in the morning? Where are those people doing yoga? Right. Park a truck there, right? Put a sign there.

So there's a lot of ways you can do it. Without having to spend a ton of money. You can really focus heavy on the branding in the beginning and not have to spend a ton of money to do that and get that presence built up.

Nic: Just be there. Just always be there wherever they look, be there.

And that is the same mindset when you're starting up a business and you're looking to build referrals and run your business on really low cost per acquisition and high converting leads. And that's what a referral is. Ask for two referrals each time when you're doing that one job. And do what me and Pete have talked about in the past, which is a six pack. Knock the three across the street and the two neighbors on the doors there. Just.

Start to get out the information. Don't worry about canvassing, talk about scouting. Hey, I'm not knocking because I wanna know if you need a quote for the roof, but I'm gonna be in the neighborhood for the next couple days doing this roof across the street.

And then you can tie in with some of the stuff that Sandy's talking about with marketing, with paid ads and everything else, and building that presence.

Sandy: It's kind of just the classic law of numbers and sales, right? Even like, doesn't matter what stage you're in, like whether you're getting started or already established,

be there, do the work, figure out ways, even with your team, no matter how big or small it is, create incentives. Like internally you say, okay, like whoever can close the most deals. And then again, that's gonna create that snowball effect.

Once you get to that point where you have a good established baseline, the digital part can help you scale that and get more, organically, like from people searching. And again, that then effectively could reduce the amount of time spent, doing the canvassing, pounding the pavement.

And again, it goes back to, I think what Pete was saying too, where there's certain levers and markets can change at any point in time and it's all fluid, right? Nothing's gonna be static and no one tactic will work all the time. It's trying many things at the same time.  

Nic: I see Todd there just, a little bit earlier asked the question on like, reasonable budget to update a website and establishing your Google and social presence.

I obviously Roofr sites is $99, uh, so if you're looking for something there, but what do you think like overall for updating a website and establishing your Google and social presence?  

Sandy: Depending on your needs, I think you really need to assess like what your budget is. I wouldn't spend too much money on, on the website. You can get a beautiful product for like two grand a year, three grand a year. But I know some Roofrs I met at IRE too, like spent 15, $20,000 on their website to get it built custom.

And then the upkeep, I think on the monthly basis, there's one roofing contractor and they, I think we're doing like two to 3 million in revenues each year. They were paying, I think 200 a month in maintenance fees thereafter. And it required development work each time.

So I think if you are in that stage of looking at websites, don't break the bank on the website when you're starting out. And even if you're already established, like I would revisit that too because depending on what you're spending a month, it could be a massive, unnecessary cost. Because again, there's so many options out there right now.  

Pete: Keep in mind too, when you're looking at these website tools and who you're hiring, how easily will you be able to update the website, you know, when you need to go on there and change things, like are you gonna need to call that developer back and he's gonna charge you again to make an update?

Can you update it yourself? How easily can that be done?

So you wanna make sure that that's a nice, smooth process. Kerlin mentioned the GoDaddy, WordPress, setup. I've used that before and honestly, it's super easy to be able to go in and make changes.

Simple tools like that sometimes will work out of the box right away and you can always, spend more and update that site later on too.  

Nic: It's very important to kind of take a look at like, Hey, who owns this website? Who owns this domain? Even more importantly, like, is it me or is it someone else? 'cause like markets can change. Relationships can change. If you're with Bob's marketing over here and it started off great and then you just started not seeing the results and you wanna switch to somebody else, it's a free market.

You should be able to do it. But if he built that website and owns that domain, good luck. You're going to lose all that traffic, all that information, and you're gonna have to start it from scratch.

Another point for Roofr sites, by the way, $99 a month and you get that back.  

Sandy: To Nic's point, make sure you have it in the contract and agreement that you, own the data, own the architecture to the site when you are, selecting a website vendor.

I think just posted something pretty, pretty cool where, they're using AI to update WordPress. Yeah. Makes it super easy. That's like, I love that use case because even for me, like I, I can code a little bit, but I'm not very technical when it comes to coding and development.

And AI has been my best friend, on that front. You don't need to be a technical, engineer and hard code things. There's a lot you can do right now with AI as well to get you there.  

A great use case too for those that have, established websites with traffic, making sure that you get that keyword data and you could use, again, AI to analyze that data and provide recommendations which can drive your blog strategy and content strategy.  

Nic: The blog strategy and making sure that you're consistently getting that information out there. It's like you need to consistently update it and make sure that it's with the keywords correct.  

Sandy: Yeah, it's still relevant, having relevant content in the right places though.

Again, going back to Reddit, even social groups, I guess the AI search engines are picking up those signals. And then the content on your site as well. It's still important. It's just a little bit different, on what, what chat GPT and I think Claude right now are prioritizing.

Nic: Yeah, it's crazy how quickly these things update and stuff, and it's hard to keep on track. So if you find that person that you trust with the marketing aspect, or a company hopefully like Roofr, that is going to keep up for you. It's going to really, really help you stay ahead of the game

If you can dial in your marketing from that first part and then kind of transition to make sure that you're helping them out quickly, your process is intact and you can just continue to recycle that to continue to get more leads.

Sandy: Going back to what works versus what doesn't. I think it's really a lot of trial and error. You know, whether it's building up your referral network, to generate leads, whether you're advertising online and carving some budget aside, building a website.

I think it's a combination of all those things that really will make a difference. I think someone posted, joining the local Chamber of Commerce, which is an amazing idea. Just increasing your visibility in your territory, in your local markets.

I think that's doing all of those things, whether it's in person or online. I don't think you should just do one. I think doing multiple slices of each of those is really, the determinant of, how quickly or slowly you can grow your business.

Nic: A lot of Roofrs down in the states share their ideas, share their wins, their failures and stuff like that.

And it's kind of like rise by committee.

Pete: It also gives you the ability to look at what everyone is doing and potentially be creative and novel in what you do, right? And say, okay, yeah, this is working for these guys. It may or may not work in my market, but hey, they're all marketing this way, right?

I see them all over Facebook, or I see them all with billboards, right? What can I do to set myself apart and be completely different than what they're doing? You know, it kind of works both ways.

Sandy: A hundred percent.

Nic: That one's awesome.  

Don't think we've seen that one yet.  

Just to hit it on some of the takeaway information that's there, just to like, make sure that we sum it all up for everybody.  

Sandy: We touched on all this actually, one thing we didn't really talk to too much too is like the automation piece, which I think is super interesting and I know Nic spoke to earlier around like having like the systems and processes in place,

the less time you're doing administrative work, the more time you have, again for vis dev, the marketing piece, or even just like being on site doing the job.

Nic: There was a guy in the chat, using like automations for SMS on prop stream data prop stream for those you don't know is like public records, where you get MLS data and stuff like that.

The one thing I would say about that is make sure you're very certain that you're opting people in. That outreach because the FTC has changed a lot of guidelines and rules, and you'll get massive fines if you're not letting people opt in or opt out to that communication.

If you're in a CRM, like Roofr, you could automate almost every single thing with text and email as well. But also all these CRMs of worth have FTC compliant guidelines around SMS. Like for us, you have to have either a verbal or a written implicit ency for that text communication. And if they opt out, it's opt out. You can't go back and text them. So it's very important to have that in there. Make sure you're automating smartly and within the rules so you don't get smoked by a government.

Sandy: Good call out. Very valid.

Pete: What do we have today? We have more than just socks, don't we, Joel?

Nic: Car hoodie. Pit Viper sunny's. Nice. And the Roofr crowbar  

Sandy: the pit vipers are pretty sweet.

Pete: Well, awesome Sandy, thank you for jumping on. We're getting close on time here.

Sandy: I wanna do this again.

Pete: Thank you guys for joining us. Thank you for staying so active in the chat. It always makes it that much more fun for us to interact with you guys.  

Sandy: Thanks for having me and thanks everyone on the chat. That was, I loved all the questions, interactions, also the idea sharing is amazing. This is really fun. I had a blast.  

Pete: Yeah. Some great ideas.

Looked like some really good stuff there that you guys are doing. So, we appreciate everybody sharing.  

We will see you guys next time on the Roofr Masterclass.  

Sandy: Thanks everyone.  

Nic: Bye.