Roofing Email Marketing: Uses, Examples, Templates & More

What is Roofing Email Marketing?

Roofing email marketing is a marketing strategy that entails sending emails to customers or prospects to build long-term relationships, progress them along the funnel, or promote your services.

It’s one of the few channels businesses can use to communicate directly to their target market without the intervention of an intermediary. It’s also helpful in prompting people to take specific actions, such as booking a free inspection, signing an estimate, and filing a feedback form. 

Why Do Roofers Use Email Marketing?

Since the first marketing email in 1978, the digital marketing channel has grown in importance, and rightfully so. 

With the shift toward digital channels and the high returns emails generate, the progressive increase in the use of email marketing is not likely to slow down anytime soon. Instead, it will increase, for the following reasons:

• Valuable insights: Email marketing platforms deliver useful insights, which can be used to improve your campaigns and learn about customer preferences. You can use whatever such insights reveal about customers to run effective campaigns on other marketing channels.

• High-converting: Customers increasingly dislike ads because they tend to intrude on their privacy and interrupt their day. In contrast, email recipients are more open to being sold since they’ve consented to promotional messages by signing up in the first place. This increases conversions.

• Builds brand loyalty: Emailing customers helpful information that solves roofing challenges solidifies their emotional connection with your brand. Additionally, consistently seeing your company name and logo in their inbox sets off the ‘mere-exposure effect’—subscribers grow an affinity for your company and become loyal to your brand.

• Cost-effective: Unlike digital marketing strategies like paid ads, email marketing campaigns don't require massive spending to achieve results.

These days, running email marketing is very easy because of the tools developed to automate critical tasks. For example, with ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro – Email feature, you can segment your audience and hyper-target them with relevant messages or personalize your emails with just one click.

For example, Guardian Roofing uses the platform to hyper-target new customers with membership program offers and advertise other services to existing customers.

“When we started our gutter division, we re-marketed it to our roofing clients and let them know about our other services,” Lori Swanson explains. “That really helps with cross-selling and creating more opportunities for our sales team.”

Later, we’ll explain other ways roofing companies use ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro – Email software to hyper-target their subscribers with relevant content, personalize their emails, and precisely track their campaign revenue.

What Types of Email Marketing Do Roofers Use?

One look at your inbox should reveal multiple email formats from different brands. Some promise discounts, others promote a blog article, and some simply update you on recent company announcements. 

Here are some email formats popular within the roofing industry:

• Email newsletters contain any helpful information the recipient may find to keep them engaged until their next purchase. They may contain company updates, industry news, and valuable DIY tips. This is the most important and frequently-used roofing email type since there’s usually a long period between successive roof repairs or replacements.

• Post-job emails are used to solicit customer feedback after a job is completed. Roofing companies also sometimes use them to thank customers for hiring them, ending with a request to recommend their services to others.

• Welcome emails are one-time messages sent just after a customer uses your services for the first time, to build a relationship. For example, a customer who just signed up for a service contract may receive a welcome email.

• Dedicated emails promote a specific service or limited offer only. For example, a dedicated email promoting a free roof inspection can be sent to customers at the onset of the storm season. Or a discount on roof repairs can be sent to prospects after a storm.

• Lead-nurturing emails are email sequences targeted at people who signified interest in your services but haven’t taken action. For instance, you can send lead-nurture email sequences to people who requested a roofing estimate but never booked an appointment or signed a proposal.

• Upsell emails try to convince subscribers using your company to sign up for higher service tiers. For example, a roofing company can suggest a maintenance contract to homeowners who just replaced their roofs.

To maximize your investment in email marketing, consider using it to grow other channels. For example, you can repurpose an article you just published, redirect subscribers to a post you made on Facebook, etc.

What Are Some Roofing Email Marketing Examples?

We’ve listed the various types of roofing emails. Now, it’s time we revealed how roofing companies use each type to fulfill business objectives, such as generating leads, boosting awareness, etc.

• Roofing marketing example 1 – newsletter emails: Newsletters can be used to keep customers engaged until their roof is due for a change. They also inform customers of new updates and strengthen your relationship.

• Roofing marketing example 2 – post-job emails: Roofing companies can use post-job emails to get customers to leave online reviews just after a project is completed, improving the feedback's authenticity.

• Roofing marketing example 3 – upsell emails: Let’s say a customer just replaced their roof. You can use an upsell email to convince them to sign up for a maintenance service to keep the roof in perfect condition so it lasts as long as possible.

How Can You Get Started with Email Marketing for Roofing Companies?

One well-known benefit of email marketing is the different automation tools you can use to streamline critical processes such as list segmentation, personalization, and performance tracking.

Roofing companies have two types of email marketing automation tools to pick from:

• Traditional automation tools like Mailchimp, GetResponse, and MailerLite are built only for email marketing. They have features for building campaigns and segmenting audiences using basic generic data. However, they can’t reveal the exact revenue generated and they need data to be manually exported from external sources to work.

• Trade-specific software contains email automation tools that integrate with tools for other business processes and marketing channels. These tools possess advanced segmentation that lets you send emails to people with similar service histories, locations, etc. Their integration with other tools also eliminates manual data entry and facilitates precise revenue attribution.

ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro – Email feature is an excellent example of trade-specific software with built-in email capabilities. The software supports audience segmentation using criteria like zip code and service history and also shows each email campaign’s generated revenue.

Below, we’ll discuss how to start an email marketing campaign and reveal how our tool can assist in the process. Here’s a lowdown of the steps we’ll be exploring:

Let’s get to it.

1. Determine your goals

It’s no coincidence that goal-setting is at the top of this list. That’s because goals provide a clear target to aim all your efforts, ensuring you achieve business objectives. They also make it easier to gauge progress.

Typical goals roofing companies set for their email marketing campaigns include:

• Boost email open rates by X percent

• Generate conversions by increasing clickthrough rates by 10 percent before the next quarter.

• Gain 300 qualified leads within one month and nurture them into customers.

• Get 50 people to sign a new service contract in one month.

Important tip: Only set goals that tie to your current challenges. For example, a roofing company struggling with lead generation can set a goal of getting 100 people to sign up for a service contract discount.  

2. Build your email list

You will likely already have customers’ email addresses if you're an established company. But, if that’s not the case, you’ll have to gather the email addresses of customers and prospects willing to receive emails from you.

Sure, building an email list may take a while. However, it is never a great idea to go the easier route of buying email lists from vendors and databases. 

Recipients will block, delete, or ignore your emails or report them as spam since they can’t remember signing up. Plus, your email recipients will be uninterested in your brand and unlikely to convert. This hurts your conversion rates and sender reputation.

Megan Bedford recently stressed the importance of companies building their own lists instead of buying them off the internet.

“Buying generic lists off the street is not the best bet,” says Bedford, a marketing consultant. 

“The people you email should be expecting to hear from you. That's the basic golden rule to live by.”

Therefore, follow these tips to build your email list:

• Incentivize people with a valuable lead magnet so they’re encouraged to submit their email addresses. It could be a roofing inspection checklist, an e-book with steps for getting roofing insurance approvals, etc.

• Collect registrants' email addresses for a free webinar teaching roofing DIY tips.

• Create email newsletter signups and program them to appear after visitors have spent some minutes on your website.

• Include opt-in forms on your landing pages, articles, and social media campaigns.

• Run a referral program to reward new subscribers who recommend your newsletter to others.

3. Understand your audience

What happens when people receive emails irrelevant to their needs and interests? Of course, they delete them. Or worse still, such emails remain unread forever, damaging the sender’s email delivery rate.

Understanding your audience is even more vital in the current landscape, where email personalization is the standard. Customers want to receive messages that seem directed to them alone.

Therefore, gather as much information as you can about your target audience. What are their pain points? What types of content do they prefer? At what stage are they in the funnel?

Your Google Analytics dashboard, social media profile performance reports, and competitor analysis can provide answers to those questions.

Data stored in ServiceTitan’s CRM can help you understand your audience and identify shared preferences. You can access customers’ locations and property types, listen to call recordings, review previous customer feedback, and identify revenue-generating zip codes.

Effective email marketing campaigns are easier when your content, voice, and tone are tailored to your audience’s preferences and needs.

4. Decide the email type

There are multiple email types. The one you use depends on the campaign goal, the content type you’re sending, and the audience segments receiving the email.

Here are some email types you can pick from:

• Email newsletters

• Transactional emails

• Lead-nurturing emails

• Post-project surveys

• Review request emails

• Promotional emails

For example, a company with few customers in its membership program can run a promotional email promising a 10 percent discount to new signups.

5. Plan your emails and your follow-ups

Next, plan your email campaign. This will involve creating the email content, determining the sending frequency, the action you want subscribers to take, and the email type.

The email content should be engaging. Stick to short paragraphs, non-technical words, and a relaxed tone. Generally, your email should sound like words from a friend invited into their personal space.

Furthermore, stick to the sending frequency and schedule you promised when people signed up and make your emails timely. You don’t want to overwhelm their inbox with a barrage of emails, causing them to ignore you. If possible, give subscribers the option of reducing the emails they receive from you.

If you’re sending follow-up emails, mention what the email is for. Are you following up because they haven’t signed a proposal? Do you feel the 20 percent discount fits their needs? Give a reason so it doesn’t look like you randomly decided to clutter their inbox.

If you want to streamline your email follow-up process, invest in Marketing Pro – Email’s Sequence Builder.

The tool lets users create a sequence of up to four emails and send them at a defined cadence to customers or prospects. You can also create email sequences that end immediately when customers or prospects take a specific action, even if there are more emails to come.

For example, you can program a promotional email sequence to stop once the subscriber clicks on the link to the signup page, even if emails remain in the drip email series.

This ensures subscribers receive timely emails, which stop once your goal is achieved.

6. Write your subject line

The battle for readers' attention is won or lost in the subject line. 

Attractive subject lines catch the attention of scrollers and convince them to open your emails. Conversely, people delete emails with unattractive subject lines to declutter their inboxes and create more space for what they perceive as important messages.

The key to winning the battle for attention in your subject line is to tell recipients what they will gain by opening the email. This should be related to the action you want them to take. Benefit- or action-focused subject lines work because we naturally look out for our self-interest.

For example, let’s say you discover that most people in your local service area have old roofs that haven’t been touched in years. Emails to urge them to book a repair appointment might have a subject line that reads:

“Let’s Protect Your Assets From The Storm” 

This seven-word subject line tells readers what to expect when opening the email, which aligns with their current challenges.

Another way to come out tops in the battle for attention is to write multiple subject lines and use ServiceTitan’s Subject Line Grader to compare their effectiveness. The tool grades your subject line using a letter ranking system and suggests ways to improve it.

You can also use the Subject Lines and Preview Text Browser to see how your email will appear on mobile, tablet, and desktop display interfaces.

This makes it easier to create subject lines which indicate that your emails are worth reading.

7. Write your email copy

After the subject line attracts subscribers, the email copy must convince them to take action.

The best email copywriting advice is to write in a friendly manner. Ditch complex words and sentence structures for easy words and short sentences. You can also use transitional phrases and a storytelling framework to guide readers from one paragraph to the next.

Keep your email copy brief but long enough to pass your message and supply sufficient information to prompt action.

Lastly, use one primary call to action (CTA) and place it strategically. Ideally, it should appear in the middle and at the end of the email copy. 

The CTA button should be surrounded by whitespace, have a background color contrasting with the color used to design the email and use action-oriented wording.

8. Design your emails

Email design is an important part of email marketing. People may not have the patience to read an email when they have to maneuver a cluttered layout to understand the copy.

Consequently, ensure your email layout is designed correctly. Plus, avoid small fonts, cluttered text, and unresponsive email templates that don’t resize to fit mobile screens.

Lastly, every critical detail must be text-based, not stuffed in an image. Such images should also be optimized so the email loads quickly and has alt tags describing the information they contain.

To design your emails seamlessly, consider using ServiceTitan’s drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor. You can use it to build emails from scratch or customize professionally designed templates to your brand image.

This will save you the extra costs of subscribing to design platforms or hiring email design experts.

9. Measure your results

Measuring results is how you identify if and when you should change strategy. It’s how you determine the right subject line, email copy length, and high-converting CTA. Email metrics also reveal if your email marketing campaign contributes to business objectives.

Some of the key email marketing metrics to track include:

• Unique open rate reveals the number of subscribers who open your emails. A low number can be traced to a poorly-written subject line.

• Bounce rate measures the number of emails that violate the ESP’s (email service provider’s) guidelines. You should audit your emails using ESPs’ rulebooks whenever bounce rates shoot up.

• Clickthrough rate is the ratio of people who clicked on the CTA to the number who read your email. A low number may be traced to the CTA or email copy.

• Unsubscribe rate indicates the number of people who abandon your email list. Spikes in this metric may indicate a mismatch between your content and what subscribers need.

Although the above metrics matter, knowing how much revenue your email campaign generates is more important. Besides, revenue is what matters. Opens, clickthroughs, and other metrics mean nothing if the campaign’s not generating income.

In light of that, we decided to take a different approach from other email marketing tools by including revenue-attribution capabilities in Marketing Pro – Email.

It allows you to include unique tracking numbers in each email, which enables ServiceTitan’s system to match incoming calls to the originating emails. All results are displayed using an intuitive performance dashboard.

Such a detailed performance report helps you tweak emails to maximize revenue generation, just like Guardian Roofing does.

“[Marketing Pro – Email] gives us a really good visual of a lot of our metrics as far as their performance is and our return on investment,” Lori Swanson says. “It's really helpful to know where we're going to spend those marketing dollars.”

Email Marketing Best Practices for Roofers

Despite email marketing’s many benefits, you’ll agree that some emails still get trashed or reported as spam. Those that get read and generate conversions practice the following: 

1. Automating when possible

Maximize your results by using email marketing tools to automate where necessary, like creating email sequences that can run without your constant supervision. 

This is more efficient than always going through the hassle of manually creating and sending emails, which consumes time that could be spent on more productive tasks.

ServiceTitan’s Automated Campaign feature allows you to set up email sequences triggered whenever customers perform an action. For example, you can program the system to deliver reminder emails to customers whenever there’s an unsold estimate.

This saves time and ensures that you follow up on sales opportunities.

2. Personalize your emails

Now that subscribers have let you into the personal space of their inboxes, build a relationship by speaking to them as you would a friend. 

Mention their name in the subject line, reference region-specific pop information, send emails relevant to their lifecycle stage, and sign out with your name (not the company name).

You can also talk about recent events such as holidays, birthdays, etc.

3. Segment your emails

Customers and prospects expect to receive emails relevant to their needs. Someone with an aging roof will react more positively to a roof replacement email than another customer who just changed their roof last week.

Therefore, segmenting your email list ensures you’re sending the right message to the right audience at the right time.

Now, most people who fail to practice list segmentation complain about the time it takes to divide their audience and craft messages relevant to their needs. 

Fortunately, ServiceTitan lowers the time it takes to segment and send personalized emails by integrating with your CRM, which allows it to build campaigns automatically using customer data.

Select criteria such as unsold estimates, equipment history, zip code, and membership contract details. And ServiceTitan’s system will automatically build an audience list comprising customers who fit the chosen criteria.

For example, let's suppose unsold estimates are your criterion. ServiceTitan will automatically fetch all customers in your roofing CRM with unsold estimates, use them to build an email group and score the quality of your segmentation.

This lengthy process takes minutes, not hours, so you have time to do other things. Robin Cody, director of marketing and business development for Dallas-based Cody & Sons Plumbing, Heating & Air, loves the time efficiency of this particular feature, unlike other platforms, which take an hour or more.

“I just don’t have the time to look into our data, research, and start doing things like building audiences,” Cody says. “That’s what’s so great about ServiceTitan Marketing Pro. I can essentially use it as our customer relationship management software now. I can use and analyze our own data to target customers appropriately.”

Learn more about email list segmentation and personalization.

4. Use compelling CTAs

You shouldn’t conclude your email without giving readers an explicit action to perform. That’s how you get conversions and tie your email marketing campaign to business objectives.

To write clear CTAs, visualize what you want subscribers to do. Then, use action verbs to describe that action and place it on an obvious button that stands out from the rest of the email.

For example, a CTA like “learn more” is so generic. It doesn’t say what people will get by clicking on the link. In contrast, a CTA that reads “Claim your X percent discount now” clearly communicates the benefit that awaits on the other side of the link.

5. A/B test your email marketing campaigns

A/B tests involve sending emails that differ in one element to two random audiences to confirm which variant performs the best. 

A/B tests take time, but the value they produce far outweighs the time they consume. Even better, studies have shown that companies that run A/B tests enjoy significantly higher revenue.

According to email platform Litmus, marketers who run A/B tests earn $42 for every dollar spent, while those who shy away from the process only get $23 despite spending the same amount.

Before you run an A/B test, create a hypothesis such as “short subject lines perform better.” Next, test your hypothesis by creating two emails that differ in the element captured in the hypothesis. Then, track the appropriate performance metrics to accept or reject your hypothesis.

Other email elements you can A/B test include:

• Email copy length

• Email schedule

• CTA button color or placement

• Email background color

Roofing Email Marketing Templates

Here are some roofing email templates you can use immediately instead of creating an email from scratch.

Template 1: Welcome Email

Subject line: Welcome to the family, [customer name]!

Hi, [customer name]

We at [company name] are so happy to have you join us! We founded this company to help people like you fix their roofs, and we’re thrilled that you’ve entrusted us with yours. Our team of experts is ready to assist you with any roofing project, from repairs to new installations.

Please feel free to contact us whenever you need; we promise to help as much as possible.

Thanks once again!

[insert founder’s name as signature]

Strangers always remember how well they were welcomed on the first day they visited your home. It’s a perception that sticks in their minds for as long as your relationship with them continues.

Therefore, use the welcome email to give customers a great first impression of your company. Show how grateful you are for their patronage and confirm your willingness to do all you can to maintain the relationship.

Template 2: Limited-time promotional email

Subject line: Enjoy a [x] percent discount on your next repair

Hey [customer name]

Storms can be merciless with roofs, right? Fortunately, we’ve got just the solution for you!

For the next [insert period], we’ve decided to help loyal homeowners like you with a [x] percent discount on all roofing repairs and maintenance in preparation for the coming storm.

[insert CTA]

We have seen how minor roofing issues before storms can become costly problems afterward. You don’t want that, right? 

Contact us today to use our limited-time offer to avoid costly roofing problems and protect your home.

[Insert Clear CTA]

These limited-time offers introduce scarcity, which encourages the customer to take action. Ensure you end the offer at the exact time you mentioned in the email so customers don’t view you as a liar using dishonest strategies to get money from their pockets.

Template 3: Follow-up Email

Subject line: [customer name], Remember The Estimate?

Hey [customer name],

We couldn’t help but notice that you have yet to sign the estimate we sent after the last roof inspection. 

We completely understand that decisions like this take time. Therefore, we’re willing to answer any questions and show you how to get the insurance company to approve your roof.

What time will be ideal for us to call you tomorrow? Will 4:00 p.m. be convenient?

Best,

[business owner name]

[company name]

[contact details]

Customers need time to think before splurging money on a high-ticket offer like roofing repair or replacement. However, they also sometimes need to be reminded. Use this template to remind them of the estimate and try to set up a follow-up meeting where they can ask questions.

If you’re looking for attractive templates with professionally designed graphics, consider using ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro – Email platform.

The platform has multiple fully customizable templates tailored to roofing companies' needs. You can add your email copy, logo, and other brand assets and launch the campaign on the platform.

Over to You

There is a lot of misleading information about email marketing out there. Fortunately, we’ve compressed our in-depth research and years of experience into this guide.

Follow the best practices, and you’ll create an email marketing campaign that’s destined for success. Remember to use email automation tools like ServiceTitan, which integrates with your CRM, to enjoy precise revenue attribution.

ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution for home services providers that streamlines vital business processes to increase productivity, revenue, and cost savings. Currently, over 10,000 contractors across the country use it.