How Marketing Alignment Led the Mid-Atlantic’s Leading Roofing Company to Extraordinary Growth

Since 1945, the Long name has helped countless families in the DC, Maryland and Virginia region enjoy safer, more beautiful homes. In 2017, they pursued New England as an expansion market. Historically, new business was generated from newspapers, TV, and radio ads, but those activities were nearly impossible to attribute directly to revenue. Long Roofing did not have the market presence in New England like they did around Washington, DC. They needed more leads, and ultimately sales — fast. 

In the past, Long Roofing had worked with other agencies more focused on marketing metrics like clickthrough rates — not revenue and sales. Those ‘vendors’ underperformed and did not understand the audience or how to truly connect campaigns to revenue. The way marketing operations were set up, they were not able to answer critical questions like, “which channels are driving appointments?” or, “how well do appointments convert into sales and revenue?” These were not the strategic partners Long Roofing needed to pursue a new growth market.

With deep expertise in single-family homes, Long Roofing was well positioned to enter the New England market with the right strategy. Together, Long Roofing and Silverback Strategies built a digital approach that gave both parties the confidence needed to grow in New England. A blog and editorial strategy optimized for search fueled successful paid media campaigns. Digital content was promoted via targeted, visually appealing social advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Ads were targeted to prospects with the highest chance of turning into a sale — all made possible by modeling target audiences from Long Roofing’s rich CRM data.

This newfound clarity and understanding of the customer journey created a scalable lead-generation system. Soon after, Long Roofing’s call center struggled to keep up with the influx of leads — a good problem to have. Together, Long Roofing and Silverback throttled back the paid media campaigns and re-organized sales resources to align with their new marketing system before resuming — and growing — campaign activity.

Services That Drove Extraordinary Growth in New England:

Search Engine Optimization

Silverback strengthened the foundation of Long Roofing’s website and researched specific keywords to capture new search opportunities with compelling, educational content

The Long Roofing and Silverback SEO team worked together to assess and update the website’s technical foundation as well as build out the new local listing for market expansion. 

Silverback’s SEO and Content team collaborated to build out new local pages and educational content based on long-tail keyword research to capture relevant audiences in the NE market. 

Paid Media + Analytics 

Silverback built and scaled targeted campaigns based on new market expansion needs while helping Long Roofing to analyze performance at each stage of the customer journey

Silverback's Paid Media team built highly targeted, research-based campaigns on Google, Bing, Facebook, and Instagram to drive leads in the New England market. Long Roofing and Silverback’s Analytics team worked closely to tie campaign web conversions directly to appointments, sales and revenue using their internal CRM. Connecting all the requisite data platforms and technologies was no simple task, but the insights were game-changing. A better understanding of the customer purchase path illuminated areas to optimize internal sales processes and marketing campaigns. 

Tactics included:

• Landing Page/Website Updates
• Ad Copy Testing
• New Platform Expansion
• Ad Format Testing
• Audience Testing/Refinement

Website User Experience (UX)

Silverback designed a conversion-oriented web user experience to maximize visibility and lead volume

Together, Long Roofing and Silverback connected all of the platforms and technologies to map the customer journey. Web-based analytics gave the team clarity of how Long Roofing’s website and landing pages should be designed to maximize lead generation in all markets. Use of mobile-first designs as well as prominent CTAs, forms, and clickable phone numbers resulted in increased leads and ultimately revenue.

The Consumer Services Marketing Program:

Research-Focused SEO: Marketing campaigns should be rooted in a foundation of primary and secondary research. This foundation focuses web content to capture new, relevant search traffic.

Paid Media Expertise: Customer insights and compelling content focuses campaigns to optimize budget and campaign performance. Work with Washington D.C.’s award-winning team of paid media experts.

Conversion-Focused Website: The conversion point of digital marketing campaigns is critical. Strong editorial content and clear conversion pathways will deliver qualified leads to your sales team.