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How roofers get clients: a 90-day plan

How your buyer buys: The buyer has a problem now and is searching now. Whoever answers first wins.

Roofing work arrives at two speeds. A leak customer has water coming through the ceiling and rings three numbers from the Google map in five minutes. The first roofer to answer, or to text back and ring within the quarter hour, gets the job. The re-roof customer has been watching slipped tiles for a year and will take three months to choose.

Both have heard the rogue roofer stories. Before anyone books, they look for an NFRC or TrustMark badge, an insurance figure, a real address and photos of finished roofs with the road visible. Re-roof buyers read every review and compare quotes line by line. The quote that arrives within two days, with photos of their own roof, sets the standard for the rest.

That gives the order. Cover the phone first, with one person holding it on storm days, because leak work is lost in minutes. Then the credentials and the reviews, so the re-roof buyer can check you. Then separate pages for leaks and re-roofs, Local Services Ads with tight postcodes, and the letter through the neighbours' doors while the scaffold is still up.

Step zero

The free checklist, before the plan.

The checklist repairs what you already have: the phone, the profile, the booking path. This page is the plan for new work on top of it, and the two are different jobs.

The Roofer's DIY Growth Checklist

The free checklist for roofers: every repair to the phone, the profile and the booking path, as step-by-step actions. Sent by email.

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Where they look

Where your customers actually look.

  • NFRC(opens in a new tab)

    The National Federation of Roofing Contractors vets its members, and homeowners who have read a warning article look for the logo. Put the membership on every page beside the insurance amount.

  • TrustMark(opens in a new tab)

    Government-endorsed, and the scheme a cautious homeowner is told to check. A current entry with your trading name and area turns the rogue roofer worry into a booking.

  • Confederation of Roofing Contractors

    The other trade body with a public member search and an insurance-backed guarantee scheme. Re-roof buyers spending a large sum want a guarantee they can read about before they sign.

  • Checkatrade(opens in a new tab)

    Still where many homeowners start a roofing search. Keep it as a source while your own pages grow, compare its cost per job each month, and set the exit date before you start.

  • Google Business Profile(opens in a new tab)

    A leak search ends in the map pack, so the category Roofing contractor, the services listed, and one finished roof posted a week decide who gets rung first.

Your year

When the phone rings, and when to start.

Leak calls climb with the autumn and winter storms; re-roofs are booked for the drier months.

  1. Jan: peak
  2. Feb: peak
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul, start the visibility work
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct: peak
  11. Nov: peak
  12. Dec: peak

Amber months are the peak, grey months are quiet, and "start" marks the month the visibility work has to begin in.

  • October to February peak: start by July, because local search takes about three months to move.

Leak calls climb with the first autumn storms in October and stay high to February. Re-roofs are booked for the drier months, so the homeowner who rang about a drip in November wants the full job done between April and September. The profile, the reviews and the leak page need about a quarter to show in search, which puts the start of the storm season work in July. Spend the summer getting the credentials, the reviews and the leak and re-roof pages in place. When the wind gets up in October, your number is already the first one shown. After each winter storm, raise the call-only ad budget for the next three days, then let it fall back.

The 90-day plan

Four phases, in the order that pays back fastest.

Each step names its channel, its cost band from the technique register, the effort it takes, and how long until the first enquiry or booking.

Week 0

  1. Answer the phone, text back missed calls

    Have missed calls text back asking anyone with an active leak to reply LEAK with their postcode, and decide who holds the phone on storm days

    • Cost: £
    • Low effort
    • First result within a week
    In the kit and the bundle

  2. Reply inside five minutes

    Ring leak enquiries back within 15 minutes, in the order they came in, from one phone that gets every form and message

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • First result within a week
    In the kit

  3. Google Business Profile, complete

    Set Roofing contractor as the primary category, list leaks, re-roofs, flat roofs, chimneys and guttering, and post one finished roof a week

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • About 30 minutes a week
    • First result in 4 to 12 weeks

Month 1

  1. Ask every client for a review

    Text the review link within 24 hours of the scaffold coming down, and ask for a photo of the finished roof with it

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • About 30 minutes a week
    • First result in 4 to 12 weeks
    In the kit

  2. Credentials a buyer can check

    Show your NFRC or TrustMark membership, your insurance cover and its amount, and a real address on every page

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • First result in 1 to 4 weeks

  3. Same-day quote, then follow up

    Send repair quotes the same day and re-roof quotes within 48 hours, with photos of their own roof, then follow up at one and three weeks

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • First result in 1 to 4 weeks

Months 2 to 3

  1. Local Services Ads

    Run Local Services Ads under roofing with tight postcodes, and dispute leads that are outside your area

    • Cost: £££
    • Medium effort
    • About 1 hour a week
    • First result in 0 to 2 weeks

  2. A page per service and per town

    Separate pages for leak repairs and re-roofs, plus flat roofs, chimneys, guttering and storm damage, for each town you cover

    • Cost: ££
    • Medium effort
    • First result in 8 to 16 weeks
    In the bundle

  3. Bought leads, with an exit date

    Set an exit date for Checkatrade and Bark, and compare their cost per job with your own enquiries each month

    • Cost: ££
    • Low effort
    • First result in 0 to 4 weeks
    In the kit

  4. Cold email to limited companies

    Email limited-company letting agents and landlords a fixed price per property for a roof and gutter check before winter, with one named contact for every leak

    To limited companies only: identify yourself, give an opt-out address, keep a suppression list.

    • Cost: ££
    • Medium effort
    • About 1 hour a week
    • First result in 2 to 8 weeks
    Limited companies only

Month 3 onward

  1. Leaflets round a finished job

    While the scaffold is up, put a letter through the doors either side and opposite, offering to look over their roof

    • Cost: ££
    • Low effort
    • First result in 1 to 6 weeks

  2. Ask for the referral at the high point

    When the scaffold comes down, ask who else on the road has slipped tiles, and leave a few cards

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • First result in 2 to 8 weeks

  3. Google Search ads

    Raise call-only ad budgets on roof leak searches for the 48 to 72 hours after each storm

    • Cost: £££
    • Medium effort
    • First result within a week
The cost of waiting

What doing nothing costs roofers.

The leaks below are the ones the roofers page already names. Put a figure on each, see what the fix gets back a month, and how many weeks the kit or the bundle takes to pay for itself.

Industry estimates, not client results

Industry-typical ranges for a small roofing firm: repairs in the hundreds blended with re-roofs in the thousands, roughly a third of priced jobs won, and almost no repeat from the same roof inside a year.

Every number below is prefilled from that estimate and editable. Put your own figures in and the leaks, gains and payback recalculate as you type.

Your numbers

Further purchases per won customer in a year

Baseline revenue on these figures: £12,705 a month, counting this month's new customers and a twelfth of their repeat business.

Where it leaks

  • Drains enquiries

    Urgent leak calls go unanswered while you are on the scaffold

    Leaking now
    £4,235 a month
    Gain from the fix
    £2,965 a month
    The fix
    AI phone answering (about £700 one-off)
    Pays back in
    1.0 weeks

  • Drains enquiries

    You rank nowhere for 'roof repair <town>' despite years of local work

    Leaking now
    £5,445 a month
    Gain from the fix
    £1,906 a month
    The fix
    Area and service pages (about £650 one-off)
    Pays back in
    1.5 weeks

  • Drains close rate

    Your best work is invisible because nobody photographs it

    Leaking now
    £2,242 a month
    Gain from the fix
    £897 a month
    The fix
    Portfolio website (about £1,750 one-off)
    Pays back in
    8.5 weeks

  • Drains close rate

    You pay per lead for enquiries sold to three competitors at once

    Leaking now
    £3,176 a month
    Gain from the fix
    £1,588 a month
    The fix
    Area and service pages (about £650 one-off)
    Pays back in
    1.8 weeks

On these figures

£15,098 a month leaking

Fixing every leak above gets back about £7,355 a month, with each leak counted on its own against the same baseline.

The Own-Your-Patch System (£1,895)
Pays back in 1.1 weeks
The Roofer Growth Kit (£49)
Pays back in under a week

Inside the 90-day window on these figures. Change any field above to test it against your own numbers for roofers.

What matters most

The levers that carry the most weight here.

Four moves do most of the work for a roofer. The phone, with the LEAK text-back and a named person holding it on storm days, because the leak job goes to whoever rings back within fifteen minutes. Credentials the homeowner can check, with the NFRC or TrustMark membership, the insurance amount and a real address on every page. Local Services Ads under roofing with tight postcodes, which put you above the paid listings with a verified badge. And the letter through the doors either side while the scaffold is up, because the houses on a road were roofed the same year. Checkatrade and Bark stay as bought leads with an exit date, and the cold email step is for limited-company letting agents only.

See every lever for roofers in the register

Reading for roofers

All insights

If you would rather we did this for you

The same plan, built and run for roofers: the phone, the profile, the pages and the follow-up, priced up front.

See what we build for roofers

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