How to make your roofing company stand out from the competition

June 24, 2025

Watch your roofing company’s client count climb with thoughtful marketing strategies and branding 

Whether you’re advertising your roofing company in trade magazines, commercials or online, there are marketing strategies available to make your business stand out amongst the competition. 

At the heart of these tactics is the concept of a unique selling proposition (USP). Think of this as the “it factor” that sets your business apart from the rest. Tapping into your business’s USP requires reflection on how a few key elements intersect. Are there services you provide that others do not? Does your business attract clients nationally, or are you more suited to serve a local catchment? Is there are sector of your industry that you cater to better than the rest? 

Here are a few ways you can identify your roofing company’s USP to market your services more efficiently, ultimately allowing you to grow and maintain a loyal client roster. 

1. Be proud of your strengths 

When you examine your workers' skill sets and capabilities, what stands out? Is there an area you can specialize in? For example, you may find your crews excel at renovating flat roofs over sloped, or that you tend to work on more commercial buildings and multifamily condominiums than single-family homes. Do you specialize in a particular service, like laying single-ply membrane roofs, but not at hauling and installing asphalt shingles? 

Once you uncover your businesses’ strengths, consider homing in on that area of expertise rather than trying to provide a widespread range of services. Think about McDonalds, founded by two brothers as a BBQ joint.   

A key strategy that led to their success included reducing the range of products offered to focus on what they did best: burgers and French fries. By providing a small but excellent menu, they were able to cut production costs, sell  high-quality foods, and build enough profit to renovate their kitchens several times over until it became the famous fast food model replicated by restaurants around the world to this day. There’s a lesson in this approach – recognizing their strengths and limiting their offerings at the outset allowed them to build an incredible reputation and reinvest their accumulated profit into innovations that led to incredible growth.  

Whatever your strengths, make sure you're offering competitive prices, and talk to your roofing distributor about discounts for buying in bulk. 

2. Identify an underserved roofing demand  

Part of determining your roofing companies’ niche includes examining the size of your market and their demands. In Canada, the roofing contractors’ industry is considered to be highly fragmented and localized – the demands of a metropolitan centre like Toronto or Calgary are very likely to differ from a rural region like the Kawarthas or Lethbridge County.  

Drilling down even further, demand can vary greatly by neighbourhood. One part of a municipality may have a high percentage of slate roofs, while the rest uses three-tab shingles. If you can develop a reputation for expertise in a niche service, customers will often seek you out directly. 

In the short term, this kind of specializing may mean some customers will be less likely to think of you if their project falls outside the scope of your specialties and limit the amount and types of jobs you can take on – and that’s ok. You won’t be tempted to put your company in situations where you're less effective, keeping your profit margins intact. 

3. Personify your brand  

There’s a reason that companies promote if they are family-operated, or run ads that centre friendly, smiling faces.  

The simple fact is that people respond to people. Companies that centre their marking strategies on humanizing their brands have a better chance of instilling a sense of relatability and trust in their clients. 

Having a personified brand can help in the unfortunate event that something goes wrong on the job. Allowing unhappy customers to complain directly to staff – or even better, the person whose name represents the company – gives the feeling that their complaints were heard. 

Generating new leads to grow your roofing business starts with identifying a unique selling proposition for your company. Once you understand what you are trying to sell and who you need to sell to it’s easier to work efficiently, target your marketing strategies, build your client base and, ultimately, boost your profit margins.