Arielle Cohen is the Chief Marketing Officer for Business411, a Florida-based Business Development Center that specializes in education, branding, and marketing for roofing contractors around the U.S. who want to scale their businesses.
“We do everything from their branding, to their website, to their actual advertising,” Cohen says, commenting on how Business411 has recently evolved to become a full-service agency that helps roofing companies by taking an all-encompassing approach to a client’s marketing, rather than just focusing on one specific aspect of marketing.
In the past, Business411 excelled at offering their clients custom graphic design on everything from branded logos to truck wraps, but now Business411 has hired more cutting-edge designers and experienced roofing professionals to continue expanding upon the company’s development and impact on the U.S. roofing community.
“The last two years have been insane. Our team has grown and the number of companies we work with is now in the thousands,” Cohen says, which makes sense when one factors into account that Business411 achieved national prominence for creating roofing training manuals for roofers who worked in both the residential and commercial spaces.
For some roofing contractors, even those who have been established players in their market for several years, the concept of marketing can seem daunting.
In fairness to those roofing contractors, the industry is fraught with unsavory marketers who desperately overpromise and underdeliver in order to extract a roofing company’s marketing dollars.
For their part, Business411 has garnered a stellar reputation for their fantastic work, but more importantly, the Florida-based stalwart wins business simply by matching roofing contractors with products and services that are right for their business, a tactic many marketing companies routinely fail to employ.
“Reputation is everything in the roofing industry,” Cohen says.
“Roofing contractors are rightfully skeptical of marketing companies because many roofers have had bad experiences in the past, so from day one we tried to be the antithesis of the stereotypical fast-talking marketer who promises the world but then can’t even pick up their phone two weeks later.”
This customer-first approach has come to define Business411, and it’s a huge reason why Cohen, founder Elizabeth Calzadilla, and the rest of the team are now able to offer a vast array of products and services.
“Before we were only working on one aspect of a roofing company’s marketing, but now we are a full-service marketing company who handles the development of the website, the maintenance of that website, and the continued progression of their SEO prowess, as well as more tangible things like direct mail, door hangers, yard signs, etc.,” Cohen outlines, before explaining why Business411 opted to expand their services instead of doubling down on what was already serving them and their roofing clients so well.
“There are already several companies out there who have niched themselves into something like SEO or direct mail, but we saw a gap where no company wanted to handle all of those elements.”
Adds Cohen, in turn revealing the genius of Business411’s decision to elevate:
“So we decided to be all-encompassing and offer everything, not just so we can offer more services to roofing contractors, but so that the roofing contractors we’re working with only have to go to one entity for every aspect of their marketing. The benefit of that is now they are able to remain on-brand throughout the entire scope of their marketing, as opposed to needing to have several conversations with different vendors about a branding strategy.”
For context, this unprecedented strategy offered by Business411 has never before been successfully implemented by another marketing firm, and Business 411 is alleviating a major pain point for roofing contractors, all while ensuring that there is never a lack of clarity on a company’s branding.
“We have a 360 view of every roofing company that we work with,” Cohen says.
“Everything is in sync. Subsequently, there is no brand confusion, and what that means is that homeowners are recognizing a roofing company not just on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, but also when they turn on Hulu to watch their favorite show every night.”
For reference, Business411 affords roofing contractors different options with their marketing services, so while it may seem like an all-inclusive approach outpaces the budget of a small company, Cohen and her team will work scrupulously to find a tier of their services that best aligns with a roofer’s needs and desires.
“Before we start any of our marketing, we do a consultation to assess where a roofing company is at and which of our services would be the best fit for them,” Cohen emphasizes.
“Not all roofing companies need the same services because not all roofing companies have the same struggles when it comes to their marketing. Not all roofing businesses have the same goals either, so really our job is to pinpoint where we can best implement our services and then build off that because that’s how a roofing company is going to be able to achieve their goals.”
It’s also critical to mention that part of this collaborative process entails treating the relationship like a true partnership, and not one where the marketing company acts independently of the roofing contractor.
Not only would doing so cause strife between both parties, but it would also limit the partnership’s ability to grow and evolve.
“Frankly, our clients who have been with us for many years, they deserve some credit for our transformation because with a lot of our services, they initially requested that we add them. Since our goal is always to help roofing contractors win, we have consistently been amenable to figuring out different ways to be creative and effective with our marketing strategies,” Cohen says.
“In that sense, everything that you are seeing now is a byproduct of us being humble enough to listen to our customers and then going out and creating solutions for problems that no other marketing company was willing to try to solve.”
Looking ahead to the future, Cohen says Business411 has two primary focuses:
The first is further establishing their roofing contractor school.
They already have an impressive 5,000 square-foot facility where they hold classes covering topics like how to scale a roofing company, how to build a sales team, and how to get commercial jobs in roofing.
“We go over specialized and nuanced topics because we want to educate the entire industry,” Cohen notes.
Secondly, in these next few years Business411 wants to continue to be an industry leader for roofing companies looking to make an impact with their marketing efforts.
To do that, the company may need to consume the same remedy they have prescribed to roofing contractors and highlight more of the success stories they have played a role in creating.
“Being more public with the results we have helped our clients achieve. That’s something we want to spotlight more because we really believe in the services we offer,” Cohen says.
“These last five years have been nothing short of whirlwind and exciting, and I’m super excited to see how we continue to progress and help roofing contractors in the coming years.” QS
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As a family-owned business with 53 years of experience in the Twin Cities market, Grussing Roofing specializes in residential roofing, insurance restoration, siding, windows, and gutters.
For homeowners and commercial building owners who are looking to connect with a company that prides themselves on putting customers first, look no further than Eden Prairie-based Grussing Roofing.
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