Renee Ramey - The New MRA Website is LIVE! - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Renee Ramey of Metal Roofing Alliance (MRA). You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Intro: Welcome to MetalCast, the podcast where we're turning up the heat on all things metal roofing. On this show, we'll explore the world of metal roofing, from its durability to design expert insights and more. Join us as we bang out the details on the toughest roofs in the game. Get ready to unleash the power of metal roofing.

Karen Edwards: Hello, and welcome to another episode of MetalCast from MetalCoffeeShop. My name's Karen Edwards, and in today's episode, I am being joined by Renee Ramey from the Metal Roofing Alliance. Welcome, Renee.

Renee Ramey: Thank you.

Karen Edwards: And this is some exciting stuff that we're going to be talking about because you guys just went through a website upgrade, and as we were chatting, those can be a little challenging and they're always rewarding in the end. So I want to talk all about what's new and what's changed. But before we do that, can I just have you introduce yourself and maybe tell our listeners exactly what the Metal Roofing Alliance is?

Renee Ramey: Yeah, happy to do that. So again, my name is Renee Ramey. I'm the executive director of the Metal Roofing Alliance. I've been in the industry for longer than I care to mention, but certainly have played a role in different areas of the supply chain for metal roofing. And so, bringing a little over 26 years of experience, I guess, to the position.

But more importantly, Metal Roofing Alliance is a non-profit trade association that came into existence back in 1998 with the mission of educating and promoting metal roofing to homeowners. So we exist to help homeowners understand the truth about metal roofing, dispel myths, give them all the information they need in order to make an educated decision about re-roofing in general, but certainly considering metal roofing in that process.

And then, if we can get them to a point back at our website where we've given them all the information, we truly believe that metal roofing, quality metal roofing, sells itself. And so we offer up to homeowners a way for them to find a local MRA member installer near them and hopefully get them started down that path of replacing the roof with metal, quality metal, as smoothly as possible.

Karen Edwards: Wow. We've seen the metal roofing really grow, and you said it was 1998 that it was started. So I wish we could say or see that these efforts resulted in a lot of that growth, but I'm pretty sure it probably did. And education is key.

Renee Ramey: Yeah. Yeah. We actually, MRA, at the year of our creation, I guess we'll call it that, our creative date, we started a custom market research report that we do every year.

So I bring that up only to say that while we won't claim 100% of the results of that study, we certainly believe our efforts have helped grow what was about a 3% market share for metal roofing in the re-roof market up to north of 17% and climbing.

And so we're seeing significant growth of metal roofing in the residential arena, and we believe that MRA's efforts to promote and educate are a large part of that.

Karen Edwards: 100%. I figured you would have those numbers. Thanks for sharing that. Okay. So let's talk. I mean, in today's age, anytime you need any information or... you turn to the internet, right. So the website is really key to that education process. So talk to me a little bit about some of the key updates that you guys did for your website and how it improves the experience for the user.

Renee Ramey: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we touched every aspect of it, but just highlighting the big things. There's so much information out there, right, and we want everybody to go back to the website. Everything we do promotion-wise has people or encourages people to go back to the website, but we were getting a bit overwhelming in the amount of information we were presenting. So we went through... spent a lot of time going through identifying the most important or the most straightforward information that we could provide on various topics.

So it was a lot of cleaning house. Not to say any of the information was wrong because it was all very valid and very accurate, but just fining... fine-tuning what we were presenting to the homeowner in a manner that allowed them to get that information more succinctly, more easy to understand, quicker. So that was a lot of the effort, was just streamlining, cleaning out. We did change a few things.

We remapped the menu, which is something you typically do when you're rolling out a new website anyway, but we made it a little more intuitive as far as how to get from point A to point B. We did go ahead and list all of our members under our member listing, where before, we only did certain membership types. Predominantly why that's important is we've got all MRA contractor and distributor members now listed where a homeowner can peruse that list without having to jump through any hoops or fill out any forms. So that's something that's new.

But at the end of the day, we kept the Find a Professional form that we have, which allows a homeowner to go in, enter their name, their email and their zip code and as soon as they hit submit, it pulls up a list of all the MRA members that are within a certain mile radius of their home, which is... was used quite frequently and we're finding still being used quite a bit. But those were the big things. Just we refreshed the look and feel, made it a little more representative of the beautiful projects that are out there for metal roofing, things of that nature.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. So I can't imagine what the process was like of streamlining because information is great, but if it's hard to find, if it's confusing, if it's... it's almost, if too much is going to make me kind of just zone out and be like, "Ah, I can't deal with this right now." So what did that take and how did you do that? It just seems like a monumental task.

Renee Ramey: It took hours. That's what it took. Yeah, it just took a lot of... And I will say this proudly. It took a lot of my time, but certainly other people's time to go through and identify on a personal level through experience and knowledge of what we're getting asked quite frequently from homeowners, what information provides the best, again, most succinct, easy-to-understand answer and then maybe what was a little more confusing or a little more intense than what we wanted to present?

And so it was just a lot of combing through the data, looking at what was there. We had, up until this new website, a area called Ask the Experts. So we had thousands and tens of thousands of entries into Ask the Experts, all of them still on the website, all of them searchable, but certainly went through and weeded out if the same topic came up more than a few times, we picked the injury that was the most pertinent. And so it was that kind of love, we'll call it love, going through the website to identify what made the most sense.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Wow. That's exciting. I am going to... I have not visited recently, so I'm going to have to do that. But I know. Can you talk a little bit more about the kinds of resources that a homeowner can find on your site? I know you've got some new guides that you've done recently. Yeah, tell me about that.

Renee Ramey: Okay. So we kind of have a few, what we call buckets, but we have a few buckets of resources. Obviously, MRA has a bucket of resources and those resources include, as you just mentioned, the buyer's guide. So MRA has a very comprehensive buyer's guide that kind of guides a homeowner through the process of deciding what type of roof to put on their home or what to re-roof their home with.

Walks through regional considerations, how to know you even need a roof and then certainly explains the different specifications that you need to be aware of when it comes to metal roofing, specifically what to ask for, what to know. We have smaller guides that approach different topics so that are more focused on specific topics. So we have a regional considerations guide, as an example, that walks people through just that aspect of, "Okay, where I live matters. Here's the things I need to take into account."

And then we have some third-party guides that we've partnered with. Green Build is a good example. They've got a sustainability guide, a resiliency guide. We've got those out there. So there's a whole plethora of MRA-provided, generated and provided resources. We also have an area called Industry Resources, and that's where our members can submit information that is pertinent to a homeowner as they walk through their process.

Answers questions about is a metal roof noisy? Not any noisier than any other roof. It doesn't attract lightning. Things that pop up frequently in discussions with homeowners. So we have a industry news section. And then we also have what we call our partner section, which we're continuing to develop out. Before the end of the year, we will have a couple more partners added to that Partner's Area. RoofersCoffeeShop, MetalCoffeeShop being one of our partners.

We'll have a section on there that links back to resources that you guys house on your website that's pertinent to metal roofing and homeowners. So it's... And then there's a lot of third-party technical bulletins, white papers, studies. Anything we think would value... would provide value to a homeowner or to the industry, to a contractor that's looking to provide resources to their downstream customers. What can we provide?

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, we've talked a lot about educating the homeowner and with the myths and the resources that are there, but talk a little bit about what contractors... how contractors benefit from being a member and being... having those resources available on the website.

Renee Ramey: Yeah. Yeah. So, actually, the new website build really focused a lot on our contractor members and our manufacturer members, just our members in general, but contractors specifically. We want... At the end of the day, our ultimate goal is to provide the homeowners with enough information to get them taking the next step. And that next step is typically identifying and reaching out to a local professional. So they don't want to... They'll talk to MRA. I talk to homeowners all the time every week, but they want to talk to, at the end of the day, the person that's going to be putting the roof on or that might be putting that roof on.

So that connection to a local contractor, installer is very important. And just as part of the process in general, installers are very important to metal roofing. And so our new website, we really stepped up our support. So, as a member, the website now becomes, again, a huge value add. You get a profile that's not gated anymore, so homeowners can pull up. Here, before end of the year, we will have the ability for them to pull up our member list by area of the state, by name. So you're visible. We've expanded the profiles that you have as a member on the MRA website.

So you can include pictures, you can include all your locations, you can include the types of metal roofing you provide, so just more information. But beyond that, we are actually creating and generating a library that homeowner... or excuse me, that contractor members can go out to. And we encourage [inaudible 00:12:26] members to utilize any of the infographics we have. Please, any of the social media ads we have, any of the banner ads we have, if we've got literature and presentations on all kinds of topics. And so we're going to have a, I always want to say toolkit, but it's so much more than that.

It's going to be just a library or a well of information that our members can utilize to take out to their local market, to their homeowners in their area and promote them. And then, at the end of the day, just being an MRA member, we have our... we have a process that, for lack of a better description, bets the installers that can become members. So by being an MRA member that differentiates yourself from your competitor down the road, that might not be. It says, "Yeah, they recognize that I install quality products, that I know what I'm doing, that I'm a good business owner."

So there's a third-party validation there as an MRA member that we want to help our members, our contractor members play up a bit more. And so, again, before the end of the year, so in the next two, three weeks, we're going to be sending out these member toolkits that you'll have an icon you can put on your literature, you'll have a certificate you can show a homeowner. So just trying to figure out how we can solidify the importance and the value that a MRA member brings to a homeowner as the members are trying to sell.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. One of the things that popped into my mind as you were talking about the resources and the infographics, if you will, I know that we... Oh, MetalCoffeeShop, we're sharing Metal Monday. Every Monday, we've got a cute little graphic and it's just a fact, a fun fact about metal roofing.

And you know what, when I talk to contractors and we say their presence on social media and online is so important, and they say, "Well, we struggle with what to post, right. I can't come up with stuff." Well, oh my goodness, this is... I don't even know. You probably know how many there are, but we've been running these for a long time and there's a lot.

Renee Ramey: There's a lot. In fact, we're just starting a Did You Know series that we're about partway through actually. And so yeah, it's just little quick bits of information that homeowners they want to know, they ask all the time. We're monitoring what gets and what they are seeking for information, and we put that into a usable little bite.

And to your point, for those members that don't have a social media presence, come shop our library once it's up and running for sure. But go out to our social media page right now, any of them, grab a picture, reposted on yours. We're just here to help you grow the information, grow the knowledge base of homeowners when it comes to metal roofing.

Karen Edwards: I'm curious if you hear feedback from contractors that once they're contacted by a homeowner, how educated are they? Are they... Because you guys do a great job with the amount of information you have out there, so you're hoping maybe to make that contractors job a little easier.

Renee Ramey: Yeah, we hope so. And we are finding, I will say, in the length of time that I've been in this role, the amount of information that a homeowner has and knows coming into the process is definitely, to your point, a lot more in-depth, a lot more knowledgeable now than they were back when I started. And that's the goal, right.

We want the homeowner to not just know about metal roofing, which is important, but we want them to know to ask the right questions to make sure they get the right product that's going to last for three to four times longer than asphalt and that's going to perform in a hurricane. So it's important that we make sure the homeowner gets a quality metal roof.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. And what's the feedback been from your members that have been on the site? Have you talked to many of them?

Renee Ramey: A few. We've only been up and live for about eight weeks, eight, nine weeks. But certainly, what I'm hearing is the look and feel it's a lot more refreshed, eye-catching. We're really playing up the beauty of metal roofing projects. The ease. So we're getting a lot of good feedback on the ease of finding information where before it was just getting to be too much.

We've streamlined that. And then I do think there is some value too, and we're hearing back from not just the members themselves but also homeowners that the member listing that we have really is a lot more improved from what we had previously.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, yeah. I think that is beneficial for both homeowners across the country. But even contractors if they want to connect with other members or maybe build their own small network. Many people have a house in this area, and they own a house in another area and maybe the contractor doesn't work both areas, right. So it is really a network-building tool, I think, for contractors as well.

Renee Ramey: Yeah.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Okay. Well, now we've talked all about the website. What's the web address?

Renee Ramey: Metalroofing.com.

Karen Edwards: Oh, that's easy.

Renee Ramey: I hope so. That's what we went with.

Karen Edwards: No reason that you shouldn't be going there. And if you can't remember metalroofing.com, you can see the Metal Roofing Alliances full directory on both RoofersCoffeeShop, MetalCoffeeShop. It has links to the website, has information about what's new. Renee, I just want to say thank you. It's always a pleasure to talk to you and to learn about all the cool stuff that's happening with Metal Roofing Alliance.

Renee Ramey: Oh, well, we appreciate you guys very much and the opportunity to come and talk. Thank you.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. All right, and thank you, everybody out there, for listening. Be sure to follow both Metal Roofing Alliance and MetalCoffeeShop on social media so that you don't miss a thing, and you'll get all of our great content and we hope to see you on a future episode. Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye.

Outro: Ready to raise the metal roof? Subscribe to MetalCast now and stay tuned for all things metal roofing. Go to metalcoffeeshop.com to learn more. Rock on, and we'll catch you on the next episode.