7 Tips for Marketing Your Painting Business

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7 Tips for Marketing Your Painting Business Featured image

I’ve been thinking about marketing lately so today’s blog is 7 tips for marketing your painting business. I find marketing extremely interesting, creative marketing really inspires me and I love to come up with ideas based on other marketing concepts, there are always so many creative ways to find new business or get your name out there. I wouldn’t call these tips break-through by any means but I hope some of you get your creative juices flowing. At very least I hope they can provide you with inspiration or stir up some new ideas on how to approach marketing your painting business.

1. Posters

This is a classic. Print up a bunch of posters and stick them up in areas that have your demographic. There are lots of ways to market your painting business with posters. Black and white, full colour, tear off tabs, QR codes, etc. I’ve had success with a basic black & white poster I made in a graphics program; I printed it out and photocopied it then put it up on utility poles using packing tape. Using posters this way can be extremely inexpensive and you can definitely find some quality leads this way. You could expand on this idea by hiring some local kids to put up your posters.

2. Contact local contractors

Contacting your local general contractors and letting them know you’re looking for business is also a good idea for marketing your painting business. If you develop a good relationship with a busy general contractor you will end up with a lot of work! However, you’ll want to have some good referrals and experience under your belt though before you take this route. Screwing up on a job from a reputable GC can be bad for your reputation. Find a few good contractors that use your services and you’re set.

3. Mail outs

This is a pretty straight-forward idea. Write a letter or create a brochure detailing your company and your services offered then mail it out to potential clients. Potential clients are anybody who can use a painter, for instance; designers, stagers, real estate agents, building supervisors/managers, building management companies, general contractors, etc. Since it can be a little more costly using mail outs it can be a good idea to send them to these businesses that could potentially develop into lasting business relationships such as those listed above. The Yellow Pages can be a good source of information such as addresses or businesses to contact, mix it with Google Places and you’re set.

4. Website

Don’t have a website? You are definitely missing out if you are trying to market your painting business without a website. There are a lot of tutorials on how to get a site up and a lot of hosts now also provide web design services (speaking of hosts; I recommend Hostgator) or very easy to use snap-together web sites you could develop yourself. If this seems daunting paying a web designer to build you a painting contractor website is a good idea. Want to do it on the cheap? Check Craigslist for a web designer and get it made using the WordPress platform. Make sure you see their previous work. This platform is pretty easy to setup and look nice so it’s a better bet you’ll end up with some good results. Request an on-site estimate request form for optimal results.

5. Online classifieds

Make sure you’re marketing your painting business on Kijiji and Craigslist. The leads from these services are of lesser quality because they are mostly people looking to get work completed on the cheap. So you might have to weed out some of these leads but they do occasionally pay off quite well. Make sure you present yourself professionally here to set yourself apart from the less than professional painting ‘businesses’. It may seem contrary to one of my other posts here where I talk about avoiding painting contractors on these freebie classifieds; but we’re on the topic of business marketing tips for your painting company, not on finding a good contractor, and when you’re really looking for work you should leave no options out.

6. Leave something behind

Whenever you do a job make sure you leave behind to be remembered by. One idea is a post-job review form detailing how to take care of their new paint job, some basic information you can grab from the manufacturers website and common knowledge, title it something like “How to care for your new paint job!” and this page is almost always be read. Include your painting businesses contact info on the form or use letter head. The idea here is that when your customers’ friends ask about the new paintjob they have easy access to your information in the case that their friends are also looking for painters. Some other ideas of stuff to leave behind include business cards, magnets, thank you letter, coupons, brochure, folder, etc. Had some super nice customers? Leave them behind a gift card to Starbucks and they’re sure to remember you!

7. Give your customers referrals a discount

This idea ties into the last, you can offer your customers referrals a discount. So if they refer a friend to you that friend will receive for instance a 5-10% discount (maximum $120 discount) deal. Of course everyone loves more business and customers love to refer great work to their friends especially if it’s an inside deal to get an awesome paint job cheaper. Concerned about your bottom line? Consider it this way, normally you have to pay out of pocket for leads, so when they refer someone to you it reduces your expenses associated with that job as it hasn’t directly impacted your marketing budget. Giving a coupon or special card would be an easy to process system.

When running a house painting business you can never read enough tips, so I hope these ideas I had kicking around in my head have helped. I hope this will help you when it comes to marketing your painting business as we can all use some more work!

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