Do you need to generate leads for your painting company? Here are 9 of the best lead generation tricks, tips, and strategies for painting companies to help you get sales leads online and offline.
Painting Company Lead Generation Idea #1 – Develop a Professional Website
One critical component of lead generation is your website. As such, you need to have a professional website to provide you with an excellent online presence.
You can expect potential customers to check out your website and (hopefully) convert into customers by calling your small business or completing a form online.
It would be best if you created a professional impression with an updated and clean website. But it doesn’t stop there.
Make sure your website is properly optimized for search engines.
If you don’t have a website for your painting company, create one as soon as you can.
Ease of Use
Your website will convert more leads into sales if the layout, navigation, and content are simple.
Calls to Action
Make sure that it’s easy for your visitors to perform the action that you want them to when visiting your website.
By providing straightforward calls to action (CTA), you make it easy to call you directly or complete an estimate form.
Here’s an example of types of CTAs for a painting website:
Descriptive
It’s also useful to have a photo (or video, but we’ll get to that in a bit) gallery to showcase your previous painting jobs.
Ensure that your website states the types of the painting you do, where your service area is, and how to contact you.
Remember that your website creates your business’s first impression and is usually the first interaction your potential customers will have with your company.
Make sure that this interaction is positive and persuasive.
Blog Regularly
Blog Posts (just like this one) are a perfect way to educate your audience and earn their trust. Plus, it helps you rank higher with Google and other search engines.
Build Trust
Include client testimonials on your website to help build trust with potential customers and show them how much you value customer service.
Mobile Responsive
Next, ensure that your website is mobile responsive and functional on all types of devices.
Having a mobile-friendly website increases the likelihood of leads converting directly from their phones and tablets.
Plus, with Google’s mobile-first indexing and their focus on mobile user experience, you’ll get a little extra love in the search engine results pages (SERPS).
Now to put it all together, here’s an example of a painter website that we created recently:
Painter Lead Generation Idea #2: Sign Up for (and Leverage) Google Local Service Ads (LSA)
Back in 2017, Google launched a new paid advertising platform for home service professionals, Local Service Ads.
Painting businesses are one of the categories that can take advantage of this type of advertising in their marketing campaigns.
LSA is a pay-per-lead service where your business ratings and reputation determine your rankings.
LSA advertising is an excellent lead-generation tool and should be part of any painting company’s marketing strategy.
First, you have to apply and be vetted through a screening process to be eligible. It’s based on your Google My Business profile, so if you haven’t claimed your GMB listing, stop right now and get it.
Your painting business absolutely, positively needs to have a GMB profile. Learn more about why you need a Google My Business profile to survive.
Second, start getting more reviews on Google. Consider using email marketing to get your clients to leave you a review. You can get a link directly from your GMB and send it to them in the emails to make leaving a review easy. Here are five tips for getting more reviews.
Painter Lead Generation Idea #3: Set Yourself Apart From Your Competition
Think about it. If you needed to hire a painter, what would make you choose one company over another?
Or let’s ask it another way.
Why should a lead choose you over your competition?
If you cannot answer that question, chances are, potential customers can’t answer it either.
In today’s competitive landscape, painting companies need a unique value proposition that clarifies why they are the best choice for the job.
Perhaps you’re a specialty painting service, provide a lower price point, or have a different aspect of your services.
You can learn more about creating your USP in our recent article, “How To Craft An Awesome Unique Selling Proposition.”
Perform an extensive competitor analysis — potential customers will.
Make it clear why they should choose you and back your claim up with exceptional customer service.
Painter Lead Generation Idea #4: Create a Video
Videos are an excellent way to engage your sales leads and communicate your USP.
- Create a video and embed it on your homepage.
- Mark it up with schema (your web developer should know how to do this) to let Google and other search engines understand what the video is about.
- Optimize it for search on YouTube. (very few painters do this step, so it’s an easy way to rank higher.)
You can also use videos on most social media platforms, such as a Facebook business page or Instagram story.
Consider investing in having your videos made by a professional. A small investment goes a long way. Motion graphics are an affordable way to make an impact.
Painter Marketing Idea #5: Hone Your Phone Skills and Estimating Process
With the increase of lead generation and review sites like Google Home Service Ads, HomeAdvisor, Local, Yelp, Alignable, Nextdoor, and Facebook, it’s now more important than ever to respond to leads quickly and efficiently.
Sales leads will go cold fast if you don’t make immediate contact with them.
Answer the phone quickly when it rings and provide timely estimates to close the deal.
With lead generation and review sites like Google Home Service Ads, HomeAdvisor, Top Rated Local, Yelp, and even Facebook becoming so popular, it’s more important than ever that you respond quickly and effectively to leads.
You’d be surprised at the number of painting companies that hustle to get leads but miss the chance because they’re horrible on the phone or don’t provide estimates in a timely fashion.
But you can do better, especially when you’re using something like LSA to generate the lead.
Remember, a sales lead is only valuable if you can turn them into a satisfied customer.
Painter Marketing Idea #6: Keep Your Reputation Intact
Every painting contractor knows that word-of-mouth and referrals are the best leads. When someone recommends you by praising your work, it’s the hottest lead you can get.
Plus, when shopping for a painter online, people often get referrals from strangers too.
Potential customers are likely to read reviews on Google, Yelp, Angieslist, HomeAdvisor, etc.
Online customer service reviews and your online reputation are essential factors in proving to your leads that you’re the best choice for the job.
The easiest way to get positive works is to earn them by providing quality work– no sloppy cut-ins, no roof paint on the trim, no drips, etc.
Like we mentioned earlier, you can follow up with an email to ask customers to leave you a review.
You can also ask them to leave reviews on Facebook or your GMB profile (this is huge for local SEO).
Be sure to respond to all reviews, even the negative ones. Learn from the negative reviews and improve your shortcomings.
Add any badges provided by review sites and include testimonials from previous clients. Potential clients will see these and know that you’re reliable.
Painter Marketing Idea #7: Go Old School
Sure, we’re a painter digital marketing company and typically suggest online solutions for our clients because they’re more effective than print media or cold-calling.
But, because painting is a tangible home service, it does benefit from some old-school door-to-door work.
Consider having a graphic designer create a professional flyer with an introductory offer and leave it on doorknobs in local neighborhoods (check with local laws and ordinances.
We know for sure that here in the city limits of Denham Springs, this practice is forbidden).
Make sure that your website’s URL and phone number are included on the flyer. You could even create a QR code that takes them directly to a landing page.
Hopefully, you only have to implement this strategy when you’re just starting, but kicking it old-school can be an excellent way to drum up some leads during your slow seasons.
Painter Marketing Idea #8: Build SEO-Optimized Landing Pages
Although you might be a painter in Baton Rouge, you still may want to show up for searches in Hammond and Lafayette.
You might primarily do residential painting, but you’ll take on a commercial job every now and then.
One useful online marketing tip is to build a landing page optimized for a particular phrase or location.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the best way to get traffic to your website and generate leads for your painting company.
By creating individual landing pages for types of services, you provide and/or locations that you service, you’ll rank organically for them and boost your rankings in the search engines for competitive keyword phrases.
Not sure what keyword phrases to target? We have just the thing for you, read our ultimate list of keyword phrases for painters.
Painter Lead Generation Idea #9: Leverage Facebook and Social Media
Facebook (and other social media channels) offer several great ways to help a painting company generate leads.
First, you can use Facebook Lead Ads to target people who’ve just bought a home, recently hired other home services companies, fit specific demographics, or many other options.
Facebook has many ways to hyper-target your audience to ensure that your advertisement gets in front of your target audience.
Now, of course, before you advertise on Facebook, you’ll need to set up your Facebook Business Page. We have a guide to creating Facebook Pages for your business that will help you do that.
Secondly, you can use reviews on all of your social media properties to help build customer trust.
Like we mentioned earlier, Facebook reviews are a great way to showcase your satisfied customers.
Also, encourage your clients to take photos of their home after it’s all painted and fresh and share the work with their followers. Make sure that they tag your business page or profile.
Search engines will take note, and you’ll benefit from local search results.
Consider hiring a social media marketing professional to help you gain momentum. Here are some social media marketing tips just for painters.
Conclusion
Now that you have these nine lead-generation tricks for your painting business, it’s time to put them into action. If the leads don’t come pouring in immediately, don’t get discouraged; this process takes time. Remember that even a single phone call or email resulting from your efforts is a lead you didn’t have before implementing this list.
For the next step, you may consider hiring a professional to assist with your painting company’s content marketing. That’s precisely what we specialize in, and we can help you with that.
However, if you are satisfied with your current situation and don’t wish to make more money or grow your business, you can consider hiring any of the other Baton Rouge digital marketing agencies.
On the other hand, if you do want to grow and level up your painting company, let’s have a conversation. You can email us, call us, or complete the form below, and we’ll get started today.
