Are you looking for marketing strategies for your painting company? Marketing for painting contractors is not an easy task.
Like nearly all local businesses, painting contractors often face stiff competition when it comes to marketing.
Online marketing is no longer just an option for painting contractors. It’s mandatory.
Marketing for Painting Contractors Challenges
It’s a challenge to promote a business online. It’s not enough to have a website. You need to have a strong social media presence, set-up effective ad campaigns and have a strong long-term promotional strategy in place.
Online marketing is a versatile field. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for success here. Different types of businesses require different marketing strategies.
We are going to present some strategies that are effective for painting contractors in this article.
Apply these strategies to reach more qualified customers. It will give your painting company greater local exposure as well.
So what are the strategies painting contractors can use? Let’s get started…
Marketing for Painting Contractors: 14 Online Strategies You Can Execute Today
1. Focus on local search engine optimization
The way people search for information online has changed recently.
Directories, Yellow Pages and Yelp have been superseded by search engines like Google, Bing and social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. Thus, SEO is not just an additional marketing strategy, it’s a compulsory element of online marketing.
In fact, the most essential part of your online marketing strategy is local SEO. Stop thinking about investing in SEO for your company. Start doing SEO.
The first thing you need for good SEO is a search engine friendly website that is optimised to generate as many conversions as possible. There are many nitty-gritty aspects of the SEO process. You’re probably not going to have the time or the inclination to fuss around with.
Instead hire a good SEO service provider. This will help your painting business stay visible in the market.
2. Design custom landing pages (Painting Contractors MUST!)
Your visitors always want relevant information.
For example, suppose a visitor comes to your website by searching for “commercial painters san diego.” Chances are they will want to know about your company’s commercial painting expertise and to be able to access pages, such as recent projects and client testimonials, from the landing page. This is also true for search engine crawlers and ad platforms.
So each of your painting services should have a landing page. Also, you should consider creating separate landing pages if you want to promote any special offer.
There are several reasons why you should do this:
- Your homepage can’t always be customized to meet specific offers or services. Suppose one of your ads is about industrial painting. For example, if interested customers click on that ad and reach your homepage that contains links to all your other services, they may get confused.
- Add a landing page to ensure maximum conversion rate. This landing page must match with the message presented in the upstream ad or search engine result pages. For example, if your ad is about a 20% discount on interior painting, clicking on it should take the visitor to a specific page that contains details about that offer. Otherwise, they may get impatient and leave the site.
- Create segmented promotional offers with landing pages. For example, suppose you want to offer a special rate for your previous customers. A custom landing page enables you to create private, personalized pages to advertise. This page is separate from your regular service pages.
3. Clearly mention your business hours, contact number and location on your website
This should be obvious. Still, many local business sites unintentionally make it difficult for visitors to find their address or mobile number on the website. The same thing can be said about business hours. These are possibly the most important aspects of your website and need to be easy to find for visitors.
So don’t forget to make your address, contact number and business hours clearly visible. Include a Google Map widget to make things even easier for your prospects.
4. Run “call-only” ads
Call-only ads can be very effective for painting companies. That’s because paint jobs often need a customized approach. Therefore, it’s best if the potential customer calls you directly to discuss their project. Call-only advertisements are available on both Facebook and Google AdWords.
Call-only ads allow the customers to bypass the landing page and easily reach you. There are customers in the market that will find it much more convenient to have a phone conversation rather than having to fill out an online form.
5. Utilize the geo-targeting and scheduling features of AdWords
A painting company usually has a local customer base. Therefore, you can maximize the visibility of your business by using AdWord’s geo-targeting feature. This feature allows you to target areas where most of your prospective buyers are.
There are several ways to set the target area of your ads. Select a radius around your service location if you’re a painting contractor.
Combine Ad scheduling with geo-targeting. This way you can specify the particular time of the day when your ads are displayed to Google users. For example, you should set the display time of your call-only ads according to your business hours.
6. Use targeted ads on Facebook (Powerful Painting Contractors Strategy)
Facebook lets you create targeted ads to reach any particular demographic. Therefore, you can identify a specific group of local people (based on age, interest, location, income etc.) as your potential customers. Facebook ads allow you to easily reach specific prospects.
Some important targeting parameters for a painting contractor are – age, location, income, home type, etc. Note that some of the parameters may not be available in certain countries.
Another thing to remember is not to make your target too broad. A broader target may show your ads to more people, but many of them will be far from your service location and won’t count as your potential customers.
7. Focus on creating content with a local focus
Content marketing is essential. But what type of content will work best for a painting company? For a small business, it’s often hard to find time to generate enough content. But content that is locally focused and relevant to your potential customers can help you push your business ahead of the competitors.
Locally focused content increase your visibility in local search results, improves your presence in social media and eventually makes your business more well known in your area. Here are some topics that you can write on – local news, resources that your potential customers may find useful, tips on painting, DIY considerations, etc.
8. Promote positive customer reviews through your website, social media, emails and online ads
If your painting company has an active online presence (which it should), then customers will naturally leave reviews about your business. While it’s your duty to deal with the customers who leave any negative reviews, don’t forget to interact with the positive reviews as well.
Additionally, engage with positive reviews and increase their visibility. Also, consider providing special offers and/or discounts for customers that submit reviews online.
9. Maintain your Google My Business page (painting contractors MUST do this!)
Google My Business is very important to ensure the local visibility of your painting company. Update the page consistently. Also, if you haven’t claimed your business or your business isn’t listed in Google My Business – take care of this immediately!
Here are some tips on how you should utilize your Google My Business page:
- List your business under the “Painter” category
- Upload photos of your recent painting projects
- Request your customers to post reviews
- Keep your business name, address and the phone number the same as what you have on your website
- Utilize ‘Google Posts’ if you have special offers
10. List your business in popular directories under relevant categories
Find relevant directories for your painting business. List your business under the right categories. This improves your search visibility. For example, use big directories like Yelp and Yellow Pages. Also, try local directories that have categories like “Painter & Decorator.”
11. Use third-person voice in copy
While creating copy for your online Ads, use a third-person voice in the ad copy. In other words, instead of talking about yourself, like – “Best painting company in Austin”, write the sentence from a customer’s perspective, like – “We hired them for an industrial painting project, and they were perfect.” You can actually use lines from real customer reviews in your ad copy.
12. Do extreme localization of your mobile ads
Your mobile ads should focus on a very local group of people. Here are some ways you can hyper-customize your mobile ads:
- Include the postcode in the ad headline
- Mention how far your business office is from a well-known local place. For example, 2 min walk from the City Center market.
- Use local phone numbers
13. Create service pages for each location you serve
Create individual location pages if your painting company serves multiple areas. For example, your site should have individual pages for the popular suburbs. The “service areas” tab should expand to a list of location-specific page links in you site’s header.
The prospect will be taken to a customized service page for that location by clicking a link. Also, your search value improves by creating separate service pages. In addition, it provides a better experience for your customers.
14. Sponsor local events
Establish trust with your service area. Sponsor local events and support local community. It’s a proven way of establishing a good image for your business. It will also make your painting business more recognizable.
It’s not just about spending a lot of money. Your community will appreciate the support. It also improves the overall profile and brand awareness of your business.
Marketing for Painting Contractors: Recap
So we’ve discussed some helpful marketing ideas for painting contractors. We hope these tips will help you reach more customers and pick up more qualified leads on your website.
However, as local marketing is getting more and more competitive, your marketing strategies need to be evolving continuously too. More importantly, you should keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.
So Amigos, do you recommend any other online marketing tips? Comment below…
Also, check out Paint Amigo’s book recommendation for growing your social media presence below (Amazon affiliate links)…
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P.S. Download my free eBook The Profitable Painter. Click here.
