You can always hire a lead provider to get you painting leads, but it can be expensive. If you’re not quite ready to spend a lot of money for painting leads through a service, here are some free methods you can use…
How To Get Free Painting Leads…
Word-of-Mouth Painting Leads
Word of mouth is the best advertising. A recommendation from a previous client or friend builds instant credibility with a potential customer. Many people don’t want to spend the time finding someone truly reliable, so if a friend knows a good painter, all the better!
Be careful with underbidding referrals though. Often times painters will feel pressure to lower their price since they gave a discount before. You will bind yourself to low profit margins if you keep giving out great deals to friends of friends.
Referrals from Lead Providers
If you are willing to spend a little money on a painting leads provider, it will expand your overall network of clients, leading to even more referrals. We know it’s not technically free, but sometimes buying a couple paid leads will get you additional referrals from the purchased leads.
Door-to-Door Canvassing
Scout out some neighborhoods that need house painting and do some door-knocking. You should be able to get 1-2 new painting leads per hour with a simple pitch.
This is a free method if you’re doing it yourself, but you’re still spending your time (which isn’t free). You can usually hire this task out if you don’t have time to do it yourself.
Neighborhood Newsletters
A lot of neighborhoods allow you to advertise in their newsletter for free. If you apply to enough neighborhoods, you could get an extra 2-3 painting leads per month for free. There is usually a contact section in the newsletter where you can submit your ad.
Paint Store Painting Leads
Most paint stores have a bulletin board or card holder where you can put your business cards. However, when there are 40 other painting businesses doing the same thing it can get competitive. Make sure your business cards STAND OUT.
Here’s a good test: Look at all the cards at once and see which first 2 your eye was drawn to. Chances are most people are drawn to these same cards. Steal some ideas from the cards that stick out.
Lawn Signs
A well-placed lawn sign ALWAYS leads to another job in the neighborhood. Especially when the finished house looks amazing.
The same rule applies to your lawn signs; make sure they stand out. We recommend having your phone number with “Free Painting Estimate” in large letters. Don’t get too fancy and distract people from the main purpose of the lawn sign; to get more business.
Lead Groups
Your city usually has a chamber of commerce with different business groups to join. A lot of these groups are just lead-exchange groups.
A representative of your company can go to 3 different leads groups every weekend and source free leads. Getting involved with different business groups and chambers of commerce where people exchange business is a great way to source more work.
Bottom Line
There are multiple ways to get free leads, but we also recommend paying for advertising. However, the problem with “free” is that many people try to use the same avenues for getting more business. Paying for advertising, whether it’s a lead provider or online advertising will get you more business in the long run.
If you really want to grow your business, eventually you’ll have to pay for leads. Even though you can source hundreds of free leads a year, you can buy hundreds of leads too, because paid leads get you more jobs and referrals by expanding your general client base.
Mix it up with free leads and paid leads and your client funnel will grow year after year.
So Amigos, do you have any other suggestions to generate free painting leads? 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.
