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7 Tried and True Marketing Ideas for Your Painting Company

April 24, 2023 7 min. read
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One of the biggest struggles that people come across after they’ve started their painting businesses is how to bring in clients. Most know that they need to put time and effort into marketing, but which strategies will work best for them and the audiences they want to target?

As a painter, you’ll need to determine which types of clients you want to target: residential or commercial. While commercial clients offer longer contracts and bigger jobs, residential painting is often less time sensitive and can offer more opportunity for creativity.

In this post we’ll walk you through seven straightforward and easy-to-implement marketing ideas for your residential painting business to give your business plan a boost.

For information about how to get more contracts for your commercial painting business, take a look at this resource.

Need some inspiration? Check out this video to get ideas for low-cost marketing strategies—straight from experienced business owners:

1. Claim, monitor, and grow your Google My Business profile

Your Google My Business profile is one of the first things that shows up when people search for your painting business name online. It includes information like your location, contact information, hours, and—most importantly—an opportunity for clients to rate your business.

Many people will inevitably search for a business online before choosing to work with them. It’s beneficial for you to be on top of the information that they see so that you can make a good first impression.

The first thing you’ll need to do is to claim your listing if you haven’t already. Next, make sure all of the information is correct and add any that isn’t already included, like the year your business was founded or the name of your CEO.

From there, check for any existing reviews. If there aren’t any yet, consider asking customers to leave a review.

How to get Google Reviews

Having lots of positive customer reviews on your Google Business Profile makes your business easier to find on Google.

To ensure you ask every satisfied customer for a review, set up automatic review collection in Jobber. Jobber automatically sends a text to the customers you want reviews from.

When you make an invoice in Jobber, you can choose if you want to send the customer a review request.

A list of customer reviews on a mobile phone that came from selecting “Yes” for the “Ask for review: option in Jobber Reviews.

After paying their invoice, those customers will automatically get a direct link to leave a review on your Google Business Profile.

From your reviews dashboard in Jobber, you can keep an eye on your average Google rating. You’ll also see your latest reviews and resources on how to manage your business’s reputation.

2. Build a website

While building a website may seem intimidating, there are a ton of easy-to-use online platforms available.

In the beginning, your site doesn’t need to be complicated. A basic site should have your logo, contact information, areas of service, services offered, links to any social media pages you have, and reviews from happy clients.

READ MORE: Learn how to build a brand that gets you noticed

Apply basic local SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

When building your website, remember to include important terms about your services and location to ensure your website gets found online. This is called optimizing your website for local SEO.

Using key terms that your prospects might use if they are searching for a local painter such as:

  • “Bedroom painters,” “home exterior painters,” “professional painters,” for example
  • Your major city location and the cities you service
  • Your business address
  • Your contact information

Put this information on numerous pages, in headers, headlines, and in the footer of your website.

Include important plug-ins to help improve bookings

Remember that your site can grow with your business, so features like online booking plug-ins, chatbots, or a link to your client hub customer service feature can be added and upgraded as needed.

3. Take advantage of online ads

Online ads can range from Google pay-per-click ads to social media ads on Facebook and Instagram. These can take a little time and effort to set up initially, but once you get into a groove they can often run on autopilot.

In fact, there are many different platforms out there to manage and maintain these ads yourself. For example, Jobber features a Mailchimp integration that allows you to design and publish Facebook and Instagram ads for a defined target market.

While online ads can require an initial investment, they can be a huge help if your target market spends a lot of time online.

Start out slow, set a budget, and do some research. Tweak and focus your strategy as you go to ensure that you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

If you’re curious about social media advertising, we suggest checking out this helpful resource.

4. Try out direct and digital mail

Mail is a great way to spread the word about your services—whether it’s digital or direct.

Digital mail, like newsletters, postcards, and special offers can encourage repeat business and referrals. Plus, the convenience of simply sending out an email is hard to beat.

And don’t worry, you won’t need to send out each email individually. Look for software that will manage your email list and automate your email campaign to do the heavy lifting for you.

If you’d prefer a more traditional route, you can try direct mail, door hangers, and other print advertising. While this will target a more general market, you’ll cast a wider net than with digital mailouts, so you’ll have the opportunity to reach new clients.

5. Create a referral program

A referral program is what will help you to bring in new clients who’ve already heard about how awesome your services are.

A successful referral program rides on knowing how to ask for referrals, rewarding your referring clients, and letting everyone know about your program.

6. Design business cards

It might seem like a no-brainer, but having business cards for your house painting business is an excellent way to market yourself.

To make them, you’ll need basic branding that includes your logo, business colors, and fonts.

Example of a painting business card

If you don’t feel comfortable designing them yourself, there are all kinds of options available to you. From graphic designers, to online software, to local print shops, you have your pick of design choices.

Make sure that the style suits your branding and that your business cards are legible, provide correct contact information, and that they say you offer residential painting services.

7. Make social media profiles

Social media profiles play a big role in your overall marketing strategy as they fit into many different initiatives.

For example, your Google My Business profile, website, business cards, and social ads all benefit from being attached to established social media profiles.

You don’t need to be on every single platform out there—choose which platforms will work best for you and focus there.

As a house painter, you may want to consider Instagram as a way to showcase your latest jobs and happy clients since it’s an image-based platform.

You could also end up benefiting in unexpected ways, like through reviews, referrals, and more. The bigger your digital presence, the easier you are to find.

Maximize your marketing

Marketing isn’t a “one size fits all” kind of thing. Your strategy will be influenced by your target market, your budget, and your resources.

Remember that you can grow and pivot your marketing plan as your business grows and changes focus.

Start out small and pick and choose the initiatives that you feel are the best match for you. Consider which of the ideas we outlined above are the best fit for your painting business so that you can create a marketing plan that helps your business to grow and thrive.

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