Have you been wondering how to generate painting leads? As a painting business, your company lives and dies by the number of new customers you can attract. While having loyal regulars is great, you also need a steady stream of new painting leads. The most challenging part is getting homeowners to find out about you and then turning them into paying painting jobs.
With so many painting contractors out there, you need to do something special to stand out from the crowd. That’s where marketing comes in. It can address every aspect of the sales funnel, from increasing your visibility to producing more painting leads and then converting these leads into booked jobs.
If you’re feeling lost about where to get started, here are some of our tips for planning and getting started with your business’s online growth.
Set Up a Google My Business Profile
When people search for home improvement services, their first stop is the internet. Almost all new painting leads will search for contractors using Google and having a Google My Business profile can do a lot to increase your visibility and generate leads.
Setting up a Google My Business account is free and relatively easy. All you need to do is provide Google with relevant information, like your address, the best phone number to call, website, operating hours, and company name. Google will do the rest and generate a comprehensive profile. It’s very similar to Yellow Pages listings that were popular years ago, but with a lot more technology behind it.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the gold standard for lead generation and driving visitors to your website. Essentially, what SEO does is increase your ranking on Google searches. So, if someone searches for keywords like “painters near me,” your site will be near the top.
In most instances, focusing on local SEO is the best way to go. As a painting business, you don’t need to inform people a thousand miles away of your skills – you need to focus on marketing to your service area and local painting leads. There are plenty of ways to improve your visibility, including starting a blog, displaying your contact information, and even including some reviews from former clients on your site to show off your well-deserved reputation.
The great thing about SEO is that it ensures that you get motivated painting leads. Instead of someone accidentally stumbling on your site, SEO traffic sends quality leads that already want your services – all you need to do is convince the customer that you’re the best option.
This strategy relies on search engines to drive you quality painting leads. Making the right SEO optimizations will take your painting site to the next level generating more calls from painting leads that you can convert to house painting jobs.
The conversion rates on organic-driven content tend to be the highest as they generate painting leads of the highest quality. The cost per lead is also more affordable since your customer is coming pre-positioned to buy. With the exponential growth in the home improvement industry, we recommend all painters take advantage of this free service to get more new leads and book more jobs.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
PPC advertising is similar to SEO in that it puts your painting website at the top of a search. The two main PPC avenues for lead generation are Google PPC and Facebook. When people search for a “professional painting contractor near me” or “commercial painting estimate”, companies who are paying for PPC ads will be shown at the top of the page.
Both provide potential leads with targeted ads for your service. When a person clicks on the ad, it will lead them to your website, and you’ll pay Google or Facebook a small fee, depending on the keywords you’ve chosen.
The main advantage of PPC is that it produces almost immediate results. While you will need to pay for every lead, the increased visibility for your painting business is worth it.
A solid strategy is to combine PPC and SEO for maximum visibility. Paid ads offer immediate results and can improve your reputation, which also makes SEO easier. Then, once you have reliable organic traffic to your site, you can dial back on the PPC and enjoy the benefits of high-quality, organic leads. Both approaches require extensive research into keywords and a smart strategy for best results, but even short campaigns can prove effective at driving visitors to your website.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is an excellent way to engage with existing customers, grow your business, and generate new painting leads. You can create a dedicated account for your practice with video, blogs, and space where your audience can chat and interact with you. You can share projects you’ve completed, like the interior of houses you’ve painted or an exterior before and after. You can even start a YouTube channel discussing your favorite paint brand, tips for homeowners like when they need to consider exterior painting, or your process to prep a house for painting. These are unique and fun ways to build trust in your painting company while generating new leads.
Many people look to social media for reliable referrals and trust the information they get from homeowners on social media. However, if you decide to use social media to help drive new leads, remember that it is time-intensive and requires constant interaction with potential clients to be a success. Having a profile that has few replies will make your company look disreputable or indifferent and may even affect your current lead generation efforts.
Don’t Neglect Digital Marketing Staples
Most of the digital marketing strategies discussed rely on inbound marketing – where the painting lead comes to you via ads, organic search, or social media.
However, email is still an incredibly effective tool to target specific demographics and generate painting leads. You can start this painting lead generation with an email capture form on your site that allows users to give you their email. After that, you can send out email ads that feature painting tips and calls to contact your local office by phone or an online form for a free estimate. These leads cost much less than other methods because users have opted in.
You need to manage an email ad campaign gently because while people like getting informative content, they don’t like getting spammed with ads. For this digital marketing strategy to be effective at generating leads, you need to identify your target market and create content that’s interesting, informative, and useful.
A Solid Landing Page for Lead Generation
All your paid ads and organic traffic will eventually visit your website, so you need to ensure that you have a clear process to convert these leads into paying customers. Lead conversion is the next part of the sales funnel and needs as much attention as lead generation.
Landing pages are specific parts of your site where you direct potential leads. These pages must entice the lead to schedule an appointment. As such, it needs a call to action (CTA), phone number, and should mention how your professional painting company can address the customer’s pain points.
If you’re relying on SEO traffic, the rest of your website also needs to be on-point for converting leads. This means having a site that loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, looks good, and provides authoritative, useful content for your potential clients is a major factor when you’re considering how to get painting leads.
Managing lead generation marketing strategies can feel overwhelming. Most painters want to focus on quality painting – not spend time on their blog trying to create new, innovative content for their keywords and hunting for leads.
Working with a dedicated marketing agency can streamline the process and produce visible results, making it the best way to get painting leads. If you want the benefits of our experience in helping painting contractors land new leads, why not let us take care of it for you? Give us a call and see how we can help your business today!