This is the time of year when homeowners are focused on spring yard clean up and an exterior painting refresh. For this reason, pro painters tend to see business pick up in the springtime, but the season isn’t just about spring cleaning and home improvement projects.
When the weather gets warm, people seek out community in new ways—which means there are plenty of fresh opportunities to connect with your customers. Pro painter Lisa from Idaho puts it best: “People buy people,” she says. “They’re going to connect with you.” But how do you reach the nearby neighbors who need your services?
The answer lies in taking a people-first approach to connecting with customers old and new.
Painting companies who utilize targeted messaging, position their expertise as a marketing resource and demonstrate their value within their local neighborhood may see some growth in their spring quarter profits.
In this guide, we’ll walk through five tactics to ramp up your marketing, reach customers, and allow your painting business to bloom this spring.
5 ways to market your painting business this spring
Follow along for tips on how to engage your customers with spring painting service market strategies so you can reap the benefits for seasons to come.
#1 Cover more ground with outdoor advertisements
After the grey and gloom of winter, your neighbors may seize any opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors—so why not meet your potential customers where they are?
Out-of-home advertising solutions like signs and bus stop banners will catch your neighborhood’s attention as they’re out and about enjoying spring activities.
“There’s a reason things like billboards and park benches and flyers, things like that…all of that stuff works,” says John of B&K Painting in Boise, Idaho. “The goal is: how do we do it on a small scale for a small company without spending tons and tons of money?”
Rather than shelling out for spotlight signage like a roadside billboard, John recommends painting companies experiment with low-cost options like printed signage that help you own more territory for less. This can include:
- Coasters and table tents you can have made for your local restaurants and bars
- Flyers to hang in local community gathering spots
- Doorhangers to drop off at local houses and businesses
- Yard signs for happy customers — try offering a “signage” discount for customers willing to keep the yard sign up for the whole season
To pack even more of a punch, Chris of PaintLife Supply Co suggests using your fleet of company vehicles to serve as “a driving billboard.” Whether residents catch sight of your vans on the road or glimpse them parked in a client’s driveway, your messaging will overlap where you do business.
Mobile advertisements can become a familiar sight in your community, sending the message that you’re already a trusted, established resource who’s ready to drive up and begin the next neighborhood project.
#2 Share a referral discount
The beginning of the calendar year may start in winter, but spring is the season when households and businesses start to think about hitting the refresh button. Many residential areas and homeowners look for an exterior painting project to freshen up their homes after the winter.
This is the perfect time to display your quality painting services and take advantage of the increased attention on freshening up homes by starting a referral discount. A referral discount encourages past customers to recommend your business to their family and friends in exchange for some type of reward.
You can incentivize returning customers to recommend your business by offering:
- Discounted paint job packages to cement bookings for this and next season
- A free or discounted design consultation for returning customers that brings in new customers
- Upgraded painting services or packages
- Cross-promotional deals with related businesses (e.g., landscapers) for big projects that require a sizeable investment
People also love to hear customer satisfaction stories when looking for new services. This is a great opportunity to offer a discount to customers who leave a recommendation about your business and services.
Whatever you offer, emphasize that these spring deals won’t last forever to gently encourage customers to get them while they’re warm.
#3 Launch a newsletter
Newsletters are ideal for creating a micro-community of old and new clients invested in home improvement. 81% of small and medium-sized businesses use email marketing to attract new customers and foster their relationships with existing ones.
When drafting your first newsletter, remember that readers are far more likely to open messages from a business if the content (and especially the email subject line) pertains to topics they already have on their minds.
You can make your newsletter spring-ready by:
- Emphasizing the seasonality of your spring newsletter in the subject line with spring-oriented language or even puns
- Ex: “Spring has sprung! Here are 5 ways to revamp your current paint job.”
- Plugging your spring deals, partnerships, or biggest projects in the community this season
- Including images or emojis to convey friendliness and boost open rates
- Using your content to demonstrate your expertise—including tips on how to care for and maintain a home’s paint job
Your newsletter is one of the best ways to add value to your clients’ lives, demonstrate your knowledge base, and reinforce your status as a community resource in one fell swoop.
If you deliver something your customers can put to use, your expanding subscriber list will market your company on its own. “Every time I put out a newsletter, I always got work from it,” Chris at PaintLife Supply Co. says. “And as your email list grows, it’s going to be more and more effective.”
#4 Initiate cross-promotions
If your clients are investing in a paint job, chances are they value maintaining their home or business.
Spring is the perfect time to meet, greet, and build business partnerships with local businesses that offer services complementary to your line of work.
Consider reaching out to local business owners such as:
- Landscapers, gardeners, and arborists
- Decorators and interior designers
- Furniture makers or artists
- Contractors and real estate professionals
- Window cleaners, house cleaners electricians, and repair professionals
Home and business improvement professionals are some of the most in-demand people in the economy, but not everyone knows where to find the help they’re looking for. The more you can rub shoulders with the pros in your area, the better positioned you’ll both be to make gains by meshing your client networks. If you’re not sure where to start, begin with Nextdoor. By claiming your free Nextdoor Business Page, you’ll be able to connect with neighbors and use Business Posts to see who they recommend for other home services.
Whether or not you wind up partnering with your resident window cleaners to offer a spring tune-up package, connecting with fellow businesses will make it much easier for customers to find you when they need your services.
#5 Get involved with local schools
Schools across the country start to enjoy all that comes with the spring season, from sporting events to spring fundraisers. These events are perfect opportunities for small businesses and local schools to come together to support each other.
Start tapping into your local network by getting in touch with school administrators. Contribute to their efforts by:
- Joining a raffle or auction – Offer free paint jobs or deals to families who help raise school funds in the school raffle or fundraising auction. The odds are in your favor: no matter what you’re able to give away, your business’ name will still get air time, reaching every family in attendance.
- Financial sponsorship – Bounce houses, dunk tanks, and cotton candy machines can get expensive, and it’s not uncommon for schools to seek out sponsors to help fund the springtime festivities. If it’s in your budget, offer to pitch in for one of the attractions and see if it’s within school policy to let you attend the event as a sponsor. Even if you can’t set up a booth, there’s no substitute for meeting and greeting potential clients in the flesh.
- Sporting events – Are sports big in your community? Ask Athletic Departments if they’re looking for local sponsors for this year’s season. If you’ve already created your business’s logo, tacking it onto this year’s team sports jerseys is another excellent way to enhance your visibility.
- Volunteering – As a painting business, you’re uniquely positioned to pitch in with community improvement projects. Whether that’s helping kids cut loose at a street fair, repainting and restoring homes after natural disasters, or attending career fairs to connect with students looking for a summer job, there are countless ways to contribute. However you pitch in, acts of service are a fool-proof way of boosting your marketing goals and contributing to the betterment of your neighborhood.
Get spring-ready with Nextdoor
Whether you share springtime projects, promotions, or referrals online, local businesses win when they leverage platforms that turn followers into real leads.
To connect with customers and local businesses in your network, claim your Business Page on Nextdoor — the neighborhood network that allows you to build a presence and connect with potential nearby customers who are already looking for your services this season.
Breathe new life into your business, create roots in the neighborhood, and sign up with Nextdoor today.
Sources:
PaintLife TV. The Business of Painting. How to market and writing painting bids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrLwHu3kUrc
PaintLife TV. Paint Business HACKS! Marketing Your Painting Business. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag6XoDVX6x4&t=674s
