How to Get Leads for Your Painting Business: 15 Tested Ways

Tested Ways to Get Painting Leads

Before covering some tried-and-tested painting lead-generation strategies, we'd like to point one thing out.

Digital marketing strategies such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads effectively drive leads. This is unsurprising since 87 percent of customers search for local businesses online.

However, relying solely on digital marketing strategies may be unreliable in the long run.

You may lose out on some homeowners—especially the older ones—who may not be tech-savvy. Also, customers have recently developed a high distrust of branded advertisements.

No wonder word-of-mouth recommendations are customers' most preferred medium for hearing about local businesses.

So, adopt a multipronged lead-generation strategy, incorporating online and offline strategies.

Here’s a mini-breakdown of the strategies we’ll cover:

Let’s dig deeper into each one.

1. Invest in local SEO

Local SEO is a digital strategy that ensures your website appears when prospects in your service area execute a local-intent query.

For example, searching for “painters near me” in Dallas, Texas, yields something like this:

And this is what comes up for the same search query in Houston, Texas:

The search engine result page (SERP) changed for each query because Google knows customers are more likely to patronize a local service business than one farther away for two reasons.

First, local service providers have a shorter response time than those farther away. Second, it’s easier to trust local service businesses since they may well be staffed by familiar faces—neighbors, friends, old schoolmates, etc.

Now, you’ll notice that both SERPs mentioned earlier have the same display interface, like this:

This is called a map pack, and it consists of the top three painting companies' local search engine–optimized profiles and a tiny map insert spotlighting their physical locations.

To be part of the three painting companies Google picks for the map pack for any search query at any given time, do the following:

Have an optimized Google Business Profile (GBP)

GBP (formerly Google My Business) is a free listing platform that lets businesses control how they appear across Google Search, Google Maps, and Google Shopping.

To have an optimized GBP, continually update it with key company details such as:

• Business name

• Operating hours

• Some high-quality images and videos

• A brief description of your services

• Local phone number

Once it's updated, consider:

• Building citations (mentions of your business across the internet)

• Filing it up with positive customer reviews

….to increase the odds of featuring in Google's map pack.

We must reiterate that filing your profile with reviews and responding to each is crucial.

Why?

Because 88 percent of customers say they're more likely to patronize a business that responds to positive and negative reviews. Plus, Google ranks businesses using their review response rates.

We agree that filing your GBP and responding to all reviews can be hard work, especially when the number grows into the thousands.

We suggest automating the entire review process with ServiceTitan's Reputation platform.

The platform lets you email or text customer review requests once techs finish jobs.

This sort of automation is great for two key reasons.

First, it fills up your GBP with real customer reviews. Second, asking for a review while the experience is fresh in the customer’s mind produces authentic reviews.

Further, ServiceTitan’s review feature lets you manage all your reviews from one central hub.

This way, you can respond to negative reviews and quickly resolve the customer’s complaint before it damages your online reputation.

Service pages for the locations you serve

A painting contractor with different locations can create different service pages optimized with local service keywords.

Moreover, website visitors are more likely to book your services if they discover your company is just a few blocks away.

How do I find the right local service keywords?

1. Google auto-complete and “people also ask” (PAA) features

First, block Google from accessing your previous browsing history to eliminate bias.

Use a VPN. Browse in incognito mode. Or switch to a brand new Google account.

Once you’ve done that, input your target keyword and wait while Google makes predictions.

For example, inputting “painting business Texas” produces other keywords like this:

Pro tip!

Instead of doing it manually, consider using an SEO tool like Detailed that collates all the keywords in the PAA section into a downloadable CSV file.

2. Google Keyword Planner

Finding location keywords using Google Keyword Planner is far quicker than other methods.

Simply input your target keyword, and you’ll get a list of several other related keywords.

3. Google’s "related searches" section

Location-specific keywords are also visible on Google’s “see more” section, located at the bottom of the SERP for your target keyword.

Here’s an example using “painting companies Texas.”

2. Run Facebook lead ads

It's easy to see why Facebook lead ads are a great lead-generation channel for painting businesses:

• Ads on the social media platform reach 51.6% of the United States’ population and 56.2% of the nation’s internet users.

• Almost 31% of customers say they bought from a business after seeing a Facebook lead ad.

Also, the seamless user experience of Facebook lead ads makes them a very efficient lead-generation channel for painters.

In contrast to normal Facebook ads, users can fill in their contact information within lead ads. This means they don't need to click from Facebook to a landing page and wait until it loads before inputting their information.

Use persuasive copy and appealing visuals—images and videos—for your Facebook lead ads to be effective.

Also, integrate your CRM (customer relationship manager) with your Facebook Ads Manager so you can follow up on leads. Program your lead ad to allow customers to skip typing and pre-fill the forms with their Facebook info instead.

Finally, limit the length of your lead forms by asking only necessary questions.

“We found out that the key is to A/B test and find the right number of questions,” says Velizara Tellayan, Founder of Digital Concept Consulting.

She adds, "Too many questions can deter potential leads, while too few may not provide enough information for effective follow-up and/or generate leads [that] may not convert."

For painting companies, asking for the prospect's name, phone number, zip code, and a brief description of their issue is sufficient.

Read more about Facebook Lead Ads.

3. Consider PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads

PPC ads are a form of online advertising that lets advertisers showcase their businesses across digital platforms—websites, applications, YouTube, and search engines.

Most painting companies use Google PPC since most customers evaluate local businesses using Google. That's why Google has to use a special algorithm and a set of criteria to determine which company's ad gets displayed at any given time.

For example, searching for "painting business Texas" gives this:

The highlighted sections are all sponsored ads created by Google Ads.

To increase your ad's chances of being featured in Google's sponsored section, use the painting service–related keywords customers use to search. Then, enrich your ad with compelling visuals and a landing page with compelling copy.

Now, PPC ads can be very cost-effective. But that’s only possible with the proper structure and strategy, which ensures your ads reach your target market—people needing painting services.

“The structure of a Google Ads campaign is vital for PPC advertising,” says Velizara Tellayan.

It allows for "...effective targeting and management, enhancing the overall success of your PPC efforts."

Also, consider using smart bidding—a strategy that lets Google's AI optimize for conversion potential during auctions. This reduces your cost per lead.

“In my current company, we saw a decrease of -35% in CPL (cost per lead) only by reorganizing our campaign structure and switching to smart bidding,” says Tellayan.

Also, always measure the performance of your campaigns and iterate based on the results you see.

You can use conventional marketing tools such as Google Analytics to measure your campaign’s performance.

However, Google’s data may not be accurate since it tracks just the number of leads a campaign generates. And as you well know, not every call becomes a booked appointment.

Consider using ServiceTitan's Home Service Marketing platform if you prefer a tool with an easy-to-understand interface that delivers accurate campaign performance data.

ServiceTitan’s Home Service Marketing platform lets you create and assign unique phone numbers to each campaign.

Once a new customer calls, ServiceTitan’s system automatically determines the campaign the call came from and displays the campaign's exact ROI in real time.

To tie it all together, the system ranks all your campaigns by their generated revenues and displays the locations generating the most calls.

This ensures you maximize your marketing spend by running only revenue-generating campaigns.

Watch this video to learn how to connect your PPC campaigns to ServiceTitan and take advantage of the features above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3S7Mbk4OiY&ab_channel=ServiceTitan

4. Run Local Services ads

Local Services ads are paid offerings that let customers call, message, or book an appointment with a painting company directly from SERPs.

They appear at the top of SERPs, alongside crucial company information such as hours of operation, ratings, and physical location, like this:

Local Services and PPC ads, though similar, differ in many ways.

Unlike PPC ads that charge per click, LSAs let you pay per lead generated—a message request, call, or booked appointment.

Plus, Google uses a set of rules to determine which LSAs appear on each SERP:

• Number of reviews

• Review response rates

• Customer ratings

To help home service businesses generate more leads and conversions using LSA, we partnered with Google to create the Local Services Ad integration.

Using the integration, customer data associated with job bookings populates automatically into your ServiceTitan CRM.

This eliminates data redundancy and prevents human errors when manually copying customer information from LSAs.

Aside from using our integration, you can increase your LSA’s effectiveness by:

• Providing your complete company information.

• Verifying your GBP to get Google's guarantee badge which builds customer trust.

• Responding to positive and negative reviews always.

• Using high-quality visuals.

5. Consider referral marketing

Referral marketing simply involves rewarding customers with perks such as discounts, access to exclusive seminars, and free educational materials for each referral (more on this in the next section).

The good thing about referral marketing is that referred leads almost always become customers since most customers prefer hearing about a business from people they know. Plus, 40 percent of referred leads convert, exceeding other lead channels.

But remember: the easiest way to get referrals is to meet customers’ basic painting needs and exceed their expectations.

Customer service reps should listen and attend to customer needs. On-site techs must arrive early and communicate clearly with customers. Dispatchers should send regular updates throughout the job cycle.

To be fair, exceeding customer expectations while using manual systems can be difficult.

Things can easily fall through the cracks. Dispatchers may send techs to the wrong location. And techs can arrive at the customer's location with the wrong tools.

According to a PwC survey, customers prefer companies that use a mix of automated and human interaction, especially when it reduces frustrations.

That's why automating customer engagement with tools such as ServiceTitan's Customer Experience software is such a great idea.

The platform lets painting companies automate every aspect of their interactions with customers.

For example, Arizona Painting searched for better software to manage customer engagement.

“We were looking for a CRM program that could integrate our marketing [and] handle a customer from the beginning to the end,” says Joe Campbell, Arizona Painting owner, chief financial officer, and chief marketing officer.

“We picked Service Titan (in 2019) because it could do everything from start to the finish,” he said. “From the first call, a customer makes it all the way to the collections process."

“It was the only program we could find that could do that for our company.”

Arizona Painting increased its leads, revenue, and employees (to handle the growth) by 60 percent in four years.

ServiceTitan's Customer Experience platform lets you text appointment reminders to customers alongside a brief bio of the technicians en route to their location.

It also lets you provide real-time tech location updates to customers.

This reduces no-shows and kickstarts relationship building before the tech reaches the customer's location.

This feature—and many others—is why Campbell says, "Using ServiceTitan is something everybody in our industry needs if they want to know how well their business is doing and how to improve it.”

6. Create lead magnets

Lead magnets are free educational resources, such as infographics and e-books, that businesses offer in exchange for customer information.

With prospects’ information in their hands, companies can keep sending educational materials that nurture those prospects into customers.

The primary principle of creating lead magnets is to discover your customers' pressing needs first. Then, use those needs to create materials they'll value and use to justify their decision to book a job.

Here's an example of this in action.

Let's say you're a commercial painting contractor and discover clients need help picking the right color palette.

You can create an e-book on how to Choose the Right Color Palette, promote it to potential customers, and keep sending educational and promotional emails until they book a job.

To find potential topics for lead magnets:

• Poll your current customers.

• Check the titles of competitors' lead magnets.

• Browse through social media platforms, focusing on people's painting complaints.

Consider using ServiceTitan's Marketing Pro Email software to promote your lead magnet to customers.

With it, you can create and design attractive emails using professionally designed pre-built templates.

This eliminates the cost of hiring designers or paying for design and email marketing tools separately.

Also, to ensure you maximize returns on your email marketing budget, the software showcases the exact ROI of each email.

This also lets you track your email performance and make necessary changes.

7. Get involved in your local community

Another way to generate leads is to engage with your local community. 

It builds trust with community members (potential customers), demonstrates expertise, and proves you care about the community's well-being. Plus, it portrays your brand positively, which can generate new leads.

Here are a few ways to engage with your community:

1. Take part in local events

Participate in local fairs, sports competitions, festivals, skill training events, and concerts. You could also sponsor the event or offer your location as a venue.

2. Volunteer with local nonprofits

Find a local nonprofit organization supporting a brand-aligned cause. Then, consider volunteering with them in any capacity and encouraging employees to do the same for any nonprofit of their choice.

3. Host free educational seminars or webinars.

You can host free educational seminars or webinars on interior design, color theory, maintaining exterior paintwork, etc. This positions you as an expert, making your business the first that customers will choose for painting jobs.

4. Offer discounts to specific community members

You can offer discounts to health personnel, first responders, older people, war veterans, students, and paramilitary personnel.

5. Organize painting mentorship and internship programs

Help people who want to start a career in the painting industry gain work experience. You could also mentor new painting companies.

8. Create a customer loyalty program

Loyalty programs reward loyal customers for their constant patronage with perks such as discounts, access to exclusive events, and redeemable points.

The prospect of getting a gift for simply repeatedly booking painting appointments with you can persuade prospects to pick you over competitors.

Before starting a loyalty program, figure out what rewards potential customers love. Do they prefer redeemable points? Or will discounts suffice?

This ensures prospects will be keen to sign up for your loyalty program.

To find the right rewards, check the loyalty programs of competitors. Or, if you already have some loyal customers, ask them what they'd love to get in a painting loyalty program.

Pro tip: Always remember that the quality of the lead matters more than the quantity. You earn more for a whole house exterior or interior repaint than a room or front lawn repaint.

So, the size of the reward should be proportionate to the size of the jobs you have done for a customer in the past.

9. Leverage Facebook groups

The Facebook groups of your local community, city, or town are a great place to find leads. People sometimes place advertisements for painting jobs there.

Here’s an example from Tucson’s Facebook group:

This person is advertising for a full interior and partial exterior house painting.

In addition to getting leads, you can also use Facebook groups to advertise your business, gain insights into customer preferences, share before-and-after pictures, and promote offers such as holiday discounts.

However, always request permission from the group’s admin before sharing any post to avoid getting banned.

Pro tip: We advise linking to your website or business page when responding to job advertisements or advertising your painting company with such groups. If the prospect clicks on the link, you can retarget them with Facebook ads and convert them into customers.

10. Team up with other local businesses

Realtors. Plumbers. Property managers. Real estate agencies. Local paint stores.

Those are some examples of complementary local businesses—companies whose customers may need your services—that you can use as referral sources.

You can offer commissions, cross promotions, or free advertisements to sweeten the partnership.

For example, say there's a local painting store. You could promise to use their products exclusively for any job they refer to you.

Or, if it’s a real estate agency, you can co-create joint packages that offer a 10 percent discount to clients who book your services together.

Before proposing partnerships, build a rapport with the owners. Connect with them on social media. Send an email. Or call them. 

Then, schedule a face-to-face meeting to explain better what they stand to gain from the partnership.

11. Participate in trade shows.

Local trade or home shows are another great offline lead-generation strategy.

They present the opportunity to talk face-to-face with prospects and pitch your painting services.

Setting up a booth at such events may cost a lot. But, the number of leads you can get from participating in such events justifies the cost.

When attending a trade show, have a well-designed business card with your company details. 

Also, collect the emails and contact information of the prospects you interact with and those visiting your booth. Then, create a unique email campaign or cold-calling tracking sheet to nurture them into customers.

12. Use direct mail

Direct mail is a lead-generation strategy where you send marketing resources to prospects' mailboxes.

Some home service businesses overlook direct mail, thinking it's old-fashioned. Plus, others feel tracking the revenue it generates takes a lot of work.

But that can't be farther from the truth.

Guy Fashano, sales manager at Mailing Systems, Inc., a premium direct mail agency, says several digital tracking techniques are now available.

“There are so many different things that we can do from a reporting aspect that years ago was not available,” he explains. 

Plus, the emotional impact of physically handling mail makes it very effective.

“It's physical, it's personal, and every piece that you send is going to get touched and recognized at some level,” he adds.

Temple University and the United States Postal Service recently ran a study comparing the effectiveness of digital ads against direct mail. They found:

• Direct Mail had a higher ad recall of up to one week.

• Direct mail elicited a stronger emotional response in participants.

• Participants processed direct mail information faster than that of digital ads.

• Direct Mail elicited a subconscious value and desire for the product or service.

Direct mail may take a while to yield results. But as Fashano points out, “Once you start pumping, it'll keep performing for you as long as you keep investing in it.”

However, direct mail is effective only when you use hyper-targeting—tailoring the mail’s content to the recipient’s needs. 

This keeps your mail away from trash bins, junk mail piles, or dusty filing cabinets.

Knowing the effectiveness of hyper-targeted direct mail campaigns, we created the Direct Mail platform.

With it, you can build mailing lists using customer data stored in or uploaded to ServiceTitan's CRM.

For example, you can create a mailing campaign for just returning customers, promoting a 10% discount on their next appointment. You can even build audiences of potential customers in a specific local service area.

ServiceTitan will help design, print, and send your mail. Simply upload your postcard, add the copy, and click ‘Launch.’

Also, you don’t need to worry about minimum print runs since we charge you only for the mail we send to prospects. This prevents leftovers and wasted costs.

Lastly, the software tracks the jobs and revenue each mail generates and displays it on your dashboard in real time.

This ensures you track your campaign’s performance and make necessary improvements.

13. Get listed in local directories

An Internet search for painting companies often yields SERPs, with home service listings or directories at the top.

This goes to show the importance of adding your company to local directories.

Google also uses the number of local citations a company has to decide which local businesses to display in a map pack at any time.

Examples of such home service listings include:

• Angi

• HomeAdvisor

• Apple Maps

• Nextdoor

• Yelp

Register with your local chamber of commerce to get listed in its directory.

Always ensure that your company name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent across all online directories. A simple mistake in your company details can hurt your rankings.

14. Advertise your business on Craigslist

Since launching 26 years ago, Craigslist has become a large and often visited classified advertisement platform.

Customers use it to find products and local tradespeople, making it a great idea to advertise on the platform. It also helps that advertising there is relatively inexpensive ($5-10 per year).

When advertising on Craigslist, pick local listing hubs around your local service area or the areas you want to expand to. 

Use quality images and benefit-optimized copy. Include your operating hours, directions to your physical location, and zip code.

Finally, removing ads after 48 hours is advisable so moderators don’t flag your ad for removal.

15. Go old-school with lawn signs

Placing lawn signs while on a job site might seem old-fashioned. But it's one of the cheapest strategies for promoting your services, especially for new painting companies.

When designed properly, lawn signs can catch the attention of potential customers driving or walking by. This builds your reputation and brand awareness.

Also, the painted house proves your expertise and can convince other neighbors who want their homes to look that way to book your services, increasing the lawn sign's conversion potential.

After you’ve placed a lawn sign, knock on doors. Then, sell your services with a script like this:

“Hello, I noticed a paint peel on your lawn and wanted to help you fix it. I did something similar for X down the road and can do the same for you at a five percent discount if you book now. Here’s a free estimate.”

Why is Lead Generation Important for Your Painting Business?

The painting industry is highly competitive. Staying afloat and having a filled schedule is only possible with a consistently flowing lead pipeline.

Also, lead generation is a great way to grow brand awareness, which can lead to future conversions.

Finally, lead generation ensures a consistent cash flow for investing in your company’s growth. This can help scale your business and upstage competitors.

Now Over to You

Now, you can use the tried-and-tested painting lead-generation strategies we’ve covered to grow your business.

Before starting a campaign, research your audience and competitors, set a marketing budget, and define your goals.

And if you want greater results for every ad dollar, consider using painting company software like ServiceTitan.

ServiceTitan is an all-in-one tool painting companies use to automate and streamline their business processes. The cloud-based software helps increase home service businesses' revenue by up to 25 percent!