How Can You Get More Commercial Painting Leads?

We’ve seen this hap­pen quite a bit. 

A paint­ing com­pa­ny starts out with a res­i­den­tial focus, and then begins to look for more com­mer­cial leads as their team and capa­bil­i­ties grow. Who could blame you? The rev­enue is often fan­tas­tic, and the sta­bil­i­ty offered by larg­er projects is help­ful for keep­ing your team busy (espe­cial­ly if sea­son­al­i­ty hits you hard each winter). 

So, how can you attract those new leads?

#1: Add a Strong Com­mer­cial Empha­sis To Your Website

There are sites that look res­i­den­tial, and then there are sites that just ooze com­mer­cial paint­ing capa­bil­i­ty. It starts with build­ing out ser­vice pages that cov­er the broad cat­e­gories: inte­ri­or paint­ing, exte­ri­or paint­ing, main­te­nance plans, etc.

Then, once you get the broad ser­vices filled out, drill down into the actu­al indus­tries you want to serve: HOAs, Hotel & Hos­pi­tal­i­ty, Office Paint­ing, Ware­hous­es, Health­care Facil­i­ties, etc.

#2: Instill Con­fi­dence Wher­ev­er and When­ev­er You Can

Before you put pen to paper, so to speak, think through your prospec­tive client’s pain points. Then, craft your con­tent to specif­i­cal­ly address how (and why) you’re equipped to address each one. Is it week­end paint­ing, adapt­ing to sched­uled shut­downs, rapid return to ser­vice, or your in-house team? Talk about it! 

Also, make sure to add your cre­den­tials promi­nent­ly on EVERY page, whether it’s a safe­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, a spe­cial skill set (like lead-safe cer­ti­fi­ca­tion), or an asso­ci­a­tion you’re a part of. 

#3: Show­case Past Clients

We work with a num­ber of com­mer­cial paint­ing pro­fes­sion­als who include the logos of past and cur­rent clients. If a site vis­i­tor can see that you’ve paint­ed for Home Depot or GE, it might lend extra cred­i­bil­i­ty to your ser­vices and abilities. 

#4: Net­work!

While the inter­net is a lead gen­er­a­tion pow­er­house (or it can be!), com­mer­cial paint­ing requires a total com­mit­ment to rub­bing shoul­ders and net­work­ing in per­son. Trade shows (not just one or two, but a com­mit­ment for at least a year) are valu­able, and so is attend­ing events held by orga­ni­za­tions where your prospects will be. Rent a table, spon­sor an event, shake hands, make con­nec­tions, and fol­low up. 

You’ve got to put in the face time. 

We work with a cou­ple of clients who also hold ​“lunch and learn” events dur­ing which they present an edu­ca­tion­al lun­cheon, edu­cat­ing prospects, and answer­ing ques­tions that they real­ly care about. Notice that we didn’t say ​“lunch and SELL.” Sell­ing comes lat­er, after you’ve added the val­ue and con­firmed that you’re a resource and an ally.

#5: Show­case Your Paint­ing Services

Pho­tos, videos, blog arti­cles, and strong web­site con­tent is a must. Don’t use stock images and tell web­site vis­i­tors that you can paint high-ris­es (for exam­ple). Share pho­tos of your team, in uni­form, actu­al­ly doing the work. 

#6: Uti­lize LinkedIn

For a long time, LinkedIn fell out of vogue, becom­ing not much more than a glo­ri­fied, slight­ly dusty, busi­ness card. Things have changed quite a bit on this front! LinkedIn is where most of your com­mer­cial paint­ing clients will be spend­ing their time, mak­ing it impor­tant to offer a strong, pro­fes­sion­al presence. 

What should you focus on?

• An up-to-date per­son­al profile
• Active, inter­est­ing com­pa­ny page
• Recent pho­tos and videos
• Answer ques­tions, doing a deep­er dive now and then via a LinkedIn Arti­cle pub­lished under your per­son­al account
• Join groups, if you have the time to engage
• Share con­tent that your tar­get audi­ence would find interesting

You can also run pro­mo­tions from your com­pa­ny page, spon­sor­ing key posts with the bud­get of your choice. You can tar­get very spe­cif­ic audi­ences too, based on region, inter­ests, indus­try, job title, and more. Get your con­tent in front of the right people!

Stay Con­sis­tent and Stick with It!

This is just scratch­ing the sur­face, but hope­ful­ly it pro­vides a sol­id launch­ing point. Have any oth­er ques­tions? Let us know!