How to Dominate Your Local Neighborhood as a Painting Contractor (Part 1)

Posted by Emily Howard | Tue, Jan 28, 2025

 How to Dominate Your Local Neighborhood as a Painting Contractor (Part 1)

Now that the hol­i­days are safe­ly behind us, it’s time to begin pick­ing our mar­ket­ing hors­es for 2025. No doubt most of you are won­der­ing how to boost busi­ness this year, and we’re see­ing a dark horse mak­ing its way up the pack: Direct mail.

This oldie but good­ie dates back to the days of papyrus and chis­eled stone (like 1,000 BC), and even though direct mail took a back­seat while peo­ple were mov­ing online, it’s gain­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty again as the dig­i­tal world becomes more crowded. 

So what’s the for­mu­la for win­ning with direct mail? Well, we would nev­er claim that there’s one size that fits all. That’s why we cre­ate a cus­tom mar­ket­ing plan for each of our clients. But here’s a strat­e­gy we like to call Neigh­bor­hood Dom­i­na­tion (it’s a lot friend­lier than it sounds). 

Neigh­bor­hood dom­i­na­tion is all about know­ing your audi­ence, cus­tomers, and ide­al prospects and reach­ing them in as many ways as pos­si­ble. Once you know the areas you are tar­get­ing, it’s time to cre­ate a mul­ti-pronged mar­ket­ing approach that brands you as the go-to paint­ing com­pa­ny. Today, we’ll cov­er direct mail and offline meth­ods to this strat­e­gy; next month, we’ll cov­er digital. 

Tar­get Your Audience

  • Neigh­bor­hoods you’ve worked in 
  • Neigh­bor­hoods you’d like to work in 
  • Demo­graph­ic data that fits with your ser­vices (if your prices are on the high­er end, you need cus­tomers whose income is on the high­er end) 

These are all things you should think about when choos­ing an audi­ence to tar­get. Some mail hous­es can use your cur­rent cus­tomer data to build a per­sona for you (be sure you have the prop­er per­mis­sions to share this infor­ma­tion). No mat­ter how you do it, the more you know your ide­al client, the better. 

Choos­ing Reach, Size, and Frequency

Next, look at your bud­get. Reach (right audi­ence), size (right mes­sage), and fre­quen­cy (right time) are all impor­tant. Also, remem­ber that rep­e­ti­tion leads to recog­ni­tion. Most painters we’ve seen fail with direct mail have had a sin­gu­lar or dis­joint­ed approach. If you are doing a mail­er here and there, your results will be poor. A good, con­sis­tent strat­e­gy and sol­id track­ing capa­bil­i­ties are a must.

If you feel over­whelmed, you can reach out to us for a strat­e­gy session.

Truck/​Van Wraps, Yard Signs, and Sharp Uniforms

  • Wrapped vehi­cles are a no-brain­er. You bought the vehi­cle, it might as well work for you. 
  • Yard signs (when approved by the home­own­er) give you a chance to show off your work.
  • Sharp uni­forms on respect­ful and tal­ent­ed staff can build trust by tying your brand to a human being. 

Radius Mail­ers

If you find your­self doing an award-win­ning job, work­ing with a favorite client, or work­ing with mul­ti­ple clients close to each oth­er, radius mail­ers are a great way to root out more great clients and jobs near­by. Chances are, they’ve seen your vans, maybe they’ve seen your work, and maybe they’ve even heard about you from a past client. You’ve already got a leg up. Radius mail­ers help you fol­low through. 

Door Hang­ers

Last, door hang­ers are an excel­lent way to give a lit­tle extra love to the homes clos­est to your job site. It can be a chal­lenge to work this into the on-site tasks, but it’s worth it to have painters take five min­utes and pass them out to the near­est homes. 

You can even get cre­ative with gift cards and Please excuse us…” notes. Here you acknowl­edge that it is nev­er easy hav­ing neigh­bors amid home improve­ment projects. Share con­tact infor­ma­tion for ques­tions and con­cerns … and a lit­tle incen­tive to think about how their home would look with a fresh, clean coat of paint.

What all of this accom­plish­es is get­ting your name in front of your ide­al audi­ence over and over. Nail these brand­ing basics and keep them con­sis­tent, and all your mar­ket­ing becomes eas­i­er and more effective. 

Stay tuned, next month we’ll dis­cuss how to tie dig­i­tal into your Neigh­bor­hood Dom­i­na­tion plan. 

About Emily Howard

Emily has always been passionate about the trades and joins us after 15 years as editor-in-chief at American Painting Contractor. Last year, she traded her full-time desk job to explore a career in farming. Today, she balances her two passions by farming fresh veggies at a small farm in the summer and creating content and marketing strategies for the painting industry in the winter. Emily is dedicated to clean data, smooth systems, and telling the stories of the painting industry.

When she isn’t working at a desk or in a field, she enjoys Colorado life with her two dogs and fiancé: hiking, snowboarding, tending her plants, and making pottery.

     
   
       

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