102 Ways to Market Your Painting Business

OUTDOOR MEDIA 

YARD SIGNS

1)  Use yard signs on every job.  You should always have a good solid metal frame yard sign in the yard of every home you are painting whether the job is interior or exterior.

2)  Put a flyer box on your yard sign!  How many yard signs have you driven by and there is no flyer box where potential customer can pull out an information sheet on your company and take it home with them.

3)  Always have a flyer in the yard sign box.  Don’t let the box get empty this shows that you are not attentive to your details.

4)  Make the flyer professional.  Follow the lead of the good Real Estate agents and make the flyer 4 color with pictures of jobs you have completed.  If the flyer is black and white photocopy, faded and hard to read how can a customer think your work will be any good?

5)  Make sure the flyer box has a lid that works.  You have to keep rain and snow out of your box so your flyers are dry and presentable.

6)  Make sure your yard sign gets across a simple message.  Don’t get too complicated with long logos and designs.  Keep it simple.  Your name and phone number should be big and bold, easy to read as people drive by.

7)  Invest in boot leg signs.  Boot legs are those cheaper yard signs that you can get any sign store in America.  They are printed on corrugated plastic and stick in the yard with a simple wire frame.  If you do not have yard signs then use boot leg signs. 

8)  Put boot leg signs along the road side and in neighborhoods wherever the local code will allow.  Look for major intersections and heavily traveled roads.  Stick 2 -3 in a row for impact.  If someone comes along and pulls them out and throws them away they are inexpensive enough to be considered disposable.

9)  Keep your boot leg signs simple.  People are driving by them quickly.  Your name and your phone number should be all you need.  (As long as your name makes it obvious you are a painter)

MOVING BEYOND YARD SIGNS

10)  Use outdoor advertising like billboards if you are big enough.  If you are smaller use bus stop advertising and bus stop benches or those billboards on the sides of public transportation buses.   But always target the buses and stops that run routes in neighborhoods you service.

11)  Is there a State or County fair in your area?  Try sponsoring a water booth at that event and hand out cups of water that are imprinted with your name and phone number.  Can’t get a booth?  Try flying a plane overhead with a banner showing your number.  Or try skywriters.

12)  Do you work near a beach or any where that large crowds gather?  Hire a plane and fly a banner over the crowd.  Keep it simple.  “John’s Painting  1 800 – XXX-XXXX.

13)  Flea markets, fairs, carnivals, athletic events, soccer tournaments, parades, car shows, the mall.  Think of anywhere with large crowds, determine if you can hand out flyers or put your business cards on a windshield and spend a day promoting your business.  Or hire a company to distribute the materials for you.

14)  Rent out a mobile billboard to ride around major streets in your market area.  These are truck sized billboards that get a lot of visibility.  Try locating a company in the local Yellow Pages or at the web site www.truckads.com

15)  Do you live near an airport?  Large or small?  Find a nearby warehouse or building that the planes fly over on a regular basis.  Then ask the landlord if you can paint your name and phone number on their roof to advertise to the passengers on the plane.

16)  Advertise on the signboards on top of taxicabs

17)  Get a good business name!  If your business name does not make it obvious that you are a painter you need a new name.

18)  Get a memorable phone number.  A majority of painting jobs and leads come via the phone.  Your phone is your #1 point of contact.  Consider a memorable number to increase phone calls.

19)  Make your business card special.  If you are going to use the standard rectangle format use good colors and get it professionally designed.  Are the business card and logo you created 10 years ago as powerful as they need to be?

20)  Shape your business card like a paint stick.  Better yet make your card a paint stick.

21) Whether you have a receptionist, an answering service or you answer all of your calls yourself answer the phone with a professional script every time.  Write it down, memorize it and make anyone who answers the phone use it every time they answer the phone:

“Good morning my name is Ben.  Thank you for calling Ben’s Painting Pros.  How may I be of service today?”

22)  Make your answering machine say the same thing.  Send a consistent professional image of service every time you touch a customer, vendor, supplier or any other person via the phone.

23) Get a website.  It may only need to be one page with some good information about you and your company as well as some contact information.  Do a decent job putting it together and it will add to your image as a stable long term company.

24)  Does your business have a sign on the building?  How does it look?  If the sign needs repair make that a priority, this is a critical message you send every day to customers who pass by your business.

25)  If you have e mail and you correspond electronically to customers or vendors make sure your company name, address and phone number are on the bottom of every e mail.

26)  Invest in invoices, envelopes and letterhead that show your company name, logo and contact information.  If you invoice from software like QuickBooks then make sure your company information is included on the standard format invoices you may be using.

27)  When you are out of town is there someone to carry on the business communications so that your image does not slip while you are away?

28)  Get writing pads imprinted with your name and leave them everywhere.  The ones that work well are small and have a magnet on the back.  People stick them on a fridge or work cabinet for taking notes or making a grocery list.

29)  If you receive a number of inquiries via e mail or the internet then you should always carry a device that allows you access to your e mail.  If you can not access your e mail remotely then get a device like a Palm or a BlackBerry which will allow you to have your e mail forwarded.  This way you will not have to wait for the end of the day before returning an inquiry from a potential customer.