How to Get Painting Jobs: Effective Strategies for Growth

Up-and-coming painting companies like yours are hungry for new ways to land more projects. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to level up your operation, knowing how to get painting jobs is crucial. 

Whether your focus is residential or commercial painting, you need to identify and showcase your strengths. We’ll walk through proven strategies for finding residential and commercial painting jobs and offer insights into digital and traditional strategies to grow your project pipeline. 

Wondering how to get painting jobs? Use our road map to boost your visibility and secure profitable projects.

Define Your Niche: Residential vs. Commercial Painting

Focusing on either residential or commercial painting (or both) helps you tailor your services, optimize your operations, and stand out from competitors. Knowing how to get painting jobs starts with having a clear focus, and several details impact residential and commercial projects.

Considerations for Residential Painting

Residential painting projects may be smaller in scale but are both rewarding and challenging. Just keep a few things in mind as you plan projects:

• Project scale: Residential painting ranges from interior rooms to exterior siding, and the relatively small scale enables your team to complete projects faster. These can build your portfolio to demonstrate quality and reliability.
• Client interaction: Homeowners usually want a personalized touch, so be prepared to engage and accommodate their preferences. Doing so will make clients comfortable and create an experience worthy of word-of-mouth referrals.
• Flexibility: Homeowners aren’t bound by business hours, so you can arrange jobs at just about any time. You win here, too, because you can get painting jobs that won’t disrupt your operations.

Taking the time to understand what residential clients expect can help you fine-tune your service offerings and market yourself as a go-to expert.

Considerations for Commercial Painting

“Go big or go home.” Commercial projects are larger and often more lucrative, but that also means they come with a whole other set of challenges. If your business skews toward commercial projects, keep a few needs in mind:

• Specialized equipment and materials: Because of their scale, commercial projects require specialized tools and more durable paints to withstand cleaning and/or weather conditions. Invest in the right equipment and materials to deliver on each job.
• Scheduling: Commercial painting projects can be a bear because they often need to be done during off-hours to avoid disruptions. Working evenings or weekends is par for the course, so keep your schedule up to date and your team informed.  
• Regulatory requirements: Need to adhere to safety and regulatory standards? Stay up to date on the latest guidance to achieve compliance and reassure clients about your professionalism.

Knowing how to get painting jobs starts with choosing the right projects that align with your expertise. Find your niche to better position your business in the market. 

Digital Marketing Strategies for Painting Companies

The world is so digital that if your painting business isn’t present online, it’ll get left behind. There’s a world of opportunities, and digital marketing can help you get more jobs by connecting your business with prospects who are searching for painting services. Boost your visibility and attract leads with some quick-win strategies.

Website

Your website is your business’s online home; it’s a space where potential clients can learn about your services, view past projects, and get in touch with you. Treat your website as a reflection of your reputation and use it to inform, educate, and secure jobs.

Your site can become a lead generation magnet by demonstrating what you offer. Use it to showcase your portfolio, testimonials, and service offerings so leads can get to know you. 

Still, we all know by now that the content you offer there speaks volumes. Spend a little time on SEO to prioritize keywords and content relevance so search engines can direct traffic your way. 

And once users arrive, they need to be able to find their way around. Optimize user experience with elements such as high-quality images, clear navigation, and prominent calls to action to help them engage and find information.

Local SEO

Speaking of SEO, it’s super helpful to hyperfocus your web presence in your community. Local SEO ensures your business shows up when people in your area search for painting services, and a few tactics can help:

• Google Business Profile: Claim and update your Google Business Profile. You can use it as a marketing tool with business details that help customers find you, add real photos of projects, and solicit and respond to customer reviews.
• Location-specific keywords: Use keywords that reflect your local market. Phrases such as “painting services in [your city]” can improve your search result rankings.
• Content strategy: Regularly update your website with locally relevant content. Blog posts about local projects and insights into regional trends resonate with core audiences.

Want to book jobs in your own backyard? Local SEO connects you with potential clients in your immediate vicinity.

PPC

You sometimes have to pay to play, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can drive immediate results. PPC ads can help you get more painting jobs with pinpoint targeting, driving conversions and keeping your budget in check.

Just bid on specific keywords or phrases to maximize the chances that your ad will appear in search engine results. You control your budget, so you only pay when someone engages with your ad. Plus, you dictate where to send users who click—usually a landing page with more information—and can optimize for conversions, making it easy for them to inquire or book your services.

PPC ads are useful anytime, but especially when you’re offering time-sensitive deals or seasonal promotions. Their quick-win results complement longer-term digital strategies.

Email

Outside of work settings, the key benefit of email for consumers is to keep track of brands and services. Just think about all the subscriptions you have. 

Use email to send targeted messages—from discounts to helpful painting tips—to different segments of your audience and keep your brand top of mind. A quick promotional message can put a bug in a past customer’s ear to keep them engaged, while regular correspondence builds a relationship that can drive referrals and repeat business.

Customer Reviews

When consumers need products and services, they look at reviews. Customer reviews help you get more painting jobs from testimonials and constructive feedback on sites such as Yelp and Google and across social media. You can collect reviews by using plug-ins that sync with review platforms on your website. 

Social Media and Apps

Most consumers spend at least a few hours a day on social media, and you can reach them where they are. Use your brand profiles to connect with your audience and build a community, posting regularly across platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

You can use your accounts to post before-and-after photos of painting projects and share customer success stories. And to amp up the engagement, try asking questions, running contests, or hosting live Q&As. 

Want to reach beyond your own profile? You can also engage with your community through specialized groups on Facebook and engage with neighborhood groups on apps such as Nextdoor.

Traditional Marketing Strategies for Painting Companies

While digital marketing is a must, traditional strategies can complement these efforts by adding a personal touch. Time-tested traditional marketing tactics can help you attract more painting projects, including:

Print

Print may be an old-school technique, but it’s still a valuable marketing tool to get more painting jobs. Promote your services across a range of branded flyers, brochures, and postcards featuring your company name, logo, contact information, URL, and services. You can share these with neighbors who ask about a job you’re performing nearby and send them out to leads to promote your business and services.

Business Cards

Never underestimate the power of a well-designed business card. Keep a few in your wallet to hand out to prospects you meet, clients’ neighbors, or local businesses to share with customers. They don’t need to be fancy—just share your contact information so people know how to contact you to get their painting jobs done.

Signs

Finished a project you’re proud of? Placing signs outside recently completed projects—with owner permission—can generate local buzz. Yard signs offer ongoing local exposure as neighbors take note of your work, and they get right to the point by featuring

your company name, phone number, and logo. 

Radio Ads

Hit the right notes with your local audience on the radio. Radio ads can target specific audience demographics based on the station and promote awareness. Earn exposure through ad buys that repeat your message regularly, making your brand memorable to prospects.

Customer Referral Program

A customer referral program can turn satisfied clients into your best marketers. These programs enable customers to vouch for your service and quality, saving you time and money on new business initiatives. And it helps both sides, letting you offer discounts for referrals while showcasing your expertise.

Traditional marketing goes hand in hand with digital efforts to expand your reach. Combine the two and discover how to get more painting jobs for your business.

Working with a Paid Lead Gen Service

Another way to grow your painting business comes in the form of paid lead generation. Lead generation services can increase your project pipeline—especially during the slow season—connecting you with prospects who are looking for painting services.

Just set up a company profile on platforms such as Angi, HomeAdvisor, or industry-specific sites. When users submit quote requests for painting jobs in your area, these services will forward you their information. Payment models may vary, with some operating on a pay-per-lead basis and others offering monthly subscriptions.

Pros and Cons of Paying for Painting Leads

Before you jump in, it’s important to weigh how to get more painting jobs with paid leads and whether it’s worthwhile for your business.  

On the upside, paid services such as Angi quickly connect you with prospects who need painting services. While you’re just starting out, you can bid lower for jobs to quickly build your portfolio. Plus, lead generation services can also solicit and showcase customer reviews in one place—and the higher yours are, the more visibility your business gets. 

The struggle is that lead generation is a gamble. Not every lead will be a perfect match and won’t have real business potential. Part of the problem is that services provide shared leads that are sold to multiple businesses you must compete with. These leads also eat into your budget if they don’t convert into actual projects. 

Your best bet? Focus on quality over quantity to truly understand how to get painting jobs that are profitable.

Partner with Contractors

Building a network of local contractors can expand your reach to secure steady work; each side can step in to help the other in a subcontractor arrangement. Doing so increases customer awareness while you build connections that can refer work your way.

Tips for Getting Started with Partnerships

Networking can be nerve-racking—no matter how experienced you are. But there are a few easy ways to build relationships with contractors. Add these to your to-do list to grow successful partnerships:

• Attend trade shows and home improvement expos to meet contractors. You can even rent a booth at these events to further showcase your skills and collect contact info for follow-up.
• Share business cards with potential partners, just like you would with prospects. Make it easy to get in touch by adding a QR code that links directly to your website.
• Connect on social media. Follow contractors’ accounts if they have them, and send them a message or two. These contractors may remember you and get in touch for quick turnaround jobs. 
• Build trust by having authentic, friendly interactions. You may not be best buddies with contractors right away, but you can foster strong relationships by communicating genuinely over time.

Partnering with contractors is an excellent way to gain a steady flow of referrals and learn more about how to get painting jobs from trusted industry connections.

Start Getting More Painting Jobs Right Now 

Mind swirling with ideas of how to get more painting jobs? Your potential is endless, so put a few ideas into action:

• Fill out your Google Business Profile. Claim your profile to grow your business reputation and share high-quality photos, service information, and contact details.
• Look for free and low-cost website builders. Explore user-friendly platforms such as Wix, WordPress, or specialty services to grow your online presence without breaking the bank.
• Gather job photos for your portfolio. Show off your best work on your website and on social media to show prospects the proof of your expertise. 

As you grow, your operations will get more complex. Consider adding Service Fusion’s painting contractor software to improve your processes and communication. Our all-in-one painting service management platform offers tools to automate estimates, scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and payments. 

Don’t wonder how to get more painting jobs. Service Fusion handles the basics—and then some. Take advantage of call tracking tools to understand where leads are coming from, text-me-back widgets for your website to expedite communication, and even online booking so customers can get what they need on their own time.

With digital and traditional marketing and strategic partnerships, stay proactive to grow your painting business. You’ll see more projects rolling in soon enough!