How to Get Commercial Painting Contracts
9 Strategies That Work
The painting industry has two major services: residential and commercial painting.
Residential painting typically involves improving the interior and exterior appearance of a home, whereas commercial painting involves bigger structures like retail stores, office complexes, apartments, healthcare facilities, schools, and restaurants.
If you’re running a residential painting business, you might ask yourself: Should my company try to get commercial painting contracts? Can I expand my services to a broader market?
The answer is yes! When you learn how to get commercial painting contracts, you’ll be able to access a broader range of clients, fast-track your company’s growth, and scale your business.
How to Get Commercial Painting Contracts
Now that you know why your company needs commercial painting contracts, it’s time to explore various ways to reach your target market and find the right clients.
You must research your audience and discover the best ways to engage with them. You should also learn how to promote your painting business using effective advertising strategies.
We’ve devised a list of tried-and-tested digital and offline marketing ideas to help your business stand out and beat the competition. With these ideas, you can increase your commercial painting leads and get a steady stream of work all year long.
Take your painting business to a new level when you follow these steps on how to get commercial painting contracts.Â
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Modify Your Painting Website to Reflect the Distinct Sectors You Serve
If you started out as a residential painting company and you’re now planning to enter the commercial market, it’s essential that you update your business website to reflect these two different sectors you’re serving.Â
Add two links to your painting website’s landing page.Â
One should be for prospective residential clients and the other for commercial clients. This allows your prospects to choose the option that fits their needs. If you only have one landing page, residential and commercial clients will get confused about the kind of services you provide.Â
It’s important to send the right message to the right audience. What does your company actually do, and where do you excel? Be clear about your painting services and how you will solve your clients’ problems.
It’s best to create service pages covering different categories, like maintenance, interior painting, and exterior painting.Â
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Demonstrate visual proof.Â
Videos are an effective way to connect with your clients and tell them about your company in a friendly, professional way.Â
Prove that you’re the best choice by showing high-quality photos and videos of your work in the two different sectors. Wow your audience and make them think, “This painting company is the best choice!”Â
If you’ve already done any commercial painting job, showcase before-and-after pictures or videos that demonstrate the top-tier skills of your team.
Let your prospects know what you can do to serve them, and make it easy for them to contact you and provide some information about the painting job.Â
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Showcase past and current clients.Â
Prospects will be impressed when they see who you’ve painted for, especially recognizable commercial brands. Display logos of past and existing clients to lend extra credibility to your company’s commercial painting services.Â
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Maximize Referrals
When it comes to commercial painting leads, there’s nothing more powerful for driving business than word-of-mouth referrals.Â
Homeowners looking for painting contractors typically search online, whether on Google, social media sites, or local mobile apps. However, commercial property owners typically reach out to their trusted network for credible referrals, so you must maintain an excellent reputation online and offline.Â
Do a fantastic paint job every time, driving clients to refer your business to others. Once you’ve successfully built an exemplary reputation, property managers will rehire your painting company and refer you to other commercial clients. Â
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Network Persistently
Attending trade shows gives you the opportunity to network with potential clients and get commercial painting contracts. Explore other events where your prospects will likely show up.
You can also sponsor events or even hold your own event in which you can educate prospects and answer important questions that matter to them.Â
Be sure to prepare business cards to hand out as you shake hands and make connections. You should also ask for contact details whenever possible, and follow up later on to discuss the painting needs of your prospective clients.Â
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Leverage LinkedIn and Other Social Networking Sites
Build your presence on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social networking sites by creating a business account and constantly engaging with your target audience and other contractors.
As mentioned earlier, it’s essential to have a well-optimized, professional-looking website that reflects the kind of top-tier commercial services your painting business provides.Â
Many commercial property managers spend their time on LinkedIn, so it’s crucial to make your presence known. Focus on these key points: (1) Update your business profile, (2) Create an interesting company page, (3) Add recent images and videos
(4) Offer valuable answers to relevant questions, (5) Publish LinkedIn articles under your personal account, (6) Engage with your audience by joining groups, and (7) Share informative content that catches the attention of your target audience.
7. Focus on SEO
The next step to attracting leads and winning commercial painting contracts is optimizing your website, so your customers can immediately find you on page one of Google’s search results.
While networking in person and word-of-mouth referrals work best in getting commercial painting leads, it’s still a smart move to implement SEO to push your business website to the top search rankings and increase your credibility.
Remember that SEO for painting services is not a one-off strategy; it’s an ongoing part of your digital marketing that requires consistency to generate great results.
Take a look at these tips to improve your SEO strategy and boost your conversion rates:
- Fast Loading Time – Optimizing your web page’s load time will make customers stay, leading to better conversion rates and, ultimately, higher sales revenue. A good page load time is no longer than 4 seconds. Website load time also affects your search engine rankings, so be sure to optimize your site properly.
- SEO-Friendly Content and URLs – Naturally incorporate the right keywords to your content, shortened URLs, and call-to-action buttons to increase your chances of getting to the front page of search results. For example, if your clients typically search for “commercial painting services in New York,” your website should include relevant terms like “commercial painting” and “New York painting companies” to attract the right visitors.
- Backlinks and Internal Links – Backlinks, or inbound links, are links from one web page to another. They help Google discover and rank content and also boost your website’s authority, so it’s good to earn quality backlinks from other reputable, relevant websites. Additionally, include links from your high-authority pages to your other web pages to help improve your rankings.
- Mobile-Friendly – In today’s modern era, many of your clients are likely to search for your painting company on their smartphones and tablets. Be sure that you have a mobile-friendly site that loads smoothly and looks good on iOS and Android devices.
8. Create an Authoritative Blog
Search algorithms monitor customer engagement with your website, putting sites with higher engagement in the top rankings. Your painting business should maintain an active blog to increase your engagement levels and build a connection with your target audience.
Regularly create well-thought-out, relevant, and interesting content that provides solutions and essential information your prospects will appreciate learning. You can share recently completed projects and show off your work with before-and-after images.
You can also share case studies involving the toughest project you pulled off or the creative approach you used to complete a challenging project. Additionally, it’s a good idea to discuss how a commercial painting company can benefit different properties and what commercial painting usually involves.
You’ll increase your chances of getting commercial painting contracts when you offer valuable information that’s engaging, easy to digest, and helpful overall.
Creating quality content will help you:
- Establish authority and credibility in the residential and commercial painting industry
- Make people trust you, resulting in more leads and referrals
- Aid your local SEO
- Stay top of mind among prospects
9. Mail Flyers to Property Managers and General Contractors
A well-designed painting flyer is still a timeless technique to reach your target audience and get leads. You can edit and download our free painting flyer template to get started.
Why Does My Painting Company Need Commercial Contracts?
Homeowners who need residential painting services are all around you. But did you know that commercial painting can actually be more profitable? If you expand your target audience and attract commercial clients, your painting business can get busy and thrive throughout the year.
Read these top reasons why your business needs commercial painting contracts.
Gain Access to Larger, More Profitable Projects
Residential painting typically ranges anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000, depending on the scope of the job.
Commercial painting is much higher up the contractor food chain, giving you access to large-scale projects starting at $50,000 and going up as high as seven figures. You’d likely find it easier to handle one $50,000 commercial painting project than ten smaller $5,000 residential projects.
However, remember that the more complex the project is, the higher the requirements are. Make sure to commit to a commercial job only if you’re fully confident that you have the necessary skills, equipment, and manpower to get the job done right.
If you only have one or two painters right now, you may need to hire additional employees if you plan to offer commercial services to multiple clients.
Get Recurring Work
While residential painting jobs are easier to handle, it’s less likely to convert into recurring work. Usually, after painting the interiors and exteriors, you’re not going to hear from a homeowner for a long time until touchups and maintenance are necessary years later.
You must work hard to obtain an extensive client list to remain profitable.
Commercial clients provide highly profitable projects and recurring work. You’ll get busy for weeks to months as the project involves bigger properties and more complex tasks.
Key Takeaway: If you prove that you’re a trusted company that offers quality, reliable services, your commercial painting clients will invest in your services for the long term and hire you for ongoing maintenance and other future work.
Commercial Clients Have Maintenance Budgets to Spend
Corporations know that remodeling, expansion, and maintenance are essential to growth, and they allocate sufficient budgets for these processes.
As mentioned earlier, you’ll likely get recurring painting jobs if you demonstrate the reliability of your painting company. Property managers can provide substantial painting projects many times, year after year.
They don’t want to go through the hassle of getting multiple painting bids each time they need a painting job done. They want to call someone with a proven track record and trustworthy services, so make sure to nurture your customer relationships and do an amazing job every time.
Less Seasonal
Residential painting jobs are usually slow during cold winter months. Most homeowners don’t want to be inconvenienced with repainting projects when it’s freezing and snowing.
But with commercial painting, it doesn’t matter if it’s the holidays or cold outside. In fact, clients like manufacturing facilities prefer to get upgrades and renovations done during the holiday season when their properties are closed for maintenance. This means you can get a constant stream of ongoing work year-round.
Final Thoughts: Expanding Into the Commercial Market and Growing Your Business With Customer-Focused Strategies
Now that you’ve decided to make a foray into the commercial painting market, it’s time to make major business decisions and take a leap forward. Implement the key strategies discussed above to get plenty of commercial painting contracts.
Once you’ve won clients, be sure to get the job done right with the right tools, equipment, and skills. You can hire more painters or subcontract your painting jobs as necessary to manage large-scale projects efficiently and complete work with no delays.
Just keep in mind the information we shared on how to get commercial painting contracts to set yourself up for lasting success.
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