How to Get Leads from Realtors Looking for Painters
As a business owner, you’re continually monitoring your painting company’s bottom line. Through your marketing efforts, one-off jobs are plentiful—but once a home is painted, your customers likely won’t need your services again for a few years. While satisfied customers will often provide word-of-mouth referrals to their friends and family, these often don’t result in consistent jobs coming in. This begs the question, how can you generate a steady stream of inexpensive or free painting leads year after year? The answer is simple: build relationships with realtors looking for painters.
While real estate agents aren’t going to be your direct customer (in most cases!), they work with hundreds of homeowners each year that they can connect you with. They’ve built a relationship with the homeowner, and their client is often going to trust the agent’s industry knowledge to guide them when choosing any contractors they need to spruce up their new home.
Many real estate agents have a select group of painting companies that they will recommend to their clients. Once you’ve solidified your spot on their recommendation list, your painting company will have steady leads coming in. But that is easier said than done. How can you ensure local realtors are consistently recommending your painting company in your area? Let’s look at three ways your painting company can generate more income from realtor referrals.
1) Reach Out to Realtors You Have a Connection With
Whether you just opened your new painting company and you’re trying to break into the market or you’re an established business, the easiest way to form a beneficial relationship with a realtor is to reach out to your personal connections first! Who do you know in the real estate industry? It could be your second cousin twice removed, your neighbor down the street, or a member of your partner’s book club. No matter the connection, we recommend reaching out to anyone who could help get your foot in the door. Using a personal connection will be much more effective than blindly reaching out to different agencies in your area.
If you don’t know any Realtors personally, you’re not out of luck yet! Many real estate agents are looking for reliable painting companies to recommend to their clients. Give a call to a few local agencies letting them know about your painting company and the services you offer. It’s very helpful if you have a professional-looking website for painters and are well-rated on Google My Business —pointing these out can help give you a leg up! Let them know that you’re available for any painting jobs they might have coming up.
2) Leave Marketing Materials at Local Agencies to Reach New Realtors Looking for Painters
Apart from making a sale, a realtor’s primary goal is to have a satisfied client. If their client buys the perfect home, but in the wrong color scheme, the agent will be looking for a painting company they can recommend to keep their client happy. When this happens, you want your painting company to be top of mind so you’re the only company they recommend.
If you have marketing materials like brochures, pamphlets, rack cards, or business cards, you’ll want to drop these off at a few agencies around town. This will help keep your painting company on their mind and helps you stand out from other painting contractors you might be competing with. However, this method isn’t as strong as the personal connection so it’s best to only take this route if you have extra marketing materials to spare—rather than printing up flyers specifically to do this.
Tip: Learn how to write a letter to advertise your painting services.
Also, let them know you offer a painting warranty so they feel more confident recommending you to their clients.
Keep in mind that most realtors are looking for painting companies that can provide high-quality, quick turnaround paint jobs. If your painting company is often booked out a few weeks in advance, the realtor route might not be a cost-efficient plan for you. If you’re going to drop off marketing materials at local agencies, make sure you have a painter who is always available to take on the job when the call comes in. So a one man painting company might have a hard time meeting a realtor’s timelines.
3) Provide a Discount for the Real Estate Agent’s Client
Another incentive you can offer is a discount for the homeowner! Realtors looking for painters will often recommend a company that offers a benefit to their clients—they’re always looking for ways to keep their clients satisfied! This benefit can be something like a fast turnaround time or a reduced rate on the painting job. Your discount can be as simple as 5% off the entire paint job or can be more elaborate like buy one room, get one room painted for free.
Similar to the realtor commission, you should only offer a discount if your painting company will still profit from the job—you can determine how much you need that profit to be. While any sort of discount or incentive is a sure way to get your painting company to the top of an agent’s recommendation list, a discount isn’t going to be the best solution if your company can’t afford to give them.
How to Get Leads from Homeowners Looking for Painters
While your painting company will likely generate a number of leads organically, you can increase those numbers by spending time looking for homeowners that need your services. But where can you go to find homeowners looking for painters? If you’re just starting out, you might not be able to rely on word of mouth and referrals from existing customers — but that’s no need to fret. By taking the time to find homeowners in need of painting services, you can increase the number of leads, and in turn, sales.
Here are some of the most effective methods for painting companies to find homeowners looking for painters:
Online Directories
Nowadays, most homeowners turn to the Internet when they’re looking for a home contractor to help them with a home improvement project. That’s why you need to maximize your reach on the web by taking advantage of websites like HomeAdvisor that connect homeowners with professionals in the home services industry.
HomeAdvisor is a reputable website that lets homeowners search for contractors. All the homeowner needs to do is list the services they’re looking for and add in their zip code and they’ll be given a list of recommended painting companies in their area. However, unlike the Google search results page, HomeAdvisor doesn’t show all companies — they only offer the contact information for contractors that have opted into HomeAdvisor’s services.
Creating a contractor account on HomeAdvisor gets you directly in front of homeowners who are searching for the painting services you provide. Investing in a directory like this is especially helpful for businesses just starting out that might not have a long list of existing customers that they can rely on for word of mouth referrals. It gets your name out there to homeowners you might not otherwise have been able to reach.
HomeAdvisor is extremely easy for contractors to use, making it easy to turn on and turn off accepting leads. This allows you to limit leads coming in through HomeAdvisor if other marketing channels have picked up, but when those begin to decline you can turn the HomeAdvisor leads back on to ensure you always have a steady stream of leads coming in.
NextDoor
If you haven’t ever spent time on the NextDoor app, you need to check it out to fully understand how important it can be for your painting company. The NextDoor app works to connect all of the homeowners in a particular neighborhood so they can discuss issues, ask questions, or request referrals for local contractors or businesses. Your ultimate goal with NextDoor should be to have members within the community endorse your painting services through these interactions, organically sending new customers to your business.
For your painting company, NextDoor offers a platform where you can organically reach your desired audience, narrowed down to the exact neighborhoods you want to work with. To get started, you will need to create a profile for your painting company on the platform that is verified and includes your contact information. Once your profile is set up on NextDoor, those that are within your service area can leave recommendations and reviews on your page — the better your recommendations, the more your painting company will be visible within the neighborhood. NextDoor is a remarkable tool, especially for those just starting out, to reach a broader range of homeowners that they wouldn’t normally be able to reach.
Real Estate Websites
When buying a home, most homeowners opt to add a fresh coat of paint throughout the entire home. Sometimes they might even be looking for an exterior paint job to enhance the curb appeal as well. But being new to the area, they probably don’t have a painting company to turn to. That’s where your painting company can swoop in and offer to help.
Using websites like Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor, you’re able to monitor homes that have recently sold within your service area. This allows you to send targeted marketing materials directly to the homeowners for when they move in. Using the photos from the home listing, you can get very specific with what marketing materials you send as well. Is the kitchen in good condition but the cabinets look a bit outdated? Send them materials on your cabinet painting services. Are all of the bedrooms different shades of neon colors? Help them create a more neutral look and feel by promoting your whole home or single room painting services.
Whether you opt to send a pamphlet or a sales letter, reaching out to these new homebuyers is a great way to get your name out there. Even if they aren’t ready to schedule your painting services right away, they’ll have your contact information for whenever they decide to pull the trigger.
Realtors
Building relationships with real estate agents in your area is a great way to learn about the homeowners that are buying and selling homes that might need your services. Reach out to local real estate agencies or use realtor connections from friends and family to share your painting company’s service offerings and contact information.
This can be one of the more difficult methods to crack because not all realtors are willing to help spread the word about your company. As a way to improve your chances of getting the realtor to agree, you can offer the realtor’s clients an exclusive discount only available to them.
