Here’s How You Can Market Your Painting Business for FREE

Marketing with no marketing budget and no money?

This was a question that I was asked yesterday, they have a few jobs to finish up, they need to market, but they have no budget, nor do they have any money.

And they said, “What would you do?”

So, I thought about this over the early morning today and was putting together a list of things that I can send over to them, and I figured I would share the thoughts I have.

Some of these, you have heard before but I just wanted to sum them all up here.

No marketing budget and no money –I have been here, and most of us have been there.

We didn’t know what we were doing, we didn’t have any extra money and sometimes when we realize that we should be marketing, it is usually too late.

Similar to a farmer going out to pick the crops in the July-August time-frame, and he never planted them.

We want to start planting things and planting ideas, and a little marketing from us, as soon as we can, because it takes a little while, for some of the different processes to grab hold of the customer and for them to remember us.

And here some of the processes to get you started;

Google Business Page

This is very important, if you don’t have one, go to Google, just Google; “how do I set up a Google Business Page”.

It will walk you right through the whole process, it is going to ask you to put all the information in, and then it is going to send you a pin via mail.

A 4 or 5-digit pin, put that in and then it takes about a week or two and then you will have an active business page.

When you get to that business page, fill it out completely, all your information, a great description of what your company does, don’t just be a generalist, be very specific.

Also, post as many of your own pictures as you can, people love pictures.

It also allows you to put an area in, where somebody can text you from their mobile device if they are Googling your business, to talk to you right away.

It will be a text from Google, fill that out, I know I did about 4 months ago, and once every 3 weeks I get a text from a

customer enquiring about something and it is usually brand new customers.

Call to action

Put posts that allow you to add pictures, similar to an advertisement.

Basically, a description and a call to action, fill that out, update it as often as you can, and put pictures on.

Google loves the pictures and it seems to bring it up in the SEO rankings because you can find yourself a little easier.

Request Google Reviews From Past Customers

Google reviews are very important, it will bring your company to a higher search ranking, and you will notice pretty soon you will be in the first top 3 results on Google which calls a snack pack, that’s all free.

Facebook page

Obviously, you should have a Facebook page, I know some of you don’t want to have a Facebook page, but it is so important with almost 2 billion people on Facebook, and everybody around you is on Facebook.

People are actually searching on Facebook for the answers, similar to what they do for Google.

So you want to make sure you have an active Facebook Business Page.

And what do I mean by an active Facebook page? Post every day –you don’t have to physically post every day, you can actually sit down for a half hour or an hour a week and schedule out a posting for every day that week.

This could be your own pictures, maybe a blog that you’ve written, maybe a video that you have taken –videos are watched so much more than pictures.

Also, on Facebook, let’s take advantage of the marketplace you have out there on Facebook, people love Facebook, they live on Facebook.

Just the other day I was on a subway, and I would say 9 out of 10 people were glued to their phone, if you looked over, they were usually doing or watching something on Facebook.

Let’s take the business page, for instance.

If you have something in your shop, maybe it’s an extra full gallon of paint that is still good, that is popular, you can put it out there and set up a contest; “Whoever would like this gallon of paint, it’s yours…”

Start interacting with your customers that way.

The paint is already paid for, you’re probably not going to use it again, any time soon –give it away, get some popularity out there.

Write Blog Posts (or delegate)

I know some of you aren’t writers but try writing a blog, it doesn’t have to be phenomenal, it just has to describe something or maybe a project –put that on your website. You can also post that on Facebook as some content and also email it to all of your customers.

These are all free things to do, if you do a video of one of your worksites, you can video that, put it on Facebook.

Networking

There’s plenty of networking opportunities out there, one of the big ones that everyone knows is BNI (Business Network International).

You can visit 2 BNI meetings, each different meeting places, before they ask you to become a member, or before you have to make the decision.

That’s a great way to connect to see if these people fit.

If you visit some places two times in a row, there is a 50% chance that one of those days you are going to walk out of that room with a referral, if not multiple referrals.

This is because tradespeople have a hard time in their mind, of going to a networking event when they could actually be swinging a brush, or in our case using a roller.

If you go to those, visit a few of them and see which one you can join.

Go and visit and maybe visit multiple ones, so for the next 6 weeks, dedicate yourself to one morning a week, which is only a couple hours, of visiting this many places.

You might find out that you have hit a homeowner and you have found a great place to be.

And you also have your Rotary, your Church, things like that, let people know what you do, we are painters… let them know, a lot of people need these processes, projects are taken care of that we can help.

Volunteer

If you actually have absolutely nothing to do, and you have 2 days of no work, volunteer. Volunteering is free, and people like to work with nice people.

If you volunteer your time, and I have been into the real store, which is a habitat humanity place, and those volunteers are usually retired gentlemen, and they usually have a few dollars, and they hang around with like people as we hang around with like people of ourselves.

Last year, I landed an $8,000 exterior from a real store volunteer and he has also referred me to other people.

So, go to the Church, go to the Soup kitchens, be a volunteer, the people we find at volunteers have been professionals, who didn’t have time before to volunteer.

Once they are retired, they have money in the bank, they are financially well-off, they will then take their time and do all the volunteer work.

And if you are volunteering, and you go in there to serve other people, it is going to come back to you in 10 folds.

Email Past Customers

You want to email your customers, your past customers, people maybe you have lost jobs to, people who are friends and families.

Email them your blogs, your videos, maybe something funny –don’t ask them for anything, just let them know what you do.

Once you get your Google Business Page up and running, you want to email them the link and ask them to leave a review for you, very important for your business.

So, those are the free things you can do, if you also have a license, make sure they are out.

Talk With Homeowners

Also, when you are working on a job, maybe you can ask the homeowner, do you know any friends or families that could use my work?

And then you can maybe ask to be introduced to them or touch base with them.

These are all free methods, you ways you can spend money, once you start doing some work, you can start boosting Facebook pages, and you find a good return on investment with that.

Some of our members that use an AdWords for specific niches that they have carved out, and they are getting very good results with that.

Anyways, if you have any questions or any ideas that you want to throw at me, for some free marketing, I would love to talk to you.

Anyways, hope this helped you a little bit, I am open to your suggestions if you have any other ones I would like to add to my list.

I am Ron and I am a DYB coach, also a painting contractor. You can find me at ron@dybcoach.com, find me on Facebook, and send me a message, we can either chat on Facebook or even cellphones, and we can chat that way too.Have a great day and keep busy. Bye…