fbpx

Tag: Google ads

Boosting Your House Painting Business Revenue: Four Proven Ways to Improve Google Ads Results

Are you a house painting business owner who wants to save money on Google Ads and get more customers? 

We’ve got four simple tips to help you do just that. 

In this blog post, we’ll show you how to make Google Ads work better for your painting business, and it’s not as hard as you might think.

Tip 1 - Make a Special Page For Your Google Ads (Your Landing Page)

To get better results with Google Ads, you need a special page on your website, called a landing page, just for the people who click on your ads. This page should make it easy for them to contact you. 

Be sure that you include your phone number in the upper-right hand side and have a form that they can fill out.  You may also want to consider having a way to directly schedule the appointment, like a calendar or a chat function for the people that cannot wait to get started.

Don’t worry about making it show up on Google.  It doesn’t have to be optimized for SEO (search engine optimization) because you are sending paid traffic to it. 

Instead, make it all about getting people to contact you or leave the page. 

This simple change can make a big difference.

Tip 2 – Make Sure That Your Ads and Page Match (Ad Congruity)

If your ad talks about a specific service or benefit, make sure the page it leads to talks about the same thing. If your ad is about painting a room, the page should be too. If it’s about fixing a ceiling, the page should be all about that. This way, people won’t get confused, and more of them will contact you.

You will also want to use similar fonts, colors and images.

This technique is called “ad congruity” and it helps potential clients make the connection from your ad to your landing page in their mind.  The more they can look alike, the better. 

If your website hasn’t been updated in a while, this article will help!

Tip 3 - Focus on What People Want (Focus on the Client’s What’s In It For Me?)

Instead of talking about what you do, focus on what people want. 

People who need painting services want their homes to look great. So, tell them how your painting services will make their homes look amazing. Talk about the results and benefits they’ll get. This will get more people interested in what you offer.

People always want to know, “What’s in it for me?”

So, answer them in a way that will elevate their status, but will highlight what you can do.  It’s a win-win for everyone.

Tip 4 - Show You're Trustworthy

People like to see that others have been happy with your services. In fact, 46% of consumers feel that online business reviews are as trustworthy as personal recommendations from friends or family according to BrightLocal.

Add reviews from past customers to your landing page. These can be written reviews and even short videos where your happy customers talk about their experience. You can even use widgets to embed the latest reviews from Google into your Website if you are using WordPress.

By making it easy to see what people are saying, it helps people trust you and decide to contact you.

Sometimes, people don’t leave reviews because they don’t know what to write.  To make it easy to leave a review, send your client some variation of the following email:

“Mrs. Smith – 

We hope that you found our service to be extraordinary.  If that is the case, we would love for you to leave us a review.

To help you get started (and avoid writer’s block), we have found that the most impactful reviews answer these questions:

  • What work did we do for you and where are you located?
  • Was it done well?
  • Why did you pick our company?
  • What was the best thing about working with our company?
  • Would you recommend us to family and friends?

Please click here and it will take you directly to our Google Review Page: [Link]

Thank you for choosing us and we really appreciate you taking the time to leave a review.” 

We recommend asking for a review after your final walkthrough, which is when your client should be the happiest.

By asking these questions, you help guide them to use the words and phrases that will make your reviews relevant to most searchers looking for companies like yours. In addition, they will leave reviews that look non-spammy and well thought out.

Where To Go From Here

Improving your Google Ads results is doable, even if you’re running a house painting business by yourself. 

By following these simple steps, you can save money on advertising and get more customers. Just make a special landing page, match your ads to it, focus on what people want, and show that you’re trustworthy. These changes can help your business grow. 

If you need more help, feel free to reach out to IFTS. Good luck with your house painting business!

Local Lead Generation Techniques for House Painting Companies-Part 1

Quality leads, better customers, less hassle

LEAD GENERATION FOR HOUSE PAINTERS, PART 1

Are you having trouble locating high-quality leads while employing tried-and-true marketing strategies like networking, word-of-mouth, and referrals to gain more customers?

House painters and handyman are some of the most in demand service professionals, but there is a ton of competition in the marketplace. 

How does a prospect know which company to choose?

As a house painting business, you typically offer similar services to your competition, so how do you stand out amongst the crowd?

It’s by showcasing your differentiators with proven marketing techniques!

Ever wonder how a company gets more customers than you consistently even though their finished product is much worse than yours? 

It’s their marketing.

You don’t have to let this happen!

There are time-tested lead generating techniques that draw in the right clients who are prepared to purchase your services on the spot.

EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION STRATEGIES

In a market dominated by internet research, it can be hard for a business that just wants to focus on having the best services to come up with good lead generation strategies. With the internet, smartphones, Google, and social media taking over the world, lead generation has become more competitive and complex. 

How businesses like yours found new clients and customers has changed a lot in the last 20 years. If you’re still marketing like it’s 1999, you won’t grow or remain relevant.

But there is a bright side…even in the most competitive markets, you can find ways to get leads with digital marketing strategies. Keep reading to find out how you can start getting new leads for your painting company.

DEFINITION OF A LEAD

A lead is someone who has shown interest in your business’s product or service and given you their contact information. Every business needs to find new customers and clients in order to grow.

The ways to get these new leads have changed, and while a few old-school methods might still work on a small scale, online local lead generation can help any business grow its audience and customer base in ways that have never been seen before.

LET’S TALK ABOUT LEAD GENERATION

Lead generation is the process of turning people in your market who don’t know about your business into leads who are interested in what services you have to offer.

Your lead generation strategy tells you how to get people interested in your business so they can enter your sales pipeline. When you know what your potential customer wants and can connect that to a good offer, you will always get good leads.

WHY DO YOU NEED A LEAD GENERATION PLAN FOR YOUR PAINTING BUSINESS?

As Zig Zigar says, “You are out of business if you don’t have a prospect.”

To grow your company, you need a steady stream of high-quality, sales-ready leads that are ready to get started with the painting process. When potential customers are interested in your business, they are easier and cheaper to sell to in the future because there is already a trust factor involved.

Even if your business is small, you can still have a large customer base if you have a good plan for getting leads.

As people become more and more dependent on the internet, there have been big changes in how they look for, get, and pay for home services.

Buyers can make most of their decisions based on their access to a lot of information online. Once they complete a form on your website or call, they have already done most of the work. Getting a customer’s attention and keeping it throughout the buying cycle has become even harder.

As a painting business, you need to come up with a creative way to get in front of your ideal customer. This will help you build trust and turn prospects into leads.

Lead generation is the most important thing for a business to do that wants to grow. It helps you spread the word about your brand, connect with your users, get sales-ready leads, and, in the end, increase your conversions.

For 65% of businesses, generating traffic and leads is their top marketing challenge.

– HubSpot

HOW TO GENERATE LEADS FOR YOUR COMPANY

Over the years, the way people buy products and services has changed a lot. With the rise of the Internet and an abundance of information online, buyers today are more likely to make decisions on their own, with no need to talk to a salesperson. About two-thirds to ninety percent of the buying process is now done by the buyer before they even talk to the business.

Companies that do well at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost.

– InvespCRO

It is now harder than ever to get a customer’s attention and keep it throughout the buying process. 

So, what should you do?

Businesses must have a clear plan to find new ways to connect with customers and get them interested in their services. 

Let’s talk about some ways to do this!

LEAD GENERATION TACTIC #1 – PAID ADVERTISING WITH GOOGLE

Google paid advertising lets you reach potential customers who don’t know about your painting business yet.

A study by Search Engine Land found that 75% of people say paid search ads make it easier for them to find the information they want on a website or search engine. 33% of people click on a paid search ad because it directly answers what they were looking for.

So, how should you approach paid ads?

Well, there are multiple approaches to discuss:

Paid Advertising with Display Ads

Display ads are the ads you see on multiple search engines and pages that are small embeds throughout the page. They usually have an offer, a company logo, and pictures. They can also be a short video. Most of the time, these ads are very specific to the demographics and actions of prospects and buyers.

Display advertising has proven to increase traffic to websites by 300%.

– Visually

These kinds of ads are better for getting people to learn about your business, but there are other paid options that work well, too.

On average, 41% of clicks go to the top 3 paid ads on the search results page.

– Wordstream

Paid Advertising with PPC Search Ads (Pay-Per-Click)

Pay-per-click ads are a cheap way to advertise online because you only have to pay when someone clicks on your ad, which can lead to any website link or even your phone number.

No matter what business you’re in, a very large number of your potential customers are online and using Google or Bing to find information. With Google AdWords PPC ads, you can reach people based on what they are looking for.

PPC visitors are 50% more likely to purchase something than organic visitors.

– Unbounce

If you are ready to invest time in a process of trial and error to fine-tune your chosen key phrases or utilize a PPC management service with bidding experience, you will be able to appear in front of more people who are relevant to your business.

For high commercial intent searches (someone looking to buy a product), paid ads get 65% of all clicks.

– Wordstream

Paid Advertising with Retargeting (Pay-Per-Click)

Retargeting is a clever way to get prospects to take action. With retargeting, you can find your prospects wherever they are and make sure that they see your business over and over again with images, videos and text ads.

Retargeting helps you get more leads from people that have visited your site, watched your videos, called you or clicked on your ads.

Lead generation outsourcing is 43% more efficient than in-house generating because of their expertise.

– Fearless Competitor

Paid Advertising with Google Local Service Ads (Pay-Per-Click)

Local Services ads help you connect with people who search on Google for the services you offer. 

Customers in your area will see your ads, and you only pay if a customer contacts you directly through an ad. As a Google Guaranteed provider, you gain the trust of new customers and your ads stand out on Google’s search results pages.

Local Service Ads by Google receive 13.8% of local search engine results page clicks.

– BrightLocal

Getting started with Google Local Service Ads is really easy.  It only takes 3 steps:

  1. Sign up on Google as a local service provider
  2. Create a budget based on the number of leads that you want to get
  3. Turn on the ads, then pay only if someone contacts you via the ad

LEAD GENERATION TACTIC #2 – OPTIMIZE YOUR PAINTING BUSINESS WEBSITE

You need a high-quality website and landing pages if you want quality leads.

Website optimization, often lumped in with search engine optimization (SEO), is the process of making a website work well for its users, search engines, and the business…which results in more leads and a better UI experience.

A well-optimized website is a crucial component of any successful lead generation strategy. Your website will sell your business with the SEO already in place. After all, the goal of all your other lead generation strategies is to convert random visitors to your website into paying clients.

According to Marketo, only 4% of people who visit a website are in a purchasing mindset. 

While it sounds like a terrible stat, keep in mind that it only indicates the traffic that is heading for the exit step of your sales funnel. The other 96% are still in the “wait and see” phase, giving you plenty of time to hone your conversion techniques.

Make it obvious on your website where you want visitors to go and what you want them to do when they get there.

Be sure to watch for Part 2 of this blog series, which covers 4 more lead generation tactics for painters and a plan to bring them together!

10 Of Our Favorite Marketing Hacks For House Painting Companies In 2022

Would you like to know about our 10 favorite super sneaky marketing hacks that you can implement today?

We use these marketing secrets to help our painter clients rank their website #1 for their favorite keywords, get more organic traffic and ultimately, get more leads to grow their business.

In this article, we are going to cover ten actionable strategies that you can use RIGHT NOW.

The best part?

You don’t have to be super tech savvy or Elon Musk to get them implemented.

Let’s start this section with our favorite Google Business Profile hacks.

Hack #1 - Social Proof Will Get You More Leads

The best two platforms to get reviews on are:

  • Google
  • Meta (Formerly Facebook)

Google reviews are the best type of reviews that you can receive because not only do they talk you up and show people how great you are, they also help your website with its SEO.  As an added bonus, once you have 100 reviews, your star rating will be shown when you run Google ads.

Meta reviews are great to have as well because of the platform’s popularity in a house painting company’s target market.  Most house painters that we work with have a target audience of women that are between the ages of 35 to 64.  Consequently, that is the majority of Meta users.  By using this platform, you are more likely to get in front of your ideal client than any other social media option.

If you can get a video testimonial from a client, that can go a long way as well.  A lot of people get stuck on the logistics of creating the video, but it shouldn’t be that hard.  You can interview them via Zoom and record that call or just have them use their phone to record a quick video. 

The more authentic the video looks, the better.  This is for two reasons.  One – if the video is over-produced, it will seem scripted and less credible.  Two – if people see that someone took time out of their day to create a quick video for you, it shows that they really liked you and your work.

Once you have these videos, be sure to put them everywhere a potential audience may look.  This could include:

  • YouTube
  • Your website
  • Social Media
  • Your Google Business Profile
  • and more!

Reviews are a great way to show how great you are without you ever having to say a word.

Want some help getting more reviews?  Check out our article on implementing a review system.

 

Hack #2 - Get Your Listing On Google Maps

Getting your business listed in the Google Maps results is based on many factors.  A few big ones are:

  • how close the searcher is to your business location 
  • your review ranking and volume (which we discussed above in Hack #1)
  • profile completeness
  • local signals

To start, make sure that your profile is completely filled out with correct information.  Your name in the Google Business Profile should match exactly the name on your website.  This goes for your address, website, and phone number as well.  Then, be sure that your business categories and services are filled in completely.  

The final part of your profile that should be completed is the “Photos” section. Be sure to add as many photos as you can as this is a feature that not many painters take advantage of.

For a complete walkthrough of filling out a Google Business Profile, check out our article here: https://blog.iftsdesign.com/introducing-google-my-business/

“Local Signals” are another big factor for showing up early on Google Maps.  These are website links to your website from other local businesses or services.  A few examples of this would be:

  • a back link from the local chamber of commerce
  • a back link from a local scholarship that you sponsored
  • a mention or link to your business from a local paper

Anything that you can do to get your business associated with your area is a great “local signal” to Google.

Hack #3 - Ask and Answer Questions Via Your Profile

An easy way to get keywords and locations associated with your Google Business Profile is through the question and answer section.

Previously, you were not able to add questions to your profile yourself,  You had to wait for someone to ask and then you could answer them.  This has now changed.

The Q&A section of your Google Business Profile is a great way to show all of your most frequently asked questions up front to prospective customers.

Write down the 10 questions that you receive all of the time from prospects and then answer them in 3-5 sentences.  While you are answering them, be sure to use common keywords/phrases as well as locations that you want associated with your house painting business.

Once you have accomplished this task, copy and paste them to your Google Business Profile.

Now, we’ll move to our favorite Paid Ad Hacks.

Hack #4 - Solve Your Prospects’ Small Problems For Free In an Ad

What are the questions you most commonly get asked? If you’ve already implemented Hack #3 from this article, you should have this list already.

Side Note – Need some inspiration?  Check out https://answerthepublic.com/ or https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/ for commonly asked or searched questions in your field.

Make videos answering these questions and position yourself as the expert in your area.  Again, just like the testimonials, the videos do not have to be fancy or highly edited.  They should be authentic and can be filmed with your cell phone.  Some painters will even film on the job site.

Sample Common House Painter Questions To Get You Started:

How often should I paint the exterior of my house in this area?

  • What is the best time of the year to stain a deck?
  • How many coats of paint should be used on the exterior of your house?
  • How many coats of paint should be used on the interior of your house?
  • What does it mean for a painting company to be bonded and insured?
  • Should I paint my kitchen cabinets or should I replace them?

Once you have your videos, post them to your social media, YouTube channel and on your website.

You should also run them as Meta ads to your local audience.  You don’t have to spend a lot of money, just one to five dollars per day.  This helps you get in front of a fairly large group of people in a small amount of time.

These videos will help you create an audience that already knows/likes/trusts you when it comes to painting topics.  When they have a painting project come up, you will be the one that they know they can trust.

Hack #5 - Make Your Ad Stand Out

When creating your video, you want to be sure to stand out amongst the crowded marketplace.

The first way to do this is to use contrasting colors to the platform that you are running the ad on.  If you are going to run the ad on Meta (Facebook), we recommend having a red or yellow bar at the top of the video because it helps you stand out from the Meta blue color scheme.  An easy way to do some small edits to your video is through Canva.  

Don’t want to take the time to do any edits to the video?  Try wearing a brightly colored red or yellow shirt.

The second way to stand out is to immediately call out your audience or target market.  So, if you were advertising kitchen cabinet painting to the residents of Dallas, you could start your video with the sentence: 

“Are you living in the Dallas area and thinking about redoing your kitchen?”

Or, you could do some video editing and add that sentence as text to the beginning of the video.

A final way to stand out is to start your video with a big action or a memorable prop at the beginning.  You want to grab someone’s attention – movement or something unexpected will typically draw the eye.

A few big actions you could try:

  • come in through a door
  • big wave and a smile
  • use a paint sprayer or other tool of the trade
  • jump into the frame

A few memorable props you could try:

  • Comically large-sized paintbrush
  • Wall of stacked of paint cans
  • stand halfway up a ladder

The important thing to remember is you want to get their attention within the first 3 seconds of the video and keep them watching.  These tactics all use “pattern interrupt”.  This basically means – do something to get a person to stop scrolling through their feed and watch your video/read your ad.

Hack #6 - Use Retargeting Ads In Multiple Ways

The average consumer is only prepared to make a purchase about 3% of the time. 

So, how do you attract the other 97% of people?

Retargeting Ads

Retargeting allows you to stay in front of someone that is interested in your services until they are ready to make a purchasing decision.  If you are advertising on Meta (Facebook), you can do this in 2 ways:

  • Meta Pixel
  • Video Viewers

The Meta Pixel is a small piece of code that you install on your website.  It then tracks who has visited the site and allows you to show them ads on Meta.  

One caveat – The usefulness of the Pixel has diminished over time as Apple now requires users to opt in to being tracked.  Only about 10% of people opt in (not surprising).  Advertisers now have a much harder time reaching Apple users via this method.

The other way you can retarget someone is through their video views.  Meta tracks who watches your videos and for how long.  So, you can advertise to people that have watched at least a certain percentage of a video.  

We recommend retargeting people who have watched at least 25% – 50% of a video.

Sample Retargeting Strategy For House Painters

A good video strategy for painters is to run 3-5 FAQ ads to women 35-64 in your local area.  Then, retarget the women who have watched at least 25% of one of the videos with an ad that has a special offer or a more direct call to action.

Finally, let’s cover our favorite psychological marketing tricks.

Hack #7 - Get an Awesome Business Card With Your Picture

One strategy that isn’t commonly used by painters is to get a really nice business card with your picture on it.

Why use your picture?

First of all, people want to do business with people, not a faceless business.  Secondly, it will help them remember who you are.

Now, how nice is nice, you may ask…

Stand out from the crowd of people that are handing out the white, one sided business cards that they ordered by the thousands from VistaPrint for under $50 and get a card that is plastic, like a credit card.  Check out plasticprinters.com for decent pricing.

Not only that, make the card graphically pleasing and “cool looking” by having it designed professionally.  Look on fiverr.com for a great deal on the design aspect.

Because the card is so nice, people feel bad about throwing it away.  So, you’ve got a tangible remarketing tool that they will keep, unlike other painting companies.  This will set you apart from the cheap lookalike cards that are thrown away easily.

[On an aside] We do recommend having 2 sets of cards created.  One set should be plastic and lux for giving away to potential customers.  The other set can be on paper.  These paper ones should be given away to people that may not necessarily hire you, but you may use as a contact or meet at a networking event.

Hack #8 - Make Your Voicemail Work For You

Your clients should never reach your voicemail.  Preferably, you’d have a call center in place to make sure that they never had to talk to a machine.

However, if the perfect set of circumstances happen and they do manage to reach your voicemail, there is one phrase you should add to the end of the message:

Add “I will call you in the next 15 minutes”

When people hear this, they will be much more likely to leave a message because they have that expectation of receiving a call back soon.  Even if you aren’t able to call back in that amount of time, you still get a chance at that lead.

Hack #9 - Give a Compliment At the Beginning

People want to be liked and this plays into that psychology.

Before you start an estimate, give a compliment to the prospect.  It could be about the house, the neighborhood, a family picture, furniture, their pet etc.  People like people who like them.  People also HIRE people who they like.

Most of the time, people don’t remember what you say, but they do remember how you make them feel.  This applies to most human interaction.  So, if you make them feel good about themselves at the beginning, the feeling should carry through the whole experience.  

By making a prospect feel good about themselves, it puts you in a better position for you to get their business.

Hack #10 - Go Get Started

Getting started is half the battle.  Choose one thing from this list that you want to accomplish in the next 24 hours and GO DO IT!  You’ll be ahead of 95% of your competition.

Want Some Help?

Is there something on this list that you would like to implement, but aren’t quite sure how or don’t have the time to do?

This is where IFTS comes in.  We have been working with house painters (and other businesses) for over 5 years on all aspects of their marketing.  Give us a call at 412-715-6266 or send us an email (si@iftsdesign.com).  We’d love to help you grow your painting company.