10 Effective Email Marketing Strategies for Painting Contractors

Sehrish Iqbal
7 min readOct 11, 2023

Never underestimate the power of the inbox. According to a recent study, Email marketing is renowned for yielding the highest rate of return(ROI), with an average of 4,400%. This means you can get a 44$ return on every 1$ you invest. A meticulously designed email can maintain any business’s presence in the client’s eyes.

This makes it imperative for business owners in the painting service industry to embrace digital marketing because, as per the research, 97% of consumers use websites for local business information. From demonstrating recent painting contracts to offering promotions or a free painting estimate, email marketing bridges painting contractors and their customers and introduces their business and services to potential clients.

A robust digital approach to email marketing is the lifeblood of any successful painting business; thus, today, the digital arena has revolutionized how painting contractors connect with their target market. Are you a striving painting agency reckoning to grow your business?

Then, the following blog aims to understand and leverage the power of email marketing in maintaining relationships with clients and nurturing leads for painting contractors. To kick things off, let’s start with a simple question…..

Why Painting Contractors Should Consider Utilizing Email Marketing?

In today’s digitized world, it’s easy to assume that every person who engages with your brand has a phone number and an email address. The benefit of email marketing is that it’s easy to set up. It is incredibly profitable, and you can add a personalized touch by reaching your customers when they are ready to listen to you.

Benefits of Email Marketing For Painting Contractors

✅It helps you stay in contact with potential customers.

✅Builds an index of interested prospects.

✅Perpetuate relationships with leads and clients.

✅Share helpful information over time to build trust.

✅Lead potential customers through a planned path.

✅Ask for recommendations and offer additional services.

✅Generate many top-notch reviews.

✅Seal the deal with more potential customers.

✅Retain past clients.

✅Achieve maximum ROI with minimal work.

From personalization tactics like auto-populating first names in the subject line or body to segmenting prospects based on their interests, an email lets your subscribers feel like you’re speaking directly to their needs. That makes us contemplate how painting contractors land clients.

How Does a Painting Contractor Acquire Clients?

Painting contractors employ two main approaches to acquire clients: inbound and outbound marketing. Inbound marketing includes strategies like content marketing and advertising to attract your customers, while outbound marketing is reaching your clients through email marketing or cold calling.

As a comparison, outbound marketing is much less expensive while generating a high rate of investment return; that being the case, 29% of sellers rank email marketing as one of the most successful marketing channels. Having discussed that, let’s move on to the primary concern of every painting contractor: Maintaining relationships with clients.

How does Email Marketing Strategy Benefit a Painting Contractor in Building Client Relationships?

To strengthen and foster your potential clients through Emails, you need to come up with compelling things to entice your customers to purchase again from you. Now, you might be wondering how? Well, you can :

  • Craft Compelling Email Content.

Whether it’s a limited-time offer on painting services or discounted rates for bulk projects, you can offer unique promotions and discounts to your email subscribers. You can also share positive testimonials and reviews from your happy customers to help your potential clients be more confident in choosing your services.

Sending out helpful DIY painting tips and tricks or offering referral incentives to your clients could result in a positive outcome. Further sharing compelling before and after images of your painting projects in your emails could impress potential clients and highlight your abilities as a painter.

  • Segregate Your Clients

Did you know that segmented email campaigns result in a 30% increase in open rates while a 50 % boost in click-through rates compared to untargeted email campaigns? Here’s how:

  • Leads and Prospects (Segment 1)

Create a campaign that prompts each month with a promotion or incitement. You can customize your advertisements according to a year or industry trends. Other examples include:

  • Introductory offers for popular services.
  • Free estimates.
  • Color consultations.
  • Past Customers (Segment 2)

Your old customers will likely buy from you again. Still, more importantly, they can assist as an excellent referral source, like a monetary dollar amount or a discount on future services, etc. Some more examples could be :

Birthday emails are a perfect way to stay in contact.

Trending interior design inspiration.

Offering new services — customers love to be “in the know.”

Notice requests.

Latest colors or color suggestion services.

Complementary services like a free pressure wash for any project over $XXXX.

Free annual touch-ups.

  • Avoid Spam Folder

The age of your domain name could lead your emails to Recipeint’s spam folder, as most email providers, like Gmail and Outlook, use domain age as a weighted factor to determine which emails must be automatically marked as SPAM.

Further frequency of emails determines how likely your emails land in a junk mail folder. It is recommended to send emails no more than once a week but at least once a month, especially in the beginning. It is advised to send emails mid-week on Wednesday or Thursday first thing in the morning. Remember, consistency is the key!

Meanwhile, the quality of your mailing list matters, too. You might have been provided a fake email, or the address could have been mistyped. In any event, sending to the wrong email addresses can result in the blocklisting of your domain. There are standalone email verifiers that don’t have to be installed, and some of them would be able to verify a valid email address from a non-valid one.

  • Measuring and Analyzing Performance

Marketing is only possible if you measure your results. Nearly every email service provider reports data and measures the results of their email campaigns. You can also measure the success of your email marketing efforts using the following metrics:

Delivery rates measure the quality of your domain.

Bounce rates can also determine the quality of your mailing list.

Unsubscribe rates can decide if you’re sending emails too often or not.

Open rates are a measure of your subject line. Use a captivating subject line.

Click-through rates are analyzed to see the effectiveness of your email content.

Conversions can determine the overall constructiveness of your campaigns or emails. This is usually measured in calls, email replies, and booked estimates.

Most email providers issue tools for testing different subject lines and email copies. Use these tools to tweak your content slightly, then analyze the results. Use winning variation for future communications until you have achieved the desired results.

  • Personalize Your Messages

Setting up your marketing emails to incorporate the client’s name, whether in the subject line, as part of the salutation, or preferably both. Studies show that including the customer’s name in the subject line can increase the open rate by 22%.

  • Categorize Your Customer’s Lists.

Clients love to be addressed in their specific needs, which seems impossible when you send out an all-in email blast. Let’s make your email marketing more successful by separating your contacts into categories and sending specialized emails to different contact lists. For instance, you might sell to exterior painting clients differently than those interested in deck staining.

  • Keep It Simple.

Don’t send emails that are overly formal and loaded with flowery language. Say what you want, and do it as plainly as possible, using friendly and familiar words. Make the information “skimmable” with headers, bulleted lists, and photos.

Most importantly, provide clear calls to action to give clients an easy way to reach out. By styling your automated marketing emails to be straightforward and readable, you can increase customer engagement, creating a more successful email campaign.

  • Do Some A/B Testing.

Knowing exactly what words, images, and tactics will make for the most profitable marketing campaign is tricky. That’s why you want to up your chances of drawing in customers through email marketing; a little A/B testing is in order.

This method involves sending out separate emails to different members of your target audience — an ‘A’ version and a ‘B’ version. You can then track the results by checking your opens, click-throughs, and conversions. Knowing which email was most successful will give insight into your preferred format.

  • Pay Attention to Timing.

Are you sending too many emails per week? Too few? The frequency of your marketing emails may have an impact on client interest. You don’t have to make sure your audience is manageable with content, but you want them to remember that you exist.

With testing and feedback, you can find a happy medium that satisfies you and your customers. Determining the best days and times to schedule your marketing emails is also essential. Your best bet is to use a trial-and-error system to determine what works well for your business.

Conclusion

You put in much effort to get contact information from potential clients, even if this is just a first name and email address. Save that information. When they first contacted you, the possible client may have yet to be ready to make a booking.

Keep your connection with them by communicating via email, and when they’re ready, your business will be one of the first to come to mind.

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