There are many fun things to do in the winter, like enjoying winter sports such as skiing and snowboarding, forming snow angels, building snowmen, and attending winter festivals and gatherings with friends and family. However, a paint job for the house’s exterior is not one of these options. Given the cold and wet weather, most painters avoid working on exteriors throughout the winter. While a break from work is always good, taking three months off can be tedious and, worst of all, cause a drop in revenue. Painting contractors may find compensating for lost revenue during this period challenging. However, there are ways for painting contractors to keep busy in winter. To find out what they are, we scoured online resources for the painting industry, and here’s how painting contractors can adapt their operations to remain active despite the cold season.
How can painting contractors keep busy in the winter?
Winter can be a rough time for painting contractors in cold climates. In cold weather, exterior work can’t be done. Therefore the same number of painters are competing for fewer job openings. As a result, employment drops, and price competition rises, reducing profits. So how to stand out among the competition when the cold weather strikes?
But it doesn’t have to be that bad because there are ways for painting contractors to keep busy in winter. So here are six simple tips to help you survive the winter months with minimal stress and maximum income.
#1 Offer winter discounts
One of the best ways to attract more customers is to lower your prices. Winter is a great time to offer holiday discounts. There are many options for reaching out to potential customers, including email campaigns to your existing customer list, Google My Business Offers, Facebook offers (in addition to regular postings), website overlays that pop up for new visitors, and so on.
#2 Focus on your marketing
Inevitably, you’ll have less work during winter, so why not take that free time and put it to good use? Don’t pass up this chance to ramp up your marketing efforts. You can enhance search engine optimization (SEO) by going through your website and updating the keywords and internal links.
In reality, boosting your SEO can help you increase the number of visitors to your website and attract new job opportunities during winter. The expert team from spydermoving.com advised that focusing their marketing efforts on boosting SEO during slower months helped boost the number of customers. Movers can relate when it comes to how slow winters can be.
Another good idea is to create and disseminate a company newsletter to become more hands-on with marketing. Do something productive with the blog you’ve been ignoring. Get more active on different social media platforms. You can never do enough to spread the word about your company, and you’ll never know who you will eventually reach.
#3 Do more interior work
It’s obvious that given that weather is preventing you from working outdoors, you should switch your focus to indoor jobs. Therefore, if you want to put your skills and supplies, you should start advertising for interior painting jobs.
Although this generates less revenue than exterior work, it is an excellent opportunity to network with potential clients, maintain a presence in the neighborhood, and keep your team busy. This time of year is ideal for prioritizing interior painting.
#4 Reach out to old customers
At first, it may be intimidating to go out to prior clients and ask for employment, but those who have previously worked with you provide the best opportunities. There is a good probability that they will wish to hire you for other projects if they have worked with you before.
That is also a fantastic method to keep yourself in their minds when they have future service needs. You can break the ice by emailing them if you haven’t spoken to them in a while. Include a greeting card to mark the holiday season, and your email will surely not go unnoticed. It’s OK to be honest about your sluggish season and that you’re trying to find ways to keep your stellar staff active.
#5 Market to apartment complexes
A great way to acquire more interior painting jobs and get your business involved in a local community is to offer your services to apartment complexes. Due to the amount of work involved, you can set lower pricing for your services while reaping substantial financial rewards. The trick is to keep your best players from heading south for the winter. They can stay active and prepared for the next season by doing light apartment jobs over the winter.
#6 Offer other cold weather services
Put up holiday lights to spread joy and get into the season’s spirit. There is a significant market for contractors because most individuals don’t like to brave the cold to put up their lights. So prepare your staff to install lights, create leaflets, and send them to your most valuable customers. In addition to keeping your employees busy, this is an excellent opportunity to generate new business for the painting and other services you do.
Wrapping up
As you can see, there are plenty of ways for painting contractors to keep busy in winter. So whether you’re running a successful team or doing this on your own, you can surely do plenty to maintain a steady income even during the slow season. And don’t forget to use the downtime you have to work on your online presence. That is a surefire way to stand out among the competition and attract potential customers to your business.