Painting is planned work, and it gets quote-shopped harder than almost any other trade. A homeowner thinking about a repaint will usually get three quotes, look at the photos, read the reviews and sit on it for a fortnight. The painter who wins isn’t always the cheapest. It’s usually the one who looked the most professional, answered first and stayed in touch.
This guide is for owners of painting and decorating businesses who want more of the right jobs. (If you’re a painter looking for a job or subcontract work on someone else’s crew, Seek and Trade Me Jobs are where NZ painting companies hire. This one’s about filling your own calendar.)
Our bias, up front: we’re a marketing agency that builds lead generation for trade businesses, painters included. Plenty of what follows costs nothing but time.
Start with the work you actually want
“More painting jobs” is too vague to market. Decide which jobs make you money, then aim everything below at them:
- Type: exterior repaints, interiors, roofs, new builds for builders, commercial, or specialist work like wallpapering and spray finishes.
- Size: the smallest job worth setting up for, and the biggest your crew can carry.
- Area: how far you’ll travel before the day rate stops working.
- Client: homeowners, property managers, builders, body corporates or businesses.
A painter chasing high-end villa restorations markets differently from one chasing quick rental turnarounds. Both are good businesses. They just need different channels.
Plan around the seasons
Exterior work clusters in the warmer, drier months, and interior work fills the gaps when the weather turns. Most painters let the season happen to them. Plan for it instead:
- Late winter: book spring and summer exteriors now. Homeowners who start thinking about a repaint when the sun comes out find the good painters already booked.
- Spring and summer: spend your marketing on exteriors and roofs, when people are looking at their houses and searching for painters.
- Autumn: start pushing interiors. Email past exterior clients and offer to book their inside work for winter.
- Winter: chase interiors, commercial work and property managers, and quote next season’s exteriors.
1. Turn every job into the next one
Painting has a built-in advantage: your work is on show. An exterior repaint gets looked at by every neighbour on the street for weeks.
- Work the street. With the client’s permission, put a site sign up while you’re on the job, and drop a short note in neighbouring letterboxes: who you are, what you’re doing next door, and how to get a quote.
- Ask at the walk-through. The day the scaffolding comes down is the day the client is happiest. Ask for a Google review on the spot (copy-paste templates here) and ask who else is planning work.
- Keep a past-clients list. The client who loved their exterior will want the inside done. A short email when you have winter gaps fills them with people who already trust you.
- Look after the other trades. Painters are usually the last trade on site. Builders, plasterers, electricians and roofers get asked “who do you use for painting?” every week. Turn up when you say you will and leave the site clean, and you become the answer.
2. Get in front of people who hire painters over and over
One property manager can be worth a dozen homeowners. Rental changeovers, pre-sale touch-ups and insurance repairs all need a painter, often at short notice. Real estate agents get asked for painter recommendations before every listing. Body corporates and apartment managers run maintenance programmes years ahead.
Introduce yourself in person, make it easy to book you (a clear price for common jobs, fast turnaround, photos before and after), and send an invoice that’s tidy enough to pass straight to the owner. Reliability is what these clients buy.
3. Use the brand programmes, and say what they mean
New Zealand homeowners know the paint brands, and the brands run programmes that send painters enquiries. Each one has its own find-a-painter listing:
- Master Painters NZ. Members can offer the Master Painters 5-Year Workmanship Guarantee, and homeowners can find members by area.
- Dulux Accredited Painter. Accredited painters must hold public liability insurance of at least $2 million, can offer a 5 Year Workmanship Warranty, and are listed in Dulux’s Find a Painter by region.
- Resene Eco.Decorator. Painters are assessed on work practices, waste management and project sign-off, offer a workmanship guarantee of at least two years, and appear in Find an Eco.Decorator.
Check each programme’s current requirements before you join. Once you’re in, don’t just paste the logo on your van. Explain the guarantee in plain words on your website and in every quote. A homeowner comparing three quotes understands “five years on workmanship” far better than a badge.
4. Write a quote that wins on more than price
Because painting is quote-shopped, the quote itself is a marketing document. The ones that win usually show:
- The preparation, step by step. Prep is where cheap quotes cut corners, and homeowners know it.
- The paint system by name: product, colour, number of coats. Naming a premium Resene or Dulux system tells the client exactly what they’re paying for.
- Lead paint, handled properly. WorkSafe advises that if a building was built in the 1980s or earlier, it’s best to presume it has lead-based paint. On an older villa or bungalow, a line in your quote about how you’ll test for it and contain the dust shows you know what you’re doing. Many quotes say nothing.
- Working at height. In New Zealand there’s no minimum height below which a fall risk can be ignored. Say how you’ll access the job safely, whether that’s scaffolding, edge protection or other gear, and include it in the price.
- Your guarantee and what it covers.
Send it fast, ideally within a day or two of the site visit. Our free quote template and pricing guide covers charge-out rates and terms.
5. Get found on Google
When someone searches “house painters near me” or “exterior painter” plus their suburb, the map pack (the three businesses under the map) takes a big share of the attention. Your Google Business Profile is that listing, and it’s free. Fill in every field, list your service areas and add before and after photos every week in season. Reviews that mention the job (“our weatherboards”, “the whole interior”) help with both ranking and trust. If you’re filled in and still not showing, here’s how to diagnose it.
Then make your website do the selling: a page for each service you want more of (exteriors, interiors, roofs, commercial), job pages with before and after photos and the suburb, your guarantee near the top, a tap-to-call number and a short quote form that asks the right questions (interior or exterior, rough size, timing).
6. Google Ads for painters, minus the job seekers
Google Ads puts you at the top of the page for people searching for a painter today, and you can turn it up in spring and back in winter. Our Google Ads cost guide covers what clicks cost in NZ.
One warning from our own ad account. Keywords like “painting contracts” and “find painting work” pulled in searches such as “subcontract painters wanted auckland” and “painting contractors wanted”: painters looking for work, not homeowners looking for a painter. We saw the same with builders and wrote up the numbers here. Add negative keywords from day one (jobs, “painter job”, wanted, hiring, apprentice, subcontract, salary, course) and check the search terms report weekly for the first month.
One more thing: you may read that Google’s Local Services Ads work well for painters. That advice is from the US. Local Services Ads aren’t available in New Zealand, so in NZ it’s standard Google Ads and your Business Profile.
7. Facebook and Instagram for planned work
Painting is the kind of job people think about for months, which suits Facebook and Instagram well. Before and after photos, a short video of a weatherboard transformation and a walk-through of a finished interior build familiarity long before someone is ready to call. Paid ads push that content to homeowners in your area. Run them ahead of the season, and keep the budget sensible: under $20 a day rarely reaches enough people often enough to work.
8. Platforms and tenders
These fill gaps. They shouldn’t be the foundation:
- Job marketplaces like Builderscrack and painter-specific lead sites get you quoting fast, but you’re usually competing with other painters for the same job. Judge any platform by cost per won job over a fair sample. Our Builderscrack breakdown shows how to do the maths.
- Commercial tenders. GETS (the Government Electronic Tenders Service) is free. Set notifications for painting and maintenance work in your region to see council and government jobs as they’re advertised.
Which channels work, and how fast
| Channel | How fast | Cost | You own it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neighbours, past clients, other trades | Weeks | Time only | Yes |
| Property managers and agents | Months | Time only | Yes |
| Brand programmes (Master Painters, Dulux, Resene) | Months | Membership or accreditation | Partly |
| Google Business Profile and reviews | 1 to 3 months | Free | Yes |
| Website with job pages | 3 to 6 months for search | Build plus hosting | Yes |
| Google Ads | Days | Clicks plus management | Yes, if the account is in your name |
| Facebook and Instagram | Weeks | $20 a day or more | Yes |
| Builderscrack and lead sites | Days | Pay per lead or job | No |
| GETS tenders | Varies | Time to tender | Partly |
The multiplier: follow-up
In a trade where every homeowner gets three quotes, the job often goes to whoever is still in touch two weeks later. A quote that’s gone quiet isn’t a no. The client is busy, waiting on the other two quotes, or still arguing about colours.
- Reply to every enquiry fast, even if it’s only to book the site visit. If you can’t get to the phone up a ladder, here are the options.
- Chase every quote until it’s a yes or a no. Do you actually follow up your leads? walks through a 15-minute check on last month’s quotes.
- Don’t rely on memory. In peak season, follow-up is the first thing to slip.
That’s why we build automatic follow-up into the systems we set up for painters: an instant email reply to every website enquiry, then a sequence that keeps chasing until the client books or says no (or chases for about a week and then sends a polite final email).
How to get more painting jobs: FAQ
How do I promote my painting business?
Start with your work: site signs and neighbour notes while you’re on a job, before and after photos on your Google Business Profile, Facebook and Instagram, and a review asked for at every walk-through. Then add a brand programme, a website with job pages, and Google Ads in season.
How do I find clients as a painter?
Homeowners find painters on Google, through neighbours and through brand directories like Master Painters, Dulux and Resene. Repeat clients come from property managers, real estate agents, builders and body corporates. Work both: the homeowners fill your season, the repeat clients fill the gaps.
How can I get painting leads for free?
Your Google Business Profile, reviews, neighbours on the street you’re working on, past clients, other trades and property managers. None of them cost money. All of them take consistency, especially asking for the review every time.
How much should a painter charge per day?
It depends on your costs, your crew and the margin you need, so work out your own charge-out rate rather than copying someone else’s. Our quote template and pricing guide walks through how. Then win on the quote itself, not on being cheapest.
Is Builderscrack worth it for painters?
It can fill gaps, especially in your first year, but you pay to compete with other painters for the same job. Track your cost per won job after a fair sample and compare it with what the same money would do in your own Google Ads.
Want this mapped onto your business, your area and the jobs you want more of? Get a free leads audit: 20 minutes with Ryan or Matt, your actual numbers, no obligation. For more on how we work with painters, see painter lead generation.