The painting contractor's year: exterior season, interior season and how to survive January
A month by month marketing plan for painting companies, when to move ad budget from exterior to interior and cabinets, and the referrals that fill winter.
Painting is two businesses wearing one uniform. From spring through early fall you sell exteriors, weather governs everything, and you turn work away. From November through February the exterior phone stops, and whether that period is a quiet stretch or a crisis was decided by what you did in September.
The trap is that most contractors market hardest in June, when they are already booked, and stop marketing in November, when they need it.
The calendar, by climate
Adjust the months to your region, but the shape holds:
Northern and mountain markets. Exterior demand searches begin climbing in late February, real work starts in April, peaks June to August, and stops with the first hard freeze in late October. Interior runs November through March. Cabinets are strongest December through February.
Southern and coastal markets. Exterior work runs almost year round but demand dips in the deep heat of July and August and again around the holidays. Interior peaks October through January.
Everywhere. Homeowners search six to eight weeks before they want the work done. That is the number that matters, because it means your advertising has to lead the season, not follow it.
What to advertise, and when
- January and February. Cabinet refinishing and interior. This is the highest margin quarter if you sell it. Also the quarter to book March and April exteriors at a booking discount.
- March through May. Exterior, heavily. Search volume is climbing and competition has not fully woken up. Ad costs are lowest in March and highest in June.
- June through August. Exterior at a maintenance budget. You do not need to buy leads you cannot schedule. Instead, raise prices and push the estimate follow-up sequence, because in peak season the constraint is close rate, not lead volume.
- September and October. The most important eight weeks of the year. Sell the remaining exterior slots on a real deadline and start the interior campaign early. Everything below happens now.
- November and December. Interior, cabinets, and the reactivation of past customers. Holiday framing works: rooms painted before family arrives.
The September pivot, in four moves
1. Sell the deadline. "We have four exterior slots before the weather turns, and after that we are into spring." That is true in most markets and it moves fence sitters faster than any discount. Put it in your ads, your Google posts and your follow-up texts.
2. Text every past customer. Pull everyone you painted in the last three years. One message, sent in small batches from your business number:
"Hi [name], [your name] from [company]. We painted your exterior in 2023. We are booking interior work for the fall now, and the weeks before Thanksgiving go first. Want me to hold a date? Two rooms, walls and trim, runs about $[price]."
Expect one in eight to one in five to book. On a list of 250 past customers that is 30 to 50 jobs before you spend anything on advertising. It is the cheapest work you will ever do.
3. Move the ad budget rather than cutting it. Shift spend from exterior ad groups to interior and cabinet ad groups in mid September, do not pause the account. Pausing resets campaign learning and costs you two weeks in February getting it back. The structure that makes this a five minute change is in the Google Ads guide.
4. Book the referral channels now, not in December. Which brings us to the part most painting companies never build.
Realtors and property managers are the winter answer
Two channels, both worth more in January than any ad account, and both requiring a personal ask rather than a campaign.
Realtors. Every listing that needs a repaint before photos is a two to four day interior job on a hard deadline, and the agent needs it done in a week. What an agent wants is a phone that answers, a fixed price for common scopes, and a crew that will not embarrass them. Bring a one-page sheet: "Whole interior repaint, 1,800 sq ft, neutral, $3,900, five working days from deposit." Then attend one office meeting a month at two brokerages. Five active agents will generate a steady trickle of turn work and a stream of homeowner referrals on the side.
Property managers. Better than realtors for volume and worse for margin, which is a fine trade in January. A manager with 60 doors turns 15 to 20 units a year and every one needs an interior repaint on a 48-hour window. Bring a unit price sheet, not a brochure:
| Unit | Price | Turn |
|---|---|---|
| 1 bed, walls and ceilings | $650 | 1 day |
| 2 bed, walls and ceilings | $850 | 2 days |
| Add trim and doors | $220 | same |
Ask for one trial unit rather than the account. Managers switch painters constantly because contractors miss the turn date; hit the first one exactly and you will get the rest.
Start these conversations in September. A property manager relationship takes 60 to 90 days to produce real volume, which means a December start is a March payoff.
Two more winter fillers
Commercial and office repaints. Offices, medical suites and restaurants schedule painting in slow periods and after hours, and they pay net 30 without haggling. One decent commercial account carries a crew through a slow month.
Prebooked spring exteriors at a booking rate. In January, offer a discount to sign now for an April date, with the deposit taken now. You fill the spring calendar, get cash in the slow month, and remove the March scramble.
What to spend
A rough annual split for a company doing 15 projects a month: 40% of the marketing budget between February and May, 20% June to August, 30% September and October, 10% November through January. Notice that the two months most contractors go quiet get more budget than the two months they usually go loudest.
Frequently asked
Should I pause Google Ads in December? No. Reduce the daily budget and switch to interior and cabinet ad groups. Pausing forfeits the campaign history you paid for.
Do I discount to fill winter? Prefer scope changes and prebooking incentives to rate cuts. Discounting your rate in January teaches your market to wait for January. The tier structure in the pricing guide gives you room to move without cutting.
Which channel first if I only have time for one? Past customer reactivation in September. It costs nothing, it uses a list you already own, and it usually books more work than a month of ads. Where your listing sits against the field is in the benchmark report.
If you want the seasonal ad schedule, the reactivation campaign and the referral outreach run for you, they are part of the free 14-day trial. Text or call (385) 832-6175.