Paint can do more than just hide drywall seams and protect surfaces. Strategically positioning paint and color can offer unique opportunities to increase buyer satisfaction — as well as profitability.

What’s the most profitable way to paint a new home? While there are a host of factors, from choosing a skilled contractor to partnering with a trusted paint manufacturer, don’t overlook other ideas like offering an expanded color palette or offering higher-quality paint. Better yet, don’t overlook a third even more powerful option - offer a combination of an expanded color palette with higher-quality paint. Differentiating your homes by offering unique paint and color upgrade packages can help close deals, add value and drive profits. Here’s how to capitalize on these opportunities for your business:

Use paint color to connect with homebuyers

While buyers choose homes for a variety of reasons — location, design options, attractive floor plans — they have to be able to visualize themselves living the lifestyle they aspire to in that new home. As homebuyers picture family moments and new traditions in a home, they also visualize the furniture and accessories that will frame those moments. Color is a powerful tool to help buyers build an emotional connection with the space you’re creating for them.

More than ever, buyers are connecting with social media for design and decorating inspiration. That means they can have higher expectations for color and finish options. From traditional to trendy, familiar to flexible, offering appealing colors that appeal to your target market’s design preferences is smart marketing.

How to make it work: Offering a range of color options for interior paint is an attractive way to help owners customize their new homes, and can differentiate you from other builders in the market. Consider a standard interior color, and then offer an expanded range of more rich and on-trend colors as an upgrade palette. Be conservative with upcharges: while they can add profit, going too far can leave buyers feeling nickel-and-dimed.

Combine paint color options with higher-quality paint to add value

A more effective way to position expanded color offerings is to bundle them into an upgrade package with higher-quality paint. By offering paint with enhanced durability and washability, your buyers will get a wall finish that withstands the rigors of everyday living. Every surface in your home makes an impact so be sure the walls in your home reflect the quality of your workmanship. Combining exceptional paint performance, with the colors your buyers prefer, provides an upgrade with real benefits to a homeowner — and becomes even more profitable for you.

Choosing a quality paint that is readily available to homeowners in a specialty paint store — like Sherwin-Williams Cashmere^® Interior Acrylic Latex or Emerald^® Interior Latex Acrylic — is key. Buyers can research paint performance, and discover their cost to paint the house in the same coating (at retail price) would be significantly higher than where you’ve priced the upgrade.

The option to get a more durable, livable coating will appeal to savvy homeowners looking for more than “builder basic” standards. With satisfied homeowners being your best salespeople, offering coatings that both meet their color preferences and durability expectations can be a great marketing investment.

How to make it work: Imagine offering a $2,500 upgrade of Sherwin-Williams Cashmere^® packaged with an expanded palette of eight colors.

Even after accounting for the slight price-per-gallon increase for the paint and any additional labor costs from managing the expanded color offering, there will still be profit left over for you and your painting contractor. And because upgrade pricing can be dependent upon many factors — one-or two-color systems, application process specifics, market dynamics — there’s a lot of flexibility on how you implement this upgrade in your business.

How to get started

Sherwin-Williams Color and Design Services can help you select the ideal upgrade palette, create color selection tools that highlight your upgrade offering, and help you position your choice of higher-quality paint with buyers.

Talk to your local Sherwin-Williams Representative, or contact us to have a Representative contact you.