Keeping business in the black — and brown, and blue

Businesses in the Columbia City, Indiana and Goshen, Indiana areas operating in today’s competitive environment aren’t just competing with each other. They’re also seeking to improve customer experience within their own spheres of operation – making sure that a bricks and mortar shop is a destination that sees foot traffic rather than just online sales, or looking at creative ways to draw people into a restaurant booth rather than conveniently ordering pizza delivery.

So now may be a good time to step out to the curb for a critical look at what your customers see, no matter if you’re a florist or a financial advisor. Since we run a local business at Matthews Painting too, we’re especially attuned to how color, lighting, cleanliness and décor contribute to first impressions.

Particularly with millennials, there’s been a lot of attention this month to stories about how younger diners are killing chain restaurants, and there’s at least one valid point in the logic: experience. “When you make plans to go out for dinner what do you base your decisions on?” asked Carissa Lintad, writing for The Next Web. “I’ll break it down for you in one sentence; the restaurant’s environment. In other words, how instagrammable the experience is.” The same truth holds for anyone running a business.

If you want customers to step inside – usually after seeing online images and reviews first – then you want to be sure your exterior paint is nearly perfect. It’s worth the investment in a professional team that can identify water damage to an outdoor seating deck, repair weathered surfaces on those street-facing walls, and properly prepare for a smooth paint application that makes your firm stand out. When it looks crisp, clean and well-maintained, businesses are likely to see a boost in sales and profits.

A 2015 study in Philadelphia found that storefront improvements led to a double-digit rise in receipts in more than one corridor studied. The stores also spurred neighboring businesses to improve their own scenes, contributed to overall screetscape improvements, and raised nearby residential property values too. Many cities, including those in Northeast Indiana, offer façade grants to help with the upgrade costs.

Those are quantifiable realities. Yet customer experience is about how people feel, and the exterior of your business, just as much as the all-important interior, is where you begin to tell your company’s story. The street-art mural featuring parrots and pastel colors makes sense for a summer nightspot inspired by Key West, but it’s not the right choice for a fine dining establishment experience that consumers expect. So it’s not just the nuts and bolts of the façade improvement, and the expected return on investment, but the paint as a marketing tool in decisions made about customer experience.

When you’re booking clients and crunching inventory numbers, you’re not likely to think about paint colors. Yet the author of one University of New Hampshire research study explored the touchy-feely data about color to understand atmospherics from a marketing standpoint and help businesses succeed.

After looking at the exterior colors and logos of the Top 100 chain restaurants in the United States, the study found that red – a signal for action and arousal, as well as hunger – made sense for the eateries. But cooler colors, linked with increased retail purchases and the invitation to browse, is what an apparel or home furnishings store might find better. If your business needs to inspire trust and confidence, as with medical offices or financial services, a more muted monochromatic approach with touches of sophisticated black trim may work.

Whatever the decision, the bottom line is, well, your bottom line. That’s why the professionals at Matthews Painting stand ready to support you in achieving your goals.  Matthews Painting is  now expanding our interior and exterior wall, ceiling, trim, door, window and kitchen cabinet painting and staining, wallpaper removal, drywall repair, deck staining and sealing and log Home staining and sealing into the Goshen, Indiana and Columbia City Indiana areas.