It’s a great time of year to take a look at your marketing and see what’s working and what’s not. In this post, I’ve provided some interior design marketing tips that can help you as we head into 2020.
First, I want you to look at your ROI, which is your Return on Investment. When you’re looking at this, it’s not just about money; it’s also about time too. Consider what you are spending money on or spending time on and see what clients have come from that as well as what those clients are worth.
Going through this type of review allows you to make an educated decision about whether what you’re doing is effective or not. If your clients are worth more than what you’re spending for both time and money, keep doing what you’re doing. If you’re not getting the results out of it that you want, it’s time to stop and do something different.
Recognize Those Who Refer Your Business
The next interior design marketing tip I want to share is to remember that referrals are the lifeblood of your business. Lots of people say that they don’t market their business, but they actually do if they have a good referral base because they’re working their referrals. Referrals are the best form of marketing for our type of business.
If you have past clients who have been referring business to you, make sure you remember them during the holiday season. Do something special or clever to grab their attention. Find a way to get in front of them and let them know you really appreciate them referring your business.
Don’t Forget Your Referral Partners
The other interior design marketing tip I want to make sure you recognize is your referral partners. Those are the Realtors or contractors and subcontractors with whom you work with on a particular project. With anybody around you who refers business to you, make sure that you thank them in some way to or do something in return for them.
You want them to know that you truly appreciate them. Building those referral relationships is key to having a design business that has longevity and provides you with a constant flow of clients.
Review Your Website
Another interior design business marketing tip is to take the time to review your website. Review the imagery and consider if you need to do some updating. It’s far better to have a little bit of outstanding photography and good projects you’re proud of than a whole bunch of stuff that isn’t shot particularly well. Having poor imagery or photos doesn’t reflect who you are now or who your clients are, so don’t leave this out of your review.
You will also want to make sure that there’s a ‘Call to Action’ on every page. We also call those CTA’s. A CTA is merely telling your site visitors what you want them to do while they’re on your site. It needs to be done on every single page, and you can do it in a subtle classy way. But you have to tell people what you want them to do, whether it’s to click on a link for an offer or to schedule a call to get in touch with you. If you don’t provide a CTA, you risk them leaving your site without taking action, so this is an essential piece to your website.
Another part of your website to review is to ensure that its content supports or connects directly to your ideal client. It should speak to the type of people you really want to work with. Sometimes web writers don’t understand our type of business and seem to direct our efforts towards a lower-end client, which doesn’t really work for us when we’re trying to upscale our income. Be sure to take a look at that and see if the content on your site makes sense for your business.
Get Help with Getting Clients & Making More Money
At Interior Design Business Academy, we have a Growth program that is focused on getting clients and making money. Getting clients is all about marketing. It’s all about discovering who is your ideal client and making sure all your efforts are directed towards that type of client. That way, you can get them to come to your business on a regular basis. This is essential to increasing your income levels.
Making more money is about learning to talk confidently about money, getting a budget agreement from a client, and being able to call out a fee confidently. We call it ‘Pass the Salt,’ which I’ll explain in more detail at another time. Essentially, it’s about using a tone of voice that allows you to confidently state a really big number to a client. We do a lot of practice around that.
What happens when you learn these pieces, and you learn how to write a letter of agreement that has good boundaries in it, you make way more money in way less time. It’s a simple, streamlined system. And if that sounds interesting to you, then perhaps you should talk to us. Click on the link below, and it will take you to a page that tells you more about the program.
If it’s something you’re interested in, then click on the link at the bottom of that page, and it will take you to the calendar to book an appointment to discuss everything in more detail.
Until then, design something beautiful, and get paid what you’re worth.