.png)
No matter the size or scope of your interior design business, having a comprehensive marketing plan is essential to effective and successful management of it. Developing a well-crafted marketing plan helps to ensure that you’re getting the most bang for your buck when it comes to spreading the word about your business and bringing in clients.
When you don’t have a marketing plan in place for your interior design business, you run the risk of making costly mistakes. Without an effective strategy to rely on, you’re essentially flying blind - leaving it up to chance as to whether or not your marketing efforts will reach the right people and yield positive results.
In this article, you will learn how to create a strong marketing foundation for your interior design business and how to use that information to create effective marketing content that drives results.
Step One: Setting Goals and Metrics
Establishing goals is an essential step in creating a strong marketing foundation for your interior design business. Having clear objectives to work towards will help ensure that all of your efforts are focused on achieving the desired results - and can be measured along the way.
Having these laid out beforehand also helps create a sense of purpose and responsibility, empowering you with the knowledge that each effort made is contributing to a larger picture.
Start by writing down your top 3 business goals. Do you want to increase your brand awareness? Are you looking to drive traffic to your website? Or, are you wanting to create a community around your brand?
Once you have your top three goals written down, ask yourself, “what action needs to happen in order to reach that goal.” For example, if your number one goal is to increase your brand awareness, then the action needed to meet that goal is to increase your visibility.
Now it’s time for you to consider how you can facilitate the action needed to reach your goal. Still using the goal of increased brand awareness, you can brainstorm ideas.
Examples:
Post more frequently on Instagram
Review current hashtag strategy on Instagram
Implement a Pinterest Strategy
Run a paid awareness campaign on Facebook
Pitch yourself as a guest on a podcast
Collaborate with bigger brands
Now, this is the part where I warn you NOT to try all of these ideas at once. It will get become overwhelming, and you will end up abandoning all of the ideas. Stick to one or two and master those approaches before trying something new.
After you have decided which strategy or strategies you will be using, it’s time to determine what metrics you will track to ensure that your strategy is working. This will depend on the strategy that you are using. If, for example, your strategy for increasing your brand awareness is to post more frequently on Instagram, then you would need to determine how many times you are going to post and then check at the end of the month that you are reaching your target number of posts. In addition, you would also want to check your Insights at the end of each month to see if your Reach and Impressions went up by increasing your posting frequency.
Step Two: Getting Clear on Who Your Ideal Client Is
Knowing your ideal client is an important part of creating a successful marketing foundation for your interior design business. By understanding the needs and wants of your target audience, you can craft content that will be most effective in engaging them and generating leads. With the right approach, you can maximize the impact of your marketing investments, save time and money, and ensure you’re focusing on nurturing your audience to build trust.
Creating an ideal client avatar is a great way to get a better understanding of your target market and how you can best serve their needs. By looking at a customer’s individual pain points, needs, aspirations, and any other relevant information, you can craft messaging that resonates with them.
Start by brainstorming some general data points about your ideal customer. This could include things like age range, gender, income, location or anything else that you think might be relevant to your business. You should also consider their interests and lifestyle - this could help inform the types of content they would be interested in engaging with.
Once you have all of this basic information down, it’s time to start adding more detail. Ask questions such as ‘what are their current problems?’ or ‘what have they tried before that didn't work?'.
Knowing the answers to these questions can help you craft solutions directly tailored for them and address any pain points quickly in order to build trust between you and the customer.
Need help creating your Ideal Client Avatar? Download our free ICA Guide. This guide will help you create your ICA and provides 3 Instagram caption templates to create content around your ICA.
Step Three: Establish Your Content Pillars
Creating content pillars as part of a marketing foundation for an interior design business is one of the most powerful ways to engage existing customers and draw in potential ones.
Not only does having thought-out, strategic content pillars provide clarity when formulating marketing content, but it also streamlines the creation process. Content pillars can act like a roadmap in helping you stay focused on creating consistent content that resonates with the needs and interests of your ideal clients.
Content pillars give you a clear focus when it comes to creating consistent content that resonates with the needs and interests of your ideal clients. Before you begin, take some time to brainstorm what you want your brand to be known for and what sets you apart from other interior designers.
Once you’ve got a few ideas down on paper, start narrowing them down until you have three core topics that best represent the goals of your interior design business. These three core topics will form the basis for all the content you’ll create moving forward and should reflect your unique style as a designer.
Now it’s time to define exactly what each pillar will cover - start by asking yourself:
Who What When Where Why How
This will get you started in how to create content around your content pillar. Consider writing separate outlines for each topic so that there’s an easier reference point when crafting your content moving forward.
By following these steps correctly, establishing three meaningful content pillars as part of your interior design marketing foundation can become more manageable without sacrificing creativity or effectiveness - helping set up success both now and in the future!
Conclusion
Crafting a strong marketing foundation for your interior design business is key to ensuring that you’re getting the most out of your time and money spent on marketing. From setting goals and metrics that are specific to your brand, to understanding who your ideal customer is and creating content based on their needs, having a comprehensive strategy in place can ensure greater success and ROI when it comes to promoting your business.
Taking the time to research, plan, and create a well-crafted marketing plan can mean the difference between just surviving and truly thriving as an interior designer - so don’t leave it up to chance!
