Marketing for Interior Design Businesses - No or Go? An Honest Conversation.

You may find yourself getting completely tangled up in the intricacies of the process which, quite frankly, can be exhausting.

Amid all of this, how can you dig up even more time to market your business while handling multiple projects at once? Not to mention, you have to find out and research various ways to market, figure out the most suitable marketing tactics for your company, and find a marketing agency for interior designers in your budget.

And after everything, are the results even guaranteed? We feel you.

But what if we told you there is a solution to your predicament? While we can’t save you from the ups and downs of running a business, we can tell you what to expect from your marketing efforts and how to guarantee good results.

One of the biggest reasons most marketing efforts fail is the lack of trust in the process itself. Never opt for marketing your business if you don’t have full faith in its power or if you consider it an insignificant part of your business.

Now, you may wonder - “How does it matter what I feel about marketing? If marketing works, it will work regardless of my faith in it.”

While marketing itself works regardless of your faith in it, you can’t market your business without believing in it. Marketing requires effort and patience; many people may get disheartened if they don’t see exaggerated results right away.

You can’t market at night and expect a client in the morning. Marketing is the process of nurturing your business over a period of time to start seeing results. It may seem slow at first but its impact will give you results for a long period.

It’s like nurturing your body with good food and exercise for years - it takes consistency to see a noticeable difference. Do you start feeling strong right after your first day at the gym? But give it some time and you will see the results.

The same goes for marketing. If you have decided to go for it, prepare yourself for a long-term commitment to see lasting results. Give it time to grow, and your business will emerge stronger.

One of the most confounding things about marketing is not knowing whether it’s even working or not in real-time. You may invest countless hours, vast capital, and unfathomable resources without having a way to know if they are working to bring you business or not.

Sadly, this is also the space where mistakes happen. Since it can be difficult for many small businesses to realistically assess their marketing investments, there is also a lot of scope for scams, exploitation, and abuse of trust. In many cases, business might stop their marketing efforts just when they might have started seeing the results.

So how can you take advantage of marketing without falling for the self-serving schemes of many agencies or getting disheartened by delayed results? STEER CLEAR of generic marketing tactics!

Did someone just sell you a social media marketing strategy and promise to make you viral? Or did an agency ask you to go for Google and Facebook ads without really checking if you even need them? Or did you decide to get a website for your interior design business because your competitors are doing the same?

Marketing starts working for you when you play your cards right. Rid yourself of the sheep mentality and invest time in educating yourself about the marketing tactics suited for your business needs.

You don’t have to get a degree or a masterclass in marketing; simply start by defining your business needs. And trust me, half your marketing is done right there.

Impactful marketing is nothing but developing a clear understanding of your business goals, limitations, and capacity.

While it can be difficult to take on the entirety of marketing responsibilities while running a full-time business, you can still make the best of your time by outlining your business goals clearly.

Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself before you go looking for a marketing agency for your interior design firm:

Why Are You Opting For Marketing?

Is it because your business genuinely needs it because of peer pressure? Ask yourself some vital questions about your business goals and figure out why you should or should not buy marketing services at the current stage of your business.

Make sure your reason for investing in marketing is strong and clear. In ideal situations, marketing should be picked up because you have to solve a problem or achieve a clearly defined goal. If you are opting for marketing because everybody else is doing it, then you might get trapped in generic marketing tactics that will barely give you results.

You have to have a clear and actionable answer like increasing brand awareness, getting more clients, or changing client perception.

What Are You Willing To Invest?

Investments aren’t always monetary in nature - they are also in the form of time, resources, and simply the headspace given in your mind. You have to lay your cards on the table regarding your investments.

If you have neither budget nor resources to spare, marketing will not work for you. A lot of your decisions depend on the investments you are willing to make.

Are you going to outsource your entire marketing process to an external agency? Are you going to outsource only a part of your marketing process to a partner and carry on the rest in-house?

If so, do you have the resources to watch over the in-house team to look after your marketing? What if you run out of budget before just when you start getting the marketing to work?

These are important questions to ask yourself before you make any critical choice.

Do You Have A Defined Budget?

This is crucial. Most companies have no idea how much this can help them out. A certain percentage of your profit should go into marketing your business - never more than that and never less than that.

Marketing gives you benefits but not in a direct way and definitely not too quickly; it’s a game of patience. What does this mean?

It means good marketing can always bring clients to your website or Instagram page, but whether you make a sale is a whole other thing.

Sales and marketing are two different parts of a business; even if marketing works well for you, you might not always end up making a sale. So make sure you have the budget that you can invest and forget about it for a while.

Don’t expect to get immediate ROI from marketing because while the number of leads you get may depend on marketing, your profits depend on your ability to turn your leads into paid customers.

What Are Your Limitations?

When playing a gamble, you only stake what you can afford to lose - that’s your limitation. Make sure you know your limitations as a business.

Marketing is indeed an important part of growing your interior design business, but in the end, it’s not the only part that can bear the weight of your expectations - every part of your business should be working towards that.

If you don’t have a strong enough sales team to turn your leads into paying clients, or you don’t have a big enough team of designers to be able to serve every converted client, then you should think about working on those aspects as well.

No matter how well marketing might be working, these two limitations alone can hinder the growth of your business. Before you take the plunge, make sure you have your limitations sorted and managed.

Companies will always tell you what to do; here’s something you should not do: never close a contract with an agency that presents you with a proposal in the very first meeting.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are trying to scam you, but it does mean that they might not be thorough with their process. First-meet proposals are often templatized, generic, and not targeted to reach your unique business goal.

Deals with such companies can be a hit-and-miss; they are as likely to deliver great results as they are likely to disappoint you.

There are very few companies (often with great reputations, big budgets, and sharp expertise) that can pull off the first meet proposals without future disappointments. In most cases, though, the best agencies will take their time understanding your business needs first.

A company dedicated to bringing you money will ensure they understand your business to the core. Keep an eye out for these green flags found in the best marketing agencies for interior designers:

A. They are more interested in hearing about your business rather than telling you about their own. You will notice the right agency asking you essential questions related to your business goals, limitations, and commitment to marketing efforts.

B. They ascertain if you even need these services or not, to begin with. Compatibility in terms of services and requirements of those services are of prime importance to companies that are dedicated to delivering good results.

C. They don’t mince their words when it comes to reality checks. If your agency can honestly tell you how long it will take them to bring results, then you have found the right partner.

D. They do not sell you every service they have. Every company has a different need, goals, and limitations. The right agency will hear you out, ask you important questions about your business, and then sell you only the services that align well with your goals.

E. They are not afraid to disagree with you. When it comes to marketing, their goal is to bring you business, not to appease you. Sometimes, that means having to disagree with you in favour of doing the right thing for your business.

F. They suggest the right solutions, not the popular ones. One shoe never fits all and the right agency will know this. They will use targeted marketing tactics that can vary from popular methods but are more suitable to your interior design business goals.

Work needs to speak for itself, but it is just as important to give your work a platform to speak for itself. That’s what marketing does for your interior design business - it gives you a platform to show your potential clients how good your work is. Marketing has its ups and downs, but do it right and you will have your business booming even in the worst of times.

We hope to have cleared much of your doubts about marketing but if you are still on the fence about it, then give yourself some time and don’t take hasty decisions.

Never invest in something that you are not hundred per cent sure about - your doubts are nothing but a sign that you still have loose ends to tie.

Marketing is too important a part of business to be done with doubts. To make it work, it should be done with strategies, commitment, and a willingness to take calculated risks.

If you start solving a problem that doesn’t exist, you will end up creating them. So take your time and focus on growing your business enough to be able to invest in a long-term growth plan like marketing for your interior design firm.

P.S. – We specialize in helping Interior Designers attract the right clients online through organic marketing strategies. If you feel it’s the right time to enhance your online presence, feel free to book a free clarity call, we’d be happy to assist!