5 Marketing Resolutions for your Interior Design Business in 2012

The new year seems to be off to a good start for the design community.  Closing 2011 with a busy client load for most designers and then kicking-off 2012 with the anticipation of the San Francisco Showcase House, there is definitely a buzz in the air about this upcoming year.  With that in mind, here is a life-hacker (a la interior design) version of your 2012 marketing goals that will allow your business to flow in the coming year.   

Make your 2012 shine with these 5 marketing resolutions

Kathryn Macdonald photography  Interiors by Grant K. Gibson

1.  Photograph your projects with a professional interiors photographer.  I know, your photographer friend does a trade for you for photos.  But if you want to compete, or endeavor to be like the bigger firms you need to present yourself in the manner that they do.  And with that in mind, you need a professional interior photographer.  Hire a good one and your projects start to adopt a photographed "look," that in turn becomes your visual brand.  A good photographer can give you tips on styling for the camera and will shoot a project, and in turn, projects with consistency.  The images can be used for your portfolio, contest submissions that require magazine-ready photos, ad campaigns (Decorator Showcase Catalogue and The Fall Antique Show Catalogue should be on your short list), website, and general marketing collateral.  My tip is to set aside a minimum of $2500 from each project for photography.  If you do a mark-up on goods, use the mark-up profit and set it aside in savings ear-marked for photography. Right as your project wraps, choose a day where you won't be under foot and get the project shot. Expect 5-10 photos for a days worth of work.  One of my favorite interior photographers to work with is Kathryn MacDonald, you can find her contract and fee structure here and a portfolio of her work at www.macdonaldphoto.com.        

2. Visually organize your projects in a dropbox folder for easy pitches to magazine editors. 

Free marketing and PR in the form of editorial is always at the top of the list for designers.  Make it easy on you and your staff and organize the images you just had your professional photographer take into folders organized by project.  In each project folder should be a brief project biography that explains the project, any unique features, design solutions, or collections that emerged during the design process.  List the clients names, whether or not they want to be anonymous if their home is published, or if they want to be listed.  If the client opts to be featured detail any family story that makes them unique that the reader would want to know about.  For example, were there any design requirements the client imposed on the process -- all green products, child friendly, or thematic in nature?  Are there any design elements you incorporated that were special to the clients -- collections from travel, smart design based on client's profession, etc.  These biographies coupled with images are your go-to elements to pull from for editor requests.  Most requests come in with a time crunch attached so having everything at your fingertips ensures that you breathe easy when compiling your submission.  Sign up for dropbox at www.dropbox.com. 

3. Get on the social media bandwagon and post consistently.   One of the easiest ways to drive up your visibility in search engines is to link your business website to social media websites and post on them frequently.  Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, & Pinterest should all be listed on your company website.  If you do client testimonials like some designers do, having your clients post through Yelp is the most effective way to add value to those references.  Again, make sure that Yelp! links to your website.  Meta sites and aggregator sites are also important for your search visibility.  These are sites that list your company among other designers in your industry like Houzz.com, Gilthome.com, & the Elle Decor Designer Registry.  On these sites you can register and create your own listing for your company, add your contact information and brief biography as well as portfolio images.  Because these sites change their content frequently, they are registered higher in the Google searches, increasing the likelihood your business is easily found when searched for.  Again make sure that any external sites that contain your company information are linked to your business website for easy and more efficient search-ability.     

SFDC Design San Francisco

4.  Make time to network.  I mean in person.  Go to industry sponsored events, lecture series and openings for showrooms, product launches, trunk shows, showcase houses and industry sponsored fundraisers.  The SFDC's Design San Francisco is coming up in February, and that could be the first networking event of the year you can commit to doing.  Other events and networking opportunities I recommend are  becoming a member of the Dining by Design Steering Committee (fabulous group of people to work with), The Decorator Showcase opening Gala, The Fall Antique Show opening Gala, and the Dining by Design Table Hop n' Taste to name a few.  If you subscribe to the SFDC's Designwire, you will get an email sent directly to your inbox of all seminars, lectures, trade shows and other design-related happenings at the design center.  Being present increases your visibility and I've seen referrals happen as frequently through industry connections as they do through client referrals. With more clients doing some of the shopping on their own, you never know who they might run into that eventually leads to a referral to you.

San Francisco Decorator Showcase

5.  Participate in industry events that allow your designs access to a larger audience.  Any showcase house or large-scale industry design event (think Dining by Design), opens up opportunity for increased firm visibility for up to a year after the event.  That means increased editorial features on your room design, increased editorial features on your firm, opportunities to be discovered by design bloggers, and general design community awareness by virtue of name recognition in conjunction with the event. Of all the clients I work with in the design community, the ones that have participated in these types of events are recognized by showrooms and vendors I work with almost immediately compared with the designers who have never been featured in an event.  The name recognition has historically made it easier to get items on loan, get items in a shorter turn-around time, or allowed access to inventory for other design events and photo shoots for the recognized designer.       

Feel like you have these top five under your belt?  Send me an email and I'll send you numbers 6-10 marketing musts for the new year.  krista@couparconsulting.com.

Questions on the top five or marketing related?  I'll answer those too.  

Here's to a wonderful 2012!

 

      

www.dropbox.com

San Francisco Designer Alexandra Torre creates a modern-day nomadic dining environment for DIFFA's DINING BY DESIGN

Every November the San Francisco Design Center's Galleria building plays host to DIFFA's DINING BY DESIGN charity event, showcasing some of the industries top designers in a table design format that is a feast for the eyes.  This highly-anticipated industry event always surprises and delights me, and this year I was able to work with one of the designers that was invited to participate in the event, San Francisco based designer Alexandra Torre.

Her design was simple, stylish and unique: a modern-day nomadic dining environment that began with her intrigue with the concept of a yurt.

From the original yurt concept, Alexandra began to form the idea of a stylish nomadic, modern-day dining environment.  Something that you could set-up on a moment's notice, and still fete in style.  Her finished design was a wonderful blend of high and low: decadent fabrics comprised the tent, plush peacock blue fur pillows adorned the folding chairs, and cardboard pendant lights illuminated the whimsical sophistication of the space.  One of my favorite pieces in the space were the host and hostess chairs from anthropologie, which where brushed with a oversized gold stripe of paint down the front and back, and finished in what seemed to be a durable, mod podge type glaze.  

Here's a sneak peek of the space prior to the Table-Hop & Taste.  

And a couple other images I was able to borrow from Mink Interiors coverage of the event.  

I love Alexandra's concise explanation of her process in designing the elements of the room:

Conceptually based on the philosophy of a Yurt, this dining environment plays off of the modern-day need to be flexible and mobile while communicating your personality and style. Nomads traditionally never stayed in one place for too long, picking up useful items along the way. This of course made for a very eclectic mix of items, rough in presentation but big on character.

In this dining space, you will experience a mixture of textures (some luxurious and others raw) and styles (traditional motifs and modern presentations). These contrasts emphasize how you can take bits and pieces from your life and your collections and, while not always matching, they can provide for a cozy and contextualized dining space. Outdoor iron chairs mixed with fur seats, a satin fabric contrasted by recycled cardboard pendants, a patchwork over dyed rug overlaid with hides and a plywood table top on top of an iron base.

Another notable aspect of this space is its transportability. We may not always have the ability to host a large group of people in our designated dining room, or maybe we want to move this event to another location. Here you will find many pieces that allow for flexible living while still high on style. Folding outdoor dining chairs, a structure that defines the space but can be installed in a matter of minutes, a custom designed collapsible table base on top of which sits a portable plywood table top.

Please enjoy these juxtapositions and examples of how to create a mobile feast!

Never one to not acknowledge the talented tribe of people that contributed to this nomadic environment for merry-making, I thought I'd pass on the love the Alexandra's pulled together to make sure the vendors she worked with get the kudos they so rightly deserve:


Assistant and Designer: Morena Sesana: 925.219.2491

Cardboard Pendants: Gray Pants: 206.420.3912

Custom Metal Table Base: Richard Hubbard: 415.518.1885

Overdyed Rug: Modern Fever: 415.522.6666

Sewing of table-top items: Doug Shamp: 415.668.5185

Structural & Handyman Extraordinaire: Carlos Palacios: 415.302.8215

Custom Sewing of Tent: Tea Cake’s Custom-made: Esther Bennett: 415.203.7732


To see Alexandra's complete list of services, design philosophy and examples of her work, please visit www.alexandratorre.com.

For additional information on items featured in the dining space, please contact alexandra@alexandratorre.com.