3 Marketing Indicators that Every Interior Designer Needs to Track

Understanding Marketing Effectiveness Helps Interior Designers Focus on What Works

Marketing can fundamentally contribute to your interior design business growth, but if you don’t know how your marketing is performing, you waste your time and money. You may think you know what is working, but you really don’t unless you track key indicators. Measuring and tracking your marketing efforts can help you focus your efforts and reduce your marketing anxiety.

Not to add one more thing to your to-do list, but this may be the most important thing you do each month for your marketing growth. There are several reasons why tracking your marketing efforts is important. Unfortunately, if you get too zealous about tracking, you can spiral out of control with excess and unnecessary work. It is ideal to start small and build as you go along.

Simple Reason to Track Marketing Indicators for Interior Designers

Maya Angelou, the American Poet and Civil Rights Activist, has a quote that says, “If you don’t know where came from, you don’t know where you are going.” It is a poignant quote that applies to many aspects of one’s life. Although I don’t think she was talking marketing, it does ring true to your business life as well as your personal.

Within an interior design business, you must keep in mind where you came from as you move forward. Along the way, mistakes are made, and lessons are learned. This is what helps you grow beyond those mistakes and reduces your stumbling in the future. Marketing is no different. What marketing did you do this month, and how can you build on it to be better next month?

We track and measure our marketing so that we can improve moving forward. It gives us a starting point and allows us to evaluate and adjust accordingly. There is also an element of excitement when you see something working, as this tells you to focus your efforts on what works. If you don’t track marketing indicators, you won’t know where you came from, nor will you know where to go next.

3 Key Marketing Indicators to Measure for Interior Designers

Indicator 1: Website Growth & Conversion Rate

It is not enough to just drive traffic to your website. Once a visitor lands on your website, what do you want them to do. It is essential to understand what your visitors are looking at and where they might be getting stuck. Google Analytics is the best tool for analyzing website traffic.

Related Article: "The Ins and Outs of SEO: What Interior Designers Need to Know to Get Started"

By simply adding a code to your website, you can see where people came from (acquisition), who is visiting (audience), and what pages were most visited (behavior). As you become more familiar with your analytics, you will start to see patterns that will help you determine where to focus future marketing efforts.

Indicator 2: Social Media Growth

It is easy to feel like you must be on social media. The truth is that only a few outlets are necessary, especially when you are time-limited. I recommend that interior designers start small with 2 or 3 social outlets. As you post consistently over a couple of months, you will begin to see how your efforts create opportunities.

Related Article: "How to Create 10 Social Posts from One Picture"

Tracking information such as new followers or shares will help you to some degree. The tell-tell sign is whether your followers are taking action by direct messaging you, clicking to your website, or following the call to action. If you are posting non-stop, but nothing is happening, you may not be reaching your audience. Before you turn off social marketing efforts, be sure you do two things: stay consistent and post for a 3-to-6-month period before making a decision.

Indicator 3: Email Growth

This one is key for your marketing efforts. Growing social media followers is one thing, but the truth is, you don’t own those connections. If the algorithm changes, you may lose viewership. You can control your email list. You can determine what your audience sees and when they see it. It is crucial to track how many people are added to your list every month and look at email interaction. If you are sending an email campaign to your list weekly or monthly, you need to track the relevance of the content you include. What is your open rate, and more importantly, does your audience click on the links provided?

If you are just beginning to track your marketing efforts, start small. Track simple things such as how many visitors landed on your website and what pages were the most viewed. This will help you determine what content needs to be developed in the coming weeks. If something isn’t working, then don’t waste time or effort on continuing. Not all marketing outlets work for all audiences. It is okay to abandon a social platform over another because of performance.