How Interior Designers Can Use Evergreen Marketing to Drive Leads Throughout 2022

“Give them quality. That’s the best kind of advertising in the world.” - Milton Hershey

Diving headfirst into researching the best and most modern marketing strategies for business can be incredibly overwhelming. There’re always new ones being added into the already overflowing pile of “successful” ones to use. But, the one that has continued to top the charts from the very beginning is evergreen marketing.

I’ve recently been talking with entrepreneurs in the design industry trying to revive their marketing strategies or looking to get a leg up on their current competitors. Many of them expressed confusion around a topic floating around the web with no solidified clarity around the true definition - “What is evergreen marketing and how does it work?”

So, let’s spread some light on this topic and discuss ways interior designers can create an evergreen marketing campaign to drive more leads throughout this year.

How To Define Evergreen Marketing?

Generally speaking, evergreen means something that lasts forever and blooms into freshness at least once a year. Just as the tree takes root deeper than what is seen on the surface. When describing a marketing strategy in an evergreen way, the business would implement a plan or concept that lasts beyond the initial launch.

Evergreen marketing strategies work for you day and night, for the life of your brand. The purpose is to constantly be driving more leads to you throughout the year. It is a campaign that continues to attract and drive leads without you doing anything further after launch.

For instance, you write a blog article that someone reads. You have links to other useful content in that blog article, including a call to action to sign up for something free. The visitor signs up for the freebie and, of course, receives it immediately. 

However, this also starts an automated email series that continues to offer value with each email. This campaign can last for a week, month, or longer. Over that pre-determined time, your prospect is continuing to hear from you while you are busy doing other work. Throughout this process, you continue to give value and move them closer to the buying decision. Eventually, the potential lead will move to the purchase stage.

Take a minute and think about dating. You wouldn’t ask someone to marry you on the first date. Instead, you continue to date that person over months or years, building a stronger relationship. Eventually, if all the stars line up, you may end up married.

Evergreen marketing works similarly. Instead of asking a prospect to buy on their first website visit, you build a relationship by offering more value. Eventually, you will be the first to mind when they decide to hire someone.

You may not realize it, but you as a consumer are often marketed this way. If you think back to the last time you signed up for a free webinar or download, you most likely received follow email campaigns offering more content. Marketers want to develop that relationship with you.

Now, some brands miss the point of building a relationship and just bombard you with sales pitches. Maybe that works for some, but I can tell you from my own experience, that is the quickest way to get someone to unsubscribe to your emails.

How to Create an Evergreen Marketing Strategy?

The key is to plan out the entire campaign ahead of time, then let it go. Because evergreen marketing strategies are cost-effective and easy to reach audiences, they work best for small businesses. Furthermore, it’s a great way for the business to take a prominent stance in the industry and community.

This strategy is simple in terms of how it works but definitely requires a great deal of brainstorming, creativity, and clear decisions. If you strive to plant marketing roots and continue to reap the benefits year after year, you will need to carefully handpick the best ideas possible.

First, you want to identify something of value that you can offer your prospects. Do a little research on related industry websites. Also, ask a few clients what value to them would be. Or think back to the basic questions new clients always ask you. Then, determine what you can create that prospect will want, but you can also stand the test of time.

Second, brainstorm all the different touchpoints and what you will offer at each point. You want to offer high-quality content in the initial offer, but you also want to follow up with more. It doesn’t necessarily have to be on the same specific topic, just something related.

Perhaps, you are offering a guide on how to layer lighting for a multipurpose room. You may have a follow-up piece that gives tips for picking out light fixtures and another email talking about basic maintenance of light fixtures.

Mapping out your offer pipeline will help you visually see the progression. First, identify all pages and emails you will need. Then determine how you will develop each item. I batch my time. For instance, I am working on a new offer that launches in 3 months. I have set my deadline then backed out the time I need to work on each piece. It isn’t much different from our project management as designers. You often look at the end date and back out lead times and project milestones. This is the same concept.

Next, brainstorm all the different ways you can market that product. The offer needs to have what I call legs. It has to spur other topics or content that can help drive visitors back to the offer. By having multiple content sources pointing back to your offer, you will help the longevity of the offer. You want to spread out these tactics throughout the year. Continue to link to this offer through blog posts, social posts, and newsletters or emails.

Finally, once you have all your ducks in a row, you will want to launch your campaign. If this feels overwhelming, I get it. I use Monday.com to organize my deliverables and deadlines.

Then I use Kajabi for my website, and it has a great tool that allows me to set up what are called pipelines. I create a form that I include on a landing page, then a thank you landing page, followed by automated email series. Kajabi makes it easy. Especially when you don’t have a lot of marketing budget to hire people to do the work.

Before you decide on the product offer, weigh all the pros and cons of your strategy related to your idea based on your resources. It takes time to build out a lead magnet, marketing tools, email campaign, and so forth. Don’t bite off more than you can handle, especially for your first one.

Tips for Creating an Evergreen Campaign that Drives Conversions

Below I have compiled some of the best tips and examples to utilize in your plans starting today.

Capture the Right Visitor Information

This is important. Whenever you give away something of extreme value, you want to capture the prospect's contact information. I stick to the basics – first name and email on the initial form. I also recommend a security method, like reCAPTCHA, to ensure you aren’t getting excessive bots flooding your list. You don’t want to be too intrusive on this initial form, as many people will move on if you ask too much.

As you move through your content, you will capture more information as they approach the purchase decision. This might include a phone number, geographic location, and type of project.

Stay on Brand

Your entire campaign should all be branded to match your overall brand. You want to include your logo on every touchpoint. You also want to use similar images and colors. Plus, stick to the tone you use in all your marketing. You want the prospect to recognize that this is from you.

If you want to learn more about branding, you can check out our “Building a Brand Identify Beyond Logos” CEU course. 

Choose Conventional Over Trendy

Another helpful tip is to focus on the product or services you choose based on the demand forecast for the next several years in your market. Be mindful of what is seasonal or trendy versus a design strategy.

Additionally, stick with a product offer that directly ties back to your core competency as a designer. For instance, you don’t want to offer a kitchen remodel guide if you don’t design kitchens. Stick to what you know and for what you want to be known for many years.

Be Consistent, But Don’t Bombard

As you map out your campaign, you want to be consistent in how often you send out emails. For example, you don’t want to send an email one week and then another three months later. Your prospect will completely forget about the first email and wonder who the heck you are.

Rather, you want to determine the emails and the time frame for each email. But, do not bombard your clients. I recently bought a planner from a popular site. That was a huge mistake for my email box. This company emails me at least three times a day and sometimes more than that. I finally had to unsubscribe because it was driving me crazy. This is bad for their business because I like the planner, but I won’t buy it again because they are invasive.

Targeted Keywords

Using keywords is another long-lasting marketing strategy that works amazing. Anyone saying that SEO is dead or the modern technology is just going to take over google is unaware of the large internet database. 

Using perfect keywords will just make your product offer stand out. Moreover, it will also give your users an idea about what your clients are getting from you. Conduct keyword research to identify words that will help drive traffic to your website.

Add Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials show social proof in that it reassures prospects that you have helped other people with a similar problem. A study from 2021 found that online shoppers will typically read about six reviews from previous customers before deciding to buy. If you have a few testimonials, share those through the landing pages and email campaigns.

Additionally, word of mouth will always help you drive more prospects. In your email campaign, always invite the reader to share your content with others who might find it helpful. This is a great way to build momentum in your campaign.

4 More Quick Tips

Even though this article is full of helpful tips and tricks, we have compiled 4 of the practical tips you can follow to promote your services in the longer run.

1. Always be specific about your services. Tell the audience exactly how you help solve your client’s problems. You can even point them to a page on your website that shares your specific process.
2. Don’t overload your audience with too much information. Instead, be precise about what you offer.
3. In the run to be evergreen, try to focus on the quality of your marketing offer. Always come up with plans that have a positive outcome.
4. Consider using video in one of the emails or landing pages. Since our industry is very relationship-oriented, a video gives prospects insight into your personality.

Concluding Words

So, hopefully, you have got an idea about what evergreen marketing is and how it works. Moreover, we have a great new ebook resource to download – 25 Ways for You to Drive More Website Traffic. And, yes, this is set up as an Evergreen marketing campaign, so you will receive additional value after you sign up. Would you expect anything less?

I encourage you to reach out and let us know how your campaigns grow your prospect base. So many do not realize that even though someone visiting today may not be ready to buy, they or someone they know may turn into your client one, two, or three years down the road. That is the kind of campaign that positively impacts a small business.