How to Build a Video Strategy for Your Design Business

Growing a design business in these competitive times can be difficult. Static pictures of a recent project on an outdated website won't set you apart. Instead, it is time to elevate your marketing. If you want to take your design business or career to the next level, it is time to use videos. 

Video can better showcase your design, process, and customer satisfaction. It also gives potential customers a peek into your personality. Finally, videos help attract more visitors to your website through search engine optimization. This article will discuss how to develop a video strategy for your interior design business. 

If you haven't already, download our free guidebook, "A Complete Guide to Get Started Creating Video Content."

Why You Need to Use Video

Let's start with the why. In recent years, video has become increasingly popular. As a result, business owners and marketers find video has a significant return on investment. This is important when you have limited time and resources dedicated to marketing your interior design business. 

With video, you can  

• Boost brand awareness
• Share the projects or products and services
• Increase revenue and sales
• Improve customer engagement and satisfaction
• Share knowledge and educate your audience

Why a Video Strategy is Needed

A video strategy is your plan of action. This plan will identify your goals, purpose, process, and distribution. It will help you stay on target and create videos that propel your business forward. Much like design, we start with the project purpose and determine what is needed. Next, we identify how the purpose and need can be met and then communicate it to everyone involved. Finally, if we can't accomplish it ourselves, we determine who can help meet the need. 

Your strategy can be as complicated or simple as you want. I am not talking about writing a 10-page document that no one will read. Instead, a one-page document that sets out the purposes, goals, strategies, and delivery platforms will work well for your purposes. 

Identify the Purpose of Your Videos

First, let's start with identifying the purpose of your videos. How or what do you want your videos to accomplish? For example, do you need to create awareness in your community of the design services you offer? Maybe you need to drive more people to your storefront or website. Or, you want to educate your audience on a topic related to your business. 

Here are a few common purposes to consider: 

• Increase brand awareness of your business 
• Generate new sales opportunities
• Retain current customers – or even employees
• Cross-promote your other products and services
• Engage with your customer base to ensure you stay on top of mind for the next project
• Inspire or entertain others
• Improve internal communication
• Educate your community by sharing knowledge 

Next, as we determine the purpose, we must consider the audience. I have written several articles detailing why your audience is so important when marketing your interior design services or products. 

Check out these articles on identifying your target market:

How Buyer Personas Can Help You Acquire More Design Clients

3 Key Indicators To Help Interior Designers Identify Their Target Market

How to Identify a Target Audience for Increased Profitability

Who are you trying to reach, and why? First, knowing who that audience is and what they want is important. Just producing videos isn't necessarily going to help you grow your business unless you identify the audience and its needs.  

How do you figure out what your audience wants? 

I have four suggestions. 

1. Ask your current customers what videos would have or would be helpful to them. 
2. Research what other interior designers are producing in other markets. You certainly don't want to copy their videos, but take note of the topics covered in popular videos. Look for gaps in content that you can fulfill in your videos.
3. Consider the most commonly asked questions from clients or connections regarding your job. 
4. Test a few videos to see what your audience likes. Sometimes our customers don't know what they want to see; they react when viewing a video they like. We talk about tracking and analysis further in this article. 

Set 2 to 3 Video Goals

I appreciate SMART goals, but I have a little twist that I learned from Rachel Hollis. It is essentially tricking your brain. A SMART goal includes the following: 

 S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Achievable

R = Realistic

T= Time Frame

Your goal should match each one of these. It should be specific in what you plan to accomplish. You will need to measure it to ensure the goal is successful. Your SMART goal needs to be achievable and realistic. And it would be best to put a time frame on the goal. 

Here is the twist, write the goal as if you accomplished it. This essentially convinces your brain that the goal is achievable and helps your brain think differently about the goal. 

Let me give you an example that I have in my video strategy plan: 

I created two 3 to 5-minute Revit tutorial videos every month and post to the website and YouTube for 12 months. 

I am just now getting started working on creating Revit tutorials, and by stating it as if I have already done it, I am convincing my brain that this is achievable. 

Suppose you are wondering how many videos to create a month. In that case, the optimal number is 2 to 10 to impact your marketing goals. However, that is recommended across all industries and platforms. You might commit to 2 short (1 to 3 minutes) videos for social media platforms.  

Type of Videos

When determining the type of video, think through the length. A short video is under 3 minutes; you guessed it, a long video is over 3 minutes. There are many different types of videos. Audiences love to be entertained but also like hearing about what happens behind the scenes or success stories. Many people turn to video to educate themselves on a topic. 

Here are the most common types:  

• Educational
• Explainer
• Behind the Scene
• Interviews
• Entertaining
• Testimonials
• Product or Service Specific
• Narrative stories

You can make your videos as formal or informal as you want. For example, you can hire a video production company for more formal videos or produce your own videos using a DSLR camera and a microphone. 

Check out: 9 Video Ideas You Can't-Miss if You're Growing a Design Business. Plus Tips to Get You Started. 

Where Will You Share Your Videos

Now that you have a plan and goals, how will you promote and share your video? For example, suppose you are using video to grow your business. In that case, you will want to maximize your efforts by creating videos that can be used repeatedly across multiple platforms.  

 This is where I would recommend starting. Your website is the first place to post it because this helps optimize your website for search pages. Next, I would pick two to three social media sites. I have found YouTube to be a great source for my business. 

Check Out: "Understanding How to Use YouTube to Increase Exposure" 

 If you are a residential designer, then Facebook and Instagram are a must. In contrast, I would encourage you to use LinkedIn instead of Facebook if you are a commercial designer. 

• Website – don't forget your website, as the video will help improve your search optimization
• YouTube (organic or ads)
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Other platforms to consider: TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat

It isn't good enough to post on different social platforms. You want to maximize your efforts by sharing across other platforms as well. Here are a few more ideas. 

• Email – share with your email list
• Newsletters
• Post in social groups or networking groups
• Your Blog
• Online Ads
• Tradeshow 
• Welcome Packet – customer or employee

Pro Tip: Maximize your efforts by editing a long video to create several short promotional videos that link back to the original, longer video. Use these as an opportunity to extend the video's life and reach more people.  

How Are You Getting These Videos Done

This is a good question, considering your full-time job already. But I promise you, you can make these videos as formal or informal as you want. Clicking on your phone camera and walking through a property doesn't take much because you already need that information. Take the video, record your voiceover, and send it to your marketing person. If you don't have a marketing person or a video editor, no worries; you can hire a contractor to help you. 

Instead of thinking about how you will do this, consider who can help you deliver great video content to your target market. Hiring a video production team is an option, but that can be expensive. If you are just getting started, try a little less expensive approach by working with a local freelancer.  

Creating a Process

I am a big proponent of building processes, as processes help you stay focused on completing a task quickly. Processes also make it easier to hand off the video for creation or production while ensuring you get what you want from the video.   

Let's chat about what processes you might think through.

Content | Storyboard Development

• Write and edit your script
• Create a storyboard – this is the visual aspect of your video 

Backdrop

• Plan the shoot

Call to action – all videos must have a call to action

Post-production 

• Light or heaving editing 
• Music or text overlays
• Closed captions or accessibility enhancements
• CTA screens and links

Branding requirements – this should be consistent with every video

Sharing

• Where will the video live (host)
• How will you distribute and when
• Platforms to share along with timing

What Data to Collect and Track

With any marketing tactics, it is important to collect and track data. Data will help you determine what is working and what is not working. In addition, it will help you fine-tune your video strategy and ensure you aren't wasting time or money.  

Here are a few data points to consider tracking. 

• Engagement – did you receive comments or likes
• Conversion ratio – how many people clicked the URL link you included
• View count – how many people saw your video – this is also called impressions
• Click-thru rate
• Shares – this is how many people shared your video with others
• Followers/subscriber growth

Luckily, most social media platforms give some data to help you gather the data. You or a marketing person can help you track over a period of time and analyze the data monthly to determine if your goals are being met. 

As you develop more videos and track these key elements, you should start seeing trends within your information. Ideally, you want to produce more videos based on the success of other videos. 

Don't forget, if you are just starting to create videos and unsure where to start, download our free guidebook. This 16-page comprehensive guidebook will walk you through purchasing equipment to share your videos. The best part: it is free to our community.  

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