Effective Email Marketing Campaigns for Design Firms

If you know anything about interior design marketing, you know that digital marketing is absolutely essential. Maybe you’ve already jumped into social media marketing and organic search marketing. Or maybe you’ve been creating irresistible lead magnets to help grow your email list.

These are all effective strategies, but if you really want to get the most out of your marketing efforts, you should make sure to include something only a few interior designers do: email marketing. Here’s a guide to some of the most effective email marketing tactics to promote your business.

Showcase Your Recent Projects

Showing off your work is a vital part of marketing for interior designers. Great work is your best advertisement — as long as you can make sure your target audience sees it.

There’s another reason to share your recent or current projects via email: social proof. When readers see what you’ve been working on, they know that other people and businesses trust your skills enough to hire you — so maybe they should, too!

That said, don’t just snap a couple of quick photos and send them out. Poor-quality images might make readers think you do poor-quality work. Great photos of great projects can grow your business dramatically. Poor photos (or poor work) can have the opposite effect. You don’t necessarily need to hire a professional photographer, but it’s worth investing in a quality camera at least.

Offer Design Tips and How-Tos

Digital marketing for interior designers is essential for anyone who wants their design business to succeed. And when email is part of your strategy, it only works if your readers actually open your emails.

Which do you think you’d be more likely to open: an email with a subject line that looks strictly promotional or one that looks like it could help you with something or answer a question you have right now? Most people would open the latter.

If someone is on your email list, they probably have a general interest in interior design — even if they aren’t a customer yet. If they see an email on design tips from a professional, they’ll probably open it to see what you have to say.

This strategy is useful even if your readers aren’t looking to immediately hire an interior designer. If the person who opened your email needs an interior designer down the line, they might remember your expertise and choose to hire you.

Give Readers a Peek Behind the Scenes

One of the more interesting aspects of social media is how it makes followers feel like they know you. This phenomenon has carried over into social media marketing and even into digital marketing as a whole.

Email marketing isn’t the same as social media marketing, but you can boost its effectiveness by borrowing a proven social media marketing strategy: making your audience members feel like they know you. How do you accomplish that through email? Here are a few ideas:

• Offer a quick video tour of your workspace
• Show a design schematic (or otherwise offer some insight into your process)
• Include a video clip of you working on a project
• Tell your audience about interior designers who have inspired you and how they’ve influenced your work

Building a digital rapport will make your readers more likely to reach out when they need design help — it will feel like hiring a friend!

Showcase Testimonials and Case Studies

Social proof is an important part of marketing yourself as a designer, and one of the best kinds of social proof is customer testimonials. After all, what do most people do when looking to visit a restaurant, buy a car, or find a new dentist? They read reviews!

If someone is looking to hire an interior designer, they might seek out reviews of various designers on their own. But if they see your reviews right in their inbox, they might read them first. They may forgo researching other designers and book a consultation with you if they like what they see.

That said, you’ll probably want to make your email more interesting than just a list of reviews. You might consider opening with some striking photos or videos of a recent project. Beneath it, you can include a testimonial from the customer. If you wish, you could also add a few other testimonials.

Share Exclusive Offers or Promotions

Part of online marketing for interior designers is enticing would-be customers who are on the fence. And one of the best ways to convince someone who is on the fence is to offer a discount or promotion! If someone has been considering reaching out to you but hasn’t gotten around to it, a promotion might give them the nudge they need.

Similarly, you might consider sending emails announcing new products, services, or partnerships. For example, if you’re working with a local artist or artisan, an email (showcasing some of your work together) is an easy way to get the message across to your customers.

Offer Educational Content

You can never go wrong with offering your customers (and customers-to-be) valuable resources for free. You, of course, don’t want to give away every single tip and strategy in your arsenal, but offering meaningful educational content can go a long way toward building trust. Here are some ideas of educational content you can send:

• Specific guides (like lighting guides, furniture guides, window treatment guides, etc.)
• Ebooks
• Illustrated guides of different design styles
• Pre-project planners for renovating, furnishing a new home, etc.
• A design magazine you create
• Interviews with design experts
• A specific guide to the style of design you’re most familiar with
• A room-by-room design wishlist
• A guide to working with an interior designer

Many of these resources can also be used as lead magnets or resources you offer to site visitors in exchange for their email addresses. Keep in mind that you’re targeting a different part of the marketing funnel here — the point of a lead magnet is to get people to join your email list, while the point of (emailed) educational content is to convince people on your email list to book a consultation or make a purchase.

Report on Industry Trends

This strategy is similar to the one above, but it’s closer to news reporting. Most people on your email list will probably welcome the opportunity to read more about what’s going on in the design world. Additionally, when you report on design industry trends, you’re demonstrating your expertise to your audience.

Just like with a newspaper or newsletter, you might want to send out industry reports on a regular basis. However, as with email marketing in general, you’ll want to make sure you send your reports just frequently enough.

Sending them too often might annoy your audience and make them unsubscribe, but sending them too infrequently might mean they forget about you in the meantime. A good rule of thumb is to send emails like this about every two weeks to a month.

How to Promote My Interior Design Business

If you want to grow your interior design business, you need a smart marketing strategy. However, for many designers, it’s next to impossible to run a business while also dedicating enough time to learn about marketing.

Fortunately, there’s a way you can effectively market yourself without taking away from your work. Behind the Design’s marketing services for interior designers and architects provides a customized plan to grow your customer base. Unlike most marketing firms, we’re deeply familiar with the design and architecture industries, and we’ll tailor your marketing plan to both your industry and your individual business.

A full 94% of small business owners are planning to spend more on advertising in 2024. Don’t get left behind! Get in touch with us today to see what we can do for you.