Where design clients come from
If I were to ask you what you did for a living, my guess is that you wouldn’t say you were a marketer.
But, as I teach my students in my business short courses, marketing is one of the parts of your business that you will have to spend a huge chunk of time on. And my strong opinion is that every single business owner needs to think of themselves as a marketing expert – in the same way that they think of themselves as an expert in designer, decoration or whatever their business niche is.
I was thinking about my own business over the years and I would estimate that I spend around 50% of my time doing some kind of marketing task – whether that be social media, writing content for a blog, working on paid advertising strategies or doing live Facebook videos.
If you want your business to grow, the simple fact is that you have to spend time on marketing and you have to be strategic in how you go about this.
In the early stages of your business you’re likely to be wearing a lot of different hats and you need to make sure that the limited time you have to spend on marketing activities is being used strategically and in a way that will move your business forward.
If you don’t have a clear marketing strategy in place you’re likely to never know where your clients are coming from or when and where your next client might come from.
Where clients come from
So with this in mind, let’s take a look at all the different places that your audience is going to be coming from as this is going to help you understand the possibilities when it comes to marketing your business.
These are some of the main areas you will want to be considering as you put together a marketing strategy for your business. And it is from all of these different channels that design clients eventually come from.
Here are all the different places that clients will interact with your business and where they will originally come from:
Content marketing – e.g. blogging, podcasting or video shows on YouTube
Social media – e.g. sharing posts on Instagram or Facebook
Networking and collaborations – so this might be supplier partnerships or collaborations with joiners, builders or other trades where you might recommend clients to them and they do the same for you.
Email Marketing – where you gather email addresses from people who visit your website or social media and then use these to send out content and to sell your products and services
Video content – this could be You Tube video shows but I also include Facebook and Instagram lives in this bucket.
Paid advertising – e.g. Facebook, Google Adwords, Instagram Ads or even ads in local media
Affiliate marketing – where you pay a commission to people who promote your products or services on your behalf
Influencer marketing – where you partner with social media influences to help sell your products or services. You can do this by paying them or by offering free product or services in exchange for them providing shout outs or sharing your content.
Your website – a no brainer for your marketing and one of the few platforms you actually own and control yourself.
Media and awards – great for your social proof but also a wonderful way to get your name out there, normally for free
Directories – e.g. being listed on designer directories by larger sites
Word of mouth – one of the most – if not THE most – powerful forms of marketing there is. I would estimate that 50-60% of my business comes from word of mouth or referral marketing
SEO – or Search Engine Optimisation – this is all about making sure that your website is set up in the right way for Google and other search engines to be able to find you and to be able to send traffic from around the web to your site.
Houzz – a good platform for designers and decorators to have a presence on, especially when you are getting started.
Shares – e.g. shares by your audience or other businesses or influencers.
So as you can see there’s so much that CAN go in to marketing your business if you have the time and head space to be able to do it.
But of course when you are first starting out there’s no way at all that you would be able to focus on all of these marketing activities and do them well.
So what I suggest to students is to pick one or two of the above areas and really focus on these first. Once you are comfortable with those, you can choose a few more options to add to your marketing strategy. And then continue on like this as you become more advance.
I hope these ideas give you some sense of the options you have to choose from as you put together a marketing strategy that works for the way you run your business and that will help you attract your ideal clients.
Courses and Templates for Designers and Architects
DO YOU WANT TO….
Improve your professionalism?
Find more clients?
Bring in more revenue?
Create better systems and processes?
Then check out my business courses and templates for designers and architects.
These courses and templates leave you with work done - not just a long list of things you need to do next. We have a really strong focus on taking action and getting things created that improve your business.
Enjoy the rest of your day!
Clare x