7 Cool Marketing Ideas for Your Interior Design Business

The interior design business can be extremely competitive. Most professionals rely heavily on word of mouth referrals to keep growing their business, but there are actually quite a few great, inexpensive ways to increase your business’s visibility to potential clients. Below are 7 cool marketing ideas for your interior design business that you can start now with little or no out-of-pocket costs.

Get a Facebook page

Facebook is a great platform because it allows you to connect with so many people on your own terms, and the ability to promote yourself for free can elevate your small business in no time. The key to Facebook is to do it right, be consistent, and engage with people so they want to keep seeing your posts in their feed and even come visit your Facebook page. First, start a company page. Facebook company pages are different than Facebook profiles; you want a company page to put your most professional foot forward. Make sure you complete your company profile, provide the right contact information, and provide descriptions of your services that are exciting and appealing. Then add images, a LOT of images. Interior design is a very visual business, so you want your page to appeal to that aspect. Make sure every post has an image. You can even go so far as to create slideshows or videos of your work. Facebook is powerful; be sure to take advantage of it!

Get involved in other image-focused social channels

While Facebook is great for engaging with audiences, there are a few other social channels that are built around the idea of posting, sharing and liking photos.  A few you may want to check out include Pinterest and Instagram. Yes, there are others, but you want to make sure you’re focusing on a few core channels so that your efforts don’t go to waste. How do you choose which channels to leverage?  Know where your customers are. A lot of people looking for home decor and interior design ideas look at sites like Pinterest and Instagram for ideas. When you start posting on Pinterest or Instagram, make sure your images are a good quality and not blurry. Make it easier for people to find your images by using good descriptions and hashtags. On Pinterest, you may want to create different boards for different home decor styles or color themes. On Instagram, you may want to create different hashtags for different styles as well, such as #moderndecorideas or #shabbychicdecor. Just be sure that once you start a new social profile, you stay consistent in posting and sharing so people become engaged with your profile.

Create an onsite blog with great ideas

The idea situation is to get people to your website so that they learn more about you and can contact you easily. One of the best ways to do that is through an onsite blog. Committing to write once a week twice a month, or whatever cadence you can consistently commit to might be intimidating at first, but think of it this way: your blog shouldn’t sell you or your services. It should provide information people are looking for. It should answer questions that people ask about interior design. You probably have a mental list of dozens of handy and helpful interior design ideas; share those in your blog!  How high should you hang pictures? How much room should there be between a coffee table and a couch? What are some great, inexpensive ways to update the look of a kitchen?  Make a list and write a post. Add a fantastic image. Then share it on your social channels.

Do more than just write blog posts for your onsite blog

People consume information in different ways, so when you’re ready, why not stretch your creativity to add these to your blog as well:

• Project Showcase (before and after pictures)
• Videos
• Checklists
• Free guides
• Curation articles
• Images
• Top 10 lists

Helping people visualize and understand how you can help them is a powerful way to market your business.

Get active on Houzz

Houzz is a great way to showcase your portfolio. Houzz is an online community site where interior designers, architects, landscape designers create their own site and upload project images and information to a shared database. Viewers can look at project images to get ideas and save them in their own ideabooks. You can pay for advertising on Houzz, but a basic listing is free. Start by creating a few ideabooks yourself to showcase different decor styles and start the conversation. It’s also a great place to connect with other industry professionals that can serve as referral sources for your business.

Participate in interior design industry events

Industry events are a great way to keep up on new products coming to market, forging relationships, and attending design-related seminars. The NCIDQ blog provides a few below:

• NeoCon is a commercial interiors trade show.
• Surfaces is a trade show with a focus on flooring.
• High Point Market is a renown residential furniture and furnishings trade show.
• ICFF  showcases contemporary furniture, flooring, lighting, textiles, wall coverings for both residential and commercial interiors.

Create a monthly email for clients and potential clients

There are plenty of free email marketing services out there that allow you to dip your toe in the email marketing effort, such as MailChimp. Get a simple email sign up form on your site, add it to your Facebook page, and promote your monthly email where you’ll provide quick tips and tricks for home decor. Make it interesting and visually attractive. Be brief and more visual than text-heavy. Encourage people to share the email with others, with the ultimate goal of getting more people to your website. Be creative in your title to make people want to open it. Email marketing can be easy if you follow these few email marketing techniques.

If you’re willing to expend your time and creativity, these 7 cool marketing ideas for your interior design business can give your company a boost and help your business grow.