Promotion
In this section I shall go across the ways one can promote their business as well as what I have done to promote myself.
Why is marketing important?
Marketing is vital for interior designers to reach new clients and win business in a competitive industry. The article emphasizes that stepping outside your comfort zone with tactics like video, email, and social media can help build trust, stand out, and generate leads. Effective marketing keeps your practice top-of-mind with past and current clients, increasing the chances they will return or refer new business.
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Overall, the article underscores how strategic marketing across multiple channels is essential for interior designers to attract new clients, differentiate their services, and ultimately grow their practices successfully. By implementing consistent, engaging content and leveraging the power of platforms like social media and email, interior designers can effectively market their expertise and win more business.
Types of promotion for interior design
According to (linkedIn 2023) there are many ways that an interior designer can promote themselves. They also state that marketing yourself effectively is important because knowledge and skills can only take you so far.
Define your niche
To establish as an interior designer, pinpoint your specialty, ideal projects, preferred style, budget, location, and problems you solve for clients.
Create a portfolio
For interior designers, a portfolio website is essential to exhibit work, attract clients, and serve as an online resume, business card, and portfolio.
Use social media
Harness social media's potency as an interior designer. Reach diverse audiences, share work, interact with followers. Platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn spotlight various aspects, enhancing visibility.
Network & collaborate
Strengthen marketing as an interior designer through networking. Engage with peers online/offline, join relevant communities, attend events. Collaborate with professionals for partnerships, referrals, cross-promotion, expanding opportunities.
Refferals & reviews
Leverage referrals and reviews to market as an interior designer. Enhance credibility, seek client referrals, encourage positive feedback, offer incentives for engagement.
Learning & improving
Stay abreast in the dynamic interior design industry. Continuously learn through online courses, resources, seek mentorship, and embrace feedback to enhance skills and knowledge.
Honest
If I'm totally honest with you and myself I had really forgotten about this aspect of the project and have left it to the last minute to realise. 1 week before deadline I remembered that I have to promote myself in some way.
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My initial idea was to create day in the life TikToks but the idea of learning how to do that was quite daunting. I then thought it would be nice to post outfit of the days on Instagram because I always come into college wearing something nice and sharing what I got up to that day but then I forgot to take the pictures of my outfits so I couldn't do that either.
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In my last meeting with Caron on the 26th of February I mentioned that I wanted to do Twitch streams to promote myself as I have done them in the past and am familiar with the software involved as well as have all the equipment required. I figured I would promote the twitch streams on my Linked in page and share images of my work that I did on twitch after the fact.
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Though as I am writing this it is April 13th and my assignment is due in two days and I have yet to stream anything so I am preparing my office and programs to do one tonight. Since I have yet to start designing for other projects and I still have so much to do for this assignment then I shall just be doing this on that stream and see how it goes and reflect on it after the fact.
Streaming: Twitch
As previously stated above I left streaming to the last minute however below I will show some images of the set up process and talk a little bit about the equipment and software.
Hardware
To the right you can see my PC set up which includes two monitors, one will show my stream preview with all of my stream stats so I can keep track of them and change anything if required when I am live as well as showing my live stream chat so I can read it and reply as soon as possible. On the second monitor I will be streaming whatever content I want. In this case it will be google chrome with my website editor on it.
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You can also see my Canon EOS 4000D which I use in place of a webcam so that I can stream my face live.
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In front of my monitors I have my audio-technica ATR2500x microphone which came with the audio-technica creator pack which I use to capture my audio.
Software
For my streaming software I use OBS as I think it has the most versatility and I find it easier to use and understand than other streaming programs.
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From left to right you can see that I have my stream chat, stream preview, twitch stats and stream info on the top and activity feed below where it shows me new followers.
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Below that I have different scenes, and in those scenes I have different sources like my audio, camera and scene packs. next to that I can control elements, then audio mixer, scene transitions and stream controls.
I sent the link to all of my friends and I also decided to promote it on LinkedIn in hopes I would get some people to come check it out, though I'm not sure if anyone from LinkedIn came to watch the stream.
Engagement
Since I didn't heavily promote the stream i wasn't expecting that many viewers but I had a consisted 3 viewers the whole time and one of them was very engaged in the chat the whole time which was really encouraging!
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As I have streamed before I know that it is very uncommon to have any more that 1-2 viewers at one time on a new channel and to have anyone commenting too is surprising to say the least so I think the stream was hugely successful.
Above is a message I posted on LinkedIn thanking everyone for showing up and I included the full stats of the stream showing the incredible initial engagement for the channel. I am now tempted to keep streaming as part of my marketing for my business as I was also very productive during the stream and I think it would help me stay motivated during all of my future projects.
Reflection
Experience
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When doing the work-with-me live stream, i worked on my blog for college and surpassingly, i managed to get a lot done. There was pretty good engagement with the chat. There was between 2-3 people chatting along while we worked.
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Refection
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Doing the work with me stream helped me learn that i work best in a group setting even when we're all working on individual tasks. Having a chatroom with other like minded people allowed to be productive. It was also really good for igniting interest in my work. people we're interested in what i was working on and asked good questions related to it.
I also learned the technical skills required to set up and host a live stream with video and scene transitions. I think this skill will be good in the future if i need to present to clients via video call since i can use the same software as a virtual webcam.
Action
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In the future im going to do more work-with-me streams, they seem to be really good for productivity and i can potentially use clips from the streams on my other social media platforms to promote my business and the streams themselves.
References
BIID (2024) How to market your practice, How to market your practice | British Institute of Interior Design. Available at: https://biid.org.uk/resources/how-market-your-practice#:~:text=Marketing%20an%20interior%20design%20practice,%2C%20charities%2C%20and%20interior%20designers. (Accessed: 04 March 2024).
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LinkedIn (2023) How can you effectively market yourself as an interior designer?, How to Market Yourself as an Interior Designer. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/advice/1/how-can-you-effectively-market-yourself-interior (Accessed: 05 February 2024).