How to market your practice

Marketing an interior design practice is vital for reaching new clients and gaining new commissions from those you’ve previously completed a project for. We talked to social media strategist, Bella Foxwell, who has worked for large and small businesses including major multinationals, charities, and interior designers. We chatted to her about how to create a strategy to win business for your practice, plus where to find the best professional help if you prefer not to take on the marketing yourself.

What does it mean to market your interior design practice?

In 2024, the biggest marketing opportunity for interior designers is to step outside their comfort zones. Sharing professionally-shot images of finished projects (a.k.a. using Instagram as a glossy portfolio) is great, but it will only get you so far. 

Share more of your journey as a business owner. Embrace video. Take us behind the scenes of your projects. And please, please, please ... implement an email strategy. Experimenting with different content types and combining the power of social media and email are sure-fire ways to successfully market your interior design practice in 2024. 

Why is marketing your interior design practice so important?

Because there are so many potential clients spending all day on social media and inside their inbox. You can interrupt their daily routines with inspiring, entertaining, and engaging content (a.k.a. marketing) that builds trust and shows them why they should work with you. 

How do you start on marketing your practice yourself if you’ve never done any marketing before?

My advice is not to overwhelm yourself with too many channels at once. Pick one social media platform (e.g. Instagram) and combine that with email marketing. Get comfortable with creating – and analysing the results of – regular, high-quality content for both of those channels before you think about expanding to other platforms. 

Let’s say you choose LinkedIn as your social media channel of choice. Start with a commitment to both LinkedIn and email marketing. Your commitment might be, 'I’m going to post three times per week on LinkedIn and send one email per week to my list for six months'. Make a commitment, come up with a strategy (the type of content you’re going to share/emails you’re going to write), and then stick to it. Analyse the performance of your content at the end of each month to see what’s resonating with your audience.

You will be amazed by how much you learn over six months. Your content will improve. Your confidence will grow, and you will learn huge amounts about your community. Plus, you will almost certainly have picked up clients along the way.

Which are the best ways to market an interior design practice?

There are a million and one ways to market your interior design practice, but these are some of my favourite:

• Social media: Instagram is great but if you’re looking for a less saturated platform to grow on in 2024, try LinkedIn. Don’t forget – you don’t need to go this alone. Collaborate with others through joint Reels / Lives / Stories to expand your reach
• IRL (in real life) networking at industry events  
• Email Marketing
• Reviews / Testimonials: put a process in place to request these and/or get these written up as soon as you’re able to
• Word of Mouth Referrals: the key with these is to incentivise your past / existing clients; make it clear that you’d hugely appreciate them spreading the word about your services

Start small and, ideally, keep it low cost. In other words, do not spend money on Facebook ads until you’ve got a better understanding of the kind of organic content that resonates with your audience and you have a few solid 'before-and-after' stories to share. Project stories and / or testimonials will help convert more followers into clients, so make creating / collecting these your priority. 

How regularly should you be posting and doing other activities for effective marketing?

It all depends on which marketing channels you choose. For a social media platform like Instagram or LinkedIn, I suggest posting at least three times per week. Make sure you dedicate a bit of time (even 10 minutes per day) to engaging with your community too. 

For email marketing, send a newsletter at least once a week.

For IRL networking events, try to attend these at least once a month. 

Are there suitable professionals/agencies you can use if you would rather delegate the marketing of your practice, and how do you find an interiors specialist?

A good place to start is to ask fellow designers, the team at the BIID (who have lots of connections), and PR agencies specialising in interiors brands (who will also know of interiors social media specialists).

It’s not necessary to find someone who only specialises in interiors – what’s more important is that they have a firm grasp on content creation and an understanding of what works well on specific platforms right now. You want to find someone who is good with video (creation and/or editing) and understands the importance of not just social media, but email marketing too.

What else is important for successful marketing?

Looking at other successful interior designers is a great way to get inspired. But don’t be afraid to look beyond your industry to see what’s working really well for other businesses. For example, look at the best-performing content of food creators or lifestyle influencers and apply those principles to your content. The incredible thing about starting (or refreshing) your marketing journey today is that you can look around to see what others are doing well and emulate that, rather than spending years figuring it out all by yourself.

Learn More From Bella

Watch the replay of Bella’s 'How to Start and Grow your Email List' workshop for the BIID. Contact info@biid.org.uk to purchase the recording and accompanying resources.

Bella is offering the following marketing workshops:
Instagram: How to create an algorithm-proof content strategy
Instagram: The easy way to make videos that grow your following
Instagram: The secrets to building an engaged following
In person Instagram Reels masterclass