Interesting for an Interior Designer to appreciate how some informed clients might approach a working relationship with you.
Producing the Winning Tender? (via Spatial Designers Blog)
It’s quite hard to know the true COST of your own service including overheads. It’s even harder to estimate the true VALUE of your service to a buyer. Here’s a nice article looking at some of the issues with a practical hat on.
Interior Designers & SEO (Whatever That Is)
Not another one! If, like you, I get another email from some far off land asking me if I want my web site redesigned or SEOd I will go crazy. What do these people know about my business? I’m a designer and my business is different! They are just techy nerds (maybe techie wierdos let’s not get personal).
Well let’s clear a few things up.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimzation. Great, but so what?
Well what that means is that if you do SEO properly your website will probably appear a bit higher in Google’s search results. Probably. And that is a good thing, right? Right!
Although having said that ‘it is a good thing’, it depends on how you do business. If your website is not a lead generator (which it is not for many interior designers) then yes it is still a good thing but maybe not THAT good that it merits time, effort and money being invested into it.
However, let’s for a moment assume that you care that when a potential customer types in something like “find interior designer London”. A not unreasonable assumption and also something that IS TYPED into Google quite a bit (I know, I checked, honest!).
So you do want your web site listed right up there with the great and the good? And as you are still reading I assume your website is not one of those listed on the frist page.
Basically ‘all’ you have to do is
1. Figure out every set of key words and phrases that a potential client will use and repeat them a few times in your site.
2. Get a high google pagerank (a technical thing that you don’t really have to worry about).
But that is VERY DIFFICULT to do AND very TIME CONSUMING.
But even when you have done that and people come to your web site what will they do when they are there? Will they read how great you are? Read about your services? Read about YOUR business history/profile. Maybe. But really people are not that interested in you or even your business really. What they ARE interested in is what YOUR BUSINESS can do for them and can you be TRUSTED to do it properly.
So really now we have got sidetracked and gone off on several tangents. However we are brought back to the SIMPLE SOLUTION.
Just create a web site with compelling content that is frequently updated. THAT IS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO. IF YOU DO THAT THEN ALL THE SEO STUFF AND PAGERANK TAKES CARE OF ITSELF and people who get to your site stay there and have a poke around.
Once again, it’s not rocket science. A word of warning though, a SEO consultant will make it expensive rocket science. So don’t bother with them. just add some pretty and interesting stuff to your site.
Interior Designers Get Repeat Customers – How To
We all do it don’t we? We sometimes are so keen to grow the business that we focus too much on getting new customers. We forget that it’s much easier to keep existing customers and sell to them, sometimes it’s good to evaluate your strategy in the light of this truth that we all know.
Marketing has progressed a thousandfold in its acronym use since the 4-Ps (Product, Price, Promotion & Place/Distribution). The latest variant to the customer retention model is the 5-Ss. SERVICE, SEGMENTATION, SELLING, SYSTEMS and, oh yes, SERVICE (again)!
I would argue that by looking again at your strategy in these 5 (four!) key areas of marketing there is a good chance that you will find opportunities to generate more revenues from your existing customers.
Step one: Segmentation – Successful sales organisations segment customers by their buying behaviour: are they loyal and relationship-based, value-seeking or fickle, transactional or price-driven? You should treat each group differently and expect different responses. For example, constant stimulus and repetition of sales offers works best with fickle transaction-based customers. A more subtle, less ‘hard sell’ approach is needed with loyal and relationship-centred customers.
Step two: Service – High service standards help build a brick wall around your customers. They may be tempted away by crazy prices but your superior service levels will make it hard for them to leave. Make sure your service is as good as you think it is. If you have time then use customer surveys (but use them well) and conduct one-on-one reviews with top customers. Do what one successful business I know does: each senior manager calls one customer a week simply to check that all is well and to tell them that they value their business. Good service sells repeat business.
Step three: Systems – Examine whether your systems are working for you or against you. Do they flag up soon-to-end contracts early enough? Is there a robust system in place to ensure that the customer is contacted? That the contact is followed up? Sage Act is as good as any.
Step four: Selling Do you still actively sell to existing customers? It’s ironic that no one knows a customer better than their existing providers, yet all too often we fail to sell to existing customers. We don’t want to seem greedy, or we worry being pushy might damage the relationship. Often, we’ll take the view that we’ve ‘already got what we came for’. Yet, customers expect us to come to them with new ideas and new offers, they want us to innovate and help them. If we’ve been doing our job properly they’ll want to stay with us. So why surrender that hard-won ground to the hungry competition?
Think, too, about your reward systems. Are you paying people only to win new business, or are you also rewarding highly profitable, but less glamorous, customer retention activity?
Customer retention is one key to profit and business stability, but it’s often (still) overlooked. Review your segmentation, your service, your systems and your selling, and seize the opportunities within your grasp.
Got A Crush On Velvet?
Crushed Velvet – something a bit different from one of our new 2010 Velvets. One of the advantages of many velvets is their suitability for many uses including upholstery, panelling, cushions and curtains. Our new Crushed Velvet is no exception with a Martindale of over 40,000 for a 145cm wide fabric. (See also Martindale vs. Wyzenbeek for an explanation of the difference)
Our Crushed Velvet design comes in 12 colourways. Each colourway is a two-tone colour mix some mixes are similar such as pink+red whereas others more contrasting like the purple+green (shown). The composition is a cotton mix.
The unique texture and colourways make this a striking fabric useful as a highlight to any luxury scheme.
Related Articles
- Mohair Velvet, Silk Velvet: How to upholster using it (kothea.com)
- Silk Velvet Production Problems (kothea.com)
- Vicuna Silk Velvet (Vicugna) – Better Than Cashmere Silk Velvet? (kothea.com)
- Black Velvet – Even Better Italian Silk Velvet In Black (kothea.com)
- Blue Velvet: Oh So Sexy (apartmenttherapy.com)
Interior Design for the Post-recsssion Consumer (via Interior Design Diva)
Some good thoughts. Let’s hope the ‘post recession’ period stays ‘post’ and there is no double dip recession.
Here are some more of my sales and marketing articles for interior designers.
Cashmere Colour Trends for 2011/12 to be Unveiled at Cashmere World Trade Show (via Cashmere Throw Blog)
Do manufacturers really lead colour / color trends? Can industry associations do better? Or do designers know best?
Cashmere Throws & Pashmina (via Cashmere Throw Blog)
Happy new year
But not happy new decade.
Yes, unfortunately 2010 is the end of the decade not the start of a new one. Honest. You have to wait for 2011 for that. And yes I know that we were all wrong when we celebrated the new millennium on 1st Jan 2000, but it was still a great party wasn’t it?
Well that’s the ‘correct’ definition but I still think that we have now left the period we know as the noughties.
Hopefully it will not be called the teenies.