Customer Archives

Whether you are a new Interior Designer or an accomplished, Long-Standing Designer of repute, you always need to know who your target customers are. In fact, if you don’t know your target customers, you won’t stay in business long unless you’re lucky.

Times change. What was a great target market in boom times might not work when things get tough; review your target markets annually.

There are broadly two types of customers: residential and commercial.

The former is characterised by an individual or household decision-making unit, whereas the latter is characterised as an organisation; organisations can be difficult to deal with because they are more complex, with decision-makers, buyers, specifiers, influencers, and many others involved in the decision-making process.

A potential residential customer could be a friend, a relative, someone down the road, or a referral. Essentially, someone who wants to ‘do’ their living space.

A potential commercial customer could be a hotel chain, your local restaurant, the office where someone you know works; often it will be a ‘workplace’ of some sort, but it could also include a large property developer/builder building an apartment block or a private aircraft or yacht manufacturer/designer.

What is NOT a target market. Green design is NOT a target market. Kitchen design is NOT a target market. You must always phrase the target market in terms of the customer. So the preceding examples could become: People who are environmentally conscious in their interiors purchasing decisions; and People who are replacing their kitchen.

Remember. There are a LOT of people in this world. There are a LOT of workplaces. So you will probably need several criteria to specify your target market precisely.

And here is where it gets tricky.

You can use criteria like age, location, gender, income level, education level, marital or family status, occupation, and Ethnic background. But then, really, how meaningful is that for your marketing? If one of your criteria is “educational level”, then, for example, ‘graduate’ may well describe all of your previous customers, but how useful is that criterion in seeking out new customers? Will you really vet everyone that comes to you to see if they have a degree? Will you assume all graduates are intelligent (many are not, trust me!)? Will you assume that all graduates are wealthier? In your marketing, how exactly can you target graduates? If you use alumni magazines for advertising, I admit that would be a great route to graduates, but really, alumni magazines!? With the advent of Instagram and Facebook advertising, you CAN specify that adverts are shown only to graduates…so, assuming the Facebook user is telling the truth about themselves, then OK, I accept that would be reasonable. Think it through, whatever you decide.

So what you are trying to achieve with your target markets is a level of manageable clarity. Clarity in the sense that it becomes clear who your customers will (hopefully) be. You can see how your marketing efforts will be focused towards them. Manageable in the sense that you can ‘easily’ target them with the money, time, and manpower you have available for marketing.

Do not fall into the trap of saying that your target market is “People who buy my type of service”. That won’t really help you! despite it being obviously true.

Once you know your target markets (which may require research), you can estimate their size. You can see how easily you can reach them. You can assess whether they can afford your services. Much of your marketing will ‘fall into place’ relatively straightforwardly once you have figured out what you are selling and who you are selling it to.

Remember, LOTS of people out there are trying to get the same business you are. So you have to be smart. The obvious market may well be obvious to 100 other interior designers, and your basic design service may be the same as the one offered by those 100 other designers. Often, it is better to target a less crowded market with a relatively unique offering tailored precisely to it. Easier “said” than “done”, of course.

Here are some suggestions:

Commercial Interiors

- Hospitality & Leisure
- Marine
- Medical
- Aerospace

Residential Interiors

- Age
- Location
- Gender
- Income level
- Education level
- Marital or family status
- Occupation
- Ethnic background
- Eco-buyers
- Buy to let
- New builders
- Renovators
- Landlords
- Tech savvy
- Time-poor family
- Friends
- Networks/ past client networks

If your target user is someone you might not contact directly and you have to go through someone else (usually an organisation), then that organisation becomes your channel to market.