If you're an interior designer, attracting better clients can be accomplished with education and inbound marketing. Here's how.

Your interior design website should the center of your marketing strategy. The key to attracting better clients is driving visitors to your site through social media, email outreach, pay-per-click advertising, blogging, search engine optimization and other digital channels. To convert visitors into leads, your website needs to answer their questions about your services and entice them to provide their contact information. There are four elements you can employ that will work together to take visitors from attraction through conversion to the sale. Let's examine how blogging, landing pages, calls to action, and email can work together to attract visitors and convert them into paying customers.

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is about attracting customers to your website by educating them about your services as opposed “selling.” The object of marketing has changed from “selling” to providing relevant, helpful content for potential buyers, and then attracting prospects looking for that specific information to your website.

Content Creation - The content marketing process begins with creating content that answers questions and addresses prospective customers needs. Then sharing that content. The best way to do this is by writing "how to" blog articles and sharing them with an RSS feed that will automatically email them to your prospects. 

Lifecycle Marketing - The process of guiding prospective customers through their buying process by continuing to meet their informational needs as they research and move through their buying process.

Personalization - Once you've established your prospects informational needs, personalize your information and messages to meet them to build trust and keep your interior design firm top of mind.

Integration - Content creation, publishing and using analytics to determine your message's reach and effectiveness all work together to refine your approach so you can offer the right information at the right time through the right channels.

Inbound marketing is a multi-channel approach that attracts potential clients by targeting them where they search for information and then offering them the ability to engage with your company via that channel.

Four Website Elements To Attract The Customers You Want

Your website is the hub of your inbound effort, and all marketing channels should lead back to your website.  Let's look at four website elements you should use that can help to increase leads, engage your visitors, get readers to convert, and close more sales.

1. Blogging

Your website is the hub of your marketing efforts; your blog is its heart.  Blogging is extremely useful for driving traffic. Search engines love keyword rich content and use that content to determine your page ranking.

Your blog is a way to “personalize” your business, tell your story, engage with prospects, a business establish expertise and thought leadership, build trust, educate readers, and assist them through the buying process by offering relevant information. Effective blogging requires consistency.  Set up a publishing schedule and post new content regularly. Focus on topics relevant to your business and include “keywords” that people would use to a company like yours. 

2.  Calls To Action

A call to action is a button, link, or graphic that prompts your reader to take an action. When clicked a CTA brings your reader to a landing page. For example, you've written a blog post about kitchen remodeling. Your prospect is considering a kitchen remodel. They see your call to action to at the bottom of your blog post to “click here for more information.” When the reader clicks the button, they're brought to the landing page offering your free whitepaper “10 Tips To Consider When Remodeling Your Kitchen.” 

3. Landing Pages

A landing page is a specific page on your website that is topic specific, and offers a premium piece of information, discount or another special offer to entice readers to “convert.”.  

Your landing page should set-up your offer (“10 Tips To Consider When Remodeling Your     Kitchen.”) to receive your “free” information, a visitor must supply their contact details. When they provide this info, they “convert” into a lead.

4. Email Marketing

Once you've converted your visitor, you need to remain in touch and inform them about other content of interest that you've posted. Because they converted through your “kitchen” landing page, you can begin the send them targeted information about kitchen remodeling, for example, a link to your new post about the top new appliances for 2016. This can help guide them through the buying process and continue to build trust and rapport.

Keeping your business top of mind to prospective buyers is how you close sales. Blogging, landing pages, calls to action and email outreach work together to inform, convert, and guide your readers through your lead funnel as you guide them through their buying process. If you effectively use these elements on your website, you can turn it into a lead generating machine!

About Michael Conway

I'm the owner and strategist at Means-of-Production. My firm builds Squarespace websites, Houzz profiles, and content marketing and advertising solutions for architects, interior designers, design-build contractors and landscape design firms. Our all-in-one marketing tactics attract the right clients with exceptional architectural photography and brand messaging that sets you apart from the competition.