How To Find Interior Design Clients in Your City or Town

As an interior designer, your customer base is largely coming from your immediate area. The majority of your customers will be within a 25-50 mile radius of your location and will be people who pass by your office regularly or who are referred by other customers in your area. Given the emphasis on location, there are a few marketing techniques you should be using to get the word out about your business in your city.

Attracting local interior design clients takes some work. Use these eight marketing tips and you will see results.

Eight Ways To Attract Interior Design Clients

1. Blogging to attract interior design clients - Blogging has become an integral component of online marketing. With a blog, you can share valuable information with your customers about who you are and what you do, but you are also able to create keyword-rich content that includes location names. This will make your website searchable for people who are looking for interior designers in your city. A keyword phrase like Interior Designer Tuscaloosa Alabama" is more apt to attract clients who will use your services than just using "Interior Designer".
2. Partner With Other Businesses - Often people looking to hire an interior designer are already working with other companies in your area to complete renovations or to move. When you partner with realtors, moving companies, and remodeling contractors you can share your marketing efforts and get more bang for your buck. Collaborate on marketing initiatves, hold events together, and promote your partner services in your office.
3. Bring On the Referrals - People who love your work are usually willing to tell their friends about their experience, but only if their friends ask who did the work first. By creating an incentivized referral program that offers them a gift card or credit toward a future purchase, you can entice happy customers to give out your name and contact information proactively. Remember if you share the contact information of clients seeking the services of your partners, you are more likely to get leads in return.
4. Use Social Media - While Facebook and Twitter have largely dominated social media marketing efforts, interior designers can also make great use of Instagram and Snapchat where images rule the roost. Since so much of your work is visual, taking a few snapshots and sharing them with localized tags will help people find you on social media.
5. Make Sure Your Search Engine Listings are Right - Claim your business page on sites like Yellow Pages, Google, Yelp and others and make sure all of your contact information is correct. Search engines notice when your information is wrong, and they will down rate you until it is fixed. Moz Local is an easy to use business listing and citation management tool that allows you to post your business information once and migrate it to the five main aggregators of business location data. These aggregators send your information to local search engines in the United States.
6. Host an Event - Many homeowners are afraid to take big risks on their home decor because they will have to live with the results. By hosting an informative and fun event at your location, you can showcase some of the work you've done in the past, and provide them with some pointers on how to get started. Even introducing them to different styles of design and showing them how the color wheel works can be enough to let down their guard. Invite your past interior design clients and be sure to use a service like Eventbrite to host and manage your event. Online event software like Eventbrite helps with website SEO and makes your event more visible online.
7. Contact Local Magazines and Papers - Many cities have local beat newspapers and magazines that are dedicated to promoting small businesses in the area. You can establish yourself as a thought leader in your region by suggesting article topics for local homeowners to dress up their homes, or by providing interviews. Local magazines and newspapers have reduced writing staff in the last ten years but they still need to publish content. With consistent outreach, you can become the interior design expert in local publications.
8. Reach Out to Happy Customers - Check back in with your clients 3-6 months after you've completed the job and again after a year. Make sure they are still satisfied with the look and invite them to leave you a positive review online. Keep in mind that your customers may move, so keeping in touch can make them repeat customers over time. If your use Houzz to market your services, be sure to ask for a review and send your clients a link that makes it easy for them. 

These are just eight ways that you can get local interior design clients and increase referrals from the customers you have, and bring in more local business. By targeting your immediate area and focusing on customers that you have already served, you can get quality referrals and boost your reputation online. Blogging and social media will also help along the way.

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.