A series to get your creative juices flowing for your interior design firm’s blog. Read the introduction here.
Choosing towel colors. How to use a spa-like approach or to accent with your bath towels.
5 favorite pedestal sinks.
Photo: Better Homes & Gardens
How to tell good upholstery from bad. Possibly show pictures that will educate your reader on what they can look for when selecting a piece of upholstery.
Effects of glazing cabinetry. How different glazes change the natural colors of woods.
Choosing the right area rug. Size, style, and more. Do you put the sofa legs on it?
Photo: Apartment Therapy
Be sure to check back next Monday for five more blog post ideas!
I’m currently sitting on an Alaska Airlines flight, flying from DC to Seattle. It’s a long flight, the seats are average size, and the paid snacks are average too. However, there are some remarkable things about this flight that do not just have to do with Alaska Airlines.
This plane has WiFi. Yes, I realize that this technology exists but it’s surprising how many planes do not still have the service (come on airlines, get with it). I was excited to learn that we would have WiFi, but imagine my glee when I found out that Bank of America (who is the credit card backer of the Alaska Airlines Visa) would be covering the cost of the WiFi for all Alaska flights this month. Typically the WiFi is up to $12.95 for a flight of this length. I have a Bank of America credit card, and now I’m more likely to keep that card and to consider B of A for other banking and credit card needs. I don’t know how the deal worked between B of A and Alaska, and I don’t really care. I do care that I have free WiFi right now; my experience with Alaska is better and I like Bank of America more.
Bank of America win.
Alaska Airlines win.
Alaska Airlines also has these cool electronic devices called DigEPlayers. This means that for a fee, you get your own digital player that is preloaded with several movies, TV shows, music videos, music, and more. This is mentionable in and of itself because I like that I can choose what I watch and I don’t have to strain to watch a movie that I didn’t really want to see in the first place on an overhead screen. I mentioned that these DigEPlayers have “More” and this is where we find another joint venture win. I scrolled through the menu and found that the player has Soundview Executive Book Summaries. I have seen these advertised in a magazine, and they did not look inexpensive, but imagine my glee (AGAIN) when I found that I could choose from over 45 business books and hear the executive summaries during my flight. Now I’ve been able to try out this service, while I’m a captive, bored audience, and now I will be more likely to actually purchase this summary subscription
In-flight boredom eradicated... (at least on Alaska Airlines!)
from Soundview because I recognize the value and I like that they entertained me.
Soundview Executive Book Summaries win.
Alaska Airlines win.
Since I really enjoyed listening to a couple of these executive summaries, I found that I wanted to know more than just the 20 minute soundbyte on a couple of them. This means that I opened my Firefox, went to Amazon, and bought the books…from the sky. I’m sure this is SkyMall taken to a whole new level.
Amazon win.
Author win.
Alaska Airlines win.
So, the next time that you are thinking about running your company as an island, think about how much happier you could make your customers or clients if you give them things that may not cost you any extra but mean a lot to them. People remember what made them happy and when they were happy. Shouldn’t that be in your store, in your office, on your website, or on your flight? I’ve almost even forgotten about the $20 that Alaska charged me to check my bag.
With all of the shiny new tools out there, many of our small business clients ask whether they still need use email marketing to reach their communities and audiences. A few months ago, I would have said “yes”, but not as emphatically as I say it now. A few months ago, I would have spouted off something about how your clients, influencers, and potential clients like to receive their information in different ways. Not everyone is going to be on Facebook, reading your blog, etc. but they might actually like to hear from you by email. I believe that this is still the case, however now we have some metrics to back it up.
Last week at the Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius conference in New York, Olivier Blanchard from The BrandBuilder not only gave an incredibly robust presentation on determining ROI from social media efforts but he also gave a REAL LIFE (these exist!) example of a small business who used different digital and print avenues to promote his business.
From Olivier’s presentation:
Example of spend justification — A retailer suspected his print advertising wasn’t helping. 90% of spend was on print, 10% was on email, blog, and in-store. We embedded unique promo codes in each channel. We did sales as tests. We didn’t need to measure all the time, just slivers of time. Of all promo codes, 4% of sales came from print, 69% came from email, 17% came from Facebook, and 10% came from web and blog.
In our own experience, we have also found that our clients have highest direct sales from email marketing compared to other platforms. One of the design firms that we work with in Montana held a large sale on all furnishings from one of its manufacturers. The firm printed and mailed postcards about the sale and….crickets. For the same sale, we developed an email marketing campaign as well. At least three large furnishing purchases were attributed directly to the buyers receiving the emails (side note: margins on furniture are large). Emails are sharable too. For your list of 500, you may reach 1,000 when people forward on something good to their friends. That’s much more difficult with a hard copy mailer.
By what I’ve written in this post, I would imagine that several of you are thinking- “Well then why do we waste our time with Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and the other things that are about to make my brain explode? Why not just put all of our resources into email marketing if we want to make more money?” Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, vlogging, etc. are important for the new way that we, as consumers and as sellers interact; we expect that interaction and it’s an important fundamental piece of our new marketplace. On the digital marketing scale, email marketing is much less conversational. Conversations are important in building the bridges for future sales and future brand development. Don’t give up on the other platforms, but especially don’t think that email marketing is now obsolete. Just like each of the other tools, it has its place in your tool belt.
Alexandra and Amanda have just arrived in New York City to enjoy a few days of meetings, great events, and of course– fun. (Would you expect anything less?)
Kicking off today is House Beautiful’s “Kitchen of the Year“ in Rockefeller Plaza– an event full of cooking demonstrations with celebrity chefs, tastings, kitchen design tips, and a fully rendered “Kitchen of the Year” designed by Jeff Lewis. After the daytime activities conclude, Alexandra and Amanda will attend House Beautiful’s “Kitchen of the Year” opening night gala! For more details, watch the video below– and be sure to check Twitter for updates and photos by Alexandra and Amanda.
They will also be meeting with ultra-talented GDM member Ondine Karady at the event, whose 50′s movie- inspired kitchen, “Bumblebee by the Beach,” which was designed for House Beautiful’s “Uncompromising Design“ video series can be seen below. Alexandra and Amanda have just updated that Ondine’s video has been playing on the big screen in Rockefeller Plaza throughout today’s event– congratulations! Tomorrow, Ondine’s kitchen design will continue its reign in the spotlight at cooking demos and more sponsored by Jenn-Air.
Credit: Ondine Karady for House Beautiful
Tomorrow, Alexandra and Amanda will attend the Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius Conference hosted by Gaspedal for some educational nourishment. The event will feature how-to crash courses in Word of Mouth (WOM) Marketing, brilliant speakers, and real-world case studies.
If you happen to be in New York, head over to Rockefeller Plaza to partake in some of these exciting events. Even if you’re not a design enthusiast, there’s sure to be something for everyone to enjoy!
Again, stay updated on Twitter and follow Alexandra and Amanda as they journey through New York! More to follow…
You might have heard mentions of our sibling company, OttoPilot Media, through the Twitter grapevine, but perhaps you’re wondering what OttoPilot Media is all about. Make sure your tray tables are in the upright position– here’s the rundown:
In short, OttoPilot Media helps fly your business to a higher level through non-traditional marketing… but that’s more than just a catchy tag-line. We work with companies to determine which social media platforms will be best for what they want to achieve. Once that’s defined, we enhance and customize the necessary tools (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare, and more) so each social media platform accurately reflects the brand or business. We want our clients to look like the experienced pilots they are.
Plus, we take care of the hard part: effectively managing these platforms. Signing up, refueling and applying a fresh coat of paint to these social media accounts isn’t enough– so we generate content, schedule posts and tweets, and make sure you’re always up-to-date, knowledgeable, and engaged with your online communities. You won’t have to worry about a thing– it’s like sitting in first class all the time!
Now, we all know that if a pilot got distracted while flying, the results wouldn’t be too favorable. To avoid this, we stay focused and alert while your company runs on its familiar schedule (we know that can be a big distraction)– in order to deliver the best in-flight service and turbulence-free ride for you and your clients.
Moreover, we are specialists when it comes to helping our clients develop ideas and get people talking about their brand (and saying good things, of course). We work with companies to define a manageable flight plan, and then implement our revolutionary tools (i.e non-traditional marketing) to ensure our clients are visible across online platforms, and consistently sharing their unique brand with others.
Are the skies a little clearer now? We hope you’ll get in touch to learn more about how OttoPilot Media can help your business fly to new heights!
Practical, judicious and well-dressed, Scarlett O’Hara embodies more than just the charm of a Southern belle. Her character gives us plenty of business-savvy lessons to work with– applicable to any time period, and regardless of proximity to the Mason-Dixon Line.
Here are four lessons to be learned from Scarlett:
Be resilient. Scarlett did not have an easy go of it after the Civil War. She was forced to work the fields and manage the house after the death of her mother and the onset insanity of her father. Furthermore, she had not a penny to her name and was deeply indebted to the tax collectors. However, she pushed through. We’ve all lived through the last 2 years of a terrible economic storm. Even without poor market conditions, businesses will go through very tough times. Resiliency, and will power, can often be the only thing to push us through the difficulty when it seems like everything is going to mud. Sometimes it is about putting one foot in front of the other when things are really dismal.
Dress the part. When Scarlett goes to Atlanta to visit Rhett Butler in jail and ask for money to pay the taxes on Tara, she dresses the part despite being destitute (and wears the velvet drapes that Mammy fashioned into a gown). As Thomas Fuller said “Good clothes open all doors.” When you want something from someone—a sale, an investment, etc.—you need to look and act like you will survive without it. Dress the part, inside and out.
Think about it tomorrow. Some days are overwhelming. If you think about eating the whole elephant in one sitting, you will be sick thinking about the enormity of your task. Not everything has to be done today. Don’t bury your head in the sand but give yourself a break and realize that you are one person with the same 24 hours that everyone else has. As Scarlett says, “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” Some days you should do just that.
Don’t be foolish chasing after something that is not meant to be. Occasionally, we all really believe that a certain product or service is what is going to be our savior for our company. We continue investing money and time, putting other lucrative services and products on the back burner. Be honest with yourself about what areas of your business are really producing revenue. Focus a majority of your efforts there. Don’t spend your business life chasing after Ashley when Rhett is really the best fit.
I can already hear the rumblings of controversy based purely on this title. Over the past few months, our social media division at Gibson Design Management and our subsidiary media company, OttoPilot Media, have been discussing objective ways to measure our social media efforts for our clients. This has included discussion of customized metrics for each of our clients based on business and marketing goals.
I’m going to say it, so argue away: having more people “like” your Facebook business page is better. This does not mean that you can just stop there. You still need engaging content and someone consistently monitoring and responding so that it is a conversational platform.
When I first graduated from college and worked in sales and marketing for NVR, we were taught that a large part of sales is a numbers game. If you don’t speak to anyone, and you don’t set any appointments, and then you don’t write any contracts, you’re not going to make any sales. However, the (qualified) leads that you generated and the more appointments that you had meant that statistically you would be more likely to achieve your sales goals.
Don’t get me wrong- it did matter that these leads were qualified and that I was good at my job. I wasn’t sitting down with 15 year olds who wanted to buy an $800,000 home. However, these interactions were one-on-one. It does not cost you any extra money on Facebook to reach 100 or 1,000 additional people via your page.
With Facebook, every time that you post, the number of people that post reaches is purely the number of people who “like” your page. If that number is larger, you have a greater reach and reach is an important metric. If your objective is brand awareness, having more people know about and like your brand is important. If your objective is more sales, you are more likely to sell something with a greater audience.
Starting in 2007, the market for interior designers turned into quicksand. The credit markets tightened, and projects that typically went to designers were brought in-house both residentially and commercially.
HGTV and the Internet created more competitors in the middle of the market from the consumers themselves, and frankly, for most designers, those weren’t and aren’t your best clients anyway.
High-end projects stayed fairly steady until the economic debacle of October 2008, and then many of the projects slowed, stopped or didn’t start at all. Especially in markets tied to the financial markets like New York, the wealthiest clients lost their jobs and their sense of security if they were in jobs associated with money and wealth.
The commercial market was devastated by the credit crisis, and according to economists, the concerns aren’t behind us yet.
Even with this perfect storm, some designers were very busy. Why? They adapted to the market shifts, changed their pricing strategies, developed an online presence, spent as much as 10% on marketing, focused on a niche, learned how to differentiate themselves better, and didn’t wait for the phone to ring. They took these conditions as a challenge and they worked even harder than before.
If commercial and hospitality is your preferred area of business, you’ll want to focus on renovations. If you can show companies that an investment in renovation can lead to more dollars at the bottom line especially if they depend on consumer spending, then you have an opportunity to build a logical reason why a company should invest. The commercial designers that become a marketing partner with their clients differentiate themselves and become a valuable solution-oriented team member instead of an expense.
If your specialty is residential design, bathroom and kitchen renovation is still steady. The budgets might be smaller, but there is work in this specialty area.
A kitchen renovation featured on the Traditional Home blog
Some designers created packages of services they offered on their websites. Why did that work for them? The consumers wanted (and demanded) to know the investment required .
Other designers offered Value Based Fees because consumers resisted hourly fees. ASID surveyed consumers a few years ago and approximately 70% said they wanted fixed fees. Designers who offered this option found that it completely shifted their role from an hourly wage slave to a trusted advisor, and that helped many designers kick-start their businesses even during the last several months.
You could be the greatest designer, but if people don’t hear about you consistently, then your business will struggle. These days, you need great photography, a great head shot, articles about you in magazines, online and in newspapers (third party endorsements), a web presence including a website, blog and social media and search engine optimization of your website and blog.
And, if you don’t have a written business plan, marketing plan, vision and strategy for your business, it’s time to get busy and take action. Referrals and networking may have worked in the past, but they are less effective than ever, so that means it’s time to rethink and reposition your business.
I’ve been an interior designer for over 20 years, so I’ve had plenty of time to make these mistakes. Here’s a startling statistic (and I’ll bet it is higher during this recession) – 62.8% of all new businesses fail within 6 years according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and 96% fail within 10 years. That means you’re lucky to be one of 4 out of 100 to make it past 10 years…or is it luck?
What if you could avoid the mistakes that these business owners made?
I’d like to see you avoid them, and if you’ve already done a few of them, now you can learn what not to do so you don’t waste your valuable time and money:
Not having a written “ideal client” profile – If you don’t know who your ideal client is, how can you tell other people who they can refer to you? If you’ve ever had the client from &%$&, (or more than once) the key is to know what you don’t want in a client as much as what you do want.
Not knowing the lifetime value of your client – If you’ve been in the business even a few years, you can add up your billings and divide by the number of clients to get your current lifetime value. You should also look at how long they stay as a client. These two metrics are critical in your business planning and if you have this data as part of your Business Dashboard, it will help you grow your business. (more…)
We work with many design firms that utilize 3D photorealistic renderings to show clients their design vision. This is a great way to communicate and sell your vision through imagery instead of words, but why not use renderings in your business for other purposes as well?
Design by Gibson Design Group | Rendering for Upcoming Charity House Show
Here are 3 ideas for using 3D renderings that you might not have thought about previously:
Work backwards. If you have a great project in your portfolio that you have already completed and photographed, why not render that project as well. This will beef up your portfolio by showing potential clients what they can expect as a “before” (the rendering) and “after” (the photograph). The similarities will be astounding to the potential client.
Project never built, but design done. Unfortunately, given the economy over the past two years, many large projects never got off the ground. However, you may have done great design work for these spaces. If you have a project that was not ever completed, or the client pulled the plug for budgetary reasons, why not render your vision and add that to your portfolio?
Substitute for traditional photography. While professionally photographing your best work is extremely important for your portfolio, there are some projects that might not be quite worth the thousands of dollars to photograph. As a less expensive alternative, you can take photos of the spaces with a point and click camera and then have photorealistic renderings done to mimic them. This is also an opportunity to add the window treatments, art, accessories, or additional pieces that were part of the design, but not purchased by the client.
Conventional or non-conventional uses aside, utilizing photorealistic 3D renderings in your portfolio is a great way to win that next client, and set yourself apart from your competitors.
