A few weeks ago, after I learned that Tim Schelfe, ASID–of Schelfe and Associates, Raleigh, North Carolina–was chosen to participate in The Nation’s Next Top Model Home competition, I jokingly sent Tim an email saying, “You are a rock star!”  Joking aside, Tim seems to have reached rock star status with this great opportunity as a professional designer competitor on a web-based TV show.

Tim Schelfe, ASID

The Nation’s Next Top Model Home selected 7 ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) designers and gave them 28 days and $5,000 to transform a room in a model home (competitors could spend an additional $5,000 of their own money as well).  Voting then opened to the public for 30 days online (you can still vote!) and the winner will not only win the ultimate rock star designer status but will also win $25,000 for his or her firm.

I sat down virtually with Tim and asked him about his Nation’s Next Top Model Home experience.

GDM:  How were you selected to participate?

TS: An email blast went out to ASID and I filled out the required information, including photos of my work and a headshot of me.  Didn’t think much about it and then two weeks later got a call that I made the top 12 and then the final 7.

GDM:  What made you decide to participate and do you think it will help promote your business?

TS:  Initially I was very skeptical.  I thought, do I have time for this?  But the submission process was very easy to do and I thought “somebody is going to get selected why not me”!  I hoped this would get my name and my firm out to a very large audience.  I also thought it would be a fun competition to be in and a good way to promote professional interior design.  Also, since they were casting ONLY ASID designers I felt they were sending a good message to the public; hire a professional.

GDM:  Were there any pitfalls in participation?

TS: Yes all the designers had to abide by there budgetary rules.  Also the time it took away from my real business and paying clients was huge.

(more…)

After watching these two videos (which have similar content), I hope that you realize that you will quickly become a dinosaur if you are not embracing social media as a direction for your business’s marketing.

Ethan Allen added a style quiz to its website recently.  While there is nothing scientific about it, it is a great example of a website encouraging visitors to not just browse but to actually interact.  Once you take the quiz and are assigned your “look” (my results said that my look is “glamour”), there is a link to explore products which takes you to the Ethan Allen products that best fit that look.

While I am not Ethan Allen’s target audience, I did appreciate that they are encouraging interaction and inciting individuality by assigning quiz results.  Instead of just selecting a sofa from a page, you are shown the pre-selected pieces that fit your individualized style.  That’s just good marketing.

From a coding perspective, this quiz probably cost Ethan Allen very little but they will see great ROI due to increased word of mouth (I found out about the style quiz via Twitter and retweeted accordingly) and by converting quiz takers to customers through meeting their stylized preferences.

Take the quiz yourself.  It’s fun.

SmartBlog on Social Media posted a great article last week about the importance of your subject line when sending emails to your lists.  They list a few tangible suggestions to greatly increase the value that you bring to your community as well as the increase that you can get in your open rates.

(article below)

After Stephanie Miller’s recent guest post about optimizing the deliverability of e-mail marketing messages, we received several requests for more information about e-mail marketing best practices. With 10 years of e-mail marketing experience under our belt, we’ve learned a few things. Now it’s time for us to share with you.

The golden rule: Do unto others …

My No. 1 tip for e-mail marketing success is actually what not to do: Do not send too many e-mails to your list. The value of your list decreases the more you send e-mails that recipients don’t want/need.

Read more at SmartBlog on Social Media…

Last week, 3M reported better than expected earnings for Q2 2009.  CNBC analysts commented that, in large part, this better than expected report was due to increased sales of 3M respirator masks bought by people afraid of the swine flu epidemic.  Masks to protect against this epidemic are on back-order through 2009, 3M CEO George Buckley said.

These respirator masks were not originally designed and manufactured to protect against this relatively recent outbreak.  However, 3M listened to consumers, realized a new potential use, and creatively repurposed the masks without having to sink massive research and development funds, missing the demand all together.

What service or product does your firm offer that could be repurposed?

What services could serve a different market without your company straying from its core competencies?

If you previously designed primarily for home builders, what services did you offer them and what other segments of the market could benefit from those services?

Most importantly, what is your market telling you about the use of your products or services? Children are best at showing alternate purposes for products.  Very few actually play with their toys as intended.

Duct tape was first used to keep ammunition cases free of moisture in World War II.  Need I say more about its current uses?

Tacky Prom (pun intended)

For plumbers on, and off, the job

Stain Protection

Babysitting

As small companies, our most limited resource is our time.  Therefore, it is not surprising that the question arises, “Why should my business be on Twitter?”

1.  It’s one of the least expensive ways to perform research and development. Once you have even a few hundred followers, you have a great sample size to extend business questions.  Wondering whether people would be interested in a certain new service?  Put it out to the Twitterverse.  The worst thing that can happen is that no one answers.  The best thing that can happen is that you receive several responses and have valuable information about how to proceed.  This could save you a tremendous amount of time and money.

2.  Someone may be talking about you. Whether it be positive or negative, someone on Twitter may be talking about your business.  How will you respond if you are not there to listen?  I recently tweeted that a restaurant I frequent in Charlottesville always has terrible service.  This received a huge response from my Charlottesville following (15+ tweets back and forth about the pros and cons of the restaurant).  Crickets from the restaurant (even though they are on Twitter- this actually makes the silence worse).  This could have been a perfect opportunity for the restaurant to make happy customers.  [See a video here about how P.F. Chang's is on the cutting edge of using Twitter to make customers happy].

3.  You are able to show your company’s true personality. By showing your true personality, you will attract more of  your ideal clients.

4.  You never know who you are going to meet. Just like you can’t expect your phone to ring if you never leave the house and network, Twitter is an opportunity to network and engage with people on an even broader scale.  I have not only met people across the world (we seem to click well with Toronto twitterers for some reason) but have also met some great people in our area who I may never have met otherwise.  This has translated to real life connections and business referrals.

5.  Become a better educated businessperson. Twitter is full of tweets with resources for business.  It is also a great place to pose a question like, “Are there less expensive alternatives to Photoshop?”  Then just wait for your following to chime in on its experiences and knowledge.

This would not be a complete blog post if I did not mention that I posed this question to my Twitter following and received the following responses.

Question:

Received these answers from some of my great followers:

If your business is already on Twitter, what are some of your success stories?  What have you found to be the greatest benefit of Twitter?

We recently launched the social media division of our company and since the launch have received tremendous interest and feedback.  As many of you readers know, I am very excited about utilizing social media tools as a part of a design firm’s greater marketing program.

It’s important to remember that social media and networking are tools.  Much like offline networking and media, you should not expect a magical result after setting up a Facebook page or tweeting for one day.  Would you expect to go to a Chamber of Commerce meeting one time and immediately have clients knocking down your door?  No.  Just like offline marketing, online networking follows a simple rule: You get out of it what you put into it.

Here are some key ways that you can get the most out of your time spent on social media utilization to drive return on investment:

-         Determine your goals. What do you hope to achieve with your greater marketing program, both online and off?  Do you wish for all of your marketing to drive people to your website where you have the call to action?  If so, make sure that you are also using your social networking tools to achieve the same goal.  Don’t just use Facebook or LinkedIn for the sake of using Facebook or LinkedIn.  This is a waste of your time.

-         Join the conversation. With a medium like Twitter, it’s important to not just tweet (post), but to also be an active conversationalist with your followers and those that you follow.  Answer questions, be a resource, and lend a hand.  Similarly, closely follow a few blogs in and out of your industry.  Post comments on those blogs to add value and to become an active participant in the blogging world.  When you join the conversation in these ways, you will have a more active surrounding community and, in the case of the blogs, you will get many more readers due to trackbacks and mentions on the blogs that you comment on.

-         Devote time. Social media tools—like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter—can easily become addictive.  Decide that, like your email, you will check them a couple of times a day and add to the conversation if you have anything valuable to share.

-         Use time-saving technologies. For Twitter, we recommend using TweetDeck to create groups, monitor replies, and manage conversation.  For a free blog interface, we recommend WordPress.  There are many other plug-ins that can save you time.  For example, you may use a plug-in that tweets and updates your Facebook page every time you post on your blog.

-         Be real and have a personality. If you are all business all the time, you will not realize the value of social networking.  People like to do business with people they like and the new market wants the companies that it does business with to have personalities.  While it is up to your discretion how transparent you are, you should not only post as if a robot in your company runs the social media show.  Big surprise that this does not endear people to your firm.  John Byrne, the editor of BusinessWeek, is on Twitter and while much of what he tweets are things that could be found in his magazine, he also adds a human element to it.  As a result, I am more likely to visit the BusinessWeek site and to buy BusinessWeek at the stands.

Utilizing social media can extend your dollar and you can see a significant return on the investment if you follow the key steps.  Do not, however, think that creating a presence on a number of social networking sites will have clients knocking down your door.  It is not pulling a rabbit out of a hat but instead is nurturing a rabbit and then letting it play with its other rabbit friends and help spread the word—and we all know how quickly rabbits multiply.

Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed keeping up with your blog?  Blogs are a great marketing tool, but in order to keep traffic coming, you need to keep the content fresh and interesting. 

Gibson Design Management is pleased to now offer Blogging Services to designers.  Heather Bien has joined our team, bringing years of experience in the design industry and her terrific writing and research skills with her.  Our blogging team will work with you to determine your needs and then handle writing the posts to keep traffic coming to your blog.  Posts are $20/each.  You decide the frequency that works for your budget and let our team handle the rest.  For more information about this service contact Heather Bien today.

Don’t have a blog?  Our Social Media team would love to help you with that as well.  For more information, click here or contact Alexandra@gibsondesignmanagement.com today about our Social Media division.  Don’t be a dinosaur.  You can’t afford to be uneducated about this new way of marketing.

We have had an overwhelming response to our Social Media division of Gibson Design Management.  In just one day recently, we added four social media clients who are interior design firms across the country. 

Chances are, these designers may be your competitors. 

If you understand the necessity of integrating social media into your business to stay ahead of the curve, see more information about our Social Media Starter Package here.

The social media and networking starter package is $695.00.  If you sell one sofa, your mark-up should pay for this so no excuses.  Don’t be a dinosaur.  You can’t afford to not be educated about the new way of marketing. 

Here is a great testimonial from one of our social media clients:

Alexandra and Amanda are great to work with.  They were with me every step of the way.  They had me tweeting right away!  They helped set up my Facebook profile and company page and helped me get started with my blog!  They made this process that would have been stressful and intimidating a very enjoyable and stress-free experience.  I still can’t believe I have accomplished my social networking goals in just a matter of days.  I would still be an “unknown” in the social networking world if I did not sign up for the starter package. Great investment and worth every penny!  – Linnore Gonzales, CID, Denver, Colorado

Click here to learn more and to sign up before the early bird pricing expires.  If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to email me at alexandra@gibsondesignmanagement.com.   

We have started working with a lot of great interior designers all over the country to integrate social media tools into their marketing initiatives.  Social media is not easy and many interior designers feel overwhelmed, especially by the time commitment.  Some common phrases we hear from our clients are:

“How often do I have to tweet?”

“How am I going to find the time to update all of these things?”

“Wow!  I have all of these followers, now what?”

“TAKE A DEEP BREATH” is my usual response.  A few days ago, Leo Babauta wrote a post for Mashable.com called HOW TO: Simplify Your Social Media Routine.  As he can explain it more succinctly than I, take a look and, again, take a breath.

From Mashable.com:

These days participating in social media such as Twitter, Facebook, blogging and more is almost required for any entrepreneur or business, small or large.

But there’s so much info and chatter coming in through social media that it can overwhelm you, eat up your time, and ruin your productivity.

Simplifying will help you stay in touch, and continue to participate in the conversation, without losing sight of your mission and the important work you need to get done.

Read more…