Should you Pay for Advertising in Your Interior Design Business?
Word of Mouth is ALWAYS the best kind of advertising. But are there ever times when you should pay for advertising in your Interior design business? Such as Google, Facebook or print ads?
There are 2 simple questions to ask yourself to help you decide if paid advertising is right for your business?
Have you recently (in the last year +/-) moved to a new city or state where you don’t have a network?
Are your word of mouth referrals weak and not attracting your ideal clients?
If you can honestly answer yes to either of these questions, paid advertising might be a good fit for you.
Here’s my own story:
When I first started my business, I launched and grew completely on Word of Mouth referrals and never once paid for advertising. However, when I moved and lost my network entirely, I chose to pay for Google Ads - for a little while.
In-person networking really requires cultivating long-term relationships and the leads may take years to develop. While they are likely to be high-quality leads, I didn’t have years to ramp up my business. I viewed the paid ads as a way to jumpstart my business in a new city.
Those ads quickly landed me several new jobs, so I turned off the ads (as easy as a click of a button). Those projects became word of mouth referrals thus ending any paid advertising.
For me, I view paid advertising as a way to jumpstart or boost visibility for a short period of time, vs an ongoing lead generation tool. You, however, may choose to continuously run ads if that’s part of your strategy.
If you’re considering paid advertising, think about your budget and reach and start small.
To be clear, I am not a marketing expert. I know what has worked for my interior design business, I’ve tested it in different cities/markets, and I’ve discussed with countless designers who have had similar experiences. If you’re serious about spending money on marketing efforts, consider hiring a marketing expert in your area that can help you determine the best methods and budget for your business.
Today’s post is an overview of. the pros and cons of the 3 most common paid advertising options.
Google Ads & Facebook Ads
Google Ads reach people searching for specific keywords such as “Interior Designer + Your City”
Whereas Facebook Ads (Including Instagram) reach people who meet specific criteria and have interests that you set. For example, “Women 40-60, Gross income 100k+, Live in your area, who just moved, and interested in Interior Design”. The segmentation available with Facebook Ads can be incredibly specific. Ideally, you would want to create a targeted audience that is neither too broad nor too narrow.
If you’re just starting out and have a very small budget, choose one platform and begin with that. In my own personal experience, Google Ads were super easy to set up while FB were a little more nuanced. However, there are many online tutorials available that can help you set up Facebook Ads (or hire a pro) if you decide to go that route.
My favorite part of Facebook and Google ads is if something isn’t working you can easily tweak the ads such as update a photo, revise the copy, or change the call to action, to see if you get better results. Try to change just one variable at a time so you know which change made the difference. Also, If you’re super busy or going on an extended trip, you can always turn the ads off with the click of a button.
Print Ads
Print advertising such as your local city magazine is usually very expensive, but you might reach more of your target audience. Consider running ads for at least 3 months before committing to an entire year. Less than 3 months and you probably won’t see any impact.
Alternatively, look to see if they have an annual Home Issue. Perhaps you have a project that you could pitch or consider pitching yourself to write a column. Hello free advertising!
Referral Networks
Referral Networks are websites that usually have a database of industry professionals. Their business model is to generate income with advertising. You can usually create a free profile or - for an advertising fee - you can create a “Pro” account and your ad placement would appear at the top of searches in your category (i.e. interior designers).
Personally, these are not my favorite method if I’m going to pay for advertising. In my own experience, the quality of leads was very poor. Anecdotally, I’ve heard the same from many interior designers. That said, I’ve heard from a few people it’s worked well for them. Only you can decide what’s best for you and the kind of interior design client you are trying to attract.
If you’re curious, try it. If it works - great! If it doesn’t quit and move on. Keep in mind, they will always try to get you to commit to an annual membership which is a risk you would need to be willing to take.
Quick Tips:
Research the cost to advertise on the platforms of your choice before committing. Don’t give in to high-pressure sales tactics.
Decide your call-to-action - It’s almost always “book a call”, versus download your Free Guide page or some other action.
Be prepared - Have image(s) or video, your keywords, and your copy written before setting up your ads.
Decide on your landing page -. If your call-to-action is to book a Discovery Call with you, decide if the link on your ad will be to your home page, or to your “Book A Discovery Call” page (my suggestion is the latter).
Track the performance of your ads -. If you have a questionnaire on your website, make sure to include a question at the end that asks, “How did you hear about us?”.
Quality over quantity every time - If you’re getting tons of leads but they are not your ideal client, track that information too. In other words, if Google Ads are sending you serious, engaged, eager clients but the Referral Network is sending you “lookie lou’s” have a way to track this information over time so you can make better decisions on how to spend your hard-earned advertising dollars.
