How to make your interior design business niche clear
/Is your interior design firm clearly set apart from other designers?
One of the biggest problems most interior designers do is not address a clear, unique, differentiating niche.
Even if you know what your niche is, your customers do not.
Your website’s Home Page should make your niche extremely clear.
When people visit your website, there is a 50% drop off from the home page within the interior design industry. This means, for every 50 people who view your website, only 25 of them will look at a second page (usually the Portfolio page).
One of the biggest reasons people don’t bother to view a 2nd page is because the interior design website they are viewing does not clearly speak to a target clientele.
Your home page is like the store front of a retail store
Your home page is the first thing visitors see and the first thing that will determine if they “walk in” to your website to look around.
If your Storefront doesn’t speak the language of your ideal client with the right photos and words, then they wont walk in and browse other pages.
The 3 elements of a successful niche
1. The fewer the words the better.
Ideally, your slogan should be somewhere between 2 and 8 words. The shorter the better, because your clients will then be more likely to read and remember your niche. Paragraphs on websites are almost never read.
2. Specific and different than your competition.
Clearly explain why you are different. There are plenty of residential interior designers in New York City. And to compete for that on SEO is going to be nearly impossible. Instead, you need to pick a niche which is clearly different than all other designers and own and dominate that niche. For instance, Modern interior design for female entrepreneurs in NYC is a far better niche because it has so many specifics: the style, the ideal client’s profession, their gender, and location. There may be only 100 of these clients available at a given time, but these clients will likely have you as a top pick for their project if they find your website.
3. Repeated over and over.
Companies that repeat their slogan and make it as simple as possible are more memorable. You may get bored of using your company slogan, but your clients are not as familiar with your brand as you are, and they more likely to remember your when the time comes to hire someone for their interior design project.
The riches are in the niches
A niche is a powerful tool, especially when you pair the kind of work you love doing with an ideal clientele, and will set you apart from all the other interior designers out there. Failing to establish a niche will keep you small and look like all other interior design firms.
From what we see, most interior designers (approximately 90% of firms) do not make their niche clear. So doing this on your website and marketing material is going to set you apart from the competition and help you attract your ideal clients.