A Stress-Free Approach to Email Marketing

The art of email marketing is all about balance. As a designer, you want to drive sales without being too pushy, and you want to maintain consistency without over-sharing. Creating email content takes time, so it’s important to justify your effort with engagement and inquiries. You might wonder if it’s worth the investment, especially in an industry increasingly driven by social media. Our take? A resounding yes.

In our own business, we’ve seen a direct correlation between newsletters and sales and inquiries. Plus, unlike social media, where the platform owns your content, your email subscribers are yours alone. If you’re ready to invest in email marketing, the first step is having a plan in place. Just as we recommend having an editorial calendar for your social media and blog content, we encourage the same for newsletters. We’ve put together ten ideas along with tangible takeaways to get you started.

 

Photography: Madeline Harper

 

Email Marketing for Interior Designers

 

Clients tell us about the blogs and articles they read online, encouraging them to focus their efforts on growing their email list. While we agree that increasing your audience is super important, having an extensive list of subscribers does little good if you aren’t sending out emails—or if no one is opening them. The key to newsletter content and sending emails that actually get opened is value. Your recipients want the exclusivity of getting first dibs and fresh previews of products and projects. They want to learn about something new or get a glimpse behind the scenes. Here are some content ideas to throw into the mix:

 

10 Content Ideas

 

• Project Reveals: Share a room or two from a new project as a sneak peek. Do this before posting to Instagram. Revealing rooms this way is a great option if you’re keeping withholding a project for press but want to get use of the images. You could pair the kitchen and dining rooms or living room and entry for a teaser before releasing the entire reveal post.

 

• Design Tips: Remember that your newsletter is likely going into the inboxes of clients and potential clients who enjoy your aesthetic and value your expertise. Quick tutorials like styling a bookcase or mantel gives them a resource to use + forward to friends. Free education is a huge value add when it comes to email marketing. 

 

• Favorite Things: You’ve built both a client base and an online following in part because of  your great taste. Put those skills to work with a well-curated round-up that includes your team’s favorite products, articles, and purchases from the past week or month. We send out a Friday newsletter called The Edit, and it’s a definite fan favorite.

 

• Behind the Scenes: Everyone wants to look behind the curtain. Plus, demystifying the interior design process builds trust in your brand and makes potential clients feel more comfortable. In your emails, walk them through what actually happens during a renovation and how they can prepare for one on the front-end. 

 

• Care Guides: Interior designers are usually experts on hard + soft finishes for the home, because they work with a variety on a daily basis. Outline how to care for and protect surfaces like floors and countertops, give tips for cleaning upholstery and rugs, and share your recommendations for finishes that complement different lifestyles + budgets. Information like this gives former clients a reason to keep following along as they maintain their homes.

 

Interior Design: HAUS LOVE | Photography: Ash & Co. Creative

 

 

• Inspiration Round-up: Don’t forget that it’s okay to link to other people’s content! Send out a weekly email with photo inspiration (both yours + others’) with the appropriate links. If you aren’t sure what the etiquette is for sharing others’ work, we’ve out together our recommendations. 

 

• Questionnaire Outline: Home renovations can seem very daunting, even if you’re working with a professional. Take your design questionnaire and turn it into a list of questions that potential clients can use to wrap their head around what they’re hoping to accomplish + where to start. 

 

• Testimonial Graphic: A few genuine words from a satisfied client is a super simple, yet very powerful, sales pitch. Everyone loves a review. When you wrap up a project, be sure to reach out to your client to ensure they’re happy, then ask for a testimonial. These can eventually live on your website, but they make great email content in a pinch. 

 

• Client Interview: If you want to take the testimonial idea a step further, ask a client if you can interview them about the process. This is, again, another way to pull the curtain back and build confidence in your expertise. You can have them answer questions about why they chose to work with you, their experience throughout the process, and how they live in their new space.

 

• Local Guide: Unless you offer e-design services only, odds are that a good amount of your email list is local to you. That proximity gives you the opportunity to produce location-based content. Feature local artisans that you enjoy working with or round up your favorite small businesses and create a guide to your city.

 

Photography: Madeline Harper

 

Our Top Email Marketing Platforms

 

Finding the right email marking platform for interior designers can take some trial and error. For years, we used Flodesk and still highly recommend it for small businesses. Flodesk is one of the best for layouts you actually want to use, plus it’s very easy to navigate for beginners. But as our business and reach has grown, we recently made the switch to Klaviyo. This platform has helped us really take our email marketing strategy to the next level with targeted emails and lead generation. While it’s not a necessary investment for every business, it’s a great platform to consider if your email marketing plan includes sales.

As content goes, we encourage three educational emails for every hard-sell email. When we say “educational,” we mean emails similar to a branded blog post that share inspiration, tips, and industry or studio news. If you feel overwhelmed by the constant need for content, remember that it can be simple. Not every email strategy has to be elaborate with tons of links and photos and custom graphics. Open rates often prefer emails with fewer images and mostly text, and fewer images keeps you out of the spam folder!

 

The Identite Collective Weekly Edit Newsletter

 

Email Marketing Frequency

 

Here’s the million-dollar question: how often should I send an email newsletter? It can be difficult to walk the line between staying relevant and overdoing it. If you’re just starting out, aim for one email a month to start and work your way up to one a week. If you’re selling products, you can even increase to two emails per week.

We also recommend keeping maintaining consistently in your email marketing schedule. For example, sending a newsletter every Wednesday morning or the first Friday of every month. This helps your subscribers know what to expect, and (best case scenario) they’ll even start looking forward to your content in their inbox.

 

Photography: Madeline Harper

 

The important thing to remember is that the people on your email list signed up to receive your emails because they resonate with something about you and your brand. They value your expertise and want to see your work. Don’t overthink it. Share what you know and do and watch the growth happen organically.

 

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For more tips on elevating your brand and social media strategy, check out these posts:

• Branding Your Portfolio
• E-Commerce for Interior Designers
• How to Get Your Work Published
• Why Instagram is the Best Platform for Interior Designers
• Optimizing Your Interior Design Portfolio for Pinterest
• How to Make a Hashtag Happen
• Our No-Fail Instagram Editorial Calendar for Interior Designers

 

IDCO Studio is a full-service creative studio for interior designers and boutique lifestyle brands. Offering bespoke branding, web design and social media content creation, we help brands built around beautiful living elevate their digital presence to represent the physical spaces they design. Our recently launched limited-release website templates are the perfect way for interior designers to get a luxury website on a budget. These templates allow designers to maintain control of their content. Want to work together? Shoot us an inquiry here.