How to educate clients about what interior design can do for them

There are plenty of individuals out there who don’t know how an interior designer can help. To attract new clients, use these ways to communicate the breadth of what you offer.

You know the worth of interior design, and, of course, your repeat clients and those experienced in commissioning interior design services do, too. Many people, though, have only a vague awareness of what an interior designer does.

If you want to widen your pool of potential clients, educating those who lack knowledge or experience of interior design can reap rewards. Discover some of the routes by which you might develop these people’s understanding and make them more likely to engage your professional services.

What are the unknown benefits of interior design?

Those who haven’t worked with a designer before can have a very narrow idea of what a project could entail. While they might anticipate ending up with a decorative scheme, many of them won’t have even thought that a project might, for example, include or provide:

• Layout and space planning
• Sound insulation
• Kitchen and bathroom design
• Costing and estimating
• Preparing a home for sale

As a starting point for educating potential clients about why they might call on your services, it’s worth creating a list like this. Incorporate your specialisms, too, to ensure nothing’s missed.

Focus on problem-solving

Once you’ve identified for prospective clients the benefits interior design can bring, the next step is to get the message over in the right way.

At its most basic, the question potential clients want answered is ‘What can you do for me?’ To ensure you’ve provided a response that motivates them to use your services, it’s worth concentrating on the content of what you say and write. Photography of your previous projects shows the results, but describing the benefits is equally vital.

These gains might be, for example, lightening and brightening previously gloomy rooms, making small spaces feel larger, or creating storage and organisation in busy family homes. However, they could be more emotive – perhaps a kitchen-dining-living space a family now enjoys sharing when before they were shut away in separate rooms was the result, for instance.

Where to find opportunities to educate

There are plenty of ways you might look to introduce a new audience to your professional skills. Take a look at these:

• Use social media like Instagram and Facebook to show off photos of a room scheme. Accompany the images with a short explanation of the transformation achieved.
• Consider a blog on your website for which you can write posts on the different aspects of your practice. Keep posts concise, covering a specific benefit of using your services that clients aren’t generally aware of in each.
• Think about taking up opportunities like writing for local magazines and newspapers on a problem that interior design can solve in exchange for a credit and contact details for your practice.
• Ask your site visitors to sign up to a regular email newsletter from your practice. Here again you can cover frequently unappreciated elements of interior design using both words and images from your projects.

As an experienced professional, it can be challenging to put yourself in the position of someone who hasn’t used an interior designer before. However, educating the uninitiated about how they might benefit through a variety of communications is time well spent. Demonstrate problem solving in what you say and write in addition to capturing project results with good photography and prospects may become loyal clients.

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