Interior Design Budgeting - Prioritizing Marketing and Recruiting Spend
An annual budget is vital for design firms of all sizes. It is a daunting process but one that must be done to serve as the business northstar for the upcoming year. It determines what you need to do in project work in order to meet your expenses and make a profit. Aside from the obvious expenses such as payroll, rent, and software subscription fees there are two line items that often get overlooked or deemed unnecessary - marketing dollars and recruiting spend. In today's competitive business landscape, interior designers need more than just exceptional talent and creativity to thrive. They need to pay for top tier talent and market their businesses to stand out in a crowded industry. In this article, we explore why interior designers must allocate resources for marketing and recruiting, how these two areas often intertwine and also how they significantly impact success in the industry.
Establishing a Strong Online Presence
In the digital age, an online presence is crucial for any business, including interior design. Having a website, social media profiles, and a well-managed online portfolio allows potential clients and employees to discover your work and learn about your approach to design. A budget for website development, social media management, search engine optimization (SEO) and online advertising can help ensure that your online presence is both attractive and easily discoverable. Too frequently small business owners feel they can do it themselves but to truly stand out requires many hours week over week to ensure your presence is representative of your work and will attract the right clients, employees and referrals.
Building and Maintaining Brand Awareness
It’s easy to consider your company’s logo and online presence as enough to establish a strong brand identity to stand out against the competition. However, brand awareness also includes ensuring your brand’s visual elements are cohesive and the message being delivered across all channels is consistent. Whether you are a one person company or a large team of superb talent, brand recognition is what leads to the next project. Take a few minutes to ensure your Instagram bio is consistent with what your website is telling potential customers and your email content is providing to current and past clients. Keeping up in today’s digital landscape means you need to keep your content fresh but cohesive.
Staying Competitive
Interior design trends are constantly evolving, and clients expect designers to be at the forefront of these changes. To stay relevant, interior designer firms must be up-to-date with the latest design trends and technologies. This is where the importance of marketing and recruiting dollars come together with the need for allocating funds for attending industry events, workshops, continuing education opportunities and hiring designers with these specialized skills.
Let’s break down what this looks like for the average interior design or architecture firm but can be adopted by small and large businesses as well.
Industry events range from the very grande such as Maison & Objet in Paris to more local shows such as Design San Francisco or High Point Market in the lovely town of High Point, North Carolina. Review what shows make sense for your business, and budget for them. Include everything that goes with attending the show from flights to entrance fees to Uber rides or rental cars. For a full list of recommended shows drop your email here and the 19th&CO team will be happy to share the shows we feel offer tremendous value for interior design inspiration and growth.
Design tools and technologies are constantly evolving and to stay ahead of the crowd means paying attention to software updates or new tools being introduced and the benefits they offer. Is your team staying abreast of these important developments in the industry? When interviewing potential new employees ask specific questions about the tools your firm utilizes and their experience with them. Are they using the latest version? You may already have incredible talent on your team but perhaps they aren’t up to speed on SketchUp or Vray for example. Offer to pay for a Udemy course on either or both.
Investing in industry events, and ongoing professional development while adding top talent to the team ensures you can quickly respond to new opportunities or challenges that arise.
Building Client Relationships
Effective marketing doesn't end with attracting new clients; it also involves nurturing and retaining existing ones. By budgeting for customer relationship management (CRM) tools and strategies, interior designers can maintain ongoing communication with past clients, keep them informed about new offerings and team growth. This often looks like monthly or quarterly emails to past and existing clients sharing the before and after of a recent project, style trends or even simply a birthday greeting. Keeping the communication open with clients often lends itself to referrals as well. Again, developing and maintaining client relationships is not only for the larger more established design firms. Ongoing client communication is extremely important for all designers. Depending on your budget this can look like a spreadsheet with client names, contact details, and project notes combined with a basic subscription to simple platforms such as Mailchimp or a more in depth CRM such as Pipedrive where client details are stored and email campaigns are created. These tools also allow you to measure for success with the analytics tools and data collection methods they provide. Gain insights into what works and what doesn't, enabling you to make informed decisions about your marketing spend.
Preserving client relationships is another marketing and recruiting crossover where the budgeted spend will serve your design firm in multiple ways. Perhaps you are recruiting for an administrative assistant or a seasoned project manager. Include client relationship management as an area of responsibility and be prepared to pay a little extra to find the right candidate knowing the additional spend will serve the business in multiple ways.
Access to Top Talent
Having gained a following and new business through dedicated marketing efforts interior designers need to ensure they have exceptional talent working with them who bring fresh perspectives, innovative ideas, and a diverse skill set. To attract this level of designer, businesses need to earmark funds for recruiting to actively seek out and attract the best in the industry, thereby elevating the quality of projects and services. This ranges from paying to post a job opening and navigating recruiting platforms or working with a recruiting consultant who will establish the exact needs of the firm, and who will dedicate the time to weed through all the applications to find the right fit. Whichever route you choose to find new talent it is important to remember that high turnover rates can disrupt project timelines, affect client relationships, and add unnecessary costs to your business.
Allocating funds specifically for recruiting comes out of thorough budget planning and determining whether the year ahead will be one for growth within the team or perhaps preparing for a member of staff taking extended time off. You will want to have the money budgeted ahead of time to find candidates.
Expand Your Offerings
The interior design industry encompasses a wide array of disciplines, from residential and commercial design to hospitality and healthcare. Budgeting for recruiting enables you to diversify your team's expertise. Whether you're looking to expand into new sectors or offer additional services, recruiting the right professionals can open doors to exciting opportunities and growth. The expansion of what your firm is capable of delivering also provides easy marketing material to help with increasing business. Take a look back at projects you have had to turn down due to capacity or bandwidth. Is there an opportunity you are missing by not preparing financially to add new roles to the group? Clients often place their trust in interior design firms with a strong team of experts. Invest in building a team who share a common vision, design philosophy, and work ethic, and use your marketing dollars to tell previous and future clients.
As you are undoubtedly aware, the interior design industry is vulnerable to market fluctuations and economic shifts like most others. A well-balanced team with a mix of skills and specializations can help your firm adapt to changing market conditions. Allocating resources for recruiting ensures you can quickly respond to new opportunities or challenges that arise.
Conclusion
In the interior design industry, success is intrinsically tied to the talent, expertise, and innovation your team brings to each project. Budgeting for both marketing and recruiting is not just additional expenses but strategic investments that can elevate your firm's capabilities, reputation, and competitiveness. By establishing a strong online presence, attracting the right employees and clients, staying competitive, nurturing relationships, and adapting to changing trends, interior designers can create a solid foundation for growth and prosperity in the world of interior design. Don't underestimate the importance of budgeting – it's an essential step toward achieving your professional goals.
19th&CO works with interior design and architecture firms of all sizes as an extension of their teams, and helps with just about everything but the designing! Our cohesive group of seasoned operators will help with business development strategies, recruiting, establishing team culture, human resources, financial projections, business operations and project management.
