Client Facing Emails for Email Subscriber List

In an effort to continue to make my clients’ lives easier I’m always looking for better and more affordable ways to help them. One thing that continues to come up in our businesses is social media. Social media is ever changing and as more and more accounts are added and more and more people jump on the platforms it’s getting harder and harder to be seen. And not only is it getting harder to be seen, the platforms are being bogged down by glitches and days where posting is almost impossible.

I’m not saying that the internet is perfect either, but more and more companies are going to start going to email subscriber lists to stay in front of their target markets. Once you start using an email subscriber list you will be amazed at how quickly you’ll start getting clients. Now it doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen much more quickly than posting on social media. After two years of posting on Instagram and getting zero clients I decided to start an email subscriber list. Two months after starting that list I got my first client, a few weeks later I got another and so on. The growth potential with a subscriber list is far greater because you are targeting a smaller very specific group of individuals. These are people who asked to be signed up for your emails, they are interested in you and follow you and for some reason are more likely to do business with you when you send them an email versus you putting something on social media.

The best ways to grow an email subscriber list:

1. Get your landing page out there - Whether it’s attached to your website or blog or other, get it out there in Facebook groups and on social media. People will check out your website.

2. Offer a freebie - Some offer a free style quiz or free download on how to choose a paint color or some other helpful tip for signing up for their email newsletter.

3. Write engaging content - This is the place where most designers get tripped up. They either don’t have time to write the content, they don’t like to write, or they struggle to come up with topics to write about.

The engaging content is where we are here to help! I am creating a place on my website where my clients can go to download inexpensive client-facing emails to use in their emails! Yes, that’s right. The emails will be written for you and less expensive than hiring a copywriter to write custom copy.

If you are interested in hiring a copywriter to write custom copy, we do offer that service as well, it’s up to you which you prefer!

Now, does inexpensive client-facing email content sound like something you’d use? If so, let me know. I’ll announce when that portion of my website is ready. I’m so excited to help interior designers get in front of more people and grow their clientele. It’s what I do best!

Establishing Credibility in Interior Design

Establishing credibility is extremely important in growing any business. You want people to know who you are and why you’re the expert. There are several ways to establish credibility in interior design and I’m going to share three of them below.

One of the best ways to establish credibility in any field is getting published.

It may not be as hard as you think to get published. Research your local newspaper, magazines and even regional magazines. I was able to get published in a local magazine called Definitive Woman simply by reaching out and asking if they’d be interested in an article about interior design. Not only were they interested, they were interested in several articles. I wrote articles about creating a home office that inspires and how to refresh your winter décor. I also reached out to a more regional magazine covering a few upper Midwest states called Lake and Home Magazine and they were interested in articles, too. I’ve written several articles for them on refreshing your home’s exterior, hottest new design trends in 2019, creating a master bedroom retreat, the best indoor plants and fireplace styles.

I do not get paid for these articles but I’m also not paying to be in the publications either. Paying to be published in something is called advertising.  I find that publications that do not pay for articles are also easier to get published in. I read both magazines that I reached out to … so what do you read?

I’ve also seen personal interest stories about interior designers in newspapers. Your newspaper is always looking for fun things to write about. What’s your story? Would you be willing to share it with your local reporter? It’s worth a shot to ask.

Another way to establish credibility is by being on a local news or television program. I personally know people in the financial industry, psychiatry and interior design fields who live close enough to a local program to go in and talk about and/or demonstrate things. You could go on television and talk about how to style a coffee table or pick a paint color. With the popularity of interior design shows today I bet you could find a station who would love to have you appear.

The third option is hosting workshops. People who love DIY interior design love workshops. You could host one or do a series of them. You might even be able to partner with a community education program in your town. My town offers a variety of adult education programs on cooking, photography, cake decorating and more. A workshop would be a face-to-face opportunity to really drum up some business.

Being read in publications, seen on television and hosting workshops are all great ways to establish yourself as an expert in interior design. Once people view you as an expert they are more likely to work with you!

Enjoy Summer & Grow Your Business!

Summer is here and it’s a crazy, busy time of year. The kids are out of school, summer vacations are in full swing and everyone has ball games, golf outings, beach days, family reunions and more! It’s a time to enjoy the beautiful weather and take that vacation so you can come back to the office renewed and ready to move mountains. Did you know that summer can also be a great time to grow your business?

With everything else going on don’t just put your business on autopilot to get through the summer. Take advantage of the tips and tricks below to make the summer of 2019 your best summer yet!

1.       Get organized! Take a few hours and get organized for the entire summer, yes it’s possible! Get your schedule on your calendar for the next three months! Carve out some time in your schedule and get it done.

 2.       Prioritize! Now that your calendar is booked solid with everything BUT work, prioritize. Do you really need to do EVERYTHING you have on your calendar? What are the most important things? Leave those and either put the rest as optional or better yet, forget the rest.

3.       Outsource! Summer is a great time to start outsourcing some of your time consuming tasks. Most people don’t realize that there are several things they do that can be outsourced such as 3d renders, cad drawings, social media, presentations, purchase orders, proposals, blog posts, vendor management, etc. The beauty of working with a highly skilled virtual design assistant is they will help you manage your days and weeks. They will help take a lot off your plate. Get more done this summer by hiring a virtual design assistant that can do the dirty work while you take more time for yourself doing what you love whether that’s growing your business or a day at the beach or on the golf course!

4.       Take a day off! I recently read in Inc. magazine that 42% of American workers do NOT take their vacation days! Everyone needs to take days off to relax the mind, body and soul, these days are extremely important if you want to continue to succeed. Your mind and body need rest. I am so relaxed when I’m on vacation that I typically come up with some of my best ideas. Take a journal with you on your vacation and write what comes to mind. This way you won’t stress about forgetting your great ideas and you can truly relax. You don’t have to take a week-long trip somewhere, you just need to get away from work for a few days. Working vacations don’t count – many employers are starting to frown upon those anymore. J

5.       Just do it! You know that thing you’ve been planning and researching and finding every reason in the book why not to pull the trigger? May it’s learning a new language, or taking a trip overseas, perhaps you want to go sky diving or plant a vegetable garden. Whatever it is - just do it! Many people waste time just hem-hawing around and never really do anything about it. There comes a time when you just need to pull the trigger. Why not now?

6.       Have fun with marketing. People are in better moods in the summer – they might get your humor so try that fun marketing campaign you’ve been wanting to try. Summer opens people up to wanting to try new things so why not your service, get out there and make it happen!

I hope you enjoy your summer this year and grow your business! You can do both!

Attract MORE Clients with Your Personality!

I was visiting with a friend the other day about her daughter’s upcoming wedding. Her daughter was trying to find a photographer and so she checked out a couple local photographer’s websites. Both photographers had gorgeous photos so either one would’ve been great – but who did she choose? She chose the photographer who made two references to Michael Scott’s character from The Office on her website. The bride-to-be was a huge fan of The Office and figured that she could get along great with anyone who loved Michael Scott.

There is a lot of great talent out there and so when you offer a great service you also have to offer something of yourself. People want to know who you are, what are your likes and dislikes, they want to resonate with you.

Don’t be shy – be proud of who you are and shout it from the mountain tops. Your spirit animals will find you!

If you are struggling about what to put in your website or marketing copy think about your likes and dislikes – those are easy to convey. Also, think about what you like about other people’s websites. You do business with a lot of people – why do you use that contractor, vendor, client management software or in your personal life why do you use the local services you use?

Think about if you were searching for a service and you found too people who could offer a similar service for a similar price with similar customer service – what would make you choose one over the other? I’ll tell you – the brand. The brand is what you use to choose and the brand is YOU!

Create your own unique brand to stand out from the competition. If you attract people like you – you’ll enjoy working with people like you. 😉

As always, if you need help with copy, let me know! I’m a nerd when it comes to writing creative copy.

Would YOU Use This Service?

As my company grows, we are trying to help even more interior design clients. A lot of our clients use their Elite Design VA for AutoCad drawings, 3d renders, social media management, mood boards, floor plans, affiliate links, administrative tasks and more. In an effort to better help interior designers I’m trying to come up with other beneficial services to make your life easier. Would you be interested in either of the services below?

Email content – these would be client facing emails that you can purchase to use for your subscriber list. You would be able to use these emails as is or edit to your liking and add images or video. They would be inexpensive and assist in your email list planning. If you do not already have an email subscriber list, you need to start one! This is an amazing tool to stay in front of the people who want to hear from you.

Video content – showing your face is becoming more and more important. People want to know who you are, so they feel more comfortable about doing business with you. You would be able to purchase client facing video scripts to use to create your videos. You would then be able to start a video series or video blog, add a video to your website, add videos to your social media or blog posts. I love watching videos of designers on Instagram while I do my treadmill workout in the mornings. It makes the time go so much faster and if you have a love/hate relationship with exercise like I do it’s great!  I hear from so many people that they would love to do videos, but they don’t know what to say or what to talk about.

Both options would be housed on my Elite Design Assistants website in the form of digital downloads. Since I would upload them as I write them, they would be a lot less expensive than hiring a copywriter to write custom copy.

Please let me know if you would be interested in a service like this and let me know if there are any other ways we can help.

Have a great day!

Xx Danae

7 Hot Affiliate Vendors

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to make money just because people purchased products from links you placed in your blog posts and emails? That’s how affiliate marketing works. It’s great passive income and a lot of interior designers are looking for more ways to make money. Affiliate programs are a great way to make money in your sleep. Quite literally, your clients and followers can purchase items you are promoting 24/7.

The companies below have great affiliate programs that your fellow interior designers use and love! I did my own research and am not receiving any compensation from these companies to have them listed here. After visiting with several interior designers these were the Top 7 hot affiliate vendors they shared with me. They are listed in no particular order.

 1. Boutique Rugs- Boutique Rugs is one of the more popular ones I’ve come across. They offer amazing rugs, have great customer service and pay an affiliate commission of 7%. You can get more information at https://boutiquerugs.com/affiliate-program/

2. Amazon – Doesn’t everyone use Amazon, anyway? Why not use it for your business. A few of the interior designers I reached out to loved Amazon. As you can imagine you can find a wide variety of items and with affiliate commissions of up to 10% it’s worth a shot. For more information - https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/

3. Bellacor – Lighting, furniture, décor and more. Bellacor pays up to 8% affiliate commissions when a client purchases from your link. Click for more info - https://www.bellacor.com/affiliate.htm

4. Curtain Works – This company has all the window treatments your clients will ever need. They pay 10% commission and offer a wide variety of ready-made curtains at competitive prices. Here you go - https://www.bellacor.com/affiliate.htm

5. Jonathan Adler – If your target market loves mid-century modern this affiliate program may be the one for you! Think luxury, smart design and colorful optimism with a 6% commission. Check it out here - https://www.jonathanadler.com/affiliate-program.html

6. Lulu & Georgia – This home décor company seems to be a favorite of several of the interior designers I spoke with. They offer a wide variety of super stylish décor and offer a 10% commission. Learn more about their affiliate program - https://www.luluandgeorgia.com/affiliates/

7.  Serena & Lily – This company always makes me think of a breezy California style. Their products are definitely casual coastal. They have a 9% affiliate commission and more information here - https://www.viglink.com/merchants/35595/serena-and-lily-affiliate-program

Let us know if you need help setting up your affiliate vendors. That is one of the many services we offer our interior design clients at Elite Design Assistants!

Make More Money By Outsourcing

Running a business is a challenging career choice and those of us that do it, know that we continuous try to come up with ways to make more money and save more time. I am in the business to make YOU more money and to save YOU more time.

How do I do this? One of the ways is by offering a service to you that you can resell to your clients for a profit. For example, let’s say you want to offer 3d renders but you don’t have time. We can work with you to create a package that you can sell to your client where your Elite design assistant does the renderings for you. The image above is just one example of a 3d render created by one of our virtual design assistants.

This works with floor plans, mood boards, shopping lists, etc.

A second example is to outsource some of your billable hours to your design assistant. This way you can charge your clients for the work your assistant is doing. You are charging your rates and paying assistant fees. See the margin there?

Also look at where your clients are coming from. If you want to grow your business hire an assistant to market in that area, for example – if most of your business is coming from Pinterest, hire an assistant to manage your Pinterest account to grow your business. If you are getting business from your email list but don’t have time to create the email content, hire an assistant to create your email content, schedule and manage your subscriber list.

There are so many ways to generate more income and more time, you just need to be smart about it. Take a look at your business and see where you can increase revenues by hiring an assistant.

Should You Be Offering E-Design?

As you look at your interior design business, are you offering e-design? E-design is growing in popularity but if you are unfamiliar with the term e-design is the interior design of a space done entirely online. There are no in-home visits, face-to-face meetings with clients or implementation of the design. You work completely virtually from your home or studio to complete an e-design project.

There are a growing number of interior designers offering e-design as a service now. It opens them up to working with clientele in any location in the world. Perhaps you have clients with second homes, out of state friends or family who are looking for an interior designer or an ever-growing social media presence that is attracting potential clients from all over.

There are some big-name firms that I follow that are now offering an e-design package from Erin Gates to Kathryn Ireland. Check out your favorite interior designers that you follow for inspiration and see if they are offering an e-design service.

Before you offer an e-design package there are a few things to consider.

1.       Your e-design client market will be different from your current interior design client market. The clients you will working with on e-design may still have a healthy budget, but it will typically be less than that of a tradition client. An e-design client is also very much a DIY type of client since they have the confidence to implement your design. Also, e-design clients typically want things done more quickly since everything is online.

2.       You must be comfortable working with your clients online. Some interior designers have to see their client’s home, physically be in the space, touch the materials they are recommending and have face-to-face meetings with their client to really get the creative juices flowing. This is their process – so suddenly jumping to an all online model may not work for this type of designer.

3.       There is still great value in this service. Unfortunately, there are some companies out there who are significantly undervaluing e-design, but the strong, creative, e-designers of the world are emerging and proving their worth and value. There is obviously money in it or some of the most influential interior designers of our time would not be marketing it as a service.

The pros of offering an e-design package

1.       Working remotely! This offers you a whole newfound freedom to be able to do everything from your laptop.

2.       Business growth! It’s an opportunity to substantially grow your business by increasing your target market beyond your physical location.

3.       Passive income opportunities. Now that you are offering e-design as a service you may also want to consider affiliate marketing. You can make commissions off products your e-design clients purchase but you can also add those affiliate links to Pinterest pins, emails you send to your email list and your blog posts.

e-design is a wonderful new option for clients and interior designers. Although it is extremely popular it will never replace a full-service in-house design. Not everyone is in love with a virtual experience and that is okay. It takes all kinds to make this world go round, so if you are interested in e-design at all for your business – it might be worth exploring!

Let us know if you are interested in learning how working with a virtual design assistant can help you offer this new service. We are well-versed in e-design as well!

Do You Have An Email List?

You can have every social media platform covered including a great blog, but you will get the most bang for your buck if you have an email list. Email lists are amazing and can bring you more income than you thought possible.

Why are email lists so important? Email lists are comprised of people that want to hear from you. They are interested in what you have to say and are interested in updates having to do with your business. Social media is a very valuable tool but unless you are paying for targeted ads it’s not as specific to your target market as your email list is. The email list provides you with a go-to list of people to contact when you decide to run a special, offer a new service or have great news and updates to share.

Starting an email list is fairly simple for someone who knows what they are doing.  I’ll be honest, my virtual design assistant set mine up for me. The easiest way to start one is to create an opt-in on your website. You can attach this opt-in to all your other social media as well. The opt-in is a pop up that will appear when someone visits your website and it will ask for an email address. A lot of designers offer a freebie in exchange for the email address. You can offer a style quiz or a how-to guide for the most commonly asked questions you receive such as how to hang curtains, how to hang a gallery wall, how to choose the appropriate sized rug, etc.

Once you have your freebie and your opt-in ready you will need to link it to an email capture service like MailChimp or ConvertKit. These services allow you to keep an email subscriber list and allow you to set up email campaigns. You can create an automatic email campaign or go in and schedule new ones to go out as needed.

This is a very high-level overview of how to start an email subscription list so if you need help getting one set up please let us know!

We can help you set one up, write your email content for you, schedule the emails, etc.

Do you need help with your email list? Please feel free to email me at danae@elitedesignassistants.com.

How Can We Make Your Life Easier?

I honestly want to know how we can make your life easier! I know you are busy, overwhelmed and possibly exhausted and we want to help. We want to help you grow the business of your dreams while giving you back your life! Interior designers are passionate about what they do and speaking from experience the work can get quite addicting, but we must prevent burnout and we must enjoy life.

I’m sure you have some hobbies right? Maybe you like to garden, or travel or watch Games of Thrones… is that considered a hobby? Because I feel like it should be for some people.

Think about what aspects of your business that you like the least. What would you love to outsource? What do you find time consuming and boring? And what do you love to do the most?

We help interior designers schedule their appointments because they love meeting with clients but they hate managing their calendar.

We help our clients manage their social media because it can be one challenging beast to stay consistent and continue to post every day or weekly.

We do renders! Yes, that’s right – maybe you love working with clients and finding the right pieces but you don’t always have the extra time to create the renders or floor plans or mood boards or shopping lists or spec sheets for contractors or proposals … we do it all!

Anything that can be done virtually, we can do it for you – from writing your blog to designing your website. We are trained interior designers who found a passion for helping other interior designers grow and manage their businesses. it’s a win-win-win. Win for the designer, win for the client and win for the design assistant!

One thing I’ve heard over and over and over again is blog copy – blogs are everything right now and many designers either don’t have a blog or aren’t consistent with one, but blogs are a great way to share your insight with your clients and followers. We are going to be offering a new blog service very soon that will allow you to purchase blog templates with copy and images that give you the formula for quickly creating the blog post yourself! We will also be offering original blog posts for purchase as well as our custom blog writing service. There will be a large variety of posts to choose from and I’ll be adding new ones weekly! Stay tuned for more information to come! You can always visit our site at www.elitedesignassistants.com for more information!

Take it easy! Danae