Easy-to-Follow Interior Design Blog and Email Calendar
Wouldn't marketing be easier if you just knew what to say...ahead of time? Planning your content marketing in advance is smart for two reasons: First, it allows you to marinate on the topics ahead of time and avoid writer's block when the time comes to create. Second, it allows you to batch create content with an interior design blog and email calendar.
I've tried making up my marketing as I go, and I've spent a lot of time staring at a blank screen and scrolling Instagram "for ideas" when I, unsurprisingly, come up dry. To prevent this, I keep my business goals ever-present in my brain and build out my marketing plan, including specific topics, from there.
I've adapted the process my agency uses for content planning into something that makes sense for home professionals like you. If you are looking to create cohesive, professional marketing content for your interior design, home staging, organizing, or window treatment business, you need to read this post.
How to Create an Interior Design Blog and Email Calendar for the Entire Year
Before you can make a list of what to say in your marketing, you need to answer two questions:
Who are you talking to?
How do you want to serve them?
Obviously, the short answer is that you're going to be speaking to your ideal client, but the long answer is, well, LONGER. If you know to whom you are speaking, you'll adjust your language and topic choices accordingly. For example, you wouldn't necessarily use the same statements and phrases when speaking to your spouse as you would to your child. As an intelligent human, you can naturally adapt your communication to fit the audience. Now, it's time to do exactly that in your business.
If your goal is to sell more of a certain service, consider these questions:
How does this service help my ideal client when it's all said and done? What will change in their life as a result?
What situation would make someone contact me for this service? There could be multiple situations that drive the client to you, even if the client doesn't understand your services or their benefits yet. Clients are driven by problems, and those problems stem from unmet needs or unfulfilled desires.
Who isn't a good fit for this service? You might sort people based on the minimum cost of providing the service and their budget. You might sort people based on their location. Create a list of no-go qualifications.
Is this service enjoyable for me to provide? Would I be happy offering primarily this service for the next 12 months? You get what you ask for, so make sure you aren't asking for something you don't really want.
Next, map out where your client is consuming information:
Do your past clients use social media? Did they follow you before hiring you or did they follow you after — to see pictures of their own project? Hint: It's usually the latter. This means social media is a great place to nurture relationships with existing and past clients, but not exactly the best place to gain new clients. Don't hyper-focus on social media; instead, post photos of yourself and your work once or twice a week.
Do your best clients come to you via word-of-mouth referral? This is most often the case, and email marketing will increase those referrals. Plan to send one email per month to your past clients and leads, knowing they will forward that email to their own social circles.
Do you want to increase traffic to your website and improve your SEO so that you can connect with cold, good-quality leads who find you by doing their own research? Blogging is a great solution for this. Plan to write one or two blog posts per month.
Lastly, don't forget "old-fashioned" offline efforts. Do your ideal clients belong to a housing association, social club, or networking group? Get connected with that organization as a guest speaker, event host, or similar. Avoid basic sponsorships, as no one will get value out of seeing your logo plastered alongside dozens of other logos.
12 Months of Newsletter Content for the Home Industry
Here are twelve newsletter prompts suited to the home industry. These topics work well as newsletters (instead of blog posts) because the content can be shorter (300-400 words) and you won't feel pressured to add "fluff" to make a full-length blog post (500-1500 words). These topics also cover questions that people will likely email you about, anyway.
Feel free to rearrange or modify these topics according to your ideal client and unique business goals.
Past project highlight — this should align with the service you are promoting and include a call-to-action that lets readers book a discovery call to discuss that service.
Tips on what to expect — this should align with the service(s) you want to sell and should focus on educating the reader, as well as helping them set realistic expectations around your process, timeline, and budget considerations.
Bust myths about your industry — this is your chance to clear up misinformation on how design fees work, why staging matters, and how organizers handle their clients' homes.
Behind-the-scenes story — rather than sharing a "how to arrange your coffee table" topic, which is far too DIY and won't resonate with high-end clients, take your readers behind-the-scenes of a project (or an aspect of a project) and share the challenges, pain points, and how you resolved them.
Seasonal survival guide — this newsletter should be sent a month before the holiday / season in question and should guide your reader on how to prep (for the new school year, for holiday guests, etc).
Seasonal greetings — not meant to sell or educate, this newsletter is a friendly holiday card from you to your leads and clients and should be sent around or on the exact day of the holiday. Share your favorite holiday recipe or tradition and wish them well. Your readers won't want to be "sold to" during major holidays, anyway.
Highlight your flagship service — yes, you can talk directly about your services without being salesy. Focus on one service per newsletter. Explain every step and include photos of past projects that used this service (or use stock photos if you don't have your own). Be sure to mention how your client will feel before, during, and after the service is rendered (e.g. Overwhelmed, confident, relaxed).
Share a story from your life — you are comprised of a hundred stories that have made you who you are today, and stories resonate deeply with readers. Share how you overcame the hardest moment of your life, what you learned from it, and how it shaped who you are today.
Answer the FAQs — if you are repeatedly asked the same questions by leads or clients, list a few and answer them in your newsletter. If you are new in business and haven't gotten any questions yet, come up with a few you think people might ask regarding you and your services. It's okay to be creative here.
Share a pricing estimator — this one is huge. Everyone likes to calculate their costs, and you can give "starting at" or ballpark pricing based on the different services you offer. (e.g. A partial kitchen reno starts at _____ and a full kitchen reno starts at _____.)
Talk about the dated trends — while everyone else is talking about what is trending in the home industry, be the one who sheds light on what ISN'T trending anymore. Focus only on the old trends that you can help clients get rid of in their homes. This helps readers realize whether their homes are actually more dated than they thought and shows them the need for your services.
Talk about a specific problem — does your ideal client struggle with mom life and staying organized? Create a newsletter with the best mom tips for staying organized in a chaotic home. Specificity sells and it also makes your ideal client feel seen and heard. That's the recipe for a new client in the making!
Newsletter Best Practices
Length: Again, these newsletters should be short and sweet, around 400 words. You can include up to 5 images, as well as a photo of yourself. At the end of every newsletter, tell readers where to click to contact you.
Frequency: Send a newsletter no less than once per month and no more than twice per month. Don't resend your newsletter to people who didn't open it the first time. Your open rate should be at least 20%, and you'll need to wait until a week after your newsletter is sent to ensure an accurate open rate.
Your mailing list: Export any of your current contacts from your billing software (QBO, HoneyBook, etc.) or your email account. Use a lead magnet on your website to gain even more new contacts. Don't add people to your list unless they know you. If you use a lead magnet, strangers can safely add themselves by signing up. The size of your mailing list doesn't matter, and you are the only one who knows how large or small it is. Even if you have only a dozen contacts, you can still gain new projects from your mailing list, especially since your contacts will likely forward your newsletters to their friends or family.
12 Months of Blog Post Topics for the Home Industry
Blog posts, by nature, are longer (500-1500 words) and can contain many more images than a newsletter. Because of this, blog post topics are meatier and more detailed than newsletters. Also, because blog posts are for SEO at the beginning of your sales funnel, and meant to attract complete strangers, they must be more informative. Newsletters are for people at the end of your sales funnel. They are already a contact of yours (via a lead magnet or past project or past inquiry) and need shorter, more concise information than a blog post can offer.
You might be able to flesh out a newsletter topic and turn it into a proper blog post, but you will need to flex your creative muscles. Merely putting a newsletter on your website and calling it a blog post will do nothing to help your business. A blog post is a blog post and a newsletter is a newsletter.
If you were to expand a newsletter topic into a blog post, here's what you would need to do for each of the aforementioned topics:
Past project highlight — Include as many photos from the project as you want, even before pictures and construction images. Add a paragraph below each image explaining what was happening in that photo.
Tips on what to expect — Educate your reader and help them set realistic expectations around your process, timeline, and budget considerations. Break your blog post into sections so that you can expand on the expectations for each service that you are promoting. Unlike a newsletter, you can talk about more than one service. This is excellent for creating long-tail keywords and ramping up your search engine optimization (SEO).
Bust myths about your industry — List every lie, myth, and piece of misinformation that bothers you about your specific industry or business model. When someone searches those myths, your blog post will be more likely to appear, allowing you to set the record straight and possibly even win a new lead.
Behind-the-scenes story — "How to" blog posts are great for SEO, but that doesn't mean you should write a post about "how to style your coffee table." There are literally a million posts about that. Instead, take your readers behind-the-scenes of a project (or an aspect of a project) and share the challenges, pain points, and how you resolved them. Your title could be something like, "How to Easily Transform Your Dated Listing with a Professional Home Stager." It's still a "how-to" but it's not an overused DIY. Awesome!
Seasonal survival guide — Seasonal blog posts should be published 2-6 weeks before the holiday / season in question and should guide your reader on how to prep (for the new school year, for holiday guests, etc). This might look like a Christmas gift guide or a designer's take on autumn decorating or an organizer's list of spring cleaning secrets.
Seasonal greetings — Share your favorite holiday tradition or memory and include family photos, if possible. This is a great way to become memorable to your readers. Personal topics like this will almost always rank higher than all other content.
Highlight your flagship service — Explain why you've chosen to specialize in the particular service that you offer or the specific client that you serve. What led you to make that decision to niche down and scale-up? Leads will be interested in your story because it will show them whether you are well-suited to their needs. Don't worry about impressing them. Be yourself. And be sure to mention how your client will feel before, during, and after the service is rendered (e.g. Overwhelmed, confident, relaxed).
Share a story from your life — When used as a blog post, this topic can include a more detailed description of your journey and perhaps a compilation of pivotal moments in your life (versus sharing only one instance in a shorter newsletter). Share the hallmark moments of your personal story, good or bad or ugly, to whatever level you are comfortable.
Answer the FAQs — Compile a list of actual or assumed frequently asked questions regarding your industry and your specific business. Give full and complete answers, avoid fragments or one-word responses. FAQ-style blog posts are amazing for SEO.
Share a pricing estimator — The number of times a Google user searches for a niche-specific calculator is wild. Everyone likes to calculate their costs, and you can give "starting at" or ballpark pricing based on the different services you offer. This doesn't mean you have to share your pricing, but it does mean you get to set a minimum threshold of investment, allowing only the qualified leads to enter your sales funnel. If you are concerned about losing business by not serving those with smaller budgets, consider offering your consultation package to that demographic. Your paid consultation package should be the gateway to all of your other services, anyway.
Talk about the dated trends — Keep your blog post focused on your niche. If you only offer window treatments, talk about the window treatment styles that are outdated and share a photo of each. Then, present modernized alternatives that will stand the test of time and tell readers how to start working with you, such as how to book a discovery call.
Talk about a specific problem — You can't write this blog post unless you know your client. Does your ideal client struggle with feeling confident enough to host the luxurious dinner parties she's only dreamt of? Create a blog post with your best hosting tips for dinner party newbies and highlight the spatial and design needs to consider prior to hosting.
Blogging Best Practices
Length: Your blog post should be a minimum of 500 words, but if it exceeds 1500 words, consider making it a two-part series. You aren't writing a book, for heaven's sake. There is no limit on the number of images you can include, but make sure each image is no greater than 2000 pixels in width or height. Otherwise, it will slow down the loading speed of your site and negatively impact SEO.
Frequency: Commit to blogging once a month. If you can blog twice a month, space your posts two weeks apart. Blogging is a marathon and not a sprint. Expect to blog monthly for 9 months before seeing an increase in website traffic.
Traffic: Especially when you first start blogging, you'll need to make extra effort to get eyes on your blog posts. Set up Google Search Console so that it can routinely index your website. Set up Google Analytics so that you can see which blog posts are bringing the most traffic to your website. Share each blog post on social media, more than once if you prefer. Pin each blog post — and each image inside your blog post — to your business Pinterest account. Pinning only needs to happen once for each post.
Should I Write Blog Posts or Newsletters First?
I'm often asked whether home professionals should focus on blogging or on newsletters. For context, the person asking is usually short on time or money (or both). While doing both is the ideal situation and, when combined with a lead magnet and networking, makes for a solid, complete sales funnel, not everyone can do that right away. If you can only choose one activity, start with email newsletters and a lead magnet. Newsletters are faster to create and, if you already have a small list of contacts, can yield a faster return.
However, add blogging as soon as you can. It's important for your SEO and for getting new contacts into your mailing list.
Resources
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