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How to Use Social Media to Market Your Interior Design Business

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Social media is a powerful marketing tool for individuals and small businesses.  You can use it to spread the word about your company, release new products, share promotions, and to interact with your customers.  However marketing an interior design business is slightly different to marketing other kinds of industries, as there are certain things you can do to increase conversions.  We’re going to explain some of the best ways to use social media in this article.

1. Use Platforms with Pictures

A picture can tell a thousand words, and this is definitely true in the interior design business.  Interior designers showcase their designs to people online, and you can’t do this on social media without making use of photos or video.  So, focus on platforms like Pinterest and Instagram where photos are more important than text.  Show your customers your personal style, and how well your designs are put together.  Most consumers will want to connect with their interior designers before hiring them, so this is a great first step.

2. Create Visual Advertisements

Text ads may work for software businesses and IT services, but interior designers need to create visual advertisements to stand out.  Most of the top social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, allow you to publish visual ads so now is the time to create something brilliant.  Maybe you’ve just designed a new, luxury bedroom for a client containing luxury bedding, a plush new décor, and a four poster bed.  Why not take a photo of this and include it in your advertisement?  Customers who like the look of your design will contact you for further information, or be encouraged to visit your website to find out more.

3. Hold Contests

Social media users love contests and this can be a great way to drum up new customers.  You could, if you wanted to, hold a contest to win a free design, however most interior design companies will offer a homeware item instead.  Make sure to include hashtags like #giveaway #freebiefriday and #contest to get the word out, and ask people to share or comment on your contest in order to enter.  You’d be surprised how many people will follow you on social media if there’s a chance they could win something.

4. Target Other Businesses

A lot of interior design companies purely focus on targeting consumers.  However, if you want to make some serious money, you might want to consider targeting other businesses as well.  B2B customers tend to have a lot more money to spend, and may also be willing to pay a higher price for your services.  Social media platforms like LinkedIn and Google+ are ideal for this, although Facebook also shouldn’t be discounted as a great place to find new clients.

Social media is a really cost effective marketing tool, but it’s one that often isn’t used to its full potential.  Keep these tips in mind and get your name out there!

Mirror Trading vs Copy Trading – Which Should You Be Doing?

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One of the first things to do when you are just getting started with forex trading is mastering the basics. It is essential for every trader to understand how to read and interpret technical and fundamental signals. Mastering these basics grants you – the trader – access to more advanced strategies that you can develop to suit your trading style.

Naturally, taking that next step and learning about advanced strategies take time. Not all traders have the time and energy to invest in perfecting their trading strategies. Mirror trading and copy trading are the popular solutions to this roadblock. What are they and which one should you be doing?

Mirror Trading: The Automated Approach

Mirror trading, as the name suggests, is when you mirror the trading strategy of other traders. I said, other traders, because companies that offer mirror trading combine the strategies of their top traders to produce reliable and accurate signals for their consumers.

Today, mirror trading is a lot more sophisticated. The strategy may be old, but it has been improved with the help of big data and artificial intelligence. As a result, mirror trading signals are relatively accurate and predictable; they are perfect for investors who want a hands-off forex trading experience.

The only downside to mirror trading is the fact that you have to mirror everything. You can’t pick and choose the signals you want to follow; in fact, the whole process is fully automated. Traders must also install a proprietary software or a MetaTrader plugin to enable automated mirror trading.

Copy Trading: Follow the Best Traders

Copy trading is a refinement of mirror trading. Unlike mirror trading, which obliges you to follow every signal without any human input, copy trading lets you choose the specific trader whose trades you want to copy. When that trader opens a position, your trading account will follow suit.

Copy trading remains fully automated, but you can choose to follow different traders at different times. You also have the option to follow multiple traders (i.e. for different currency pairs) depending on the support of the platform.

Following the best traders also allow you to learn more about their trading strategies. You can observe all open positions in real-time and try to understand the reasoning behind every trading decision.

Social Trading: The Future

The trading approach I actually recommend is social trading. It is the perfect mixture between mirror and copy trading and the social aspect of trading itself. Instead of relying on automated signals and plugins, you can join a trading community such as https://investingoal.com/ and discuss market updates in real-time.

If you are a relatively new forex investor, social trading presents the perfect opportunity to learn. You don’t have to guess the technical and fundamental reasons for the trades you make. Instead, you have a group of experienced traders with whom you can discuss the market and make trading decisions together.

Social trading is also relatively safe for one particular reason: you make every decision yourself. The signals and insights you get from the trading group or forum act only as guidance and trading aids. You will master advanced trading strategies much faster this way.

Why Outsourcing Can Save Your Business

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Outsourcing is the process in which a business will hire a third party to complete tasks that they do not want to complete themselves. Within a business it can be expensive to hire specialists in every single field, and for small businesses in particular it can be helpful to instead hire a third party to complete these tasks for them. They won’t need to pay a full time employee, but they will still be able to have a professional, expert service.

If you are wondering why so many companies choose to outsource, look no further.

Low Cost

The first reason that many companies decide to outsourcing is that the operational and labour costs are much cheaper than hiring an employee into the business. If a company is on a budget it can be the difference between falling out of profit and growing in profit.

Mundane Tasks

There are always parts of running a business which are boring and downright mundane. Things such as administration, finance and statistics can be outsourced by a business if they do not want to complete these tasks themselves. Another thing which could be outsourced is answering services– where all phone calls will go to a third party and they will take messages or pass people through. It saves people in the office being disturbed throughout the day with phone calls.

Global Knowledge

By outsourcing or offshoring certain business aspects, a company will be able to learn about the global market, and in time they may even decide to make the move across the globe and open up an office abroad.

Growth

By freeing up the time which internal employees will spend on certain time consuming tasks, they will be able to spend more time on their own work and be more productive. They can also look into developing the business in new areas and grow the business from there.

Resources

Sometimes outsourcing is the only way a business will gain access to a particular type of service or resource. It might be that internally a company has no one who can complete social media tasks and copywriting, so a lot of the time this will be outsourced to help the business market themselves.

Delegate Complicated Tasks

There are certain elements of a business which can be incredibly confusing and require an expert hand to oversee it. For example you might want to create a company website, but you will need a developer to help you decipher the code and make sure that the website functions correctly, looks good and that the SEO is all in place. Although you can often learn things on google, sometimes it is better to just call an expert and let them handle it all.

What parts of a business can you outsource?

Content Marketing

There are various forms of marketing which you can look to outsource, and a large part of that is content marketing. Whenever you see a social media post, a photograph, an article like this or a tweet- that is known as content. In order to grow your business as much as possible and reach the right people, you need to make sure you are sharing engaging and quality content every single day. This will involve writing up blog posts, writing and scheduling social media posts, creating graphics, taking photographs and a whole lot more. It is a job role in itself and this is why unless you have someone who can dedicate their time to it, you need to outsource it to a professional.

SEO

Search engine optimisation is a must for any company who has a website. The purpose of this is to make sure your website and content are seen on the search engine when relevant keywords and searched for. You want to optimise your website so that your content ranks higher on a search engine and has a bigger chance of being seen by those searching for a particular thing. It can get complicated when you start delving into the audit, which is why getting an SEO professional is a better choice.

Payroll

Payroll is something many people will outsource because it can get complicated with tax codes and overtime, so it is much smarter to let a professional handle it. If you get payroll wrong, you can be facing charges from the employees you underpay or even from the government, so it is better to leave it to an expert.

Bookkeeping

One of the more time consuming and a little boring tasks in the business is bookkeeping. This involves compiling all data on clients, employees, profit margins, expenditure and sales- then putting it all in once place for your business records. This is a job which will take a huge amount of time, which is why getting someone to do it for you is the best option.

Finance

Every company should really have a dedicated financial employee who will deal with all incoming and outgoing cash through the business. However if you don’t, you cannot expect to balance the books and keep an eye on things yourself. The job will involve any expenses and profits being recorded, the ordering of equipment and other items, renewing software licences and lots more. It is a complicated job which needs an expert eye. Make sure you choose an accountant or financial aid who you trust completely with your funds.

Admin Tasks

This can cover everything from scheduling meetings, making sure that there is enough toilet roll in the building, or even answering the phones to clients. These are all tasks which are time consuming and which you don’t want to spend your day completing. Instead, get someone else to do it for a lower price.

Your Weaknesses

There will always be a few elements within a business which you are not confident on or which you do not possess the knowhow and experience. It is a case of identifying these parts of the business and then outsourcing them in order to improve the way your business runs overall.

A Five Step Strategy to Starting Your New Business

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Starting a business is an exciting adventure, but doing it wrong can easily turn it into a financial disaster. That is why you need to strategize effectively and know how to move your business forward for success. The more you plan before you launch, the better. Success comes with knowing which steps to take and what to do to move forward. That is why being prepared is your best friend. To help you be prepared, follow these steps:

1. Create a Comprehensive Business Plan

The first step anyone looking to start a new business needs to do is to create a business plan. The more comprehensive and detailed this business plan, the better. To create this comprehensive business plan you should first research your competition. Learn what your successful competitors are doing right, and more importantly how your unsuccessful competitors have done wrong. You should also know industry trends, technologies, and systems that are popular, and more importantly know what the predicted trends are going to be.

Tip: You don’t have to include every tip or trend you find, but instead pick and choose which trends will benefit your business.

2. Acquire Funding

Once you have a comprehensive business plan that details your road to success, you can then seek funding. Funding can, of course, come from your friends, family, from yourself, or even from crowdfunding, but if you need a substantial sum the best place to go is either the bank or investors. For these latter two options, having a great business plan will be incredibly important. Banks and investors want to know that you have a solid plan and that they can expect a return on their investment.

3. The More Work Before Launch, The Better

The more work you put into perfecting your systems and your business before you launch, the better. While you won’t be able to plan for every eventuality, you can be prepared. This means having all your systems up and ready, having all of the insurance, certificates, and legal requirements met and the papers ready, and more. This could mean having and working on a website, so that by the time you launch you have already attracted the attention of your community, or it could mean trialing your products in other stores before opening your own.

4. Ensure Your System Are Ready

One of the most important areas of prep are your management systems. Having a professional management system will save you time and effort down the road. The better your data is stored, the more easily you can access it, understand it, and use it to improve your company.

5. Keep Your Records Like a Pro

Every piece of data has value, especially as a business. For instance, you don’t want to be caught up in a tax audit by the government without the proper records. That is why you need to ensure that everything is catalogued and stored. It means using a check stub template so that all of your employees have accurate records, and it means ensuring that all your accounting is stored in an easy-to-understand manner. That way the audit can go smoothly, and you can continue with ease.

Once these five steps are ready, you can finally launch. The more press and more buzz you create before you launch, the better, but having a fully operational business is far more important. When customers buy from you or use your services, they need to be wowed. You cannot use the excuse that you are new, you need to get it right from the start.

Why Engaging with Previous Customers Is Key to The Success of Your Handmade Crafts Business

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Running your own business selling things you have made yourself can be a hugely satisfying way to make either your main or secondary income, and is becoming extremely popular as the trend for artisanal crafting continues, with some great sites like diyformula.com also helping more people learn more skills.

With people running businesses from their homes and workshops making everything from furniture to home-made cheese and jewelry to upcycled clothing, there are all kinds of entrepreneurs out there trying to sell their lovingly crafted items, and this can make some sectors of the market fairly competitive.

This means that to have success and get more of your products out there, you need to master marketing, and one of the most vital tools in your arsenal in that respect is the contact details of the people who have bought from you before.

The Classic Sales Mantra

Even in big business, all people involved in sales are taught one thing very early on in their careers:

‘It is easier to sell new products to existing customers, than to sell existing products to new customers.’

Assuming your customers are all happy with their purchases, they are the people it will be easiest to sell further items to. They already have familiarity with the existence of your business and have had a good experience shopping from you already.

Word of Mouth

The other thing your previous customers can do for you if you keep them engaged is recommend you to friends, or share your social media content. As people who already like you and your business, they may well be happy to pass on your promotions or new products to people they know, even if they don’t need anything new for themselves at the present time.

This is worth its weight in gold for you, because as much as you may try and use social media for outreach, it counts for little without people supporting your posts and sharing them with others.

Keeping in Touch

Of course, it can be easy to forget a company you bought something from, even if you were delighted with it. For this reason, it is important to keep up engagement with your past customers. Email newsletters can be a good way to do this. As long as you don’t spam your customers, most people don’t mind the odd email with a special offer or a peek at new products.

Encouraging people to follow your social media accounts is also a good way to keep up engagement, though as this is an extra step for the customer to take, you may find you get through to more of them if you offer an incentive, like a small discount or free shipping if they like your Facebook page or follow you on Instagram or Twitter.

When you gain new customers in real life settings, such as at craft fairs, always be sure to hand out business cards with every purchase and if possible, ask people to like your page there and then from their phones (again, in exchange for a small discount or gift).

Never underestimate just how important it is to keep hold of the people you have already won over to your business!