EP 095 | How Interior Designers Can Fix a Broken Brand with Nicole Heymer

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Could your brand be preventing potential clients from becoming paying customers?

In this episode, Kimberley Seldon speaks with Nicole Heymer about the importance of brand positioning and how a brand audit can uncover weaknesses that may be limiting business growth. Nicole explains why beautiful projects alone are rarely enough to differentiate a design firm and shares practical strategies for creating a consistent message across all marketing channels.

For interior designers looking to attract better clients and improve marketing results, this conversation offers a roadmap for evaluating and strengthening your brand.

In this episode, we learn:
• How to determine whether your brand is helping—or hurting—client conversions
• Why beautiful rooms alone are not a meaningful point of differentiation
• How a brand audit can identify gaps in your marketing and messaging
• Why consistency across websites, social media, and other channels matters
• The key stages involved in conducting an effective brand audit
• How a stronger brand helps attract better-fit clients and improve marketing results

Take Aways

STAGES TO PROCUDING A BRAND AUDIT:

STAGE 1: Lay out the foundation.

Begin by creating a framework:

• Who are you? Look at (or create!) your mission statement, vision statement and key messaging.
• Who is currently buying your services? Who are your best clients? The ones you wish you could copy?
• Who do you want to buy your services? If you could tweak your client base, who would you really want to serve?
• How do you reach those new people while being authentically you? The big question to keep in mind as we move into Step 2.

STAGE 2: Create a spreadsheet and list out all touch-points.

Yours will vary, but here are some examples to get you started…

• Website
• Individual social media platforms
• Blog posts
• Print Ads and Mailers
• Press Coverage
• Business Cards
• Referral Sources
• Google Search for Your Business Name
• Online Reviews (Google, Houzz, Facebook, etc.)
• Networking Events
• Email Communication (automated or otherwise)
• First Inquiry (contact forms, phone call, online booking)
• Sales Processes
• Customer Service Processes

STAGE 3: Review each touchpoint for clarity, consistency and content.

List this on the spreadsheet too. How are you currently doing? Review each touchpoint for the following, where applicable:

• How does each touchpoint LOOK? (logo, colors, fonts, headshots, photo quality)
• How does each touchpoint SOUND? (tone and personality on social media, website copy, online questionnaires, print material, emails, etc.)
• What kind of MESSAGING is being communicated at each touchpoint? (stories that you tell, what is said in testimonials, what you say in your website copy, image selection, etc.)

STAGE 4: Where ever possible, assign a metric to track the performance of a touchpoint.

If we’re going to attempt to make improvements to each touchpoint and fix what is broken, then we need a way to track our progress. How can tell if you’re heading in the right direction? You need to establish a baseline.

Notes: Some things are easier to track than others. It is hugely helpful to have Google Analytics installed on your website. And it’s important to always ask new prospects ‘Where did you hear about us?’ Again, yours will vary, but here are some examples:

Website – What percentage of visitors are signing up for your mailing list? What is your bounce rate (the percentage of people who arrive on a page and then leave immediately)? How many inquiries are coming in through the website each month?

Individual social media platforms – How much traffic is each social media platform sending to your website? What percentage of that traffic is signing up for your email list? Or simply staying on the site longer? All of this can be found in your analytics.

Blog posts – Which blog post titles are attracting the most traffic to your website? Which ones are bringing in the most traffic through Google search? Engagement like comments? Social shares?

Print Ads and Mailers – How many inquiries did you receive from a particular campaign?

Online Reviews – On sites such as Google, Houzz, Facebook, etc. What percentage of your clients are leaving an online review? What percentage are positive?

Email Communication – automated or otherwise. What is your email open rate? What percentage of subscribers are clicking on links in your email? How many become clients after receiving your emails?

Sales Processes – What are your conversion rates? Is there a point in your sales process where prospects drop off?

Customer Service Processes – How do your clients feel about your service when you survey them?

STAGE 5: Create action steps.

The weak spots are probably pretty obvious now. Create a list of tasks to test some possible improvements, keeping the client that you want in mind.

Address any inconsistencies or potential issues with your visual branding, brand voice and messaging. You may look at the data and decide to focus on a particular social media platform and completely drop another. You may want to tweak your website copy or the design if too many visitors are leaving right away. If your email open rates are terrible, can you test some subject lines that would be more appealing to the client you’re trying to reach? Can you do more to encourage online reviews or address customer service issues? Look at each touchpoint and decide if it needs some love.

STAGE 6: Track your progress.

Now that you have some key performance indicators (something to track) for each touchpoint, you can follow your progress, test new ideas and make adjustments as needed.

More information on all of these steps is available at CurioElectro.com

Design Intervention

Nicole shares a concept she learned from Pia Silva. Every experience a client has with you is either a deposit or a withdrawal. For instance, if they are trying to contact you via the website and they get an error message, that’s a withdrawal. Conversely, if they receive an immediate response and get signed up for a consultation quickly, it’s a deposit.