Interiorscape Branding: Image IS Everything

As interiorscapers, we work in a visual industry, and accordingly, image is everything. Getting your company noticed isn’t an easy task, but it’s a necessary one. The more competition that you have in your market, the more necessary it is for your company to stand out. Whether you’re just starting out in the business, or have been around for several years, marketing your company to your target prospect is an ongoing process that must evolve and develop as your company does.

Crafting Your Company’s Image

You know what they say about images and first impressions. The image that your company projects is crucial to success, and that first impression that you make with a prospect will only happen one time. Then, poof, it’s gone! Luckily, there are numerous marketing options available to us in today’s technologically advanced world and many of them are relatively inexpensive and available to us 24/7/365 because they are web-based—that’s the world we live in.

Let’s begin at the beginning and examine your company’s logo. If you’ve been in business for five, ten, or fifteen years and you haven’t updated your logo since you started out, well, it’s probably time for a logo makeover. That’s not to say that you must completely reinvent it if it was at least half decent to begin with, but it may be time for an update to a more sleek and contemporary logo, one that will better portray the fact that your company is involved in design. Design. Yes, that’s what we do!

Your logo will be on everything. Letterhead, business cards, invoices, vehicles, brochures, shirts, caps, jackets, and last but not least, your website and social network channels. If you’re not particularly good at creating something of this importance, and few of us are, hire a professional graphic designer to create a collateral package for you. There are also online options such as Fivver.com, Freelancer.com, VistaPrint.com, and LogoWorks.com just to name a few. Plan on spending anywhere from $200 to upward of $500, depending on how much design work and how many variations you need. Alternatively, you could trade your services with a local designer. Be sure to have the logo created in both rectangular and square formats as you may need variations for different applications.

Once you have your new logo, it’s time to take a look at your website. Don’t have one? Eventually, you must in order to be competitive in today’s digital-driven market. If you don’t have one yet, and it’s just not in the budget right now, then start off by setting up your social network and search accounts. The good thing is that they are FREE and take only a few minutes to set up.

Homework: Before you get started with setting up your social network business pages, it’s important that you create profile images and banners using your new logo so that you are consistent across the various networks. To complicate things just a bit, the image sizes are different for the various social networks, so you’ll have to create images for each network that you intend to get going with. Here’s a handy resource listing the various image sizes.

LISTINGS & SOCIAL NETWORKS

• GOOGLE: The first network that you’ll want to set up is your free Google Places listing, which will play a big part in prospects being able to find you online, even if you don’t have that website up and running yet. To get started, just go to google.com/business and enter all your business information. If you are a home-based business and you don’t want people showing up at your front door, note that on your listing by showing your business hours as “by appointment only.”
• FACEBOOK: Next up will be your FREE Facebook business page. This one is crucial, and even more so if you don’t have a website up and running yet, as it can function as one in the interim. To get started, you’ll need to have a personal Facebook account. Log into your account, select “Pages,” and then select “Create New Page.” Next, give your page a name, choose a category, add a bio, and click “Create.” For consistency, name it the same as your business name, if available, or some variation of the business name if it’s not.
  
• INSTAGRAM: Instagram was purchased by Facebook several years ago and many of the functions work in collaboration with your Facebook account. It’s VERY important that you set up Instagram as a business account. A personal Instagram account won’t provide you with the valuable tracking data that a business account will. If you already have a personal Instagram account, you can convert it to a business one, but you may want to go through your photos and purge some of the less “professional” ones. You can choose to sign up with an email address, or you can choose to connect with your Facebook account, which is recommended. Again, it’s suggested that you create your Instagram account in the name of your business or some variation thereof. For example, our business page on Facebook is facebook.com/FosterPlants, but that was not available on Instagram or Twitter, so we went with GetFosterPlants on those social networks. To set up an Instagram business account, go to settings and choose “Switch to a Professional Account.” From there, you can continue the setup process of inputting your business information. Once you’re all set up on both Facebook and Instagram, link your Facebook business page with Instagram. This ensures that when you post to Instagram, you have the option of also posting to your Facebook page. Quite a time-saver!
  
• TWITTER: You may or may not be keen on Twitter. Regardless, though, you’ll want to set up your Twitter account so that you can lock in the same name for Twitter as you have for Facebook and Instagram. Again, if your company name isn’t available, go with a variation of it, preferably the same one that you secured for Facebook and/or Instagram.
  
• LinkedIn: Just as with Facebook, with LinkedIn you’ll need to set up a personal account and profile to create a company page. To get going, from your LinkedIn homepage, go to “Work,” select “Create Company Page,” and then enter your company details. Once done, click “Create Page.”

Now that you have your new logo and you’ve begun the branding or re-branding of your company, you need to begin promoting your brand to grow it. Good luck!