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| Eric Miller |
In September of 2010 Eric Miller sat down at Panera Bread with his sister, Interior Designer Michelle Wiebe.
Miller had just finished working as a project manager in the largest single-building condo project on Florida's west coast. He was excited about social media and how it had been effective in marketing condo units.
The question arose inevitably: Would social media work to promote Michele's interior design business, Studio M.
Studio M was at that time well a established interior design firm in the Tampa Bay region. In its 19th year it enjoyed a great reputation and a steady stream of business through referrals.
Yet the interior design business is a business and Michelle was more than open to a promising marketing strategy.
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| Michelle Wiebe |
A Strategy Is Born
A high energy discussion at Panera that day led to some life-changing decisions. First of all, Eric went to work for Studio M as Director of Communications. Everything from then on depended on a successful marketing campaign utilizing social media.
Eric started using three social media: Facebook, Twitter and a blog. Studio M had a website at the time. It also casually supported a blog. However the blog was housed on a blogging site and not Studio M's site. The goal was to send organic traffic to the blog. Eric saw no point in getting traffic to WordPress.com.
“We developed a plan to create compelling interior design related content and post it on the company blog on a regular basis,” said Eric. “The main point was to draw visitors to the Studio M website to experience our brand. You can't do that if your visitors are going to WordPress.”
So job one was to move the blog and its content to the Studio M website.
Before
Although business was relatively good at Studio M at the time, it was getting almost no help from the website. The site received about 20 visitors a day and provided no new business leads. None.
"The whole point is to bring in business," said Eric.
His efforts and those of his team have produced spectacular results.
After
Today, he reports that:
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The Studio M website receives about 1000 visitors per day.
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The site generates about three leads a day.
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About seven out of 10 incoming inquiries come from new visitors to the website.
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This marketing strategy has put Studio M in a very enviable position. For every 15-20 new visitors the firm interviews, it opens only one account.
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This is the firm's choice. Because its marketing strategy is so effective, Studio M is able to make long term strategic plans and go after business that it handles best and most profitably.
So how did that happen?
How It Was Done
“We worked hard to produce interesting and attractive content on our blog. We promoted it by posting it on Facebook and sharing it on Twitter. Of course we have made modifications to this basic plan over the years, but that was the starting scheme and it worked pretty well.”
Eric is a solid business operator and clearly believes that success comes from making and executing solid business plans rather than discovering some secret formula.
Perhaps that's why he's so generous in sharing the sources of his success with the interior design community.
What You Can Do Now
I asked him, “If you were just starting out today in marketing on social media, what would you do? Here are eight things that he recommended.
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Use your camera and take lots of pictures. The quality of most cell phone cameras is more than adequate for the web. Get yourself addicted to taking before-an-after pictures.
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Make sure your blog is part of your site. It should be in a directory in the home directory of your site. Www.mysite.com/My Blog. This is a crucial bit of geekery that you must get right.
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Install Google Analytics (or some other tracking software) on your website. It's crucial to measuring your progress.
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Clarify your goals. Your blog is to get visitors to your site with compelling visual content. Find content on the web that you like and feature it with attributions. Post your own work.
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Post your blog's content on your personal Facebook page. Be social. Follow those who follow you. Like others Facebook content. Don't use your Facebook account to monotonously brag about your own work over and over again. You will soon lose your followers. Just like you'd clear the room at a cocktail party bragging about yourself. Be social.
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Run your blog like a professional publication. Publish at least twice a week. Develop a publication calendar three or four weeks into the future and stick to it. Knowing what you are going to write about keeps your mind on the lookout for great ideas. Creative channels open up. Eric Miller super tip: Post before-an-after pictures.
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Consider Pinterest, the image posting site. But only if you have a blog. Post images from your blog and link back to your site. Focus on attention-getters like dramatic before-an-after pictures. Pinterest can bring a lot of traffic to your website, but it tends to be quick-look, short-visit traffic.
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If you don't have the time or resources to blog, don't blog. A blog on a site with a few aging posts is lame. Instead go with the Facebook strategy above, but post your pictures and other interior design images that you like. Facebook is changing with respect to marketing small business. Use your personal page, not a company page. It's getting harder and harder to get company (fan page) posts into news feeds without paying Facebook.
Going Forward
Your marketing strategy will change over time, said Eric, as you see what's working and what's not. For example, Studio M began with a big effort in Twitter. It found Twitter to be a great networking platform, but was not bringing traffic to the site. On the other hand, Pinterest brings lots of traffic, but was not even in existence in 2010 when Eric started.
“Be a sponge,” said Eric. “See where others are having success. Reach out to them. Always be improving.”