Beyond your rock star design chops, knowing how to get interior design clients is the most important aspect of your interior design career. Clients are the lifeblood to any successful business. Thankfully there are numerous ways — especially in the digital age — for you to attract attention for your interior design business and build a solid client base. 

This guide will give you the best ways to get interior design clients with 20+ tips for brand building, organic digital marketing, paid advertising, printing marketing and even “outside the box” strategies to try. Start by watching the video above to hear advice from real designers.

Challenges With Getting New Interior Design Clients

Maybe you’ve been running your interior design business for a while, but are struggling with ways to find new clients and stay ahead of the competition. Or maybe you’re just starting out as an interior designer and you’re wondering how to get your first interior design client. 

No matter your level of experience, there are always challenges in the industry — whether it’s staying on top of trends, or juggling design projects and marketing your business at the same time. It’s important to explore and try new tactics for gaining clients so you can bring fresh ideas (and opportunity) to your business. So, how do interior designers find clients? Read on for the most effective 20+ tips.

How to Get New Clients for Your Interior Design Business 

Step 1: Build Your Brand

• Define Your Brand: Hone in your design style. Identify the mission and values of your business. This will help you know what you’re all about and be able to express this to prospective interior design clients.
• Network: As they say, your network is your net worth. So when exploring how to find interior design clients, make sure to mingle with real estate agents, developers, builders, furniture companies, etc. You never know where a great referral can come from when casting a wide “net.”
• Join Professional Associations and Online Communities: Sometimes referrals can come from fellow designers if they feel your style would be a better fit, or they just don’t have the bandwidth. Joining a professional association like the Design Institute of Australia (DIA), Facebook groups for interior designers, and sites like Houzz, can help you network with your peers, make meaningful professional connections, exchange ideas and more.
• Always Exude Professionalism: When working with clients, networking or even out and about in your personal life, exuding professionalism, expertise and engaging constructively with others about your passion for interior design can give you and your business a lot of positive buzz.
• Collect Testimonials: As you likely know, what people say about your business matters. Sharing client testimonials and reviews in your marketing materials, social media and on your website gives a more trusted, “first person” account of what it’s like to work with you that will help attract new clients.
• Build a Great Portfolio: Your work is the shining star of your interior design business. Make it shine with professional photographs, detailed project descriptions and display it where it’s easy to find on your website and throughout your marketing (social media bio, business cards, email signature, etc.).
• Invest in Customer Service: Managing every aspect of your business can sometimes drag down performance in other key areas, such as customer service. Consider hiring an internal customer service and administrative professional or using an outside agency or virtual assistant for support.

Step 2: Try Organic Digital Marketing

• Create a Website: Every interior design business should have a stunning website to display your work, give background information about your biz and inspire clients to want to work with you. Make sure yours reflects your brand, style and has all the capabilities and ease-of-use you need.
• Optimise for SEO: To put it simply, search engine optimisation or SEO is how your website gets found on the Internet. You can work with companies to help optimise your site’s performance when potential clients search for local designers on the web, or you can invest the time to learn this skill yourself. SEO can be complex and ever-changing, however, so be sure to consider your options.
• Start a Blog: Sharing your interior design expertise on your own blog is a great way to attract clients by providing valuable, helpful information. When your blog is part of your website, blogging can also help with SEO if you write about popular topics using specific keywords. 
• Build an Email List: It’s one thing to know how to get clients for your interior design business, but it’s another to keep them coming back. Building an email list and using email marketing is an ideal marketing method for keeping your leads and clients engaged and in the loop.
• Gain Social Media Followers: It may take some time, but building a social media following is very important for digital marketing today. Social media allows you to connect meaningfully and authentically with your leads and clients, while helping you amplify your brand through compelling posts, videos, live walkthroughs and more.
• Use Hashtags: When building a social media following, make sure to use hashtags in your posts to help prospects find you on social media more easily and be better optimised for the algorithm. Use a combination of broad hashtags (#interiordesigner) and more narrow hashtags based on rooms, styles or your location (#kitchenredesign, #sydneyinteriordesign) to improve your chances of getting discovered and standing out.
• Tag Other Interior Design Accounts: If you’ve been inspired by other interior design accounts in your design work, consider tagging them in your posts and stories. They may repost or share your post in their own story, which can help amplify your reach.

Step 3: Invest in Paid Advertising

• Search Engines: If you wanted to find out, “how can I promote my interior design business,” you’d likely enter it into a search engine. Organic search results will appear based on the text you enter (the keyword), but paid advertisements will also appear in the top portion of the page. You can do this too for your interior design business by running paid search ad campaigns that rely on keywords (e.g., “Sydney interior designer”) to help you attract your target client.
• Online Communities: Advertising in existing online communities dedicated to interior design is an ideal way to “fish in the right pond,” so to speak. For example, Houzz attracts millions of homeowners each month seeking design professionals like yourself for their home renovation projects. Professionals advertise on a trusted site and community like Houzz to get in front of quality clients when they’re looking to hire. 
• Social Media: Advertising on social media sites is another smart way to reach potential clients. These platforms offer robust demographic targeting, ad options and bidding strategies to help you optimise your ads.

Step 4: Don’t Forget Print Marketing

While print advertising isn’t as common as digital methods today, it may still be a hidden gem for how to get clients in interior design.

• Placements in Publications: Depending on your geographic target, national home design magazines or more local magazines and community newspapers can help give your business prominence in your industry and stand out with potential clients.
• Printed Postcards and Flyers/Door Hangers: Don’t underestimate the power of old-school snail mail and “grassroots marketing.” Consider sending postcards to a new housing development in your area, or leaving flyers or door hangers on a new neighbour’s front door. (Just remember to never put any materials in someone’s mailbox without postage and abide by any “no junk mail” signs.)
• Offer Takeaways: When you’ve finished work for a client, give them a card with a picture of the completed design so they can pass it on (and brag just a bit) to their friends and contacts about your amazing job.

Step 5: Think Outside the Box

It’s important to also “think outside the box” when considering how to find interior design clients. You may uncover a unique strategy your competitors haven’t tried that could help your business get ahead. 

• Find Partnerships: Consider partnering with local contractors who can refer their clients to you when renovating, and vice versa when your interior design clients are in need of a good contractor. You may even want to partner up with other local designers if they have a specialty you don’t offer, such as kitchen or bathroom design, and either partner together on projects when the opportunity comes up or refer each other for the appropriate design job.
• Start an Incentive Program: Give your clients a reason to refer you to their friends, family, coworkers, etc. by offering an incentive program. It could be anything from giving them a gift certificate for dinner at a beloved local restaurant to offering them a discount on their next design project. 
• Public Relations: PR is another powerful way to elevate the status of your interior business and engage potential clients. Explore our top PR Tips Interior Designers Should Live By.

Tips from real designers on how to get interior design clients

When asked where new designers should be looking for their initial clients, Kirby Foster Hurd, Interior Designer at Kirby Home Design in Oklahoma City, says, “Houzz is a great place to start your portfolio. Even if you don’t have install photos, just creating a profile is a start because clients can still go on and write you a review. You just need [a] platform to invite people to see your work.” 

Jolene Irons, Interior Designer at Cedar & Fig in Renton, shares, “For us, Houzz Pro, helped a lot. It’s been almost a year since we signed up and most of our clients come through Houzz. If you don’t have a lot of capital to start with, then start with your friends and family.“

The Best Way To Get Interior Design Clients: Houzz Pro

Bring it all together for your interior design business with the help of Houzz Pro software. Our powerful yet easy-to-use tool can help you get design clients and so much more: 

• Lead Generation: Choose your ideal projects and budgets, get pre-screened leads for your business, manage leads, follow-ups and more from our built-in CRM.
• Custom Website: Attract top clients with a mobile-optimised, best-in-class site with Houzz Pro as your own interior design website builder.
• Email Marketing: Create and send stunning email campaigns in minutes to your clients and leads, all within Houzz Pro.
• Targeted Advertising: Reach the right clients at just the right time with our targeted local advertising service.
• Premium Houzz Profile: Stand out from your competitors with a premium profile featuring eye-catching video, verified license badge, reviews and more.

Now you’re ready to bring your favourite tips together and take action to get new clients for your interior design business. Why not join the millions of home and design professionals using Houzz Pro to gain clients and manage nearly every aspect of their business with one powerfully simple software? View pricing or sign up for a free trial today!

If you’d like to keep reading and learn more, check out our next article: How to Grow Your Interior Design Business with CRM Tools.