The designer trade industry thrives best when the economy is thriving and driving consumer spending. The marketplace is shifting from focusing marketing on baby boomers and their love for consumer spending to their children, the millennials. This new focus on millennials works well for interior designers as this age group is just now beginning to buy their first homes and succeed in business.
The largest increase in home purchases happens at age 35, and the upper age bracket for Millennials is beginning to reach this age. If you’re not reaching this younger generation, you could be missing out on a great opportunity for new interior design business.
Marketing to millennials is different than their predecessors though. Millennials spend more time doing initial research before reaching out to a company. This means you need to be there with online resources to support their decision making before you even know who they are.
What millennial luxury purchasing behaviors look like
To best market to and reach millennials, you first need to understand what motivates them to make luxury purchases like interior design services. Let’s take a look:
- Consumers in this age group purchase premium products, not for show, but because they believe they are actually better.
- They’re influenced by friends and social media influencers so it’s best to start building a relationship with them before they’re ready to purchase
- Millennials don’t just buy online. In fact, more than half purchase luxury items in the store because they like the experience.
- Experiences are important to these buyers. The more you can personalize and create a unique experience, the more likely they are to choose you.
Why you need a digital showroom
With a demographic focused on experiences, you need a digital showroom that enables them to view your interior design services and style. A digital showroom enables you to highlight your products in a pleasing way that enables your customers to envision what it will look like in the home.
As millennials are doing their research online before making a purchase or reaching out to a company for purchasing information, a digital showroom allows you to be where your customers need you before you even know their name or interests.
A digital showroom that’s well executed can also provide insights into what your clients are browsing to arm your sales team with information to close the deal.
How data collection provides insights
With a digital showroom, you can see what your customers are browsing, when they’ve requested more information and what products are selling well.
Armed with this information, you can market the products that are hot and provide further information to customers once they’ve shown an interest. Returning visitors are tracked as known guests so you can see their name and information alongside their browsing history.
In a time when relationships are such an important factor in marketing, this data collection can help you continuously build your relationships through personalized marketing. This can be done by suggesting similar products related to browsing and purchasing history to help interior designers create the perfect room. By providing this information that designers need and want, you can become a top choice for them.
Increasing conversion rates to drive sales
Data is great to have, but until you can tie it to a customer, it’s just data. That’s where integrating your digital showroom with a CRM system comes in to increase your conversion rate.
Simply having traffic on your website and digital showroom doesn’t drive a sale. Some customers need personalized follow up to convert from a prospect to a customer. With an integrated CRM, you can send emails and SMS messages, tailor social media content and execute phone calls to reach customers where they’re at.
Ready to start attracting the millennial generation in interior design? Learn more about our work and how Showroom Software can help you capitalize on the booming economy