Are you struggling to understand the best way to market your Home Staging or Design?
Does it seem as though you are not getting enough internet leads lately and you wonder what might help?
As the internet becomes noisier and noisier it is incumbent on you to relay your unique value in a way that speaks directly to your ideal clients.
Images are incredibly important when marketing your staging or design business but that alone is not enough.
You also need to speak to your ideal clients on an emotional level through your written word.
I can just hear you saying:
“Yikes- I just want to stage homes and now you are telling me that I need to start speaking to my clients on an emotional level along with everything else I have on my plate? That ain’t gonna happen!”
But hear me out.
Once you understand why this is important you will be better able to “sell” to your ideal clients in person, on your website, through your email campaigns, etc.
Yours will be the voice that they listen to.
And selling will be easy because you are not “pushing” them into buying from you. You are pulling them to you by showing them you can take them from where they are (fear based) to where they want to be (full of hope and possibility).
According to Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman, 95% of our purchase decisions take place unconsciously. People buy on emotion and they will choose your staging or design company over others if they feel as though you “get them”.
The first step is to be very clear and intentional about defining who your ideal client is. If you skip this step your message will be muddy and not heard from the very people you want to listen.
Once you understand your ideal client and who you are marketing to you want to make sure that you:
1) Sell the Sizzle and Not the Steak
The steak is that we stage homes.
The sizzle is that we stage homes so that our sellers have peace of mind knowing that their home won’t embarrass them when they put it on the market.
Or our sellers can feel confident that their home will appeal to the most amounts of buyers and they can rest assured that they will get the best return on investment for this particular market.
The steak is the features that we offer- a staged home. The sizzle is the benefits that we provide-the emotional pay off that they will get when they work with us.
It’s how we answer the WIFM factor on an emotional level by showing them the results you will help them achieve.
2) Take Them on A Journey
It is your job, through your copy, to show your ideal clients how working with you will take them from a fear based emotion to one that is filled with abundance and possibility.
The tricky part is that sometimes they “don’t know what they don’t know” and you have to show them.
You have to show them that you understand that they are afraid and you can help by providing a solution.
For example: Investors typically are scared to death about losing their shirt through a bad investment. Every day that the house is on the market causes them to be more and more anxious. Their carrying costs are adding up and they are losing money.
It is up to you to connect the dots by explaining how you can take them from being afraid to feeling assured.
In other words, your company represents hope- that they will makes lots of money if they work with you! And they will do it quickly so that they are not stressed out!
How might you do this? You could say something like:
“Are you worrying that every day on the market is eating into your profit while sub contractors are not finishing their jobs in a timely manner?
And worse….you could possibly lose your shirt…
That must be incredibly frustrating.
I get it!
You have taken on a big financial risk and now you feel at the mercy of everyone else and they don’t have skin in the game like you do!
When you work with (my company) you will feel confident and assured that we will stay flexible and ready to go when you are, so that you can get that home on the market and sold asap”.
3) Bring on Your Brand Personality
Brand personality is a set of emotional and associative characteristics connected to a company. These things shape how people feel about and interact with a company.
Your brand should be a natural extension of you and should help people who don’t know you get an idea of what it might be like to work with you.
Ideally, your brand personality sparks recognition and builds trust with like minded people who will feel a connection to you. It helps you to be more relatable to your ideal clients and helps you distinguish yourself from any other brand.
Your brand personality is not your message. It is the color, flavor and texture through which you convey your message. It is more about how you deliver your message through your unique personality.
People want to work with people that they know, like and trust.
When your potential client has something in common with the brand voice that you offer, something they identify with, they will choose your offerings over a brand’s offerings that are less personal and more vanilla.
When you market to everybody you market to no one.
When honing in on your brand voice think about feels right for you. What is in alignment with your personality? Who are your ideal clients?
And then be more of you are and stop trying to fit into a box of how you “should be”.
If you are quirky, own it!
If you are tough, own it!
If you have a spiritual slant to business, own it!
Be fabulously and uniquely YOU!
I’ll be watchin’….
Cheers to YOU and your success,
