5 Things Brands Need to Know About Interior Design Influencers
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we discussed influencer marketing best practices all home brands need to know, as well as three home brands who are totally owning the influencer marketing game. In Part 3, we’re going to share five things brands need to know about interior design influencers.
We put together some expert tips for working with influencers, tailored to the home and interior design industry. Here are a few things influencers would like home brands to know about working with them.
1. Interior design influencers want to work with brands that match their aesthetic.
Influencers operating in the home space only want to promote products that match their unique taste in interior design. Think about it — if their home has a rustic farmhouse style, your modern couch won’t fit into their space. Plus, home design influencers have audiences who follow them specifically for their distinctive style in decor and furnishings. If your products don’t match the influencer’s aesthetics, their content won’t resonate because it’s not what their audience is looking for — making your campaign entirely ineffective.
When it comes to working with the real pros who take pride in the specific aesthetics of their homes, you’re going to have to look a little harder for those who match your brand’s style. The good news is that there are creators with all kinds of interior design styles, from mid-century modern to coastal decor.
To find well-aligned influencers, use tools like Aspire’s Influencer Search Engine — particularly our image search function — to quickly discover creators who create home content that matches your brand’s aesthetics.
Or, create a proposal detailing their campaign and set it live to Aspire’s Creator Marketplace, where creators can apply directly to work with your brand. By doing so, you can receive hundreds of inbound applications and let your biggest brand fans come to you.
Take note from Rugs USA. While there was no shortage of creators interested in working with the home design brand, it was difficult to identify the best partners for Rugs USA’s seasonal campaigns. Through Aspire’s Creator Marketplace, the brand was able to quickly connect with creators in specific niches, such as mom bloggers and pet owners with an eye for interior design, and onboard them just in time for each season.
Equipped with Aspire's Creator Marketplace, Rugs USA achieved these results:
- Received over 200 qualified applications (in just a couple of days!)
- Produced more than 2,700 posts
- Garnered over 40 million impressions
2. A perfectly styled home takes a lot of time, money, and energy.
If you’ve decorated your own home and tried to keep it clean, you know how much work it is. It’s no wonder why people actually go to school for interior design – it takes a great eye to style a like-worthy home.
As influencer marketers, you know that there’s a lot of work that goes into content creation. This is especially true with home brands, since creators are typically focusing on a larger room, space, or project.
How exactly does this impact the way home brands work with influencers?
Home brands should be aware and understanding that home-based partnerships might need a longer timeline in order to get everything together and properly styled. So, if you’re planning an influencer campaign around a specific event, day, or launch plan ahead and give influencers at least four weeks to create content for you.
This brings us to our next point.
3. Interior design influencers are worth the investment.
Our study revealed that creators in segments like home, travel, and food charge more than those in more saturated industries like beauty and fashion. This is because brands in niches like home and travel often expect professional quality content, which may lead creators to charge higher rates as production fees.
Yes, home design influencers typically charge more than other kinds of influencers — but remember, the content they create takes more effort to create and they get exceptionally high engagement.
What exactly goes into getting the perfect shots? According to design influencer Kristin Chambless, there’s a ton of behind-the-scenes work — “planning ahead, strategizing, location shooting, styling, lighting adjustments, props, florals, etc.”
Blogger Taelor O’Dorisio agrees, explaining that she puts a ton of effort in leading up to the shoot and also the day of: “On the day of the shoot, there’s a lot of playing around — trying things in new places and getting the lighting just right. The lighting is so important. It really is the number one thing to getting the perfect shot.”
These influencers often use professional equipment to take their photos — and even professional photographers — which is why the images they produce easily rival anything you’d find in the pages of a magazine.
Remember that when you partner with influencers, you’re still saving thousands of dollars when compared to the cost of creating content in-house.
4. Influencers communicate your brand story
Is your product for someone who wants a practical living space or the person who wants their home to look and feel like a five star hotel? We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Creating a successful influencer marketing campaign isn’t as simple as finding someone with a big following and having them promote your product or service.
When it comes to working with influencers, it’s important for home brands to communicate the messages they are trying to get across. This can help make sure the influencer is able to authentically weave it into their content. It also is really important that the brand educates the influencer on their company. This is key because it gives the influencer a story to tell.
Check out this post by content creator Sopha Rush. By incorporating stories around her sleep quality as a pregnant woman, she’s able to create an authentic picture around the true comfort of Purple Mattress.
With that being said, brands need to keep in mind that Instagram posts don’t act as stand-alone photos. Instagram feeds operate as one giant story. Both you and the influencer need to work together to ensure everything flows together seamlessly.
5. Influencers have transformed the home and design industry.
Brands need to understand that the value of influencers doesn't stop at their ability to take amazing pictures and videos. They’ve vastly changed this industry and are now an important piece of your entire marketing strategy.
Today, influencers play a huge role in driving bottom-of-funnel actions for brands.
In fact, businesses generate an average of $5.78 in revenue for each $1 invested in influencer marketing, with some seeing as much as $18. Plus, 51% of marketers say influencer marketing has helped them acquire better customers.
To activate a high-trust commerce experience, add influencers into your affiliate marketing program. With trusted relationships with your target customers, influencers have a large audience that is actively looking to them for purchase inspiration, allowing your brand to drive immediate sales at scale. By providing influencers with unique discount codes and links to share with their audience, you can effectively guide consumers from product discovery to checkout, streamlining the path to purchase for consumers.
Additionally, by repurposing influencer content into paid ads, you can provide social proof, thereby boosting ROAS while cutting down on costs. In fact, UGC-based ads get 4x higher click-through rates and a 50% drop in cost-per-click than average.
In short, if you work to develop genuine relationships with influencers, clearly communicate their needs, give them adequate time to work, and treat them like the professionals they are, you can reap all the benefits that influencer marketing has to offer.
We know that developing your influencer marketing strategy can feel overwhelming. We’re here to help. Aspire will help you streamline your influencer discovery, management, and analytics, so that you can focus on building authentic relationships. Contact us to see how the platform works.
Ready to get started with influencer marketing? Check out our ebook, A Step-by-Step Guide to Running an Influencer Campaign.
