Digital Content Strategy Inbound Marketing Design
Challenge
It takes more than just a creative mindset to be a successful interior designer – you need the risk-taking tendencies of an entrepreneur, the financial prudence of a small business owner and the organizational savvy of a seasoned corporate leader. Design Manager is a full-service SaaS platform that empowers designers with the financial and project management tools they need to successfully manage their operations. It’s the most comprehensive interior design software of its kind. The Challenge Design Manager came to us with a challenge: Their user base was a group of loyal, mid-career and high-profile designers that they wanted to be more engaged with. But they also wanted a way to reach designers just starting out in the industry; entrepreneurs ready to launch their own businesses. Two targets, two opportunities.
Solution
Strategic Content A two-pronged problem requires a two-pronged solution. We knew that we needed to produce content that spoke to both groups, while maintaining Design Manager’s distinctly authoritative, yet informational tone. The Blog: Product Marketing, Inspiration and Industry Advice To engage their current users, we took a blog that Design Manager had recently created, and emboldened it with a formal strategy, a content governance structure, and writers with a passion for the industry. We managed an editorial process that brought high-quality, consistently published content to the Design Manager site, which created value for SEO purposes, as well as for users. The blog’s content is strategically executed through three editorial pillars: In-depth tutorials on Design Manager’s software: These informative, engaging blogs are one part easy user manual, one part product marketing tool. Inspirational design tips from industry leaders: Spotlighting leading voices in the field, these blogs give designers valuable information and examples to aspire to. Nuts and bolts on running an interior design business: Straightforward advice on topics ranging from the macro to the micro, these are trusty resources for designers. The Pillar: Combining Topical Authority with SEO To reach new users in the early stages of launching their own design firms, we got to work on a pillar piece of content called “How to Start an Interior Design Business.” Utilizing the most effective elements of skyscraper content and 10X content principals, we crafted a definitive, informative piece of content rooted in SEO and written with the quality and depth of a premium download. Built to command this umbrella search term, the longform article would reach newcomers to the field and function as a low-cost way of getting new users into the top of the Design Manager funnel.
Results
The Blog Since 2017, Design Manager’s blog visits have increased over 300% and it accounts for over 20,000 website sessions per year, which is almost 20% of the website’s total traffic. The first two blog pillars effectively turned Design Manager into a leading news source for interior designers. And the third was more popular with users than we even anticipated – these detailed tutorials draw rave reviews from Design Manager users, functioning as engaging, easy-to-consume, yet highly detailed lessons that breakdown various aspects of the software. Getting Results: The Pillar Piece “How to Become an Interior Designer” goes far beyond what a single blog post could accomplish. Concepted, structured, designed and written with SEO top of mind, this piece is a valuable resource to new users and continues to thrive, frequently appearing in the first page of Google’s search results for ‘How to Start an Interior Design Business.’ It has become one of the primary inlets on Design Manager’s website for acquiring new contacts, doing exactly what it was built to do – bring new interior designers into the Design Manager fold. The Data Content is an investment that takes time to pay off. Design Manager bought into that notion from the start, and our successful content partnership is ongoing. The Design Manager blog continues to be a vital news source for designers, and we’ve updated the pillar piece for 2020 with the latest business advice tailored to the interior design industry, and adjusted the content with the latest relevant search terms and other SEO elements to enable this page to perform even better than it already has.
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