Getting more corporate clients for your interior design business can be challenging but it isn’t impossible. There are several methods to accomplish this crucial task, ranging from zero tech, zero spend solutions to sophisticated, high tech social media campaigns. All these methods offer value for time and money and they can all work to help you to get more corporate interior design clients that you need for your business.

Word of Mouth

There are several methods that you need to consider. First and most important of all is word of mouth. Perhaps word of mouth is even more important than it once was because now brand reputations travel through social media and this acts as a very decisive form of advertising. The best form of advertising is simply to run a good business as this will announce your reputation to potential clients for years to come. Be aware though that word of mouth advertising works both ways in that bad reviews can travel even quicker than a satisfied client’s opinion can.

Pro Bono Work

In order to get your business off to a brisk start you might want to consider serving the first few clients for free or at the very least at a steep discount. This should get people talking and will be a great way of demonstrating to everyone in your local area that you’re serious about building a great reputation in interior designing. Not everyone does this, but it is a step that should capture the minds of potential clients in a short amount of time.

Advertising Budget

Paid advertising can work but it must be done intelligently and with a sizable budget. How are you going to stand out from the competition? What makes your business so much better that it has so much value for the client that they’re willing to do business with you? These are tough questions to ask but they must be answered before the advertising campaign commences. A local T.V. advertising campaign will perhaps be outside your budget so social media looks like a sound option at this stage.

Cold Calling

Perhaps the most aggressive and effective method of getting more corporate clients is cold calling. This entails making a list of likely clients due to their experience in the real estate business. An excellent place to start would be to call up real estate agents who are in the process of selling houses. They and their clients would love to earn a higher price at auction and this can be done if you use your services to their advantage. In fact it is considered to be a standard within the industry to have a home or apartment looking fresh and inviting by having an interior designer work on it before the potential buyers are invited to inspect the property. Get to know these people. Earn their trust and work will steadily roll in.

Networking Events

You can also use this opportunity and many others just like to engage in networking. You can show up at trade shows or create social events that showcase your services to them in a positive environment. Hosting parties could be one option, especially if the client wants to celebrate their new interior design which was created by you. Or it could be a much smaller affair at a restaurant or a bar where the opportunity to introduce yourself to a client could arise. At the very least have a business card ready and invite them in for a consultation if they’re willing to take that step.

Online Presence

Websites play a large role these days in presenting your business to potential clients in any field and this is especially so when it comes to interior designing. Photos showing your work should of course be highlighted in the portfolio that is presented on the website. And it should be done in an original and creative manner so this will take extra time and money to do. There is simply no room to compromise when it comes to this because websites are the new shop front window of our age.

Social Media Connection

Social media is also another great tool but you should realize that everyone else has it as well. Making regular contributions through announcing social events and posting photos is of course obligatory but also writing blog posts should be considered as well. Writing about your work can entice people into looking at different interior designs and this soon gather interest from people who could potentially become corporate clients. The secret though is to drive traffic to both your website and your social media posts and the real key to doing this is to regularly post articles and content so that slowly but surely you will build an audience.

Showroom Design

Perhaps in keeping with the philosophy of value added you might consider adding a cafe to your showroom which will enable people to enjoy themselves and relax while taking in samples of your work. This is a great way of networking and building relationships with people who might know someone else who is looking for an interior design service. The industry does not work in straight lines but rather it is your ability to make connections that matter that truly counts.

Trend-Setting

Another very important move that you can make is to tailor your business as closely as possible to what the client wants. This is marketing. Don’t be a follower of trends but rather a creator of them. This takes a lot of careful research and it can only be done after consulting clients as to what their aspirations are. This will hopefully make you into a market leader and it should set the industry buzzing which can only be good for your business. 

It takes many different approaches to acquire more clients and the best way to do it is to have a consistently high standard of work. Other measures are also highly necessary as well but the key is to target the right people at the right time and then to sell them not just an interior design but an aspiration to live a more comfortable and stylish lifestyle. It is well worth the effort and can lead to dramatic changes to your interior design business.

There are a number of reasons that landscape and other outdoor photos may be underexposed. Perhaps you neglected to add the necessary EV compensation, or an overly bright sky biased the exposure.

And remember, the light meter in your camera is calibrated to deliver a proper exposure with “normal” subjects; i.e. those that are comparable to 18% gray. So if your shot contains a lot of bright snow, that white fluffy stuff will be rendered as a dirty gray.

As it turns out, both the aforementioned conditions were present in the demonstration shot for the tutorial below. As a result, the image is far too dark. But fear not, because you’ll see how easy it is to restore the muddy photo to its original splendor.

This episode from The Phlog Photography YouTube channel demonstrates how to make the remarkable transformation in barely nine minutes. And it’s a good example of why it pays to try fixing a disappointing image before tossing it in the trash.

Instructor Christian Mohrle is a German landscape pro, and a favorite among Shutterbug readers. As always, he provides a link to the demonstration shot in the description beneath the video so you can make the recommended adjustments yourself as he describes the process.

Also common to Mohrle’s tutorials is his penchant for making a few basic adjustments before getting to the meat of the task. Here that means changing the profile to Adobe landscape, adjusting color temperature, raising exposure, slightly dropping highlights, and a few other quick tweaks.

Now the image isn’t what he envisions but it’s much improved. The real magic begins with some masking, color grading, and sharpening. He walks you through these steps from beginning to end, and the final result is definitely a keeper!

You can find more shooting and editing tips on Mohrle’s popular YouTube channel, so pay a visit when you have time.

And be sure to check out the editing tutorial we posted earlier from another expert, explaining how to use Lightroom’s powerful Color Calibration tools.