Four Ways to Create Loyalty Using SideDoor
Are you using SideDoor yet? For the uninitiated, it’s a powerful new tool that allows interior designers to buy, share, and sell their favorite trade-only products through one simple online platform.
Designers use SideDoor to build shoppable collections and monetize their good taste. By creating collections and sharing links to clients and customers eager to buy recommended products, designers can earn commission up to 30% –– and cut out the hassle of purchase orders, tracking, and other logistics.
SideDoor provides the perfect opportunity for interior designers to build alternative revenue streams, increase passive income, and build loyalty, as long as they have the plan in place to keep customers in their orbit.
Here are two scenarios where you would use SideDoor to grow your connection with your clients and increase their lifetime value. In the first, you use SideDoor to give current design clients a direct line to buy products you recommend and/or freshen up the spaces you previously designed with new shoppable, curated collections. You earn the full designer commission on the products they buy. In the second, you open up your design services to customers who may not want full-service design, but want to recreate your aesthetic. These could be Instagram followers or even those who find your website via search. Again, when they buy your items through the shoppable collections, even though they weren’t directly handed to them, you still earn the full designer net commission.
In both of these scenarios, you’re creating a customer that could be positioned to come back –– if you put in intentional plans to move them through your customer funnel. Here are 4 ways you can do that.
One: Prioritize the Importance of an Email List in Building Loyalty
A client or customer’s email address is your #1 tool to build loyalty and boost lifetime value. An email list is your direct connection to clients –– newsletters are resurfacing in popularity and they’re an easy, low investment way to build a continued relationship with clients AND establish yourself as a thought leader. Additionally, you can send one-off email blasts with exciting new offers or services you create.
Once you have an email in hand, you can send links to your shoppable collections directly to your clients and those who sign up for your list –– you are going straight into their inbox and creating a one-to-one relationship. Depending on your technology stack, you can build targeted lists of customers who you know are interested in particular types of products or ways to shop, and target your emails accordingly.
Two: Build Opportunity for Holiday/Seasonal Buying
Do you have clients who love to freshen their space each season? Clients who love to go all out decorating for the holidays? Customers who enjoy entertaining and creating seasonal tablescapes? Now’s the time to establish a regular relationship with these clients and build season-after-season loyalty.
Build SideDoor collections and send them out in a newsletter each season with ideas for clients to create these seasonal experiences. Let them know which products they should buy to create a tablescape for a family holiday or deck the halls with festive finds. Then, take an omni-channel approach to reach new customers beyond your database and get the most out of your content by sharing the same product collections through Pinterest Idea Pins, on your blog or website, and on swipeable Instagram stories.
Three: Share Trend Reports Each Year With Clients Using SideDoor Collections
Your clients are design-minded and they want to stay on top of what’s current –– an email or social post promising the Top 10 Trends for 2022 or the Top 5 Colors to Bring Into Your Home This Season will be worth an open and a click. They’ll keep coming back to you since you provide them with the design advice they used to get in magazines.
Create collections with new items of varying price points and your clients will look forward to your trend reports –– this keeps them buying from you on a regular cadence, even long after their initial project wraps up.
Four: Nurture Relationships with Clients Who Are at the Bottom of Your Funnel
SideDoor also gives you the opportunity to reach more clients at varying investment levels and build long standing, valuable relationships with them. You can provide collections for clients who may not be ready to invest in your full-service design options, but do want to buy products that you’ve recommended. While they may not start out with big purchases, these clients may become repeat clients and eventually move to the top of the funnel and invest in full-scale design.
Your Loyalty Homework
Here’s your homework. First, get those emails! You need that direct line to your highest-value clients and customers. Then, look into sending out an email newsletter with a consistent cadence, perhaps biweekly, monthly, or quarterly, and share your favorite seasonal or trending items. Plus, now is the time of year to get started with holiday buying and year-end trend wrap ups/predictions around the corner.
Ready to get started? There’s no time like the present! Join SideDoor today and begin building a more profitable interior design business.
