Name: Heather Higgins
Company: Higgins Design Studio, LLC
Publication: Inside Design
Background:
Heather Higgins is the principal and founder of Higgins Design Studio, LLC, a Manhattan-based, interior design practice. She works with busy professionals to create homes and offices that will support and inspire their demanding lives. A formally educated interior designer, she brings over 30 years of design and business experience to every project, including an extensive background with some of New York’s most prominent architectural / interiors firms. She has been featured on HGTV’s “Designer’s Challenge”, online in the Wall Street Journal, Doggie Aficionado Magazine and most recently in the NY Enterprise Report.
The Plan:
When I first met Heather, she was looking for a way to share her considerable expertise, keep in touch with her existing clients and to stay on their radar until they needed her services. Email marketing, including a monthly e-newsletter, was a good solution to fit her needs.
Using her clean, elegant website for cues, we set up a very simple, clean template for her e-newsletter. Since she did not have a lot of time to dedicate to the e-news, we kept it to a single article, posted in full with a beautiful, often playful, image. This format allows her to really focus on a single theme each month and she has consistently produced high value posts rich with tips, practical suggestions and advice.
Her Story:
Our monthly newsletter, inside design, has been a very successful marketing tool that has resulted in increased business for us in a number of ways.
Initially, we implemented it as a vehicle to stay in touch with and provide added value to our clients, friends and colleagues. Our purpose was to bring on a monthly basis, a brief glimpse of some topical aspect of the interior design world that they would find both helpful and inspirational. The goal was to keep the content fairly non-promotional and user friendly.
What we did not anticipate is some of the other ways in which a newsletter might work for us:
- When a prospective client refers to an issue covered in one of our newsletters, we follow-up by emailing them a copy of the article. This provides them with added value and us with an opportunity to demonstrate our professional expertise.
- Forwarding newsletter articles to editors and producers, on a particular area of interest to them, has facilitated media exposure.
- Articles have been reprinted and used as “leave behind” promotional materials at a speaking engagement.
- Offering to email an informational newsletter, as we meet people in networking situations, has also been a great way for us to capture email addresses and expand our mailing list.
Here a few of our favorite past issues of Inside Design:
October 2011 – Does Size Really Matter?
May 2010 – Why is this Painting Estimate so High?
February 2010 – Why is this Sofa so Expensive?
Thank you Heather for sharing your story as well as your expertise!
