What does luxury truly mean in today’s interior design industry? Is it about exclusivity, opulence, or expert craftsmanship? And more importantly, how can designers position their brand to attract high-end clients in an ever-evolving market? The definition of luxury has changed dramatically over the years, and in this episode, we explore how designers can use marketing to stand out in the luxury space. Erin Weir sits down with Daniela Pimentel Furtado, founder and CEO of Findable Digital Marketing, to discuss the nuances of luxury marketing for interior designers. Daniela’s expertise in SEO and digital marketing for design and construction firms has given her a front-row seat to the changing trends in how affluent clients find and select designers. She shares actionable insights on defining luxury, optimizing your online presence, and attracting the right clients. In this episode, you'll learn: The Many Flavors of Luxury: Luxury is not one-size-fits-all. Daniela breaks it down into four main categories: premium expertise, opulent abundance, curated aesthetics, and exclusive custom work. Which one best represents your brand? Why Affluent Clients ARE Online: Many designers assume that high-net-worth individuals aren’t searching online for services, but the data tells a different story. Daniela shares how Google Trends and research studies prove that even ultra-high-net-worth individuals rely on digital platforms, though they may be engaging in unexpected ways. How to Make Your Website Reflect Luxury: Your portfolio is the epicenter of your marketing strategy. Daniela explains why high-quality photography, detailed storytelling, and SEO-optimized case studies are critical in positioning yourself as a high-end designer. The Future of Luxury Branding: With Gen Z emerging as a dominant luxury consumer group, brands must evolve. Daniela shares insights on the trend of "accessible luxury" and how high-end brands like Gucci and Burberry are shifting towards openness, engagement, and unexpected collaborations. Actionable Steps to Elevate Your Luxury Marketing: Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for years, Daniela offers practical steps to refine your portfolio, enhance your storytelling, and make your website more findable to your ideal clients. If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s13e4-shownotes Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Google Trends: A free tool to analyze search trends for luxury design keywords. SEMrush & Google Search Console: SEO tools to track how well your website ranks for luxury-related terms. Findable Digital Marketing: Daniela’s agency that specializes in marketing for the design and construction industries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYiByqYfpsk Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show Transcript Welcome to the Creative Genius podcast. Daniella, we're so excited to have you here today. Why don't we get started and you can just tell a little bit about yourself. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, my name is Daniella. I own a marketing agency called Findable Digital Marketing, and that's exactly what we do. We help businesses in the design and construction space become easy to find online. So I spend a lot of my time consulting clients, running an agency, but also speaking and writing about these topics. Well, I love that. And today we're going to talk about understanding luxury in the modern market. And so how has the definition of luxury, I put that in quotes, right? Luxury changed over time and what values matter most to today's affluent client. Yeah. So when I first thought about luxury marketing, it was when I first started the agency back in 2020, a lot of clients were telling me that they are luxury and they're, they want that to be clear all over the website. But I, something I found interesting is that everyone defines or showcases luxury differently for one client. It was about, creativity for another client. was about quality and skill. Hmm. And for another, was about service and that white glove service, like taking care of all the bits and pieces of the project for you. Right. So luxury, the definition of luxury today is so different for everyone. And I think that's because it's changed so much over the years. It used to be that luxury was reserved for aristocrats. It was something that a very, very small of the population could afford. And during the Industrial Revolution, wealth has been distributed. There's a growing middle class, or the middle class was growing, and just about anyone could be able to afford the things that only the rich could afford before. And so with that growing middle class, the definition of luxury changed. And that's how I think we have this spectrum. of luxury or what I call flavors of luxury today. I love that. I mean, even just reference in it, referencing it as flavors is like even helpful to better understand it. Right. So, so why I guess let's dig in a little bit more into the why luxury is so hard to define and how does that impact how design firms interior design firms market themselves? Yeah. Well, if, if luxury is difficult to define, if there has so many different interpretations, then that means that what you think luxury is may not be the same as what the rest of your team think it is or what your clients think it is. And so when we think about marketing, using the right words is important, right? So that you're attracting the right kind of people, to you does luxury mean opulence and glamour and you know, shiny. Does it mean a specific aesthetic? Like Victoria, we work with one interior designer that designs Victorian spaces. And it's very specific aesthetic and that today is difficult to design because it's difficult to get those materials and custom made objects, right? Or is luxury the best quality, premium, high skilled. So it's important to define a little bit more what luxury means so that you're being clear that you're attracting the right kind of people and the people on your team also understand and can sell and be on the same page as like you. I love that. So let's talk about the flavors of luxury that you referenced and why is that important for interior designers to identify their own flavors of luxury? Yeah. So, when I was, there was, there was actually a conversation that was pretty pivotal for me. we have this one client, she's a marketing director of a furniture brand. Actually, it's an, it's a parent company that has five sister brands. So she manages all five of them and some of them are more luxury than others. So she was quite attuned to these different flavors of the nuances of luxury. And I remember in one of her calls, she said, our director of business developments or sales told us that we are marketing ourselves as a premium brand, not as luxury. And so in our call today, Daniella, I want to like look at the website with a different set of eyes and figure that out. And I humbly said that what's the difference? What's the difference between premium and luxury? And she, her shoulders are out, she's like, I'm so glad you asked because I don't know either. Great place to start, A great place to start. So we have all these different words, right? And it's hard to define. It's so nuanced. But for that company was important to distinguish the difference because they had these different sister, like different brands with them, their umbrella that had different price points, and there was a difference in quality. And they wanted that to come through through the brand, through the marketing. So with that client, we figured out what we did was quite a bit of a journey, but we looked at all the different kinds of words, keywords that people use online when looking for luxury. We looked at tools like Google Trends to see what people were searching on Google and what was the volume like. And then Google and Google Trends is a software. It's free. Anyone can use it. It also clumps together. words that are similar enough that are typically searched together or one after the other. And using that we created our own kind of dictionary or kind of guidelines. And this is not it's not concrete. It's not like I'm saying I'm not trying to preach this that everyone has to use this. But it's I think it's a good jumping off point to help you reflect and ask yourself like what You know, I use this word all the time luxury, but does what does it really mean for me? And am I really walking the talk in all areas of my business? I have a luxury price tag, but am I being in my demonstrating that I'm luxury through my services, through my website, through the way I talk about my services, my sales calls, you know, from every from the beginning to the end. So we came up with four flavors and there these are the flavors. The first is So any word that suggests premium, the best expert, go to award winning. So anything that suggests that you are the best at blink. The second flavor of premium is lavish, opulence, glamour. It's about abundance, having as much as you'd like as much as possible. The third revolves around aesthetic. So it could be, like I mentioned before, Victorian, could be Bohemian, could be modern, it could be minimalist, whatever it is, it's something curated specifically for you. And the fourth flavor of luxury is exclusive. This is custom, right? Made only for you, one of a kind. There's nothing like this that exists in the world. This was made specifically and only for you. kind of similar with the aesthetic, but you get the gist of it. fascinating. It's really has me thinking about like, what would my initial definition of luxury be? And, you know, I'm working on copy and marketing materials to interior design business owners all the time.