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Kimberly Elizabeth

Verified Expert in Interior Design

With over a decade of expertise in the design realm, Kimberly is trained at the prestigious FIT in NYC, she excels in curating harmonious spaces with a keen focus on symmetry and function.

Home » Interior Design » 10 Passive Income Ideas for Interior Designers

Digital Products to Earn Passive Income for Interior Designers

Do you know how modern technology can provide different channels of passive income for interior designers? Interior designing, one project at a time, is time-consuming. So, in recent times, savvy design professionals have developed extra income streams. You have come to the right place if you’re looking for hot interior decorating revenue streams that can bring in plenty of dollars.

Digital product ideas for interior designers are a great passive revenue source. You don’t have to travel places to earn more. Passive revenue sources generate more money with less effort than comprehensive one-on-one projects. You can create secondary sources of income with the help of your team or with the help of an expert.

Before you dive in, consider which income streams are most appealing to you and fit in with your current interior decorating practice. Then, before plunging in further, choose just one to focus on, set up, and build on. Trying to do much more will lead to failure rather than success. 

Read also – Profit Margins for Interior Design Businesses

10 Ways for an Interior Designer to Earn Passive Income:

1. Digital Interior Design

Digital interior design entails providing your design expertise online. The advantage of having to meet a client in person or seeing the space they want to design is not present. Instead, the client sends you photos, measurements, and other information. So how will you go about it? Focus on providing various levels of design services. Charges for this type of work range from under $100 per room to $5,000 or more.  

To make this work, you must first ascertain your target audience. While that may be the same as your local market, over a longer distance, it is those people who cannot afford your highest quality of in-person service. You will also draw do-it-yourself enthusiasts looking for expert advice, suggestions, plans, and a shopping list. 

Create a strict process and particular deliverables to save time and maximize impact and revenue. You want to make these as quickly as possible to get glowing reviews.

Read also – Everything About E-design

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2. Product licensing for Interior design products

Have you ever designed tailored furnishings, floor coverings, decorations, mirrors, or other design features for one client and had other clients clamor for the very same items? Licensing will expose your creative talent to a wider audience. Hiring a licensing agent and exploring your options is the best way to get started with one of these types of passive income for interior designers.

It may feel like you are establishing a new business again rather than just a new channel. You will need to create design libraries, brand a look, and more. Your licensing agent will point you in the direction of the leading manufacturer. Marketing will be a collaborative effort between you, your licensing officer, and your partner. After all, they rely on your brand’s effectiveness, influence, and image to increase sales.

Read also – How To Run A Profitable Interior Design Business?

Product licensing for Interior design products

Image Credit: istockphoto.com

3. Interior design ecommerce

When it comes to eCommerce, you are usually not producing your goods but rather reselling them. Home products or antique suppliers may supply the product. Or, you could find one-of-a-kind pieces on trips, at auction houses, flea markets, or antique shows and have them refinished.

Setting up an eCommerce site can be time-consuming and expensive.  It’s also not as basic as “you build it, and buyers will come your way.” Instead, you must market your online marketplace and tactfully promote it to drive traffic. Social media is an important tool that can come to your advantage.

Read also – How To Create A Successful Interior Design Website?

interior design ecommerce website for passive income

Image Credit: dribbble.com

4. Brand promotion through blogging

Becoming a brand ambassador for a company that you admire should be a long-term blogging goal for you. Doing the job of an ambassador is the best way to demonstrate your blog’s abilities to a brand. Most brand ambassadors dream of getting paid by their favorite brands for their promotional skills.

This does not imply simply writing blog posts about the brand. You can also highlight their products, join their affiliate marketing program, drive traffic and leads, and track how many people buy through your efforts. 

Track how much interaction you can generate on social platforms by regularly including their products in your social media posts. You must keep track of how it progresses, hoping to get it to the point where it will be disadvantageous for them not to want you. When you have some metrics to share about the product, contact their marketing team (or whoever handles bloggers for the brand) and work out a deal. 

However, what needs to be kept in mind is that most brands become materialistic in their pursuit of high traffic and following on social media. As a result, they expect a high level of commitment from bloggers. This frequently results in a complex situation with sponsored content and the blogger’s platform losing its identity.

Read also – 12 Best Digital Marketing Strategies for Interior Designers

blogging - passive income for interior designers

Image Credit: garyvaynerchuk.com

5. Specialty consultations

Specialty consultations can be an effective strategy to improve your monthly income or create passive income streams. Choose a design style that you enjoy and excel at. Color briefings for the interior or exterior of the home, or both, might be offered.

You may, for example, be particularly gifted at accessorizing the display with indoor colors. You could also be a master of space planning and enjoy redesigning a client’s existing items. Any of these can be packaged into a stand-alone offering for a set fee.

Avoid competing with all of your market’s comprehensive interior designers. At the same time, provide another way to seize your opportunities for future projects while also earning money.

Include a written statement or plan as a significant result to the client, rather than just verbal suggestions. The more solid you make it, the more appealing it will be. Include a VIP discount registration that you can apply to a full day’s work if they hire you within a certain period.

Read also – How To Earn From Houzz As An Interior Designer?

specialty consultations for passive income

Image Credit: mydecomarketing.com

6. Writing a book

Writing an interior design book is perhaps a step ahead of teaching. Instead of a class, you will be teaching designing enthusiasts across the globe. Share your hardships, the challenges you have faced in the industry, and highlight your most important learnings.

Make them understand that it’s not all easy sailing. Add tips to make mood boards, choose color patterns, manage space, etc. The more relatable you make it with your real-life experience, the more copies your book will sell (assuming you have a good publisher and have marketed your book well enough).

Read also – 17 Top Interior Design Magazines

writing a book - passive income for interior designers

Image Credit: architecturaldigest.com

7. Going digital

Do you want to be published but can’t seem to find a publisher for your interior design book? Turn it into an ebook. It is among the most popular digital product ideas for interior designers.

Selling a digital product, especially in the form of an ebook, is one of the simplest methods to assess if your readership is interested in purchasing such products from you. It doesn’t even have to be lengthy, but it should be packed with valuable information worth paying for.

It is now simpler to start selling ebooks. You can do it directly on your website or via third-party platforms like Amazon Kindle. You wouldn’t even need a publisher to design your book’s cover. You can quickly generate beautiful ebook designs with tools like Canva. You can combine your writing skills with your knowledge of interior design to create highly actionable ebooks for your readers to buy.

digital ebook - passive income for interior designers

Image Credit: daraz.pk

8. Teaching

Interior design is growing in demand. The employment opportunities in the sector are also increasing. So it goes unsaid that students want to get qualified and learn from the experience. So if you are an interior decorator experienced in a particular aspect of interior designing (like choosing art, setting up the aesthetics of a place, or space management), you should share them with upcoming interior designers. 

Prestigious design institutions are looking to provide hands-on experience to their students through professional interior designers. If you think you don’t have the bandwidth to go to a design institution and devote time, you can always take up virtual sessions.

Owing to the pandemic, the comfort of using online platforms has increased. You can give such sessions from your office and get back to work immediately after the class. Even better, you can record one session and share it as learning material with different institutes as resource material.

interior design teaching job for passive income

Image Credit: mydomaine.com

YouTube videos are also an answer to how to create digital products for interior design firms. You can create a YouTube channel to upload videos. You can allot one day for shooting and then divide that into content for many days. 

Uploading YouTube videos is not just a source of earning passive income for designers. It’s a visual representation of the book you have written or will write. Explain your perspective on various ideas. Describe the importance of mood boards. Tell how to approach clients, what the first client meeting will be about, how to present your ideas, and more. Do live sessions, and answer the questions of your followers.

If you are regular with your content and post on relevant topics, you will not only increase the possibility of having a loyal following but also increase your clientele. If you think you cannot fit in the whole task of planning and execution of making videos in your schedule, delegate some responsibilities to your team.

Read also – Which Interior Design Jobs Have The Best Pay?

9. Pre-made mood boards

Mood boards are a visual collage that conveys the proposed design that interior designers have in their heads. If you are an interior designer or stylist, your client won’t have a sense of how the space will look until they have seen the mood board. A mood board is a visual representation of the fashion, mood, styles, home furnishings, fixings, and accessories used to complete the look of a room. 

You can either make a physical mood board or a digital one. Creating a digital mood board is simple and requires less time. It eliminates the need for physical visual elements to represent the design in your mood board. It also saves on the cost of travel on both ends. 

Later on, it can also serve as a tool for the designer to follow the rules established at the start of a project. After your project is done, each mood board can portray the uniqueness of each project. For example, if you have designed a hotel with a vintage heritage theme, you can later publish it as a vintage mood board. 

Make sure to explain the whole process of developing it to make it more relatable for your readers. These published pre-made mood boards will become a reference for new interior designers. They can use it as inspiration for their upcoming projects. If you see your mood board section getting significant traffic, you can monetize it by including a paywall for access to your intricately designed mood boards. 

mood board for interior design - passive income

Image Credit: home-designing.com

If your bandwidth allows for it, you can also consider the possibility of collaborating with designers to help them create mood boards for complex projects.

Foyr Neo is a powerful tool that renders images in 4K quality when delivering mood boards and client presentations. It is perfect for professionals to use when delivering client presentations. It has a consumer-friendly interface, allowing a smooth transition from traditional interior design tools to sophisticated software. 

Furthermore, its user-friendly tools make design easier to learn, even for beginners. It provides interior designers with tools for creating, designing, and rendering 3D spaces. As a result, you don’t need to purchase separate software for personal designing or presenting resources.

Read also – 15 Best Interior Design Software To Design Digital Boards

10. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is the practice of publicizing others’ products or services on your social pages and website in exchange for a commission. That commission is usually paid when someone purchases the product or service after discovering it through your promotion. It is a popular online marketing technique and an important way for online platforms to monetize their content.

The opportunity to connect with like-minded brands and production companies is one of the advantages of affiliate programs for interior designers. And, of course, there is the opportunity to earn extra money.

Another thing worth noting is that each affiliate network has its own set of user terms. They have different payment processes and criteria that collaborating designers must adhere to. You must check to see if they are compatible with your goals.

Read also – Influencer Marketing for Interior Designers

affiliate marketing - passive income for interior designers

Image Credit: shopify.in

Conclusion

Choose one of the sources of passive income for interior designers listed here and get started! Before moving to another stream of passive earning, make sure that one is completely formed and generating revenue

Having the right business tools will make each stage of the interior design process simpler and more efficient. Foyr Neo is a powerful interior design platform built with you, the designer, in mind. Take design ideas from concept to a photo-realistic rendering in just minutes with a suite of advanced tools, including:

  • The ability to choose from thousands of preloaded items like furniture, plants, accessories and much more – or upload your own 3D models to create the exact look your clients want.
  • Produce 4K, photo-realistic renderings on demand.
  • Advanced lighting options and visualization settings.
  • Real-time 3D editing capabilities.

By combining the functionality of multiple tools in one platform we empower designers to spend less time with software and more time with their clients. You can try Foyr Neo free for 14-days now and experience the power of limitless design.

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