As 3D renderings are becoming more realistic, they are also becoming better tools to market your business to both current and potential clients. When considering whether or not to utilize renderings (and the answer should be yes!), consider the ways that utilization can improve your bottom line:
Rendering by Gibson Design Management; Design by Q Design, Denver, CO
- Communication with your clients. Many clients have difficulty visualizing how a space will look. As a designer, you have that gift of visualization; however it is often difficult to communicate that picture to your client. Through renderings, you and your client can be on the same page—literally and figuratively.
- “Upsell” opportunities. I started my career in a corporate training program for a national homebuilder. Soon I was charged with all of the sales and marketing efforts for my own developments and our office was located in one of our model homes. Good builders do a great job of showing all the bells, whistles, and extras in their models. Everyone wanted the model and they wanted it exactly as it was shown. It was not uncommon to add $150,000-$200,000 to the base price of the home because people had to have “the model”. We showed them the possibilities in the model; show your clients the possibilities in your renderings.
- Set yourself apart from the competition. Very few design firms are utilizing 3D renderings for their typical clients. By highlighting this feature as a service you offer, your firm will easily be set apart from the other firms that your potential clients interview.
- Word of mouth marketing. When you send your clients the rendering for the beautiful new room that you have designed for them, they will be in awe. This rendering will have your firm’s name and information on it. No doubt, your clients will forward this rendering on to family, friends, and coworkers to show them all how wonderful their new room will look. This will:
- show your clients’ friends how smart they are to have hired a great designer like you
- serve as some of the best word of mouth marketing that you can employ as your renderings are forwarded all around town (or across the country) and you receive an abundance of inquiries from people wanting to know how they can work with you and where they can send their checks
A typical rendering will cost between $800-$1100. When you consider the return on investment for the items listed above, can you afford not to integrate renderings into your repertoire?
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onGibson Design Management » Blog Archive » Four Ways 3D Renderings …Here’s a quick excerptThis entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Business Development, CAD, Marketing, Outsourcing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, … [...]
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onGibson Design Management » Blog Archive » Four Ways 3D Renderings …Here’s a quick excerptWord of mouth marketing. When you send your clients the rendering for the beautiful new room that you have designed for them, they will be in awe. This rendering will have your firm’s name and information on it. … [...]
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Wow, you folks do great renderings, Alexandra!
[...] at. Why not make 2009 the year when you delegate some of those responsibilities? Of course, Gibson Design Management would be an excellent choice for handling the Purchase Order Management, CAD Services and [...]
As the owner of Tangram 3DS, a leading international 3D Studio and being in the 3D architectural visualization/ rendering/animation business for over 17 years I do agree with
some of what is being said.
“Communication with your clients.”
• I agree, cg renderings are a great tool for design and to show what the proposed finished project will look like but it is required that clients like and ask for high realistic renderings. Not every client, designer or architect needs that hyper realistic look. Some clients still prefer the schematic design look which leaves more space for interpretation instead of the finished and realistic look.
“Set yourself apart from the competition. Very few design firms are utilizing 3D renderings for their typical clients. …..”
• Most of the design firms are very well utilizing 3D renderings but the visualization process and producing high realistic renderings are a very complicated and labor intensive process. Clients are not always willing to spend the money for those extras or to hire a 3d studio for producing those. Designers can not spend the time and money for training and investing in an in-house 3d group. The image shown here was probably produced by a team of well trained and skilled 3d artists who spend all their time just doing that.
“Word of mouth marketing. When you send your clients the rendering for the beautiful new room that you have designed for them, they will be in awe. This rendering will have your firm’s name and information on it………..”
• Yes that is true with one condition that the client and press leaves your logo and watermark on the image or credits you for producing the rendering. Most clients crop out the watermarks and don’t credit the artists for their work although legally they are required to do so. Be sure that you call your clients and tell them to credit your firm before they send out a press release or the renderings and cg work to the media..
“A typical rendering will cost between $800-$1100. When you consider the return on investment for the items listed above, can you afford not to integrate renderings into your repertoire?”…..
Yes, if you outsource the work overseas or if you give the work to a freelancer then you might be lucky to get the rendering shown here for those costs, but not in the USA from a professional 3d Studio. As mentioned the process of producing that quality of 3d cg renderings is very labor intensive. With the current payroll costs and expenses a US 3d studio has to pay, there is no way you can get those for 800 – 1,100.00. If you outsource overseas, don’t forget to calculate in the language barrier, time for correcting and redlining errors and mistakes and communication problems…it’s probably better and more cost efficient to hire a local firm right away.
Stefan,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments on the 3D renderings. Couple of points to your points:
1. Definitely agreed that some clients prefer a more schematic look. That needs to be determined in the beginning to decide which direction to proceed.
2. We work mostly with small to medium-sized interior design firms. Very few in that segment of the industry are consistently utilizing 3D renderings. Larger architectural firms may be utilizing these more frequently.
3. When we talk about the word-of-mouth marketing aspect we are talking about an interior designer emailing the JPEG to his/her client and the client, in turn, forwarding on the email to friends and family. This has the potential to go viral for your firm.
4. The rendering that we produced above cost our client $1,000 for 2 views. We have part of our team in the US and part overseas. Yes, these renderings are very time-intensive (typically 30-40 hours). Whenever a client works with us for rendering, they are working with a project manager that is in our office. We are “local” in that our business is based in Virginia and most of our team is here.
Thank you again so much for your comments. We appreciate you reading our blog and interacting with us!
Best wishes,
Alexandra Gibson