A peek into online interior design startup Livspace's content marketing game plan

For online interior design platform Livspace, content forms an integral part of its marketing strategy as it helps to inspire, engage, educate and entertain consumers. The brand recently released its mass digital campaign ‘#LivspaceYourSpace’ and is set to launch a web series in partnership with TVF.

Kartikeya Bhandari

Kartikeya Bhandari, Chief Marketing Officer, Livspace, said, “Content marketing is a very important play from the Livspace perspective. The category that we operate in is highly unstructured but has very high involvement. The brand is in the space of aesthetics and art, where people seek both inspiration and knowledge.”

Elaborating on the TVF web series, Bhandari said it would be a part of the content company’s women-centric channel Girliyapa as a chunk of its target audience are women. “They are mostly the decision-makers when it comes to home interior designing. The integration is done subtly in the right balance because we have to do justice to the viewers of that web series as well. If it’s not a proper balance then it comes across as an advertorial, he said. 

The brand’s most significant initiative is the Livspace magazine, a blog. It puts out educational stories such as ‘how to’, renovation ideas, ideas for beginners and trend pieces on the blog. The brand creates videos and articles on the homes it has done for customers. The blog shares Livspace’s briefs from customers, how it approaches it, challenges and images of the final product.

Along with that, Livspace does a lot of video content on its YouTube channel. “We have created a lot of videos in the form of home tours. These are essentially quick 2-3 minutes video wraps of the homes that we have designed, at times with the customers as well. A category like us has to inspire people. The more video content you put out, the better it is,” Bhandari said.

A few of the brand’s YouTube educational videos:

Given the category of the brand, the most crucial usage of content marketing is to inspire people, Bhandari emphasised. “The images that we create as part of the home tour of our magazine are one of the most pinned images on Pinterest. People are using our images for inspiration. A lot of consumers come to us with what they have in mind and refer to the images what we have put on our website. Like this, people actually use the content that we create,” he said. 

The brand has an in-house creative studio and a full-fledged content team rigorously working on building a content strategy. Bhandari says a lot of content initiatives will start maturing by next year. Livspace is among the top 10 brands on Pinterest in terms of engagement.

Last year, a lot of brands amplified their content initiatives through influencer marketing. But Livspace’s Bhandari does not believe much in the medium. He said, “It is still grappling with measurement-related issues and accuracy of ROI. One still cannot figure out if an influencer-driven campaign has worked or not.”

Bhandari said, “The consumers today are so much wise. They doubt the credibility and authenticity of an influencer if he/she is talking about four different brands at the same time. One needs to respect the consumer for that as well. Authenticity is one of our core values, and we want to come across in the right way. We will not use it just for the sake of trending and getting eyeballs.”

At the same time, he says if there is something genuine and unique when it comes to influencer marketing, he is game for it. “If there is a genuine case where an influencer comes on board and works with our art designers that our consumers can use, and value adds to the brand, then I am all for it. We haven’t been able to crack it till now. It is easy to do as one of the things, but to do it sustainably is something we are still looking into,” Bhandari said. 

As Livspace believes content marketing is an important driver of its growth strategy, it is open for more partnerships with platforms and creators. “We are always in the lookout for content partnerships with people who understand our brand philosophy and can help the content engine running more smoothly and innovatively,” Bhandari said.