By Lindsay Field Penticuff
Ericka Saurit splits her professional time between North Carolina and France—specifically High Point, North Carolina, where she grew up, and Provence, France.
Founder of Saurit Creative, and an interior design marketing guru, Saurit may have grown up in what many know as the world’s furniture market mecca in High Point (and she knows many people involved in the industry still today), but she actually didn’t study furniture design or interior design in college.
“I went to art school,” she says. “My dad was a photographer and everyone in my family was some type of painter or maker or entrepreneur, and I had always been interested in painting and sculpture, so I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts.”
However, after graduating from college, Saurit realized it wasn’t the world she wanted to live in, so she moved to New Orleans and began working part-time for a landscape architecture firm.
“I saw design as this really interesting, creative and sort of analytical way to have a life; to not be a starving artist,” she says. “I still got to be creative and use the side of my mind that is a little more technical and analytical.”
Saurit returned to college, earning her master’s in interior architecture in graduate school. She later worked for about a decade as an interior designer with commercial, high-end firms in New York and China, working on cultural and hospitality projects for museums, including the 2008 Olympics.
During that time, she also began working more with the marketing teams on various projects and realized that without a designer in the room during pitches to clients, the marketing team was oftentimes translating the design of a project incorrectly.
“I realized I could advocate for my design teams and get the project built the way we wanted it to be built,” she says. “I could understand what the client was looking for and go back to the design team and explain what they were really looking for and how the design could adapt to meet that need. And that began a marketing career that’s now been almost 15 years.”
Saurit returned to college once again, this time studying marketing so she could really understand the strategy behind how marketing and branding work to be able to tell a great story for clients, in particular, interior design clients.
Today, she works closely with interior designers all around the world, guiding them through various steps and strategies to help them learn the power of storytelling in branding.
In fact, she created a formula to help make it clearer for people. E3 storytelling allows interior designers to define their extraordinary positioning; start telling stories that are emotionally resonant; and create experiential touchpoints.
The E3 framework is detailed in her Marketing School for Creatives, which is a global community of visionary creatives learning to master marketing. The program helps interior designers learn how to create marketing collateral that reflects their story, their brand.
“If your marketing is not held together with a really good foundation, with a story that makes sense to who you are and defines you in your position, it’s never going to work,” Saurit explains. “The thing I see most is that people don’t have a clear position and message. … The story has to start with defining what your client is looking for and help them understand that and that you can help them.”
Saurit believes good marketing allows interior designers to position themselves as thought leaders, helpers, resources and guides in our industry. Learn more about the importance of storytelling, the biggest misconceptions designers have about marketing, strategies to gain high-quality clients, social media do’s and don’ts, and more in our in-depth, video interview with Saurit found HERE.
Be sure to keep up with Saurit Creative and Marketing School for Creatives on Instagram!
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More details can be found in your DSA Member account under the DSA Member Benefits tab. Reach out to support@dsasociety.org for help. Start building a marketing plan that actually works!
