How to Get Specified by Interior Designers: A Supplier’s Guide
Most trade suppliers approach specification the wrong way. They borrow the playbook from building products — NBS listings, CPD presentations, RIBA product selectors — and assume the same system applies to interior design.
It does not.
I work with interior designers every day. I also help trade suppliers market to them. That positioning — both sides of the spec sheet — is where this guide comes from. Not theory. Not a marketing framework pulled from a textbook. This is how getting products specified by designers actually works, from someone who watches it happen (and fail) in real time.
If you sell to the interiors trade and you want more of the right people writing your products into their schemes, this is the structure you need.
Why the Standard Specification Playbook Does Not Work for Interior Design
In building products, specification is process-driven. There are databases. There are structured CPD programmes accredited through RIBA. Architects search NBS Source, filter by performance criteria, and specify products that meet the technical requirements. The system does the heavy lifting.
Interior design does not work like that.
Designers specify from showrooms. From trade events. From Instagram. From a conversation with a supplier they met at Decorex three years ago. From a fabric they touched at a colleague’s studio. From a mood board they built at 11pm on a Tuesday.
This is relationship-driven specification. The product still needs to perform. But the route to specification runs through trust, visual appeal, and personal experience — not a product data sheet.
That distinction changes everything about how you market. If you are trying to sell to interior designers using the same tactics you would use to reach architects through specification selling, you are investing in the wrong channels. The intent is the same. The mechanism is completely different.
How Interior Designers Actually Discover and Specify Products
There is a path from discovery to order. Most suppliers only see the end of it — the purchase order — and work backwards from there. But the specification happened weeks or months earlier. Understanding each stage is how you increase your surface area across the process.
Discovery
A designer encounters your product for the first time. This happens at a trade event like Decorex or Maison et Objet. It happens in a showroom — yours or a multi-brand space. It happens through editorial in Elle Decoration, Dezeen, or a niche design journal. It happens through a peer recommendation over coffee. And increasingly, it happens on Instagram.
The common thread: every discovery channel is visual and tactile. No designer specifies from a catalogue they have never physically engaged with.
Evaluation
The designer is now interested. They request samples. They check your lead times. They look at your trade pricing structure. They assess whether you are the kind of supplier who will respond to a Thursday afternoon email by Friday morning, or by the following Wednesday.
This is where most suppliers lose specifications they never knew they had. Slow sampling. Unclear pricing. An unresponsive account manager. The designer moves on. They have six other suppliers who make something similar enough.
Specification
Your product goes into the scheme. It is presented to the client on a mood board or in a digital presentation. The designer is now advocating for your product with their name attached to the recommendation. This matters. They are putting their reputation behind your brand.
If your visual assets are poor — low-resolution imagery, no lifestyle photography, no room sets — the designer either does the creative work themselves or drops your product for one that presents better. Most will drop it.
Order Placement
The client approves. The order comes through. This might be six months after the original specification. It might be eighteen months. The gap between specification and order is one of the most misunderstood aspects of marketing to interior designers as a supplier.
Your sales team sees the order. They rarely see the specification event that caused it.
What Interior Designers Look for in a Supplier
I have sat in enough designer studios and supplier showrooms to know what separates the brands that get specified repeatedly from those that get one order and disappear.
The Non-Negotiables
Product quality. This is table stakes. If the product does not meet the standard, nothing else matters.
Reliable lead times. Designers work to project timelines. A missed delivery date does not just cost them time — it costs them credibility with their client. Reliability is a specification driver.
Responsive account management. One dedicated contact who knows the designer’s preferences, responds quickly, and flags potential issues before they become problems. This is not a nice-to-have. It is the foundation of repeat specification.
Trade pricing. A clear, structured trade pricing programme signals that you take the design trade seriously. Pricing is not a discount — it is channel design. It tells designers they are valued partners, not retail customers with a code.
A sampling process that works. Fast turnaround. Relevant finishes. Easy to request. If a designer has to chase a sample for two weeks, you have already lost the specification to a competitor who shipped theirs in 48 hours.
The Differentiators
Brand story. Designers sell stories to their clients. If your brand has a point of view — a heritage, a material philosophy, a design ethos — that becomes part of how the designer presents the scheme. Give them something worth talking about.
Visual assets for scheme presentations. High-resolution photography. Lifestyle imagery. Cut-out product shots on clean backgrounds. Digital mood board assets. The easier you make it for a designer to present your product, the more likely it is to survive the client approval stage.
CPD and training. Not the rubber-stamp CPD that the building products world has normalised. Genuine product education — material properties, installation considerations, care and maintenance — that makes the designer more confident specifying your product.
Project support. Technical drawings. Bespoke sizing. Finish matching. The ability to handle non-standard requests without a six-week lead time on a quote.
Bespoke capability. High-end residential designers regularly need customisation. If you can offer it and your competitors cannot, that alone drives specifications.
The Marketing Channels That Drive Specifications
Not every channel works equally. Here is what I see driving real specifications — and what I see wasting budget.
Trade Events
Decorex, Maison et Objet, Clerkenwell Design Week, the Surface Design Show. These are where specification relationships begin. The return on a trade event is not measured in orders taken on the stand. It is measured in specification conversations started. If you are tracking event ROI purely on immediate sales, you are measuring the wrong thing. We wrote a full breakdown of this in our guide to trade show marketing for design suppliers.
Showroom Strategy
Your own showroom, a concession in a multi-brand space, or a permanent display at a design centre. Showrooms give designers a reason to visit, to bring clients, and to experience your product range in a curated environment. The investment is significant. The specification return, when done well, is worth it. For more on this, read Beyond the Showroom.
Designer Outreach
Direct, personal outreach to designers. Not a mass email. A curated introduction — a sample box, an invitation to a private event, a studio visit. This works when it is targeted and genuine. It fails when it feels like a sales campaign. The distinction is whether you are selling to designers or arming them.
Underused in interiors. Senior designers, practice principals, and studio founders are active on LinkedIn. Thought leadership content about product development, material innovation, and project case studies performs well. This is not Instagram. The tone is different. The audience is smaller but more commercially engaged.
Editorial and PR
Placement in the design press — print and digital — still drives specification. A feature in House & Garden or Architectural Digest puts your product in front of designers who use those publications as reference material. PR is a long game, but the specification impact compounds over time.
The single most important visual channel for interior design. Designers use Instagram as a research tool, a mood board source, and a peer network. Your content needs to show products in context — real projects, styled interiors, material close-ups. Product-on-white-background imagery does not drive specifications. Contextual, aspirational imagery does.
Website and SEO
Your website needs to serve two audiences: retail customers and the design trade. Most supplier websites serve neither well. A dedicated trade section — with trade pricing information, sample request functionality, project galleries, and downloadable assets — is the minimum. If a designer lands on your site and cannot immediately find the trade programme, they leave. That is a lost specification you will never know about.
Building a Specification Pipeline
Your CRM tracks orders. It tracks leads. It tracks revenue. It probably does not track specifications.
This is the gap. A sales pipeline measures commercial outcomes. A specification pipeline measures influence. And in interior design, influence precedes revenue by six to eighteen months.
Track designer relationships, not just accounts. Which designers have visited your showroom? Who requested samples? Who attended your event? Who engaged with your outreach? Each of these is a specification signal.
Track project opportunities. When a designer mentions a project they are working on, that is a specification opportunity. Log it. Follow up on it. Not with a sales call. With a relevant sample or a piece of project-specific information.
Track specification intent. A designer who has requested samples, received trade pricing, and asked about lead times for a specific quantity is telling you they are specifying your product. That is pipeline. Even if the order is nine months away.
Play the long game. Specifications today become orders in 6-18 months. If your business reviews marketing performance on a quarterly basis and expects immediate sales return, specification marketing will always look like it is underperforming. It is not. The measurement window is wrong.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do suppliers get specified by interior designers?
Suppliers get specified through a combination of visibility at trade events, strong showroom presence, quality sampling programmes, reliable trade pricing, and consistent relationship building. Specification in interior design is relationship-driven, not database-driven. Designers specify products they trust, from suppliers they have direct experience with. Building that trust requires showing up in the right channels and making it easy for designers to include your products in their schemes.
What is specification selling?
Specification selling is the practice of marketing products to specifiers — architects, designers, and other professionals who choose products for projects — so that your products are written into project schemes before the purchasing decision happens. It focuses on influencing the specification rather than chasing the order directly. We cover this in detail in our guide to what specification selling is and why it matters.
How do you market to interior designers as a trade supplier?
Invest in the channels where designers discover products: trade events like Decorex, editorial placements in design press, Instagram with strong visual content, showroom experiences, and direct designer outreach. Provide the tools designers need — samples, imagery, pricing — to present your product to their clients. The approach is closer to marketing to architects than it is to consumer marketing, but with a heavier emphasis on visual and relational channels.
What do interior designers look for in a supplier?
Product quality first, then reliable lead times, responsive account management, a clear trade pricing structure, and a smooth sampling process. Beyond the basics, designers value suppliers who provide strong visual assets for presentations, offer bespoke capabilities, and understand the project timeline from specification through to installation. The suppliers who get specified repeatedly are the ones who make the designer’s job easier at every stage.
How do interior designers find new products?
Designers find new products through trade events, showroom visits, design press and editorial features, peer recommendations, and Instagram. The discovery process is visual and tactile — designers need to see products in context and handle physical samples before they will specify them on a project. Word of mouth within the design community remains one of the strongest drivers of new product discovery.
How do I get my products in front of interior designers?
Exhibit at trade events. Build a showroom strategy. Invest in design PR and editorial. Maintain a strong Instagram presence with contextual product imagery. Run targeted designer outreach with physical samples and genuine invitations. Ensure your website serves trade visitors with dedicated landing pages, trade pricing information, and sample request functionality. The goal is to increase your surface area across every channel where designers are already looking.