The Kate Show is a marketing podcast for interior designers, home stagers, professional organizers and window treatment specialists.
In every episode, Kate explains simple, no-nonsense ways to effectively market your business online. To learn more or read the show notes, go to www.katethesocialite.com.
Remember, if you have to lower your rates to land a project, you were chosen because the client believed you were "cheap." Don't blame the client; that's exactly what you told them! It sets the precedent for a project and a client relationship based on you working many unpaid hours, lowering your already low confidence, and allowing yourself to be taken advantage of by a bargain hunter who got exactly what they wanted.
If you've been in business for a few years, you've likely served many wonderful clients. Wouldn't it be great to work with them again? While they might not be ready for another batch of window treatments, another staging consultation, or a renovation, they likely could use one of your other services. This episode of The Kate Show spills the secret of how to reconnect with clients from long ago and either work with them again or ask them to refer you.
When a client tells me that her past ad runs resulted in next to no phone calls, I know that at least one of these pieces was missing. While I'm not a huge fan of paid advertising in general, I do know how to make an ad work, and we're diving into every detail in this episode of The Kate Show.
I recently came across a blog post written by an interior designer that explained her reason for leaving Instagram, thus removing herself from social media entirely. It intrigued me with its refreshing perspective and made me dive back into the basics of modern marketing to answer the BIG question... Is social media really necessary to market your interior design, home staging, or workroom business? The short answer: No - but you will need to employ other tactics to reach new clients if you deci...
In this episode, I share 20 business marketing and management tools that will help make your home industry business more organized, professional, efficient, and profitable. Best of all, most tools are free or extremely affordable, and all have the potential to leave you feeling better about your self and more confident about where your business is headed. …and that is priceless.
Did you know that your level of confidence determines how effective your marketing will be? This is good news and not-so-good news for interior designers, stagers, and workroom owners. Why? Because mindset issues can’t be overcome by outsourcing, covering them up, or pretending they don’t exist (been there, tried that!). In this episode, I provide a 9 question quiz to help you determine whether you lack confidence, and I also provide a clear plan that you can use to start building your confidenc...
As an interior designer, home stager, or workroom owner, you likely fall into one of two categories: You do email marketing on the regular You are skeptical about email marketing For those of you who already send email newsletters, prepare to take notes as we discuss 13 ways you can get more people to open each newsletter you send. For the rest of you who are unsure email marketing can even help your business, prepare to change your mindset about email newsletters. The stats are in - and they al...
Have you ever been tempted to copy and paste your recent interior design, home staging, or workroom business blog post into a newsletter and hit send? Me, too. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work well for a number of reasons. Blog posts and email newsletters are not interchangeable. In fact, they play starkly different roles in your marketing. If you try to substitute one for the other, you’ll start to wonder as, I did… “Why is no one reading my blog?” “Why is no one opening my newsletter?”
Are you freaked out about your marketing? Marketing anxiety can come from four places: a lack of knowledge, not using a plan or setting goals, watching your competition too much, and trying to do it all yourself when you just don’t have the time. In fact, many of the interior designers, home stagers, and workrooms I speak with are in the awkward phase of, “I know what I should be doing, but I don’t have enough time to do it and I feel like it will be too expensive to outsource.” …So, they freak ...
While you’ve been marketing your design, staging, or workroom business online, you’ve likely faced another hurdle: offline marketing. In today’s episode of The Kate Show, I’m shared the four steps to creating an offline marketing strategy that puts you in front of your ideal client, earns their trust, and puts them on your project schedule.
“Marketing takes too much time.” “I tried ______ to market my business and it didn’t work; I’ll never try it again.” “If I want results, I need to spend money on ads.” Ever caught yourself thinking these things? I hear them all the time from interior designers, stagers, and workroom owners. Marketing has been painted as being difficult and expense (mainly because marketing / ad / PR companies want you to justify spending a lot of money with them….just saying). Here at Socialite, we do things a b...
I’ll bet you can think of at least one person who talks about themselves…a lot. I’m also sure you’ve noticed how difficult it is to have a relationship with that person. Whether they realize it or not, talking about the subject they know best, themselves, is a great people-repellent. In business, this is also true and not only comes at the expense of potential relationships, but also at a loss of income. The first thing you say in your website, social media, or email newsletter verbiage makes it...
Because I’m running a business, managing a team, and working with customers (hey, aren’t you doing that, too?), I have to be strategic about how I spend time marketing my business. I can’t do everything, and I sure wouldn’t want to try. In today’s episode of The Kate Show, I’m sharing 10 ways I’m not marketing my business. I hope this rebellious episode gives you the freedom to stop wasting time on marketing efforts that are a waste of your day and your resources.
Are you confused about SEO? Are you worried that your interior design, home staging, or workroom website won’t be found on the first page of Google? Just like social media, SEO has been over-complicated, overthought, and completely blown out of proportion. In fact, SEO anxiety has driven many business owners to spending hundreds of dollars they’ll never get back, all in the hope of “getting on the first page of Google.”
Do you ever wonder if half of your marketing efforts are a waste of time or money? You should. Learn how to assess and address this issue in today’s episode.
As a business owner who has become very open about faith and business over the past couple years, I’ve gotten a radical perspective on faith and business. Surprisingly, I’ve realized that the more personal I make my business, the more people want to connect with, partner with, and work with my brand. I’ve also discovered some non-offensive, effective ways to share my faith. In today’s episode of The Kate Show, you’ll hear my reasons for making faith the compass of my business as well as how my c...
Are you about to get a new website? Make sure it is designed correctly from day one by avoiding these top 20 design mistakes. These mistakes are far too common on interior design, home staging, and workroom websites. I’ll bet your site has at least one of these faux pas.
Are you looking for a solid marketing plan that actually makes sense for your home industry based business? After providing many marketing consultations, I’ve been able to layout a framework of fail-proof principles that can help nearly any interior design, home staging, and workroom business create a marketing plan that works for them.
Want to hear the worst piece of business / marketing advice floating around right now? “I try to keep business and personal totally separate. It isn’t professional to talk about myself as part of my business.” Following this mindset leads to poorly branded interior design, staging, and workroom businesses. It leads to shallow marketing (or a gross lack of marketing since the business owner will often find herself at a loss for what to say next). A lack of personality in your business can even le...
When you know exactly who your target client is, you’ll find that writing a social media caption, a blog post, a newsletter, and new website copy becomes simple. Why? Because it’s easier to talk to someone than it is to talk to no one. Are you currently serving no one in your business? If you define your ideal client only by their budget and location, you don’t have an ideal client. Chances are high that you’re casting too wide a net…and yielding an unsatisfactory number of fish…if you catch my ...
In this episode of The Kate Show, I discuss every big question I’ve ever been asked about email newsletters and email marketing in general. After meeting hundreds of interior designers, home stagers, and window treatment workroom owners who struggle with email marketing, I was able to pinpoint their biggest problems.
In the words of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, “Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.”
If you need to prepare your SEO for a post-Google Plus world, or if you just want to know how you can easily improve your business’s ability to be found on Google, this episode is for you. Today on The Kate Show, I explain how to add SEO to your portfolio images, blog post images, and why the headings in your website copy matter to Google.
What happens when a former Google employee and founding member of Youtube sets her sights on the interior design industry? To sum it up: You get DesignerInc., the Amazon of the trade-only interior design industry. DesignerInc.com is the most comprehensive trade-only marketplace for the interior design industry, and it is free to all registered interior designers. Amassing hundreds of thousands of trade-only furniture and decor products from over a 1,000 vendors, DesignerInc offers the only seaml...
Lead magnets are a great way to attract more interior design or home staging clients. These handy little marketing tools provide immediate assistance to your potential clients and address their pain points. Lead magnets made you look professional and contribute incredible value to your sales funnel, even when you are trying to reach clients local to your area. Today on the Kate Show, I’m talking all about what a lead magnet is, what it does for your business, the anatomy of a successful lead mag...
Do you ever feel pressured to implement every piece of marketing advice that falls into your lap? Does the pressure to keep up with your colleagues on social media - only to see zero results for your efforts - feel exhausting? Today on The Kate Show, I’m sharing a unique way to approach marketing your interior design, staging, or workroom business. It’s called backwards marketing. (I coined the term; ya heard it here first!
Finding the right vendors for your interior design projects can be difficult. Who should you trust? Will they value your business as a long term relationship? Will they respect your professionalism and add value to your client experience? These are just a few of the questions I asked Revel Woods co-founder John Dupra on The Kate Show. If you’re looking to expand your interior design services and provide a more well-rounded experience for your clients, you need to meet Revel Woods. Check them out...
Whether you’re a new business owner in the home industry or a longtime entrepreneur looking to revitalize your pipeline, your business will grow from collaborating with other businesses and brands. In fact, marketing your business in this way is more lucrative than paid advertising and can also help bolster other areas of your marketing, such as growing your social media channels, expanding your mailing list, and increasing traffic to your website. In this episode of The Kate Show, you’ll learn ...
Do you need a new website or logo? Ensure that your project turns out well by getting familiar with the design processes of both. In this episode, I'm sharing the unique client process we use here at Socialite to make sure our clients' brands and websites are successful, beautiful, and functional. Be sure to check out the show notes at katethesocialite.com/the-kate-show to access the helpful resources mentioned in this episode.
Marketing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you approach marketing with the mindset of, "This is going to suck," then yes, it will be an awful and depreciating experience for you. However, if you approach marketing with the mindset of, "I'm here to help a specific group of people in the best and most authentic way possible--I just need to find them," you'll find that marketing becomes less like running in place and more like sprinting toward a specific goal. In this episode, I share the biggest ...
