Marketing Strategies, Branding The Socialite Agency Marketing Strategies, Branding The Socialite Agency

Avoid These 2 Self-Sabotaging Phrases in Your Marketing

Knowing what to say in your marketing is only half the battle. What about the words, phrases, or ideas you should completely avoid? Today on The Kate Show, I’m talking about the two key phrases you shouldn’t include on your website, your blog posts, your email marketing, or your print advertising.

I’m also sharing exact verbiage you can use to market your business in other ways, beyond everything you might already be doing online or in print.

So, today, I’m laying it all out there…no fluff, just tough love and action steps that will benefit you and your business long-term.

Ready for some real talk?! Here it is…

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Here's How I Predict in 15 Minutes Whether Your Business Will Succeed

I’ve had the honor of working with home industry professionals across the globe, and what I’ve recognized is this: Whether you are an interior designer in Dubai or a home stager right here in Wisconsin, you (we?) all have similar challenges to overcome.

Often, our biggest challenge is ourselves. While this should be the easiest to fix, it’s often the most difficult because, first, we have to be self-aware enough to accept that perhaps we are the bottleneck, the sticking point, or even the saboteur of our own businesses.

In today’s episode of The Kate Show, I’m sharing the eight key phrases that people will say to me on discovery calls that help me predict whether their business is headed for success or failure. It is especially gratifying to work with these clients when they are open to self-reflection and committed to changing their mindset. If you hear yourself in any of the eight phrases I’m sharing today, don’t lose hope.

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The #1 Secret to Making Marketing Easy that Shouldn't be a Secret

Marketing shouldn’t be hard. You don’t have to continue being swept away in a tidal wave of confusion and dollar signs when you think about your marketing plan. The amazing part about owning a business in the home industry is that, aside from making spaces beautiful and functional, your marketing is largely based on personal relationships. 

That is so much easier than trying to market a business with overtly negative connotations, such as a dentist’s office or a law firm. You and your business are instantly and automatically associated with beauty and personalization — and especially in recent years — overall wellness.

But marketing might still feel like a drag. If that describes your situation, this episode of The Kate Show is for you. With this being my 250th episode, I thought it would be cool (and oh-so-telling) to re-release my very first podcast episode. I had to screen it first, because who knows what I said back in those days… Sheesh.

I hope you enjoy this episode and that it reminds you that we all have to start somewhere.

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How to Strategically Increase Your Word-of-Mouth Referrals

How many new clients do you get from referrals? I would guess that over 90% of your new business comes from this classic, solid, beautiful marketing strategy. It’s quite simple: Do a good job, and people will tell their friends about you.

But for some reason, we’ve been conditioned to believe that we should be getting clients from other sources, such as social media or search engines. If that describes you, I ask you to reconsider. The ironic thing about word-of-mouth referrals is that they will come at you from every angle, often disguised as coming from a different source.

Consider this scenario:

A lead finds you because someone in a Facebook group recommended you. Was that a social media lead or a word-of-mouth referral? It was a referral! That lead didn’t find you based on what you posted on social media, but instead because someone in that group recommended you.

And consider this scenario:

A lead contacts you via direct message on Instagram, stating that they’ve been following you for a while and their friend highly recommended you. Is that a social media lead or a referral lead? Bingo — referral again! They were following you forever, but they weren’t motivated to hire you until their friend made the recommendation.

If you are getting clients by word-of-mouth referral, you likely have a healthy business and solid brand recognition. Let’s capitalize on that, shall we?

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5 Surefire Ways to Fail at Marketing Your Home Industry Business

You’ve heard dozens (or thousands?) of times about what you SHOULD be doing to market your interior design, staging, organizing, or window treatment business. But what about the pitfalls that can wreck your marketing momentum faster than a stick shoved through the spokes of your bike? (Ouch.)

Today on The Kate Show, we’re talking about the five common and completely avoidable mistakes that home industry entrepreneurs make in their marketing. Annnnd spoiler alert: This isn’t another episode in which I rail against social media. No, the pitfalls I’m sharing today are much more serious and more detrimental to your business than whether you should post another photo because a successful marketing strategy is about so much more than whether you choose to post pictures on the internet.

If marketing makes you nervous, if you tend to overthink it, if you constantly feel overwhelmed by it, this episode is for you.

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Let's Create Your Marketing Plan for 2024

Do you know the real reason why designers, stagers, and other home professionals avoid creating a marketing plan? They over-complicate it.

If you’ve ever thought that creating a marketing plan for your business meant that you had to know exactly which blog post topics, social media content, and email marketing subjects would be released each week over the next quarter — take a deep breath — you’re overthinking it.

Your marketing plan should be written in pencil, not permanent marker. You should be committed to that plan evolving, even while you’re implementing it. A marketing plan creates a big boundary surrounding and protecting all the things you CAN do while blocking out the “shiny object marketing ideas” that will only distract you.

Want to create daily TikToks for your business? Nope, that isn’t supported by the marketing plan because your ideal client doesn’t use that platform, nor is there any data to support that social media helps sell high-end home services.

  • Want to blog about your recent project reveal? Yes, that’s allowed by the marketing plan.

  • Been offered an ad placement in a local magazine? No, your marketing plan forbids you from competing with everyone else’s ad, especially since you wouldn’t be able to track that ad’s effectiveness.

  • Want to send a last minute email newsletter about a new service or product that you are offering, even though that wasn’t the topic you had planned for this month? Yes, your marketing plan supports the fact that you can change topics mid-stride as long as all topics relate to your business and your ideal client.

If you’re ready to create a flexible, practical marketing plan for your home industry business, today is the perfect time. In this episode of The Kate Show, I’ll walk you through exactly how to do it. As with most things in marketing, it’s actually far less complicated than most people would think.

Let’s do it!

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5 Ways to Get Your Marketing Done without Stress or Overwhelm

I’m convinced that the worst part about marketing is just thinking about marketing. When I actually sit down and do it with a plan in mind, I feel great. And when it’s done, I feel fantastic.

You might not feel this positive about your marketing, and that’s okay. You don’t have to like something in order to do it. But…I do have five specific ways I address my own marketing that have made it far more enjoyable, successful, and most importantly, ensure that it gets done.

Today on the podcast, I’m sharing those five things with you — and as a head’s up — I don’t view them as optional or as just “good ideas.” If I didn’t do these five things, not only would I fail at marketing my own business, but I’d also fail at helping my clients market theirs.

These five actions I take to make sure my marketing gets done well and done consistently are pretty darn important, and you’ll want to take notes. Let’s get into them.

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Glow Up Your Business in 7 Easy Steps

You might be familiar with the term “glow up” when it comes to personal appearance and lifestyle. But have you ever applied that same concept to your business? At the heart of it, glowing up involves taking small, definitive actions that improve your overall quality of life, appearance, and presence.

While this episode isn’t about adding a “hot girl walk” into your morning routine, though the viral 4-mile walk probably wouldn’t hurt any of us, it is about self-care from the standpoint of entrepreneurship. As business owners, we tend to think of ourselves and our businesses last. Our businesses get any leftover energy we have after working with clients. Our businesses take the brunt of our experiments, and after a while, things tend to start looking a little haphazard and neglected.

Are you ready to refresh your business and renew the excitement you have for it while giving your professional confidence a little boost? Let’s do it!

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5 Lies to Stop Believing So That Your Business Can Grow

Mind control — the moment you read those words, you likely had a negative reaction in the pit of your stomach. But here’s the funny thing about it: If you can control your own mind, you become the hero of your own story and a legacy for thousands of others, but if you try to control someone else’s mind, you are the villain in a hundred stories.

The concept of mind control, or controlling what we think about, has been painted in a bad, mad-scientist light. Its counterpart, mindfulness, usually gets all the praise as a trendy buzzword.

Don’t get me wrong, mindfulness is great. But…

You need to have full control over your own thoughts if you want to have great marketing. Someone with poor control over their thoughts will struggle to make decisions, will lack confidence, and will be easily swayed by what everyone else is doing. They will find it difficult to stay true to their ideal clients’ needs. They will run full force at marketing without a strategy or a reason behind what they are doing. They will burn themselves out.

And that’s why, friends, today on The Kate Show we are talking about the 5 mindset shifts you need to make if you want to stop stressing about your marketing and start growing your business instead.

This episode is politically incorrect, non-sugarcoated, and might be exactly the kick in the pants you need to become what I’ve always known you could be.

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10 Advanced Marketing Questions with Kate: Interior Design, Staging, Organizing & Window Treatments

If you’ve been running a business in the home industry for more than two years, you’ve likely run into some nuanced marketing questions, such as…

“Which blog post topics will resonate most with high-end clients versus the DIYers that I don’t want to attract?”

“Which marketing tools do I actually need? I’d rather not be working with 15 different platforms.”

“My pipeline dried up after years of getting business primarily from referrals. What now?!”

If you’d like to hear the answers to these questions, and more, you won’t want to miss today’s episode of The Kate Show.

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10 Newbie Marketing Questions with Kate: Get Your Questions Answered Quickly

Do you have a burning marketing question? Today is your day. In this episode of The Kate Show, I’m answering 10 of the most-asked questions I get from all of you. I’m covering things like, “How can I quickly get my next client?” to “How can I get more contacts on my mailing list?” as well as some hard-won marketing tips from other home professionals who’ve created their own success.

This was supposed to be a rapid-fire Q&A, but…I went on a few rants and there will be a follow-up episode with 10 more not-so-rapid-fire Q&As.

Enjoy!

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6 Steps to Creating an Effective Marketing Plan for Your Home Industry Business

One of the most frequent requests I get from interior designers, home stagers, organizers, and window professionals is this:

“Can you create a marketing plan for me?”

The short of it is, yes, I spend a lot of time doing this on private consulting calls with my Vault members. The longer version of it is… Why don’t I just pull back the curtain on my easy, six-step strategy process so you can do it yourself? Even if you choose to have me do it for you, you’ll be able to come to our private calls feeling prepared and empowered rather than overwhelmed. Getting rid of the overwhelm is essential if you’re going to move anything forward in your business and become profitable.

Today on The Kate Show, I’m detailing the exact steps you need to take to get your business from rudderless and feeling lost at sea to actually sailing toward your target with a compass that points true north.

If goal-setting feels confusing, obscure, or even scary, you need to hear this episode. If marketing makes you cringe because you have no idea what you’re doing and you’re overloaded with too many ideas and conflicting information, this episode will bring you clarity. Let’s dive into it.

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3 Steps to Take When You Feel Like Your Marketing Isn’t Working

Are you frustrated by a lack of results in your marketing, especially when you feel like you’ve been doing everything right? Or perhaps you don’t know if you’re doing anything right but since you’re trying so many different things, one of them is bound to work…right? Not quite.

Today on The Kate Show, I’m breaking down the things that you should be doing to market your business in the home industry, as well as a few reasons why these great marketing strategies might not be working for you and what you can do about it.

Additionally, I'm also going to explain the difference between marketing and advertising because thinking those two are synonymous causes a lot of confusion. I had no idea that advertising and marketing were different things when I first started my business in 2014. Back then, I often aired on the side of “advertising” and wondered why my business wasn’t growing.

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How to Market Your Business When Relocating

How do you market your business if you've relocated? There's nothing worse than getting to a new location and having the stress of moving and unpacking, only to realize that you have no projects lined up and not so much as a warm lead in your inbox.

But there is good news! This discouraging situation is highly preventable. If you've already moved and haven't done any of the marketing preparation I am sharing today, don't worry. You can play catch-up. However, I do hope you're reading (or listening to) this 3-12 months prior to moving.

The action plan and timeline I'm going to give you in this episode are intended to help you make sure you have one or two clients already lined up. If you are about to relocate your business, you need to read (or hear) this.

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10 Questions That Will Refocus Your Interior Design Business Marketing

Are you feeling uneasy about whether you are doing everything you can to market your design, staging, organizing, or window treatment business? If so, it's time to refocus. Don't let yourself get stuck in a rut, doing the same marketing tasks over and over without ensuring that one flows into the next and that you can track the appropriate results.

Spoiler alert: Not every marketing activity should result in new clients. For example, pinning on Pinterest will not directly bring you more clients, but pinning your blog posts will increase your website traffic, which is crucial for getting those coveted clients.

If you are feeling frustrated and confused by the lack of results in your marketing, consider today's episode the pause button. Let's assess what you should be doing and how it should all work together to grow your business.

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6 Wise Tactics for New & Creative Business Owners

If I could go back to 2014 and give myself some words of wisdom as a new business owner, I'd have a lot to say. I'd give myself a heads-up on every mistake the "older" me would make and share how the "younger" me could avoid those pitfalls. The thing is... Those experiences, especially the bad ones, brought me something incredibly valuable as an entrepreneur: Wisdom.

My friend, today's episode of The Kate Show is for the newbies. If you recently started your journey in the home industry, as in, you launched your business less than two years ago, you'll want to listen closely. I'm not dropping any wisdom that is new to the face of the earth, but if you can take a nugget of something with you to make your journey easier, then my job will be complete and I'll shut down my podcast.

Just kidding, I have a lot more podcasting to do.

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5 Reasons You Should Stop Using Linktree if You Want Better SEO

Do you use Linktree in your Instagram bio? While it's popular and seems like a great idea, Linktree is actually taking all the traffic that should be going directly to your website. This is no fault of Linktree; it's just how technology works. Rather than using a third-party tool like this to redirect your social media fans to wherever they need to go, and thus lose the website traffic, you should instead be using a page on your own website for this exact purpose.

Today on The Kate Show, I'm showing you exactly how to set up your own version of Linktree and why pit really, really does matter.

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5 Myths About Ranking Higher in Google and What You Should Do Instead

Do you wish your interior design, home staging, professional organizing, or window treatment website would get more traffic? Optimizing your website for search engines is a must. However, search engine optimization (SEO) isn't just about using the right keywords.

SEO also includes making sure your website loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, accessible to those with eyesight disabilities, and easy to navigate. Navigation requirements include putting buttons and headlines in the right places...using enough of them, but not overcrowding the screen.

If you've been told that having good SEO means adding new pages to your website for each location that you serve or that you need to pay for vague services like keyword monitoring, you need to hear this episode. Today on The Kate Show, I'm busting five SEO myths that are hurting home industry professionals like you.

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Top Reasons Designers, Stagers & Organizers Don't Need to Use Geofencing

Today, I'm talking about geofencing: What it is and when you would or would not want to implement this advertising technique in your business. This topic was suggested by my agency's wonderful client and good friend in real life, Georgiana Schwandt. Georgiana runs Incredible Windows here in Wisconsin...as her third career. ?? Her energy is inspiring and her work ethic is extraordinary. She's always keeping her hand on the pulse of the dynamic home industry, and I wasn't at all surprised that she knew about geofencing and wanted me to discuss it.

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The Best Content Marketing Calendar for Home Industry Professionals

"How can I create a marketing calendar for my business?"


I get asked this question by entrepreneurs across the home industry, from interior design and staging to organizing and window treatments. I love when people ask this question because it shows that: a) they want to take real action in their marketing, and b) they recognize that marketing should be intentional, not haphazard.

Today on The Kate Show, I'm sharing the marketing calendar I recommend to nearly all my agency's clients. Whether you are DIYing your marketing or ready to outsource everything, you need a plan that fits your business model and makes sense for your goals.

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