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February 26, 2026 14 mins

Planning your 2026 marketing but not sure where to start—or how to fix what’s not working? We break down a practical path that helps design professionals win more of the right projects without burning hours on tactics that don’t convert. It begins with the must-have foundations: a clear ideal client and a website that proves credibility in seconds. From there, we show how to get discovered locally and convert interest into consultations with a few focused moves.

We walk through the top channels we track each year for designers and remodelers, then spotlight the ones that deliver reliable lift on normal budgets. You’ll hear why Google Business Profile is the smartest entry point for local SEO, how to fully complete and optimize your listing, and how posting a couple times a month can nudge you into the map pack. We also tackle social media with a calm, sustainable plan: four strong posts a month, a clear message about who you serve, and project-driven storytelling that builds trust. No daily grind required.

You’ll learn how to turn ongoing jobs into content—before-and-afters, process snapshots, and client outcomes—and how to use a fast competitor scan to spot service gaps you can own. We touch on connected TV advertising too: when it makes sense, what it costs, and why most firms are better served mastering the basics first. By the end, you’ll have a checklist to align your message, update your proof, and focus your time where it actually moves the pipeline.

If this helped, follow the links in our show notes for the CEU replay and our social masterclass, then subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a quick review so more designers can find the show.

If you would like to get the links and show notes for this episode, click on the link below:​

Transform your marketing with Designer Discussions Academy. In weekly face-to-face sessions, we equip busy business owners with cutting-edge PR strategies, marketing insights, and time-saving tools to not just work in your business, but on your business. Join us to outshine competitors and elevate your business.

Join us for our Academy sessions and workshops:

https://www.designerdiscussions.com/academy.html

Designer Discussions is an educational interior design podcast on marketing, PR and related business topics. 

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Designer Discussions is a partnership of three experts: Jason Lockhart, CEO of KABMS; Maria Martin, founder of DesignAppy; and Mirjam Lippuner, founder of Get Ink DIY




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Episode Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to Designer Discussions with Jason
and Miriam.
Today's episode is what we wantyou to listen to before you set
your 2026 marketing goals.
Welcome to the DesignerDiscussions podcast with Jason,

(00:21):
Maria, and Miriam.
Tune in each week where we talkabout marketing PR and business
advice for design professionals.

Jason Lockhart (00:31):
Hello, everybody.
Now I know you're hearing thisin the month of March, and you
may have already had your goalsin place, but I actually talked
to a designer the other day, andthey had not done anything as of
yet.
So even if you have your goalsin place, you want to listen to
this.
And what I actually uh what Iactually talked to that designer

(00:54):
about, I asked them to listen tothe presentation I had did for
the NKBA.
It was a webinar on developingyour marketing plan for the
year.
And it was an hour-long CEU andit was a lot of information in
there.
So if you haven't listened tothat, I'll have the link to the
show notes.
But I'm a give a high-leveloverview of what I went over in

(01:15):
that.
So to help you prepare.
So if you do not have a plan,you could get one in place.
And if you have a plan, you canaudit it and see if you need to
adjust going in to the rest ofthe year.
Because even though we're almostat the end of the first quarter,
if you haven't had effectivemarketing yet, now is the time
to change it up, see what otherstrategies are out there so you

(01:36):
can have the rest of 2026 asuccess.
Okay.
So what I had talked about,really, we do a lot of market
research to see what are the hotmarketing topics and strategies
that are happening for thedesigners for the year.
And there were over about 15,but I talked about the top 10 of
them, which was, you know, likeSEO, social media, you had AI in

(01:58):
there, uh, video marketing andsome others.
So I had talked about what thosetop 10 were and the pluses and
minuses of each one.
So I'm gonna highlight about twoor three here, but where I want
to start, where I begin withalmost all of those talk is to
first make sure that you're thatyou understand who your ideal
client is.
And if you've heard me talkbefore, you'll hear that over

(02:21):
and over again.
And it's important because youhave to know who that client is,
who you're marketing to, so youcould create content that will
resonate with them.
Because oftentimes what happenswhen we work with a designer or
remodeler will often audit theirmarketing that they've done in
the past.

(02:41):
And when we look at their idealclient, oftentimes what they're
who their ideal client is is notmatching up with what the
content they're putting outthere to target them.
And so when you have thatdisconnect, it's hard for your
ideal client to have whateveryour content is resonate with
them.
So that's why I always emphasizeknowing who your ideal client is

(03:05):
because that helps you targetthem effectively.
If you haven't watched thispodcast before, we have a number
of episodes on the clientavatar, the workbook, and all
that.
And I'll have that in the shownotes as well.
So you could do that.
But if you haven't done that, Iwill say start there.
Then after that, uh before I getinto the marketing tactics and

(03:26):
actually what I did on thepresentation as well, is I went
over website optimization.
Because the two main things youhave to do, A, like I said,
knowing your ideal client, andthen you have to optimize your
website.
Because when you start to domarketing, once you attract
people, they're gonna look atyour website, look at your

(03:46):
social media channels.
And if that's not up to date orif it's not effectively
communicating what you want tocommunicate, you're gonna turn
people off.
You're gonna lose people.
So that's why I always startwith the ideal client and then
the website.
So making sure it's optimized.
You have up-to-date projectsbecause oftentimes I find when
we work with designer remodelingprofessionals, when I look at

(04:09):
their website, projects are old.
They're over six months to ayear old, which if you're
actively working in in theprofession, you should not have
year-old projects.
You should have a website thathas a project that is no less
than six months old because itactually represents the type of
design you were doing today.

(04:30):
So make sure that your all ofthe content up there is up to
date, that the wording isactually speaking to your ideal
client.
The images are relevant, up todate.
And then once you start tomarket and draw people to your
website, that's when you areable to attract people that way.
And I had did uh an exercisewhere I showed the difference

(04:54):
between not having an apps uhoptimized website and having one
and how much more money you canmake.
So, in terms of the marketingchannels, like I said, we looked
at the top 10, which was SEO,Google Business Profile, Social
Media, email marketing, paidads, pay per lead, video

(05:15):
marketing, PR, influencermarketing, and then offline
marketing.
Now, one of the questions I wasasked about was CTV.
That is, that's actually, and Ihad mentioned this in the QA
because I was asked about this,is that is actually one of the
top 10, is actually number nineof the top 10 channels.

(05:37):
The reason I didn't talk aboutit, and I also mentioned this in
the QA, is because the barrierto entry is high.
So usually when you're doing CTVcommercials or whatever, you're
having to spend 5A plus.
And you're also having to createthat video asset.
So not only are you having topay for that, but you're having

(05:58):
to create the video asset.
So oftentimes the barrier toentry is high.
So that's why I really didn'ttalk about it.
But that is an avenue that ifyou are willing to create the
video and put the money into it,it can help you.
And that's something if you'reinterested, I could talk about
that in the future, but that'snot one of the things I talked
about.
You know, two of the things thatI'm gonna talk about, one social

(06:21):
media, because like I said, whenyou do marketing, they're gonna
look at two avenues, yourwebsite and they're gonna look
at social media.
And then I'm also talking aboutthe Google Business Profile
because that's as you'll hear mesay, at the basic level of SEO,
Google Business Profile is whereyou should start.
Okay, so I'm gonna actuallystart there.
So with the Google BusinessProfile, A, make sure that you

(06:44):
have one.
So we actually find withdesigners and remodelers that
they may have one, it hasn'tbeen used in forever.
They don't they don't even knowhow to get into the profile.
So make sure you have access tothe profile.
And there's a link in thepresentation that I show where
you can find out if you haveone, get into it, and then once

(07:05):
you're in it, make sure it'scompletely filled out.
Because that's what I also seeis with a lot of remodelers, is
they only fill out a little bitof the information.
You want to make sure that whenthey talk about the services you
offer, when they talk about whoyou are, when you want to
completely fill it out.
So if you have, if you have3,000 characters, don't write

(07:26):
150 words.
So you want to completely fillout that profile because
oftentimes when you talk aboutwhat you do with the services
you offer, it can trigger, itcan trigger a search.
So make sure you have all thatinformation is completely filled
out.
And then once you have all thatinformation, what you want to do
is you want to use your GoogleBusiness profile as a social

(07:48):
media profile.
So you want to post to it atleast two to three times a
month.
So whenever you do social media,whenever you add post on
whatever that is, you want toalso add that on your Google
Business profile.
Because if you're active on it,after about 90 to 120 days, you
should see activity in terms ofa call or an email.

(08:10):
The advantages of it, there's alot.
I'm gonna talk a little bitabout those.
But in terms of thedisadvantages, there's really
not any at all.
Honestly, is the verificationprocess because now if you don't
have one, it actually takes youa little longer to verify who
you are because Google isactually tracking down on all of
the non-usable fake profilesthat are out there.

(08:32):
So it's just a little harder toverify who you are.
But other than that, therereally are no disadvantages.
It's a whole lot of advantagesbecause that's how you end up in
the map pack.
You can get calls and emailsfrom this as an add-on to your
website with the type of imagesyou have on there, also an
add-on to your social mediaprofile.

(08:53):
So it's a lot of advantages, nota lot of disadvantages.
You should have that.
I had also talked about socialmedia, and if you heard me
earlier, once you startmarketing whatever avenues you
you use, they're gonna head toyour website, they're gonna head
to your social media platforms.
If you haven't heard our masterclass, that link will be in the

(09:14):
show notes as well.
And I actually talk about, weactually go over the minimum you
have to do, which is honestlyfour posts a month, at least
once a week.
And with a lot of the platformsnow, you you can schedule all of
all of your posts.
So you can develop all of thisif you spend about an hour a
month just developing whatyou're gonna have for your

(09:38):
social media for the month,because you only have to do
four, and then schedule it outfor each week.
And then also those same posts,like I said, have it in the
Google Business profile so youcan post it there.
Now you start to get someinfluence on that side.
But with the social mediaplatforms, honestly, it's really
about the brand awareness.

(09:59):
And what happens is, like Isaid, when anybody does research
on you, they're gonna look atyour social media profile.
And if you have up-to-date poststhat actually show what you do,
talk about who you serve and allthat stuff that'll help you as
opposed to having posts that area year plus old.
Now they may assume that you'renot very active or you're not up

(10:21):
to date.
So having that at a minimum,four posts a month, one every
week, and you can schedule thatout right at the beginning of
the month or at the end of themonth, whichever is easy for
you.
What I had talked about as adesigner, we actually create a
lot of the content that we canpost.
We work on projects, remodeling,and all of that, where that

(10:44):
process of meeting with theclient, going over the design,
getting into all of that aspectall the way up to the
demolition, remodel, and then uhthe final reveal, that whole
process is content that we candocument and have as post.
Because one of the things thatare highly sought after and that

(11:05):
a lot of end users look at isInstagram and Pinterest, the
before and after images.
And we do a lot of that.
So if you can highlight anddocument the process of the
project that you do, you have alot of content there for social
media, for blogs, for videos,and all of that.
Making sure you create that kindof content helps you out.

(11:26):
And then I had also talked aboutdoing social media competition
analysis, and that's uhsomething I recommend if you
haven't done, it's very helpfulto you because what happened, if
you look at all of yourcompetition in the area, look at
their social media platforms,how often they post, what they
post about, what the engagementlooks like, that'd tell you if

(11:47):
there's any gaps.
Because we did this with adesigner here in the Dallas
area.
She found out one of theservices that were not being
offered in the area.
She started to offer it.
I'm not going to mention what itis, but she started to offer it
and she made a lot of moneybecause she found a gap in the
industry here in the Dallas areabecause a lot of designers were

(12:08):
not doing this.
And she found that out by doinga social media analysis of the
competition.
So I actually have somesuggestions in there that you
can look at in the presentationthat'll help you out there.
And then with social media,there are some negatives to that
because it can be timeconsuming.
But at the same time, like Isaid, you don't have to spend a

(12:30):
lot of time.
Because what you hear a lotabout is that you should post
every day.
You don't have to post everyday.
Unless you're wanting to becomean influencer or something like
that, that is the only way thatyou will have to post every day.
But if you're just wanting toreally have your profile as a
brand awareness tactic, whichmost of us do, all you got to do
is post four times a month, oncea week.

(12:53):
Okay.
So that's really all you have todo.
Of the positive, it can helpbuild trust because, like I
said, when they research you,they're going to look at your
social media platforms.
And if it's up to date, that canhelp to build trust.
And it can also cause someinteraction on the platform as
well.
And over time, it can help getleads.
Those are just two of the topicsI had talked about.

(13:15):
Like I said, I'll have a link tothe CEU presentation so you can
view it and see all of them.
But also, I'm going to have alink to a master client because
we went over a lot of this tooin there, heading into how we
can actually help you out in theacademy.
So that's all I want to talkabout today.
So if you have any questions,feel free to reach out to us.
We'll we'll be happy to answerthem.

(13:35):
And we look forward to talkingto you in two weeks on Designer
Discussions.

SPEAKER_01 (13:40):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Designer
Discussions and all of thehelpful information.
Subscribe to our podcast, leaveus a review, and share it with
your friends.
We look forward to having youback next week for more
information on the podcast andthe marketing studio.
Visit Designer Discussions.comand follow us on social media.
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