Unlocking 2025 Marketing and PR Strategies: Insights and Innovations for Success

Unleash the full potential of your 2025 marketing and PR strategies with our latest episode, where we guarantee insights that will transform your approach. Learn how to effectively reverse engineer your annual goals by tapping into the power of your ideal client avatar, as we link back to the foundational guidance of episodes 24 and 76. Join us as Jason shares innovative tactics for optimizing your website amidst the AI revolution and the clever use of your Google Business Profile as a social media platform to boost local search visibility. You'll walk away with a toolkit of actionable strategies to ensure your business thrives in the new year.

Miriam brings her wealth of knowledge to the table, spotlighting the art of integrating PR into your marketing efforts with finesse. Discover the triad of reactive PR, project features in publications, and strategic publicity to elevate your brand's presence. The episode underscores the pivotal role of professional photography in your marketing arsenal and introduces edutainment as a captivating content creation strategy that could set your brand apart. Don't miss out on this comprehensive guide that promises to refine your PR and marketing strategies, ensuring they resonate powerfully with your audience in 2025.

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

• https://www.designerdiscussions.com/episodes/episode-133-Marketing-and-PR-Planning-for-2025

The links and past episodes mentioned in the episode​ are:

• Episode 109
• Episode 105
• Episode 76
• Episode 24
• NKBA Webinar - Top Marketing Trends That Will Dominate In 2025

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 weekly live sessions and workshops: https://www.designerdiscussionsmarketing.studio/pages/academy

Designer Discussions is an educational interior design podcast on marketing, PR and related business topics. We also provide in-depth, actionable products in the Marketing Studio including time-saving templates and guides to help design professionals grow their businesses.

Download our FREE Client Avatar Guide https://designerdiscussionsmarketing.studio/store.

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

Episode Transcript

Maria Martin (00:00):
Welcome to Designer Discussions with Miriam
, maria and Jason.
Today, we're going to betalking about your marketing and
PR plan for 2025.
Welcome to the DesignerDiscussions podcast with Jason
Miriam and Maria, where we talkabout marketing, pr and business

(00:21):
advice for design professionals.

Jason Lockhart (00:26):
Hello everyone and happy new years yet again.
As you know, we do this everyyear.
Where we do well, we set you upfor the new year on the
marketing and the PR side, so wehelp to have you have a plan of
action for the year.
I won't repeat what I said in2022 and 2023.

(00:49):
What I'm going to say isreference those two episodes,
because we actually went over aplan.
What I did in 2022, I did areverse engineer of the outcome
Based on what you want to makeat the end of the year, you can
determine how many leads youneed from that.
So I did a whole exercise onthat in 2022.

(01:11):
So listen to that episode,which is the episode 24.
So listen to episode 24.
And then, if you listen toepisode 76, I did an expansion
on that for helping you planthroughout the year once you
know what the goal is.
So I'm not going to reiterateor go back over any of that

(01:32):
information.
So, in terms of this year, onceyou have all of that ironed out
, and even though and Iemphasize this all the time, if
you have not heard this enoughknowing your ideal client avatar
, in those episodes I alsoreferenced about the client
avatar workbook that we have onour website.

(01:52):
So head there so you candownload the free workbook on
the client avatar so you caniron that out.
Once you've ironed that out,now you can do the exercise
where you reverse engineer whatyou want to make at the end of
the year, so you know how manyleads that you have.
So now what I'm going to talkabout is, once you know how many
leads you want, how do you findthose leads to help get the

(02:16):
jobs that you want?
And this is one of the trendsalso is website optimization.
So optimizing your website isgoing to be vital for this year
because, with all that'shappening around AI, making sure
that your website is up to date, it has your most relevant
projects and the content on yoursite is actually relevant for

(02:39):
your end user and your idealclient.
That's going to help youattract the right type of
prospects that you're lookingfor.
If you look at the show notes,I might actually have a graphic
that has all of the elementsthat you should have on a
website in terms of thenavigation, your contact
information, having a number atthe top, relevant images, social

(03:00):
media icons, all of this.
So I might have a graphic.
So look in the show notes soyou can get access to that, or
you can head to the website andsee this information.
But all of this information youshould have on your website and
this will help you attract theright type of clientele, the
right type of prospects to you.
And also tying into websiteGoogle business profile Now,

(03:25):
you've heard me talk about thisin the past as well but, even
more so, making sure that you'reactually treating your Google
business profile like a socialmedia platform where you're
actually posting to it regularly.
So at least two to three times amonth, you should be adding in
new projects, adding in what'shappening.

(03:47):
If you either hire any newemployees, if you did any type
of community service, if you'redoing anything for your clients
that's out of the ordinary, likeyour processing or anything
like that, if you're showcasingany of that, you should have
that on your website, but alsoon your Google business profile.

(04:07):
Because with your Googlebusiness profile, that's how you
end up in the maps area.
So with SEO and your website,that's how you end up in the
organic, and then with maps, andthen with Google business
profile, that's how you end upwith maps.
So in search, you know, at thetop you have the ads, which only
20% click on the ads.

(04:29):
80% either click on maps or theorganic search.
So that's where you want to beand how you get there is, like I
said, through optimizingwebsite, optimizing Google
business profile.
I'm going to hand it to Miriamso she could talk about the PR
side and then afterwards I'lladd some other things on after

(04:49):
that.

Mirjam Lippuner (04:50):
Okay, good advice, jason.
Thank you.
I'll talk a little bit aboutdifferent ways you can approach
your PR for the planning for thenew year and, as you guys know
the way we look at PR here onDesigner Discussions, it's not
necessarily a tool to get youall the publicity to make you

(05:16):
rich and famous, but we reallylook at it more as a tool to
support the rest of yourmarketing in a holistic way.
And, thinking about it that way, there's always three pillars
to what I recommend.
The first one is the reactiveapproach PR, which really

(05:42):
includes what used to be HARO.
It's these short-term mediarequests that you can easily
plug into and get coverage fromvery quickly on digital
platforms.
The second one is to get actualprojects or interviews,
profiles, featured inpublications, and this can

(06:05):
ideally be in print, but itcould also be online.
And then the third one is likethe bonus one, where you do all
kinds of events or speakingengagements or broadcast or
other things, which that'susually not something we even
get to.
So let's focus on the basics,which is my most favorite thing

(06:25):
to do and which is what is mosteffective for, honestly, 99% of
all the businesses of all sizesthat I have ever worked with in
my quarter century of doing PR.
So I would say, number one justthink about do you have an

(06:47):
appetite, do you have resourcesto do PR.
It's like everybody wants to doPR in theory, but not everybody
really is committed to doing it, and so I just really encourage
you to take a step back and say, and you can say, okay, I want

(07:12):
the media coverage, but are you,do you want the work that comes
with it, because it's going torequire some work.
So that's a fundamentaldecision you're going to have to
make.
And let's just assume you say,yes, you actually do.
And maybe this is the year onewhere you want to do some PR and
you have never done it before.
And today, next year or nextyear, this year, when this is

(07:32):
going to air, actually is thebest time to start.
So if you do that, there's afew things I would encourage you
to focus on.
Would encourage you to focus onNumber one definitely make
photography a priority, and thiswill help you, not just for
your PR, but for your marketingoverall.
And when I say photography, Imean professional photography,

(07:55):
right?
So if you are serious aboutgetting published, you're going
to need professional gradephotography.
So plan for that, you thatideally budget for it.
Think about what types ofprojects you have in the
pipeline that deserve to bephotographed.
Plan the money, plan the time.

(08:17):
Find the right photographer.
Make sure you have professionalimages that you can use for
media coverage, because there'sno, not none, but there's very
few magazines out there by nowthat actually will be able to
come in and shoot your project,even if it's a tier one, you

(08:38):
know fantastic, spectacularproject that you have.
So make sure you havephotography.
The second one is and this isactually a little different from
what I have what I usuallyrecommend.
Ideally.
I always say PR should be acontinuous activity.

(08:59):
It's something that you shouldbuild into your routine so it
can really become part of yourmindset and part of your
calendar.
So ideally, I would like foryou to schedule time every week,
or at least every couple ofweeks.
Whatever works with yourschedule.
Ideally it should be in acontinuous basis.

(09:20):
But you have dedicated timewhere you say, okay, I'm going
to be doing PR and the numberone thing I say is like sign up
for Source of Sources, which isthe new platform that used to be
Haro.
It's the founder.
We have a couple of episodeswhere we're talking about this,

(09:40):
because there has been a lot ofchange in 2024 in how these
platforms have changed.
But if you do one thing sign upfor Source of Sources and it's
a free platform, you get emailsevery day and it'll give you
those media opportunities thatyou can easily plug into and
submit, for we have a number oftutorials that will show you how

(10:04):
to do this, so do that andmaybe you know the whole year.
That's a lot to ask for.
Maybe that's not what you wantto do, and we've actually in our
academy just last year we hadpretty spectacular successes
with people who just plugged inlike pretty short term, I'd say,

(10:27):
maybe take three months and say, okay, these are going to be my
three months where I'm going tobe doing PR and I'm going to
dedicate two to three hoursevery week.
We have had a member in theacademy and they walked away
after the first month with threeplacements, which is really
unheard of.
If you can end up with oneplacement every month, you're

(10:49):
doing really pretty well.
If you end up with six to 10placements over the course of
the year, that's also prettygood.
But it is possible to reallysort of have this burst of
energy for PR and do it forhowever long.
Maybe you do it for two months.
If you end up with fiveplacements after two months,

(11:11):
maybe you take a break.
But so see what works for you.
Are you more somebody who likesto plug in continuously or are
you more somebody who needs,like, a specific goal short term
and say I'm going to focus onthis, is this what I'm going to
do?
So I think there are those twooptions, definitely.
There are those two optionsdefinitely.

(11:38):
Then the next step if you wantto bolster your media portfolio
further, I'd say, do pick one,maybe two projects for the year
that you're going to haveprofessionally photographed,
that you will be pitching to amagazine.
That's like the next level.
And if this is your first year,that might not be the year you
want to do magazine.
That's like the next level.
And if this is your first year,that might not be the year you
want to do it.
But if you have been in the PRgame for a while and you have
not been properly published, notjust with expert mentions but

(12:00):
with actual photography thatshows one of your projects,
that's something else that Iwould encourage you to plan out.
And we also do have content onthe podcast that goes more into
detail about doing that.
So those are the three things Iwould say Focus on your
photography, dedicate time todoing the short-term reactive

(12:26):
pitches and think about pitchinga project of yours.

Jason Lockhart (12:31):
Awesome.
And the last thing I want totalk about on the marketing side
, which I will do a wholepodcast on this is using
edutainment as an aspect of yourcontent creation, and what
edutainment is is actuallycreating content that educates
and entertains, and so we'regoing to do a whole podcast just

(12:51):
on that topic, but that's abuzzword now that's getting out
there for 2025 edutainment thatshould be an aspect of the type
of content that you create,whether it's written, whether
it's in video, whether it's onsocial media.
However, having to create thattype of content is going to help
set you apart from yourcompetition.

(13:13):
So be looking out for thatpodcast, because I'm going to
just have one, just on how youcreate edutainment type content.

Mirjam Lippuner (13:22):
These are all our tips for planning for
marketing and PR for 2025.
If you are doing your ownmarketing and PR and you're
looking for some additionaltraining and for some
accountability, we encourage youto check out our Designer
Discussions Academy, which isour coaching program for

(13:44):
marketing and PR for design andremodeling business.
Check it out ondesignerdiscussionscom.

Maria Martin (13:50):
Did you know that your client learns 80% of what
they will know about you beforethey ever contact you?
Now imagine when your potentialclient searches for the perfect
kitchen remodel.
Will they find you or yourcompetition?
We can help you make sure it'syou.
Our Designer DiscussionsAcademy membership with your
favorite podcast hosts provideweekly steps to simplify your

(14:14):
marketing and boost yourbusiness.
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(14:36):
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