The more home staging is covered in the media, the easier it is for all home stagers to sell their services.

When potential clients already know what staging is and how decorating a house to sell on the real estate market benefits them, we can spend more time on why we’re the right stager for the job, rather than educating them about the practice itself.

I’ve been working to raise the public’s awareness of home staging since 2002 when I started my home staging business Six Elements Inc.

Since then, I’ve been blessed with coverage in major media like CNNMoney, The Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest, National Post, The Globe and Mail, MoneySense, This Old House, Woman’s Day, and many decorating magazines.

Recently, I shared 5 tips to get media attention for your home staging business to help you get into the media too.

After all, this is basically free advertising and more exposure than you could ever hope to pay for on your own.

Ads in major newspapers and magazines cost thousands of dollars. And you could never buy your way onto the anchor desk of a TV news show.

It’s not unusual for home stagers to write me and say something like:

“I’m going to be in the newspaper on Saturday and I’m expecting the phones to go crazy on Sunday! My staging business is really on it’s way now!”

Today, in part 2 of this series on Home Staging in the News, I want to explore 5 things I learned the hard way about what to expect from your media coverage.

1. 1. Your phone will NOT start ringing off the hook immediately after you appear in the media (really, how often have you phoned someone just because you saw them quoted in the newspaper or saw them on TV?).
   2. Your name might be spelled wrong (as mine was in a national newspaper, much to my dismay) or they might forget your company name altogether.
   3. If the article is compelling and your URL is included, you will get a spike in traffic to your website (mine went from about 200 visitors up to 10,000 the first time I appeared in the Toronto Star).
   4. You might spend an hour on the phone with a reporter educating them about home staging and then get only a sentence or two quoting you in the final story.
   5. Your home staging story won’t necessarily run when you think it will. News will always trump a human interest story so you can easily get bumped at the last minute. Even decorating magazines rearrange their editorial line up depending on advertising sales and other factors.

Watch for Part 3 of Home Staging in the News, where I’ll give you ways to get around these 5 media challenges and, in some cases, use them to your advantage!

In the meantime, comment below about whether you find this information helpful. Please share your experience with getting media coverage for your own home staging business, or ask me related questions so that I’ll know what you’d like to see featured in future posts on this topic!