Episode 2: Kate Bowler of Domestikated Life
Kate is the author of the award-winning lifestyle blog Domestikatedlife.com where she writes about festive entertaining tips, simple recipes, DIY projects and life as a mom. Kate’s site won Entertaining Blog of the year at Saveur Magazine’s 2019 food blog awards, and she is the author of an entertaining cookbook, New England Invite: Fresh Feasts to Savor the Seasons. Her recipes and styling work have been featured in publications such as Martha Stewart Living, Better Homes and Gardens and The Boston Globe and she is the Co-President of the Boston Bloggers group.
HER START
Kate talks about how she got her start blogging and writing her site which has been active for over twelve years. She needed a creative outlet and with her husband’s encouragement began writing about her life, passions and DIY projects. It became a chronicle of her life over the years and has evolved with her but, her passion for food, DIY and entertaining have always been a focus in her content.
GROWING HER AUDIENCE
Kate speaks to growing her audience in her early days blogging and how things have shifted over the years and evolved to the trends with social media. She focuses her time and effort on the places that she is getting the most traction. We discuss how Pinterest is Kate’s largest generator of traffic to her website and she recommends using Tailwind as a tool to help with growth. (See resources below).
HOW SHE TACKLES MARKETING
I ask Kate how she tackles marketing and we discuss how she focuses on digging into her website and social media analytics to see what is working and what isn’t. She suggests doing a deep dive a couple of times of year to see what is making an impact with your audience and being able to hone in on which networks are working best.
DETERMINING WHEN AND WHERE TO OUTSOURCE
Kate discusses outsourcing and how she was challenged at first with deciding where and when to outsource. She focuses on outsourcing on things that are not her own strengths and focusing on where someone else can do it more efficiently and talks about building those relationships slowly.
DEVELOPING A UNIQUE STYLE
We discuss photography and how Kate worked on developing a unique style. Kate talks about being self trained and digging into the style that she liked and trying to see how people she admired were bringing images to life as well as how she could do so in an authentic way. She recommends shooting with really good natural light and not having to use fancy equipment. For post-editing, she recommends the app Color Story in order to make everything look cohesive. (See resources below).
WORKING WITH BRANDS
Kate speaks about working with brands and putting value on her work and time. She talks about working with local and national brands as well as working with local PR firms in order to gain traction. She suggests starting small and working your way up to larger brands slowly.
ON BEING ORIGINAL
Kate puts emphasis on ways to achieve organic growth such as having really good content, good photography, smart writing, having a cohesive feed and being sure to engage with others on social media, especially on instagram. She talks about being sure she has an original voice and trying not to replicate what others are doing but stay true to you.
FINDING BALANCE
We discuss balance and how elusive it is. Kate strives towards balance by being really smart about what she says no to and working with clients that truly value her time and what she is creating. She always tries to remind herself about her “why”.
NAVIGATING PERSONAL + PROFESSIONAL
Kate talks about sharing personal pieces of her life and how she navigates sharing personal/professional content. She is very deliberate about what she puts on her blog and uses the app Planoly for planning content and we discuss not feeling the pressure of what others are doing but sticking to your comfort zone.
NEW ENGLAND INVITE
We discuss Kate’s book, New England Invite and how she was able to bring it to fruition. After being connected to a publisher in Boston, she began speaking with an editor and pitched her book idea to them. She put together a book proposal and opens up about utilizing the tools you have and having to re-work it. Kate created the recipes and photographed them herself in her home and used her blogging format to get it done with the help of her family. Kate talks about her favorite recipe from the book which is the macaroni and cheese apple and how she loves so many of the fall recipes.
VALUE
Kate speaks to the best advice she’s gotten, which is asking for what you are worth. We discuss how time is the most valuable resource we have. Kate suggests starting higher in your pricing, always being able to negotiate down and not under-valuing yourself.
Book Club Recommendation: Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before
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