Tips to Writing Killer Content For Your Wedding Business

 

Writing_with_CoffeeWriting an article, or blog sounds so easy. You just sit down and start writing, and in a few minutes of random talking you’ve communicated your ideas to your audience right? Um, not so much. While we’d all love for that to be the case, writing good content takes quite a bit more work than that.

The starting place is to ensure that you have decided on your exact brand image so you can reflect that in your writing. From there you have to know who your ideal client is. You are writing to them, not to yourself, not to their mothers, but directly to your ideal client. As a result you should remember what type of language they use. Do you sell to high end brides? Then your writing needs to mimic their communication style. Above all else, as Craig Anderson points out in his article, don’t assume too much of your readers. While they might have graduate degrees they also may be high school drop outs. Write accordingly. Make sure to read Craig’s brilliant article for more tips on writing killer content. What do you think?

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

Remember: Article Marketing Must Include Helpful Information!

 

If you’re just getting into trying out content marketing you might be dealing with the feeling of being overwhelmed. The question “What on earth should I write about” is something that even the most prolific writer deals with.

Bored_Brides

The good thing for a wedding business however is that their topic has already been chosen for them: Weddings. Brides are looking for all the information on weddings that they can find. Make sure when you are writing however to make your article informative, not just a plug for your services. Talk about weddings you have recently done, upcoming weddings, mistakes that you’ve seen brides make, etc.

Always remember though that the whole purpose of your articles is not only to draw in traffic, but to gain the trust and interest of brides in your area, who are looking for someone with your services. Newt Barrett has some great article marketing tips in his article so make sure to check it out! What challenges do you face in article marketing?

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

How To Get Brides To Read Your Articles

 

Bride_and_Groom_ReadingHave you had trouble getting decent traffic with your article marketing? Believe it or not this is normal, and everyone, even full time authors have to deal with this. Article marketing is a great way to get your name, and your wedding business name out in front of a lot more brides, and spark interest in your products or service.

One of the top ways to get your articles read more is by making sure that the article area is clean. Don’t clutter it up with advertisements, diagrams, or content that has nothing to do with the article. Not only does this make it easier for people to read, it also encourages them to share it with other people.

Sharing is the most important part of getting your article read. You need to make sure to include prominent sharing buttons plus you should also make sure you are sharing the article on your Facebook page, Tweeting it out once, and sharing it in your email newsletters. Make sure to read the article by Wayne Barker for more tips on article marketing. What do you think?

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

Create a Year’s Worth of Content in Less Than 20 Minutes

 by Debby Dowling

Writing_In_Notebook

If you’re doing any marketing online, you know the key to being successful isn’t just having a newsletter, a blog, or Facebook and Twitter accounts. While those things are all wonderful waysto promote you and your business, if you don’t have any content to add to them, they’re totally worthless.

Coming up with content is a BIG reason why many of those projects get abandoned. It literally can paralyze you to the point where you don’t do them—or any marketing—simply because you think you can’t come up with any ideas.

That’s totally not true. If you couldn’t come up with ideas, you wouldn’t be in business foryourself. I’m here to tell you that you CAN come up with all the content ideas you need for yourblog. Or Facebook, Twitter, or any other platform that you use. It’s simple. It’s easy. And best of all, you can come up with a ton of ideas in less than 20 minutes.

You just need to do this one little exercise.

Set aside 20 minutes and brainstorm every single question that people have asked about your business or your industry in general. You should be able to come up with at least 20 just off the top of your head.

If you’re having trouble, use these ideas to get you started. What types of questions do people ask about:

  • Your process and how you work;
  • Your prices;
  • What percentage of their budget they should allocate:
  • Why you do what you do;
  • What types of brides buy your services; or
  • What value does your profession bring?

These ideas alone should allow you to think of over 20 questions. And I’m sure you can come up with a bunch more!

Once you’ve exhausted that area, try to think of every single objection you’ve ever heard. That’s right. All the reasons why someone won’t hire you or thinks that your services aren’t beneficial can be wonderful ideas for creating content. Again, if you really think about it, you should have no problem coming up with at least 20 objections, if not more.

Now, you might be afraid of using objections as ideas for content. Don’t be. In fact, you need to think exactly the opposite. These are the perfect topics for content. Why? Because even if everyone isn’t giving you a specific objection, you know they’re there. So use your platform to help brides overcome objections by educating and explaining your point of view.

Keep a running list of topics and add to it when new questions or objections pop up. That wayyou’ll never run out of things to write about and easily have a whole year’s worth of ideas. Who knew coming up with content ideas would be so easy?


About Debby Dowling:

Debby_Dowling_headshot

Debby Dowling, Bridal Marketing Expert, is the owner of Effortless Bridal Marketing, which offers a wide range of “done for you” bridal marketing tools designed specifically for wedding professionals. Effortless Bridal Marketing and its flagship product, Wedding Pro Newsletter, offer the best and easiest way for wedding professionals to stay connected with current and potential brides. Debby knows that the secret to good wedding marketing is getting the message right to your brides and created her services so wedding professionals can easily and consistently market their services.

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

5 Rules in 5 Minutes for Bride Attracting Content

 

Bride_and_Groom_Reading

I recently read an article on Search Engine People called, “5 Rules in 5 Minutes to Get Permanently Better Performing Content” that inspired me to come up with some “rules” just for wedding professionals. Here goes…

1) Write for your ideal client.

If your market is weddings, you need to write blog posts and social media content for the people planning those weddings…brides.

(Yes, I know that grooms are involved in the planning, too, so don’t give me a hard time for being sexist. About 80% of the time, brides are the ones surfing, scanning and planning.)

Write ONLY topics of interest to him or her. Don’t wax philosophical about the glorious liver and onion sandwich you ate or the present little Johnny left in his diaper for you. Unless the brides you’re working with are into that.

If we’re talking about brides, topics of greatest interest are:

  • Wedding planning tips.
  • How to advice.
  • Reviews.
  • Wedding ideas and inspiration
  • .Lots of pretty wedding photos.

If you don’t know what your ideal clients like to read, ask them! Or search the most popular wedding blogs to find out what brides are into these days.

Don’t repeat “London videographer” a million times in each blog post just to get ranked. This looks like SPAM to a bride.

Write for your ideal clients first; then consider the search engines.

If you want to attract wedding clients with your content, make sure you’re writing just for them.

2) Write articles that are easy and attractive to read.

I’ve seen some amazing blog posts out there that no one will ever read. Why? Because it’s a bunch of text lumped together. Reading it looks like hard work.

If you want want brides to actually read the stuff you write, follow these tips for writing (many of which violate the rules you were taught in school):

  • Write short paragraphs containing no more than three sentences.
  • Write the way you speak, including sentence fragments, contractions and informal language.
  • Use headers, numbered and bulleted lists so it’s easy to scan your article.
  • Add photos (brides LOVE them!) and video.

It’s not enough just to write interesting content; it has to LOOK interesting, too, if you want anyone to read it.

3) Ask for comments and feedback.

People love to follow the herd. Brides and grooms are no different.

If an article or Facebook post has a bunch of comments, we’re much more likely to read it and leave our own comment. The most popular posts get the most views.

Write about something interesting, helpful or provocative, then ask, “What do YOU think?”

Get a conversation going. You’ll get more interaction, which means more readers, more traffic and more business for you.

4) Add social media share buttons to your website and blog.

Make it easy for people who visit your website to share what they like on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. Studies show that this can increase your website traffic by 3x! Providing your content is good, that is.

The search engines are increasingly using social media sharing to measure the popularity of a website. What does this mean for you?

The more your content gets shared on social media, the more ranking and visibility your website will have.

5) Include a Call to Action.

It’s wonderful to have a popular blog or Facebook page with lots of people commenting and visiting. But the whole point is to get leads and book weddings, right?

To do that, you need a big, fat CALL TO ACTION on every page. A “call to action” is simply a tempting invitation for the visitor to take the action you desire.

Types of calls to action include:

  • An invitation to email or call you.
  • An email opt-in form to get a free report or gift.
  • A button to click to visit a page or download a coupon.

You’ve done all the hard work of creating the content and getting the bride on the page; include a call to action that gets them one step closer to booking you.

Now I’m going to take my own advice. What do YOU think about these rules? Did I miss one?

If you’d like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

The Importance Of Article Marketing

You’ve probably run across the term “article marketing” as you’ve built your business. It is an amazing way to get your name, and the name of your business out there, and familiarize people with who you are without them having to go directly to your website or storefront to start with.

written-word

Basically you are writing an article which is on topic with what services you offer, or even the wedding niche as a whole. You are selling people on the idea of your business, but avoiding actually selling them anything. The concept is basically to peak people’s interest, which can turn into sales when they look you up. You don’t even have to write these articles yourself, but can hire a freelancer to do it for you. To find out more about article marketing check out Morgan Barnhart’s article.

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.