As a wedding planner, first impressions count—and your copy is that first-touch with prospective clients. Ellie Kime is an expert copywriter specialising in wordplay for wedding planners. Having started out in the wedding industry herself, Ellie understands the needs of wedding and events professionals. She prides herself on crafting warm, welcoming, conversational copy that connects and converts—and she can teach you how to do the same. We invited to unravel the copywriting conundrums of wedding professionals in our community, let's dive in...
How can I bring some more flair and personality to my copy?
Have you ever tried dictating your copy? We can feel a lot more "in the flow" when we speak as opposed to writing things down. Either dictate in real-time or record a voice note and then play it back, you can then extract bits that you like and tweak accordingly. It also often comes down to feeling comfortable implementing devices like puns, rhymes and witty comments. I think doing some TOV (tone of voice) work is really useful in improving confidence because you feel secure knowing that you're still operating within your brand guidelines.
TOV guidelines are keywords that you want your brand to be associated with, words like "sisterly", "approachable", "down-to-earth" etc. You can then assess all your copy against your TOV guidelines and see whether you're hitting them.
Any tips on crafting a bio for my About page and for IG that stands out from the crowd?
Inject some personality into it, however small. Already, that'll help you stand head and shoulders above so many others who don't think professionalism & personality can work together. PSA: they can. Really bloody well!
Another thing would be to avoid jargon that your readers won't understand. If it's industry-specific terminology that your couples would use, totally fine; if they don't know what it means, you're wasting precious characters. If you're struggling to think of a word which captures what you do/how you do it, think about how you make your clients feel—this transformation will really sell it. Don't play small. Own your area of brilliance!
Besides the obvious places (Instagram captions, About page) where else should I be focusing my attention in terms of copy?
Never underestimate the power of website microcopy—the little bits on your site like your button links, footer etc. A lovely example can be seen on Samantha Ciuni's site, where the button on her branding page says "Apply to be branded". Funny, tongue-in-cheek, makes me want to click!
Sure, the people who see them are going to be pretty far into your sales spiel already, but showing a bit of personality at every stage of the process will remind clients of why you're so fab and why you're worth the money! Also, think hard about the little details in your emails. I once booked a client based purely on the fact that I changed my iPhone email signature to "Sent from my phone - your email was so exciting I just couldn't wait!" I have also seen some great unsubscribe messages, this one spring to mind: You can [unsubscribe] all you want but you'll always be in our hearts.
Is it worth starting a newsletter as a wedding planner? If yes, should I target clients or vendors?
Yes! The buy-in that customers have on an email vs. Instagram is vastly different. As for who to address, I would angle towards your clients (bonus: any vendors in your contacts list will likely still be impressed by you!)
I always encourage the repurposing of content—efficiency is key. If you're already writing a blog that content should definitely be recycled into newsletter content.
I'd like to start repurposing my blog content for social media. What should be my first step?
Though it sounds pretty grim, "chunking" is really useful in blog post writing. Chunking refers to breaking up copy into chunks so that it's not overwhelming to read. Headings are then really useful for signposting and help a bunch with SEO. These headings are then a good places to start for social media content. For example, a blog post covering"10 Wedding Trends for 2023" becomes a 10-slide carousel on Instagram (or TikTok, now that it loves photo galleries!) where each slide corresponds to one of the headings/trends.
How often should I be publishing blog content?
It's less about frequency and more about consistency. If you've got a batch of 12 blogs written up, it might be better to publish one a month for the next year rather than every couple of days. The more words your site has, the better it is for SEO. So, if you've got loads to say, keep the blog content coming!
How do I continually come up with interesting new topics for my wedding blog?
Content creation works differently for everyone, but here are a few methods that work for me:
- Create content buckets by distilling what you talk about it into 4/5 areas that you specialise in. All your content ideas can then be planned out based on these buckets. For example, as a London wedding planner, your content buckets could be wedding tips, supplier shoutouts, trend watching and London elopements.
- Answer The Public and What People Ask are great tools for finding out what people are searching for on Google within your niche.
- Ask your audience on Instagram what they're struggling with, and how you can help.
- Check your FAQs for stuff that you could expand on!
The key to effective content creation is making sure you're constantly in conversation with your audience, that way you can always make sure you're serving up relevant info. Whilst it is great to stand out, remember that sometimes you might be talking about the same thing as someone else, but your perspective will be totally different. And that's ok too! You don't need to continually reinvent the wheel, you just need to spin it in a way that will suit your clients.
Read more copywriting advice from Ellie Kime on her blog or learn more about how she can help your business by visiting her website.
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