Blogging is a crucial part of any marketing strategy, but also something that can be overwhelming and easily pushed aside. I used to blog every day as a part of my daily workload. I quickly fell behind and became discouraged when I did not have any great ideas to write about. So, I came up with a plan that helped me have a continuous stream of posts for my wedding planner blog and a pile of future ideas at my fingertips.

Thinking up Ideas

• Use your own work: As wedding planners, you have all sorts of beautiful events to pull images from and potential clients LOVE to see your work and lots of it. Instead of using one wedding for one post, break it up into different aspects of the day. Ceremony, reception, décor, food, etc. You can easily get five posts out of one wedding.

• General interest: Make a list of 10 major topics that your readers will find interesting. Under each topic, list 3-5 blog ideas. Then you will have 50 topics at your fingertips. I constantly add to that list as ideas strike me so I am never staring at my computer screen wondering what to write. For example, one of my topics is children at weddings. Under that I have activities, kid’s tables, kid’s welcome bags and how to handle not inviting kids.

• Consume information: The best way to inspire new ideas and to keep up with anything new in our industry is to take in A LOT of information. I find it to be very inspiring to read about what is going on in the wedding planning industry and it gets my writing juices flowing. The two main ways that I find information are Google Alerts and other wedding blogs.
  • Google alerts: Google alerts lets you to create key word searches that automatically run and then the information is delivered via email. For example, I have an alert set up for wedding trends. Every other day I receive an email with all the news articles that contain that phrase. You can start setting up Google Alerts here.
  • Read other blogs: Reading what other people are writing about is not only important to inspire yourself, but also to keep informed about what is happening in our industry and what our competitors are doing. I use Feedly to organize all of the blogs I read.

Writing Your Posts

• Time management: Set aside chunks of time when you can write 2-3 posts at a time. I like to schedule two afternoons per week that I go to a coffee shop and write for 2 hours. It takes me away from all of the distractions of my home office and it is a nice change of pace to be in a new place.

• Scheduling your content: I try to be at least a month ahead with blog posts. I like to post three times per week, so I have 12 posts scheduled out ahead of time. This way if you miss a few days of writing, you have a bit of a cushion.

Find other ways to create content

Sometimes constant writing can be dull so I like to find other ways to create blog content. Here are a couple of ways to accomplish that:

• Interviews: Find someone your readers would like to hear from and interview them. You could record it and post an audio clip, or just post the transcript. Interviewing someone from your industry not only freshens up your blog content, it can also bring new readers who may be followers of the person.

• Guest bloggers: Inviting someone to write a post for your blog can be a great way to not only create content but to increase your readers. A guest blogger can bring their readers to your blog.

The main thing to remember is quality over quantity. If your goal is to post five times per week but you are not putting out quality content you are not going to be a relevant blog to anyone and you will drive yourself crazy with work. It is better to post one great article each week than to fill your blog with fluff. And remember there are many reasons to blog even if you think no one is reading.

Today’s post is a guest post from Amber Peterson. Amber is the owner of Cheers Wedding & Event Planning in western Washington. She has a Masters Degree in Integrated Marketing Communications and previously worked as a marketing consultant for wedding industry professionals.