CHARTING A COURSE FOR SUCCESS THIS YEAR

STRATEGIES FOR ATTRACTING CLIENTS, BUILDING CREDIBILITY, AND PRIORITIZING MENTAL HEALTH

The start of a new year is always a great time to take stock of your businesses' focus and goals for the upcoming year. The bonus in the wedding industry, January - March tends to be a slower season allowing you all a little bit of reprieve from the hustle and bustle of weddings. What better time to pour into your business! Here are 3 areas we think you'd benefit from making sure you have a proactive strategy in place:

1. Attracting-and-Booking-Your-Ideal-Client Plan

The wedding industry is unique in that you have to book new business year in and year out. You may get a few repeat clients for other celebratory events, but the bulk of your income is going to come from clients you've never worked with before. Have you put thought and energy into how those couples are going to find you? Have you defined what type of client is your "ideal client"? Are you thinking of raising rates and thus needing to work with bigger-budget clients? To better attract your ideal client you need content on your website and social media that only reflects more of what you want, consistent press on the sites your ideal client is reading, and strong relationships with vendors who have similar ideal clients. Are you up to snuff in all those areas, or are there 1-2 you need to work on during this slower season?

2. Credibility Plan

With the turnover of clients each year, it's important you continue to build and maintain your brand credibility. While every press feature should be celebrated, you can't expect past press to propel you forward. In other words, that one-time feature on *insert highly coveted media outlet here* is not going to serve you a year later. One of the most important things you can do to continue building brand credibility is to consistently land press for your company. If the links on your website's "Press Page" are taking readers to stories more than a year old (or are just logos that don't link to anything), you need a press plan for 2024! And not to raise alarm bells, but it's better to do this quickly as lead times with outlets are 6-8 months, meaning content that is accepted now won't run until later this year. If you wait too long you risk the chance of not having new press until 2025. Consider this your sign to submit your galleries, or hire someone to help!

3. Mental Health Plan

Do you feel as though you're just maintaining your business? And that if you want to grow and scale you need to duplicate yourself otherwise you run the risk of a breakdown? We hear this all the time with our clients... running a business is no joke! Sometimes growth requires investing in more help, outsourcing tasks, and/or hiring specialists to take care of certain areas of your business. This may seem counterintuitive as you're spending money on things you can do yourself, but the possibility is making those investments will yield bigger returns in the end as you're freed up to focus on other areas of your business. This may be hiring someone to run your social media, manage your press submissions, run payroll for your employees, be the direct report for your team members, handle the initial new inquiries you receive, and so on. You will never reach that "next level" by doing it all yourself. What you'll reach is burnout, stress, anxiety, and a lack of a healthy work-life balance. Find people you trust and allow them to help you grow.

Work With Be Inspired PR 

Need additional assistance deciding what and what not to offload? As always, we are here for any help you may need with press, social media, or business coaching! We wish you all of the success this coming year!