photography: Carla Ten Eyck // floral design: Just for You Floral Design // table design: Jubilee Events

Hello friends! I know it's been a minute (or two) since I put up a hefty blog post. Today I wanted to share with you my top 5 reasons why you should be creating unique content for your blog! Last week I spoke at the Coterie Retreat on a great panel discussing styled shoots with my esteemed colleagues,  Amy Anaiz, Selina Howard, and Brian Green. During our chat, we discussed the five reasons why you should be working with your peers on styled shoots– and those take aways are universal to anyone who runs a creative, content rich blog. 

These reasons apply to the vast majority of us in the wedding industry: Wedding Planners & Designers, Paper Artists, Photographers, Cake & Confection Makers, Caterers, Hair & Makeup, Fashion Stylists, Rental Companies, and anyone who is selling a product or service.

5 Reasons why you should be creating unique content for your blog

 1. Unique Content Gets Traffic. Unique Content + Traffic = Sales: The more work you put out there the more sales you're likely to have. You can't always count on getting images from a photographer at your clients wedding, and furthermore, you might get the images but your product or service isn't showcased in the way you had hoped it would be. Take matters into your own hands and photograph what it is that you do, and the art that you create, before it's shipped to a client. Have a new product you want to push? Create a styled shoot around it!

2. Tastemakers Get Noticed: The more work you put out there that is inspirational and unique, the more people take notice. Putting together unique visual content gives you the opportunity to set trends and go outside the perimeters set by your clients. You will have the ability to invent and set trends, which will inspire others in the design of their weddings and events. The more work you accomplish on this level, the more you’ll be known as a taste maker in the industry.

3. Unique Content Can Be Used Over and Over in Different Ways: Case in point: take a look at the image I used above for this post. Pretty, isn't it?! I know! And the best part is that I assisted in the creation of that image, which is from a styled shoot for my second coffee table book, The White Dress Destinations (you can purchase our current coffee table book, The White Dress in Color here). Instead of searching for free and overused stock photography– or worse– buying stock photography, why not create some unique content for your blog that you can use in multiple ways.

Another one of my favorite examples is a photoshoot we designed for Bliss Celebrations' 2014 cover. In our shoot design we styled a pretty bar cart, and I've been able to use that image over and over in new ways, like this blog post I did about styling a bar cart. A final example is a blog post my team is working on right now for New Year's Eve party inspiration. We were in a bind because we hadn't actually put together anything for this post specifically, and New Years Eve is less than 2 weeks away (eek!).  So, I just sifted through my many folders of styled shoots and dug up some beautiful inspiration of a shoot we did with a Kate Spade inspired tablescape, which translates perfectly into a festive (and girly!) New Years Eve dinner.

4. Increase Your Pinterest Traffic: How much traffic do you get from Pinterest? Here's what my impression traffic looks like for the first two weeks in December 2015 on eventjubilee.com:

That's a lot of impressions! My google analytics placed Pinterest as one of the top referrers on my website– and for good reason! I spend a lot of time ensuring that our website is Pinterest friendly and that we maximize our exposure on Pinterest. One of the many ways I do that is by creating unique content that people want to click on, or at the very least, repin. It's no secret that Pinterest is a huge tool in the wedding industry, and if you create unique content, you have the ability to increase your exposure on Pinterest which can turn into sales. I have had clients book our company because they saw our work on Pinterest.

5. Endless Social Media Content to Promote Your Blog: I imagine you use various social media outlets to market your company and connect with people who are interested in what you offer. Creating unique, visual content for your blog can also translate into content for your social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, Google+, and LinkedIn. This week I posted an image from a photoshoot that I worked on from 2012. Yeah, 2012! The image got a huge response because the content is still relevant and well, the image is pretty! I legit have thousands of images I can post at any given time on our social media accounts to attract followers, customers, and purveyors of pretty things. And the beauty about the wedding industry is it turns over every year— so every year during engagement season– we small business owners have a whole new audience to market to. An audience who, more than likely, have never seen the inspiration we've created.

So there you have it– 5 reasons why you should be creating unique content for your blog. I hope that as 2016 approaches, you are putting together a plan on creating fresh content for your business that increases not only your audience, but also, your sales. My number one reason for doing styled shoots and creating content for my businesses' blogs is because I love doing it for me. Sometimes, we can be limited in our ideas by a clients vision and budget. Working on a these kinds of projects will give you the opportunity to create something just for yourself, which can feed an untapped creative energy.

I'd love to know if this blog post helped you– so leave me a comment below!