Blogger Spotlight: Emily, Bespoke Bride

Bespoke Bride is a platform created by friends Emily Pettiford and Jessica Turley to offer DIY tips, real wedding stories and styled shoots. Launched in 2011 to share original wedding ideas and motivate couples to incorporate quirky craft ideas and their personal style into their planning, the blog has gone from strength to strength. In this spotlight Emily, who was recently featured in our wedding blog ranking chats to us about why people should read Bespoke Bride, how she measures its success, and the challenges of promoting it on social media. 

Why should people read your blog? What makes it different? We love to celebrate the creative ways, in which couples can make their wedding truly personal to them, which when you think about it, should be exactly what a wedding is all about. Bespoke Bride is a site dedicated especially to that, featuring inspirational weddings & styled shoots, helpful guides and advice pieces. We also share easy to follow DIY’s and tutorials for modern couples who want something a little more bespoke for their big day.

How do you measure the success of your website? 

For many, success is measured in how much money you have made and although that is important and we are very lucky that Bespoke Bride earns two full-time wages, success for us is measured in how many people we have been able to help and inspire.

There is nothing that makes our day more than an email or comment from a bride or groom to say thank you for giving them the confidence to do their wedding their way. We’ve learned that success can’t always be measured in facts and figures.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a blog? There is so much advice we could give but I suppose the main would be to never think about starting a blog for the money.

In our first few years we made very little and were running full-time jobs alongside trying to get our business off the ground. Those days were really hard but we were persistent and determined and eventually it paid off.

We would also say the best things to blog about are those that you are passionate about. If you aren’t totally in love with your subject eventually your readers will see it, you will begin to despise it and the cracks will begin to show. It’s like that saying ‘find a job you love and you will never work a day of your life.” For us talking about weddings and getting creative is what we love to do and although we work extremely hard, it is just a whole load more fun!

How do you work with marketers and PRs? We have very recently been lucky enough to take on a head of marketing and PR. She has been a great friend to us for many years and has pretty much been there for us as a friend since the very early days so we knew she totally got our brand and what we were trying to achieve. She helps us generate coverage in print media which is great as it still plays a very important role in how couples plan their wedding, we love to share DIY’s, as well as tips and tricks.

We have also noticed a huge increase in the number of small businesses that are using PR companies to reach out to bloggers which is fantastic. We have got to know and work with some great brands we might not have otherwise heard of because of this and we think it is a great way for small businesses to reach out.

How do you use social media to promote and share content? What are the challenges? We structure the way we use social media and are very specific about what we share on each channel. For example we use Facebook to share our latest posts, competitions, etc with our readers, whereas we use Twitter to connect with other businesses. Instagram has quickly become our favourite form of social media. Our account is very curated and reaches out to a much wider audience than just weddings, which has led to some really fun ‘out of the box’ collaborations. The challenges are of course that there are so many types of social media now and trying to keep up with the all can become overwhelming. We like to try and be everywhere if we can, but our No: 1 rule is to focus on making one or two platforms really good as this can be more effective than doing a half-hearted job across all social media channels.

What can PRs do in working better with you? There are several ways I think PR’s and bloggers can work better together. First, I understand that businesses might not have budgets to advertise however many blogs are now recognised as businesses and therefore should be compensated as such. I always liken asking for a free sponsored post or advert to asking your local store if you can have a free TV because buying one isn’t in your budget. I’m pretty sure that store manager would think you were crazy! Offering to write your own article about your business for the blog so that they don’t have to isn’t much better either? Again it’s like going into a sandwich shop and asking if you can use their ingredients to make your own sandwiches because you can’t afford to pay for it? As bloggers we spend all day, every day, generating useful content, we trawl our analytics, spend hours researching, writing, coordinating social media and generating our own PR to amass thousands of readers and social media followers for businesses to promote too, they simply can’t use all that hard work for their own benefit and expect it for free.

I do believe however, that when budget is an issue, there is a rare opportunity for mutual benefit, it takes a little more out of the box thinking rather than just sending a generic press release but we have worked with a number of businesses in this way. You just need to make sure the project is actually going to benefit the both of you and make up for both the time and cost.

I also prefer it when a PR has taken the time to find out our names and address the email to us personally, rather than just ‘Dear Bespoke Bride’. Our names are plastered all over our blog and social media so it really isn’t that difficult to find out.

Lastly, I always recommend that PR’s should take the time to research the blogs they are reaching out to, make sure that the business you are introducing them to is a good fit for their brand and readership, it’s much more beneficial to your business this way.

What has been your blogging highlight? There have been so many highlights, it’s so hard to choose one! I love how running our business has changed us as people, we have become more confident, more intuitive and stronger. I think we would both agree that we have learnt more in these past 4 years than we have in our whole lives! I also cannot express the number of great people and opportunities that blogging has brought into our lives. They have made us more inspired and are the reason we get out of bed every day.

What will be big in your blogosphere in the coming months? Blogging has become really popular and I think we are all going to have to start thinking of ways to differentiate ourselves if we are to stand out. Adding a different element to the blog, video content as well as picking a niche that hasn’t been tapped into, creativity and an original voice will remain the keys to running a successful blog.