Over the summer I’ve been contributing a weekly article to Independent Fashion Bloggers – sharing tips and thoughts from both a PR, marketing and full-time blogger perspective. Below is a round-up of the pieces I have written thus far. I hope you enjoy them!
The decision to leave a steady paycheck for full-time blogger status is highly personal and depends on a variety of factors, including everything from the amount in your savings account to your experience in marketing, PR or sales. If you’ve been toying with the idea of quitting your job, or are interested in putting together a strategy to help you get from here to blog-as-business, the considerations below will help you to clarify if now is the time.
With more and more style blogs competing for the attention of PR agencies, you can increase the likelihood of becoming a PR girl’s best blogger friend (that’s BBF, you know), by doing the following 3 things before you fire up your laptop to introduce yourself.
As you move forward toward transforming your blog into a revenue stream, advertisers are often a key component of that success. It’s important to make sure that your advertisers are seeing the value of paying for placement on your site so that they continue to advertise with you. In marketing we often talk about under-promising and over-delivering, or aiming to “surprise and delight,” our clients and their customers. So, as you grow relationships with advertisers, it’s worth asking yourself how you can do the same.
If only those blessed days of nonstop brilliant wit and sartorial creativity would stick around all the time.When gorgeous lookbooks are plopped in your inbox and fashion news or new seasonal trends offer themselves up for the taking. And your are enthusiastically on. all. of. it.
Ebooks, digital courses, consulting, t-shirts oh my! On your path to turning blogging into a career that supports you (day job not included), developing a signature product is a super smart way to go. Why? With your own products, you are no longer at the mercy of advertisers and brand partnerships. Instead, you build your own income through your own expertise and the credibility you hold among the community of readers you have built.
These days, even with a book written on the subject, and career consulting sessions, one of the most common types of email I continue to get are from young women wanting my advice on how to break into the industry. What I end up doing with these emails ranges from suggesting a paid consulting session, to writing a few lines, to offering to meet for coffee, hitting the delete button, and sometimes, offering them a position with my company. Honestly, it all depends on the tone of the email and a sixth sense if this person and I are a match.
OMG you guys. I am writing this post while sitting on a beige oversized chair, listening to Little Dragon, having just come into my friend’s lake house studio from floating in yup, a glorious, gorgeous lake, for about an hour. I’m pretty stressed out about it.
Having worked with tons of fashion and consumer brands, I also know that all the carefully composed, high-end photo shoots, casual jumping shots and daily style pics in the world cannot compare to having multiple senses engaged through branded video. However, many of us don’t exactly love being recorded, and if you, like me, have some strange hangup about being captured that way, it might just take a bit of courage and self-love.
Your brand essence is typically not something shared publicly, and it is often grounded in a long-term vision of where you see your blog going. As an example, Hallmark’s brand essence is the phrase, Enriching Lives. They use this terminology to guide the choices the company makes, from products to how they treat employees. Guess? sums up their brand essence in three words: wonder, passion and freedom.
A crucial strategy for any fashion blogger looking to go pro is increasing how many people come visit your blog each month. Impressive stats appeal to advertisers. They also give you major negotiating power when it comes to brand partnerships, landing that book deal, agent or job offer that will catapult you to become the fashion media powerhouse that is your destiny.
In marketing and PR, we listen as our clients talk about the purpose of their company, the inspiration and the particular point-of-view that drives them to create or serve customers. We help them figure out what parts of their story are most compelling, what makes them unique, and then we help them communicate that story to the media. Understanding brand voice, value, and what makes each company different allows us to craft compelling content that captures the attention of target audiences again and again. This recurring attention is what allows brands to increase awareness, become household names and ultimately grow and profit.
Being connected to fashion publicists is great. You get the inside scoop on all sorts of great designer collections, events and opportunities to partner with brands for fun and fame and financial gain. However, not all agencies (or publicists) are created equal, and some are more blogger-friendly than others. Some agencies focus solely on getting product onto celebrities or in TV shows and the movies, or only do production (events, runway shows), some are really focused on the digital space, and others have really honed their skills with getting products into print magazines. The more you understand about the agency, their client list and specialization, the better equipped you will be to reach out in such a way to pique their interest.
Photo Credit: ▲brian james
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