Summer is a wonderful time filled with family holidays, sunny days (hopefully!) and, for many of us, the joyous chaos of kids being off school!  As a bridal boutique owner, balancing your business with family time can be a challenging feat and as a mum of three young boys myself, I totally get how overwhelming and guilt-charged it can feel!

You don’t want to take your focus off work, as those bookings really are needed right now, but how can you possibly do that whilst entertaining the kids or having some much needed time off yourself?!

Well, with a little preparation now, we can get your marketing running smoothly all summer long. Ensuring a steady flow of new bride enquiries, maintaining your boutique’s visibility, and enjoying a more relaxed mindset knowing your business is thriving even when you’re not constantly hands-on.

Here’s my top tips to help make your marketing easy this summer:

The bride’s mindset

Just because it’s summer time doesn’t mean brides stop thinking about their wedding planning, their priorities may have just shifted. They are likely to be attending weddings themselves, going off on holiday or generally just being out and about a little more. So, get super clear on what your ideal bride wants to see from you over the summer. Put yourself in their shoes. What will they be doing? How will they be consuming content? What would really help them right now? What will make them stop and pay attention to you?

Get clarity

Then get super clear on what your goals need to be for this period. Do you want more bookings? Do you have an event coming up that you need to market? Are bookings looking ok but you want to build your community? Assess how these goals match with what your bride actually needs right now too. If there is a disconnect, look at what you need to adapt. It’s super important to put your brides needs at the forefront and re-align your goals to help satisfy them. It will make you a more attractive choice to them if you are speaking their language.

Have a plan

Having a plan is the backbone of making things easy for yourself. Be realistic about what time you can dedicate to your business and marketing over the summer. Be kind to yourself, don’t over promise as that will just end up having a negative effect on your output. If you are having a holiday, block out that time in your diary and stick to it.

The beauty of scheduling

Imagine how great it would feel to have all of your social content planned and scheduled for the summer months!  No more, grabbing a few spare minutes in-between entertaining the kids or interrupting that important cocktail hour on the sun lounger! Yes, it will take some work getting it planned out, but you will reap the reward.  Plus, you’ll have a strategy to what content you’ve put out there, rather than just winging it to see if a reel will go viral. Consider your posting time too, are your brides more active at different times during the summer? There are loads scheduling tools you can try, but the ones I would recommend are Later, Hootsuite and Planoly.

Repurposing is your friend

What content have you already created that would be relevant to your bride this summer? Did you write a blog last year about planning a summer wedding or how to start your dress shopping journey? Has your website got an FAQ section with tips brides would find super helpful whilst relaxing in their garden? Use this previously created content to create more bite-sized social content and videos. Look at what content has worked before and do more of that too. I bet you have more content already created than you think! 

Automate where you can

This is a huge timesaver and there are lots of tools out there to help make this easier. 

As peak wedding season is upon us it’s the perfect time to collect real wedding imagery and testimonials. Think about your processes for collecting these. Can you automate them so they start flooding into your inbox without you having to do anything?

Automation is also great for your email marketing. Do you have any events coming up post the summer season? Start teasing these out to your database over a series of emails so you are creating interest on a different marketing channel.

All of these tips are easy ones to start actioning now, which will help to ensure your boutique remains top-of-mind for brides, even during the holiday season.

If you need any support to create a badass summer marketing plan, my 1 Hour 1:1 Power Sessions are currently on offer this month at 50% off for all Bridal Buyer subscribers.  Just quote BBUYER in your email to me at hello@badassmama.co.uk.

You can also follow me at @__badassmama and find out more at www.badassmama.co.uk