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Tips for planning your best year yet

Business4-Jan-2022

To kick off 2022, Jo Stott brings together some bridal boutiques from across the country, discussing how they plan for key bridal industry dates in the upcoming year.

Jo’s strapline: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

How do you plan your year ahead?

Firstly, by being STRATEGIC in your past year successes, achievements, and failures! Look at the strengths and weaknesses of pivotal points of the past year, and build or dilute what works and doesn’t work. Be OBJECTIVE when considering your future goals, and run with it. Meanwhile, your mindset, which matters with imperative importance, needs to be optimistic, confident, and enthused, orientated toward authentic growth and impact for your team and your brand.

Why is it important to use key diary dates when planning?

Dates are key to the planning and marketing strategy of our businesses. Your diary should be one of the most precious stationery additions to your store, enabling you and your team to strategise who is doing what, when and with whom. You need to know of your consumer whereabouts, and which platforms/marketing strategies will ensure your brides engage with your brand at specific relevant times of the year. Key planning dates help you to a) manage your team, b) manage your store and c) manage your consumer interaction with you. Your sales targets should be set around hours of work, days in a month, local and national events, holidays, inventory arrival, etc.

What key dates should boutiques be pencilling in this year?

Our ‘Bridal World Diary’ is busy. You should already have any market weekends booked out of your diary with team members attending, plus, any private viewings you may have during the year pencilled in. If you have not already done this, ask your designers to give you an idea of when their collections will be ready to view in 2022. This not only allows you to manage the team and diary, it also supports your buying strategy and assists you with your store inventory. Like an assessment tool, it will help you to work out what to sell off the shelf and what you need to keep for reorder. Obviously, you need to be aware of the whole ‘Calendar Year’ by way of priority dates: like the usual Valentine’s Day, Easter, Christmas, local carnivals, sporting highlight events, planned business events, bank holidays, school holidays, etc.

What are your 5 top tips for bridal boutiques when planning content?

1. Be Authentic (forget the staged imagery and non-recognised vocab)
2. Use Altruism (are you a brand with purpose)
3. Be Inclusive (does your branding exclude)
4. Add Value (how best can you add value to the bride’s experience)
5. Be Convenient (communication is key and needs to be at hand for DM’s and IRL)

How do you plan your year ahead?

Maddy - Morgan Davies, London: We find its best to get a large yearly calendar on the wall and map out everything with colour-coordinated stickers. Bank holidays, staff holidays, important dates, sales, etc. This means that everyone has a great idea about big events and availabilities ahead of time. More recently, we have been doing quarterly events schedules also so that we can think ahead and make sure we have exciting things happening across both of our boutiques every month.

Elaine - Elaine Rawlings Bridal, Cornwall: I always buy a diary as soon as they come out. I then look at sales patterns from the previous years diary to plan accordingly. What months we had promotions and look at the relevant peaks and troughs throughout the months of the year.

Mairi - Emma Roy Bridal, Edinburgh: To plan for the year ahead, I think it’s important to look back and evaluate the year before. Obviously it’s a little tricky, as Covid has been a real barrier to success this year and the data won’t be as helpful as previous years so I may also have a look at the figures and data from previous years too. Doing an in-depth analysis of the business and asking myself some big questions is always a good starting point. From a sales perspective: What gowns sold well, what do we need more of? Do we need to change the budget to accommodate for some of these things? Which systems need adapting to better suit our current business needs, do my team need some more support or training in some areas? After looking at all of this I can then write up a strategy to tackle 2022 and to start the year off with some achievable goals for both myself and my team.

Why is it important to use key diary dates when planning?

Maddy - Morgan Davies, London: It helps give a benchmark to where you are in the year and what targets you should be hitting by that point. It also allows you to get creative and think about special events that you could plan on the associated dates.

Elaine - Elaine Rawlings Bridal, Cornwall: Key diary dates are essential to point towards a successful year ahead. In January, you know we have an influx of newly engaged brides and brides excited to find their dream gown. I always use December to make sure the boutique looks its best, including decor and stock. Touch up any paintwork and repair any samples so everything looks fresh before re-opening. Valentines Day also brings engaged couples, and the summer months are key months to be liaising with our seamstresses as we deal with wedding season and brides aftercare.

Mairi - Emma Roy Bridal, Edinburgh: For us, using key dates when planning is helpful because it helps keep structure for the team and helps us to plan ahead with excitement and positivity. For example, it might instruct how we best plan for quieter periods, help us to utilise certain events to our advantage. For example, hosting a sale in the New Year will help make way for all the new stock arrivals, or creating pop-up events for times where we need to boost sales and generate more interest in our shop. Saying all that, its important to be able to adapt in this current climate and have some creative solutions up your sleeve if things don’t quite go to plan!

What key dates should boutiques be pencilling in this year?

Maddy - Morgan Davies, London: We like to look at more niche dates for example, we currently have a Blue Monday special event planned, this makes light of what is supposed to be the "saddest day of the year". Black Friday has always been amazing for us, whether boutiques like to or not, this is a great date to utilise. We also like celebrating dates specifically for Women, Breast Cancer Awareness days etc. to create unique and personable content to show our brides.

Elaine - Elaine Rawlings Bridal, Cornwall: As well as key dates for the consumer, (the bride), we also need to consider key dates for us as bridal shop owners. The first big date for me will be Bridal Week London this March, where I will buy the next seasons gowns, catch up with fellow bridal shop owners and of course share the odd glass of fizz! I then visit Harrogate again in September where I can top up on any missing styles in my collection or add in more styles already performing well. This year for the first time I’m actually also blocking out some holiday time in advance which I’m not great at! After a crazy 2021, I’ve learnt it’s important to block out that me time so when you are in the boutique your are at your best, especially if you work alone which a lot of boutiques owners do.

Mairi - Emma Roy Bridal, Edinburgh: We will be putting a real focus on events this year, as they work really well for our business. We are really looking forward to the arrival of our new stock in January, we also have some new labels arriving in the store around March. We will be planning an event to showcase these new additions and are so looking forward to meeting our new brides, but also seeing our 2020 and 2021 brides finally getting to tie the knot! We think that celebration is key after so many sacrifices in the last two years, and will be creating a calendar of events for both the brides and the staff: from a Valentines Pop Up event, a collaboration with some local wedding suppliers and some exciting staff training sessions.

What are your 5 top tips for bridal boutiques when planning content in advance?

Maddy - Morgan Davies, London:

1. Show your personality, keep it light and fun
2. Brides love to see what is new but also older styles that aren’t shown off as often. We find that there are certain dresses that are called away on shoots all the time and others that are best sellers, but never get requested, so it is important to show those off too.
3. Keep an eye on what is trending and keep updating your content ahead of posting it.
4. Keep all of your outtakes, this can make great content.
5. Even though you are planning in advance, stay on top of what is happening right now - there is nothing worse than posting something at the wrong time that isn’t in line with the current climate.

Elaine - Elaine Rawlings Bridal, Cornwall:

1. Look at the seasons and the colour palette that brings to have a pretty eye-catching insta grid. Instagram for me is the key platform for today’s bride.
2. Targeting newly engaged couples after public holidays, like Christmas and Valentines.
3. Make sure your website content is relevant and up to date, especially important over the last 18 months with ever changing retail guidelines on how you run your appointments.
4. Imagery: your website is your shop window, make sure all the dresses you have are pictured and up to date, nothing more frustrating for a bride to enquire about a discontinued or sold dress!
5. Be flexible, again especially in current times, as things can change we would normally plan a months grid in advance for imagery but the actual content probably only two weeks at a time in case it needs to change.
Planning is key to running a successful boutique!

Mairi - Emma Roy Bridal, Edinburgh:

1. Figuring out posting goals - How many times a week do you want to post? What kind of posts? What will be manageable for us to maintain and what is going to work best for our engagement?
2. Plan your feed in advance using an app. Our faves are Planoly, UNUM or Preview. These are so helpful scheduling your posts and you can lay out your feed in advance to make sure you’re posting consistently.
3. Have a content day each week set aside with your staff or models to come in store and take new content. This helps to create a backlog of images but also keeps you inspired to make new types of content.
4. Have templates for stories and grid text posts. This enables us to keep the branding consistent but also allows us to quickly make new content here and there when needed as we’ve already created the template.
5. Struggling for content or running low on ideas? Work with your customers! Get the real brides to interact with you and share them on your profile - that’s our favourite thing to do! Once a week, we share our brides on a Sunday with their wedding photos, dress and story. It helps in both content planning in advance but also interacting and engaging with our audience.