If you’re in the wedding world, you know how important submissions can be. So what makes a great submission? No one knows better than us how time-consuming submissions can be. But trust us when we say, that no matter how draining the process is, there truly is no better way to get yourself in front of potential clients than to have your work featured. You want to make sure you get the best return on your investment. There are a few things you can do to make your submission package competitive and to maximize your SEO when you do get featured.

Read Submission Requirements

Whether you’re submitting for print or to a blog, each publication has its own submission requirements. They range from photo sizes and file names to vendor credits, etc. Make sure that your package meets all of those requirements before you submit. Blogs get hundreds of submissions daily, so submissions that don’t meet the requirements will easily be filtered out. Most publications have a submissions FAQ page that can serve as a great resource for familiarizing yourself with the brand’s requirements. It can also provide helpful hints on exactly what they’re looking for in a submission. 

Make and Keep a Contact at Each Publication

It’s much easier to get featured once you’ve got your foot in the door, so to speak. Make sure to thank the publication for their consideration or for a previous feature and encourage them to reach out if they ever need anything specific for editorial. Most publications do trend reports and will reach out to their favorite vendors with requests for specific submissions. 

Credit as Many Vendors as Possible

We can already hear the groans, but as time-consuming as it is to gather all of the vendor data from an event, we promise that it will pay you back in the end. Not only does featuring other vendors help maximize the SEO of the post, it also makes the other vendors aware of the feature. From tags and posts on socials to simply sharing the feature, the other vendors will help you spread the word at no additional cost to you. 

Make Sure You Credit Yourself

This may sound crazy, but you’d be surprised how many submitters forget to list themselves/their business in the credits! And while it may seem obvious to you that you were part of the event, it may not be to the blog editors. They do not usually do any in-depth fact-checking and likely won’t even notice if you’re not mentioned. So before you hit submit, double-check, because otherwise you’re just doing free advertising for everybody else–and who has time for that?! 

Check Your Links

When you’re linking credits to social media pages or websites, make sure to check each of the links before you submit. Most brands rely on the other vendors who want to be included in the feature to send their info, and while it may seem impossible, sometimes people simply send the wrong link or will make a typo, yes even for their own business. It only takes a second to click each link and make sure it takes you to the right place.

Use a Critical Eye When Curating

Typically, images are your first hurdle when it comes to submitting. And while it may be difficult to sift through thousands of images and boil down an awesome event to a handful of your favorite moments, there is a sweet spot when it comes to how many images you submit. For a publication, excess images to sort through equates to excess work, so submissions with more images than requested usually end up on the ‘no’ pile. Each publication has their own number that meets their needs, and it’s usually a range. Never submit less than requested, but remember that you don’t need to send the maximum either. You only want to send the best of the best–images that speak to your brand and will convert future clients. 

Have a Professional Write-Up

For a standard submission, you want to cover the basics: who, when, where, and what style. Read a handful of sample features from the publications you’ll be submitting to, this will help you get a feel for their voice and the kind of details they’re looking for. Then, simply write the day as you remember it, but channel your favorite author. Make it sing, make the reader feel like they were there (or wish they were). Then, the all-important step–proofread it! With tools like Grammarly, proofreading is so easy to do these days, so there’s no excuse. And, even though Grammarly does do a wonderful job, we always recommend giving the entire write-up one more read before sending it off, because there are some things that even AI can’t grasp (like millefoglie). 

As a creative and a business owner, we understand how difficult it can be to find a work-life balance, especially now that you have to add submissions to your to-do list. At Masterfully Managed, we’re here to make your life easier in any way we can–and yes, we even do submissions! From curating your photos to crafting your write-up and hitting submit, we do it all. And if you know Katie, then you know she has contacts at all of the best blogs and publications, which makes getting your foot in the door super easy. If submissions are something you’re struggling with or simply don’t like doing, let us know which parts we can take off of your plate so you can get back to doing what you love. 

Check out submissions we’ve helped make happen for our clients HERE! We’d love for you to stay in the loop and keep up with our incredible client submissions. Follow us on Instagram HERE.