Show notes:
Today we are sharing copywriting Strategies for wedding pros. Have you ever wondered what makes good copy? How do you use words to sell your wedding business and stand out from the crowd? Today I am chatting with wedding industry copywriter Jennie Hawkins who is going to be sharing her top tips with you.
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Time Stamps
00:02 – Understanding What Makes You Different
07:01 – From Horses to Tesla: A Journey in Marketing
11:10 – Transitioning into the Wedding Industry
22:08 – Understanding Copywriting and SEO Strategies
30:10 – Highlighting Your Unique Selling Proposition
Transcript:
Jennie
00:00:00.160 – 00:00:18.480
Okay. What makes you different? So when I land on your website, I want to know what makes you different and I want you to tell me.
Like you said, couples are thinking about themselves. They are making lots of decisions. This is where you want to be persuasive and you want to put your salesman hat on as well.
Becca
00:00:19.760 – 00:01:12.120
I’m Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger, and you’re listening to the Wedding Pros who Are Ready to Grow podcast. I’m here to share with you actionable tips, strategies and real life examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you love, then you’re in the right place. Let’s get going with today’s episode. Today I’m chatting with wedding industry copywriter Jenny Hawkins.
After 15 years working in marketing for brands including Tesla and Aston Martin, she decided to go ahead and set up her own business with one goal, to help wedding industry people use the power of copywriting and SEO to generate more visibility, more leads and and more sales. Jenny is based here in the UK and enjoys family life by the sea down in Devon. I cannot wait to find out more from her today.
Jenny, welcome to the podcast.
Jennie
00:01:12.440 – 00:01:14.600
Hey. Hi. Hey, Becca, how are you?
Becca
00:01:14.760 – 00:01:31.960
I am very well, thank you.
Now, I have to say I am slightly jealous about how close you do live to the sea because where I am in Bedfordshire, we’re about as far from the sea as you can get in the uk. And when I was down at university in Bournemouth, I could see the sea almost every day.
Have you always lived by the sea or is that more of a recent thing?
Jennie
00:01:32.040 – 00:01:51.940
More of a recent thing. I grew up in land locked Derbyshire, so we were pretty much in the middle of the country.
But yeah, I’ve always sort of, since I left home, I gravitated towards the sea. Now I’ve lived in Sydney, New Zealand, near the sea and yeah, now in Devon. So, yeah, I highly recommend it.
Becca
00:01:52.020 – 00:02:27.120
Yeah, I think one day maybe I’ll manage to get myself back to the seaside again. I would love to move back to Bournemouth. Maybe one day. It’s on the list. Maybe I’ll be one of those people that retire down there.
Now, before we get into our conversation about copy, and I have a whole load of stuff that I want to chat to you about today.
Whenever I have a guest on my podcast, particularly one that hasn’t been on before, I always like to do a bit of a background Refresh so that the people listening understand who they’re learning from and why they should listen to them. So take me back through a little bit of your career.
I mentioned it a little bit as well in the intro, but how did you get started in the world of marketing and copywriting in the first place?
Jennie
00:02:27.330 – 00:04:09.520
Yeah, I just definitely didn’t grow up thinking I was going to be a copywriter. Wasn’t even on the agenda then. But I grew up basically riding horses, and I always wanted to work with horses. When I was older, that was my dream.
I was a professional rider or a groom or something. I left school, I went to agricultural college. I did an amazing course which was like 50% business and 50% riding horses all day, and I loved it.
But at the end of it, I’d done a bit of work experience and I’d realized very quickly there’s a big difference between working in the industry and actually having it as a hobby. And what I really enjoyed about that course was actually a lot of the business side.
So I ended up going to university, doing a business and marketing degree. And then afterwards, I magically somehow landed a job working as in the marketing and PR team for the Horse of Year show at Wembley Stadium.
And I was like, oh, dream job. You know, it combined my love of horses. But I had this marketing side and I did that for a number of years.
And then I went traveling for a while, worked in Australia and New Zealand, came back, worked in London, worked in marketing, and then, yeah, that’s where my career kind of led me very much into those marketing roles. And then I ended up kind of specializing in more like digital marketing, website content.
And my last couple of roles before I set up my own business was with Aston Martin, so in the automotive industry. And then I got the opportunity to go to California and I lived over there and worked for Tesla for.
Well, I was over in California for about five years in the end, and I ended up being a senior manager for digital content and localization. So basically, I lived and breathed websites for. For a couple of years.
Becca
00:04:09.520 – 00:04:53.840
What an exciting life history. There are so many things I could dig into just in that small thing. We could do a podcast just about your history.
I want to go back to the Horse of the Year show to start with, though, because what I love about that, and it’s something that I actually teach my kids.
And when I did the school career fair, I talked to and I think we don’t value it enough, is that we can live our dream and find work in our dream area. That’s not necessarily the thing we thought we could do. So, for example, my daughter is very into soccer. Football.
She loves playing football all the time, and that’s her dream, to be a football player.
And I always say to her, even if you don’t make it as a football player, there’s so many careers and jobs and opportunities for within football that you could do. So that must have just been incredible when you got that job and you got to work in the world of horses, but doing it in a slightly different way.
Jennie
00:04:53.840 – 00:05:46.570
It was. And you know what? I look back now and I basically pitched the company. I literally found this company that organized Horse the Year Show.
I wrote them a letter. I think I was like 24 at the time, fairly fresh out of university, and they responded. And that was a real life lesson as well.
And I use that today in my business. If I see someone, you know, you know, when I come on a podcast, it’s like, I will pitch them and. Because the worst people can say is no.
And so that was a big life lesson and it took me on a whole trajectory career wise.
I didn’t start off being the marketing or PR manager, but I, after a couple of years, I was promoted to that role, which was a great platform for the rest of my career. So, yeah, you’re right. There is always. But you don’t always know that when you’re young. Obviously.
I think one of the worst questions we can ask kids sometimes is what you want to be when you’re older, because you just don’t know. But, yeah, that was a great early start in my career.
Becca
00:05:46.570 – 00:06:57.330
Yeah, I agree with you. And also, we end up putting people into boxes. Like, there’s just these few careers that you can choose from.
And actually there’s a whole plethora in every industry of different things that we can be doing. So, yeah, absolutely. An important lesson, but also the confidence lesson to just ask the question, to just pitch to just why not?
I always remember that’s how my parents brought me up and that’s how I’m trying to bring my kids up as well. It’s like, well, if you want to work in television, why not not? Oh, it’s never going to happen.
But why not go find an opportunity, make it happen for yourself. Don’t just sit back.
And I think there’s a lot of people listening, even in their businesses today who are missing out on opportunities because they’re too scared to just ask the question or pitch to come on the podcast or, you know, someone pitched to me recently has Come on the podcast, someone I’ve worked with for a long time, and they’re like, oh, it’s taken me ages to do this. And I think, well, why? Because I would have said yes six months ago. You know, just ask the question.
Because like you said, the worst thing that can happen is I go, oh, no. Or not at the moment, or not yet. But you’re no further back. But actually, if you get a yes, it can propel you forward.
Now let’s forward on then to this California opportunity. I want to hear more about that because a dream of mine is to go and live in the States for five years. That sounds amazing.
Was it all it was cracked up to be? How did that opportunity come about? What did you learn from your time out there?
Jennie
00:06:57.330 – 00:08:42.889
Yeah, so that opportunity came about moving to California. I followed a boy, specifically my husband, I just married. He. He was an automotive engineer. He is an automotive engineer.
He worked at Jaguar Land Rover and he had the opportunity to go out and work for Tesla. So we went over on his kind of opportunity and we were living in Silicon Valley where all the big tech companies are.
You’ve got Google, you’ve got Facebook, you know, obviously Tesla as well, Amazon and. But because I’d worked for Aston Martin, I. It was fairly easy, easy for me to get that work at Tesla.
That was an opportunity there because of the sort of synergy of what I’d done before and was it cracked up. California is an amazing place to live. Like, amazing. I’m very much into running and cycling and the outdoor opportunities are amazing, the weather.
But yeah, I would say after a while, the shine for me wore off. We had children out there. I wanted to be back living near family. That was a huge pull for me.
We definitely came to a crossroads in our journey out there where we were like, should we stay or should we go? You know, had a green card application. Ultimately for me, it never felt like home and I never deeply connected with the country, if I’m honest.
But the opportunities in terms of career and work were very good. I would say work life balance, especially in that industry. The tech industry that we worked in wasn’t what. It wasn’t easy.
It was a very different work life balance to, I feel like what we have over here in Europe.
And then when I had a baby out there and I worked for the company, I only got four months maternity leave and I actually ended up leaving Tesla just after my. After that maternity leave was ended because I just wasn’t ready to go back. It was very, very short for Me.
So, yeah, there are pros and cons, I would say.
Becca
00:08:43.129 – 00:08:45.809
A lot of lessons learned. A lot of lessons learned.
Jennie
00:08:45.809 – 00:08:46.969
It could be along the way.
Becca
00:08:47.209 – 00:09:28.880
Yeah, yeah. Amazing. And again, another opportunity where you as a family just said, yeah, why not? Let’s go try it, let’s go do it.
And I’m sure you learned huge amount of things through that experience as well.
Now, I’d love to know, before we kind of get into your more recent career and working in the wedding industry, there must have been lessons that you learned from working in marketing and corporate and things like that for some of these big companies.
I know when I look back over my own career working in television and radio, there’s still things that I use now that I learned from being in those big corporations.
And although wedding businesses, obviously we don’t have the budget that Tesla has or the budget that, you know, Aston Martin has for our marketing, there are still things we can learn and put into our own business. So is there any standout things that you learn from working for those companies?
Jennie
00:09:29.040 – 00:10:34.630
Yeah. So the biggest one for me is during my time at Tesla, like I said, my. My work was very much centered around their website.
And they had, I think it was like 18 different website sites behind the scenes across, like, different languages, so about 20, 25 different languages. So we manage a hell of a load of content for that.
For Tesla, the biggest mindset I learned, regardless of tactics and things, was around your website is a sales tool.
Like, Elon Musk at the time was very much focused on what Amazon was doing, what Jeff Bezos was doing in terms of that one click, like, making it easy to buy. He was trying to break down that whole thing of, you know, a car’s a massive purchase. People need to go to a dealership, they need to.
They need to go and test drive it. He wanted people to go on the website and he wanted them to buy, like, order a Tesla for thousands of dollars. Okay.
And so that is the mindset that I very much bring into the world. I do now as a copywriter, I am very much like, if you have worked hard to get people to your website, do not lose the opportunity to convert them.
So, yeah, that was the big. That’s the biggest thing that I feel I still bring in into my. My work today in the wedding industry.
Becca
00:10:34.710 – 00:11:13.190
And it’s interesting because that seems like a ridiculous thing. It seems on the surface like, who’s going to buy a Tesla in one click?
When I think about it, for more than 10 seconds, actually, Tesla’s done a good job.
And actually if I wanted one, I probably would buy online without test driving it because I’ve seen enough Teslas and I’ve read enough about it to know. And so actually I think that’s an interesting lesson as well, that just because something seems improbable doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t work.
And I think, you know, that’s why we see these business owners earning billions of pounds because they were willing to take a risk or willing to break the mold and do something different. And I think there’s definitely stuff for us to learn from that as well. Okay, so you came back from California, back in the uk.
At what point did you decide, I’m going to start my own business?
Jennie
00:11:13.350 – 00:12:51.500
I started my own business. So like I said, I had my first baby in California. I was still working at Tesla. I decided I wasn’t going to go back.
After four months, I decided to be a stay at home mom. But nine months after my baby was born, my head just began to be like, I need to do more. I stopped. I couldn’t switch off.
I was like, I still needed to work and be creative and being a stay at home mom wasn’t, wasn’t quite right for me. But I didn’t. I wanted the flexibility. And at this time I discovered this whole world. Yeah, like business ownership, freelancing.
So I would say after about a year I set up my own business which was very much around kind of offering all the things in terms of marketing, I would say outsourced marketing. I did some Facebook ads, I did social media management and it was great. I kind of worked with a few different clients and.
But I discovered very early on that what I loved was the writing side and more to the point is writing to create action, to get a response, to get attention.
During this process I discovered copywriting and yeah, that led me onto this whole trajectory of studying under some of the best copywriters in the world. I really deep dived into it.
I already knew copywriting can take many different forms, but because of my experience at Tesla and working on the website, I was already a website geek, very passionate about websites and I knew early on that I would want to combine that copywriting and the website side as well. So it wasn’t a linear journey at all.
I worked with a few different clients, a few different industries and then eventually I really niched down into website copy. And later as I’ve moved into the wedding industry, it’s also that SEO piece as well.
Becca
00:12:51.500 – 00:13:01.780
And how did you end up working in the wedding Industry because that’s very different from the automotive industry. It’s a totally different kind of thing. So what was it about weddings that made you go, yeah, I’m going to niche into this?
Jennie
00:13:01.780 – 00:13:58.380
Yes. In the first couple of years I worked across different industries.
I worked, I wrote about, you know, I wrote for physiotherapists, I wrote for travel agents, I wrote for tech companies and it was great. And I was always doing website copies and product descriptions about pages, homepages, sales pages. It was great. But I always had that feeling.
I wanted to niche down into a specific industry. And then about 18 months ago, a lovely wedding planner based in Paris contacted me. She found me on Google.
She’d been in business about 10 years and she wanted to up level her website copy and really also improve her SEO.
And I ended up working with her and it’s through working with her really, I just became sudden aware all these amazing wedding businesses out there and yeah, I just thought, right, let’s, let’s try this niche. And yeah, I haven’t looked back. I worked with some amazing businesses and yeah, just really excited to niche down.
It’s just, yeah, something that I’ve been really, really enjoying.
Becca
00:13:58.460 – 00:15:13.290
I’m biased, but I think you entered the best industry in the world.
I think what I love about the wedding industry is that yes, it’s a niche, but there’s so much variety within it because actually, despite us being a niche, there are so many different business types within that niche that it just never gets boring. And there’s more businesses being invented and new ideas and new thoughts and new trends coming all of the time. And I love being part of it.
And I’m sure those people listening love being part of it too.
And if you’re listening to this and thinking about joining the wedding industry, let me tell you, it honestly is one of the best industries to work in because there’s so much creativity, so much talent and so much joy in this industry and you will meet so many interesting people. So you joined the wedding industry and you are now officially a wedding industry copywriter. And you also help people with their SEO.
Now, I think both of these are a little bit dark arts. People don’t always understand SEO. They don’t always understand what a good copywriter is or what copy is.
I think often, you know, when people start out, they go ahead, they write their own website, it’s just words on a page and I think it’s only down the line then they start listening to episodes like this one or doing more learning or they Think, oh maybe, maybe copy is something I need to understand more about. So for anyone listening who thinks, well, what’s the point of a copywriter? I can just do it myself.
Can you give us a brief explanation about what makes good copy and what you actually do?
Jennie
00:15:13.290 – 00:16:40.620
Sure, yes. I’m going to take a step back and just say like, what is copywriting? So copywriting has its, at its heart is sales focused.
It’s like it’s all about getting a sale or motivating someone to take action. So often it’s used interchangeably nowadays with content writing.
Content writing is informative and if you think about like top of a traditional sales funnel, you’re thinking about where people are trying to find information about a product or a service. It’s a blog post, it’s, it’s, it’s providing information but not really wanting anyone to take or need anyone to take any action.
Where copywriting is those sales pages, it’s your website, it’s product descriptions in E commerce. It’s really getting people to understand what your product is, what makes you different, why they should buy from you.
And it’s at its hard, it’s very persuasive type of writing.
There is a point, yeah, I always encourage people to write their own copy and start to understand what copywriting is because it’s a critical skill in your business. But there comes a point also where you need to be very strategic about the copy you write.
So at that first kind of point in your business, you are really figuring out what you’re offering, the types of clients you’re working with. But then that next level up is when you need to get very strategic about your copy.
And in terms of definitely the SEO, making sure you’re getting found on Google is a big piece of it. And also making sure that you’re, yeah. How you’re different and why people should buy off you and purchase off you.
And that’s where persuasive copy comes in.
Becca
00:16:40.850 – 00:17:27.770
I think it’s really difficult sometimes as a business owner to know where to spend your money. And I think copy’s an interesting one because it’s something I’ve thought about a lot myself.
I think I probably am at a point where I should be having a copywriter in my business.
I’ve looked into it a couple of times, I thought about it a couple of times and it’s not cheap and it shouldn’t be cheap because the skill that you’re doing is hard. Right. And you’ve worked for it and it should be something you Invest in.
But I think it’s really hard sometimes for us as business owners to see the connect between. Well, if I invest, invest X amount of money now, this is how it will benefit my business financially down the line.
But presumably it does like tell me in layman’s terms why I should invest, you know, a few thousand pounds in copy. What is it going to do for my business? Is it, is it because I’m going to get a better quality of client?
Is it because I’m going to get more conversions? Where is the benefit going to be?
Jennie
00:17:27.770 – 00:19:41.380
Yeah. So apart from websites, I’ve also written things like emails, sales pages where you can really, really track the difference.
So things like email open rates or email sequences for things webinars, this is outside the wedding industry, but things like that.
You can really notice if you’ve got a strategy behind your copy and you are using some of these proven copywriting principles, it does start to make quite clearly make a difference. And you can start to put numbers on there like I know, 100% show up rate for a webinar, for example, by using a strategy and solid copy websites.
You are right. I would encourage everyone to kind of know what their conversion rate on the website is for a start and get close to those numbers.
That’s easy to do in terms of like your numbers and your tracking is easier to do on the SEO side by looking at analytics and Google Search console, but you can also look at your conversion rate. So how many people are visiting your website and how many people are taking that desired action?
How many people are clicking on that money button which is like say, you know, contact me or book me or inquire now or whatever that money money button on your website is and have an idea in terms of investing in a copywriter, is it worthwhile? Actually a lot of my clients say that the whole process is. It’s not just about words.
Often on the website they’re getting that whole package of making it super clear like who they are. It’s the whole process. It’s not just words.
So they find out, you know, like having someone come in with fresh eyes and asking some deep questions and also doing lots of customer research and finding out why someone should book you and not someone else, why customers love you. You start to extract all these amazing messages that you can then put back into your copy and you can start to build that bigger picture.
And I’m not saying that you can’t do you know, often my, the clients I work with, they know their business inside out and they know their customers, but I’m not able to have the time and sometimes they just don’t have that expertise to know how to draw that out and then translate that into strategic copy. And it’s. Your website is basically your shop online.
No matter what you do on Instagram or TikTok, you’re trying to get people back onto your website and people are looking at your website and there’s a disconnect between Instagram and TikTok and then your website people notice that disconnect as well. So it’s super, super important to make sure everything is cohesive there as well.
Becca
00:19:41.380 – 00:21:28.120
And also just the fresh ey thing is so valuable because, you know, I look at other people’s websites and other people like I’ll do marketing reviews for people all of the time and I can go in debt, but I struggle to do it for myself. I need someone else to do it for me.
And so I think in anything, having someone else take a look at something and give some valuable input and see it from a different perspective is always incredibly valuable. And I’ve had some clients who’ve spent some really good money on good copywriters on their website and it has made a difference.
And you can see it up levels the whole website because they have it designed and they have new copy and it just breathes new life into it and it brings them a higher quality of client and it helps them convert because they’ve already sold themselves before they even get on the call. So, yeah, absolutely. So, so valuable.
Now, when we were talking about this episode, we had a bit of a conversation beforehand and you told me about something interesting that you did at the beginning of this year. So you basically, in Q1 this year, you offered out some tough love, as you called them, web copy and SEO reviews.
And in that process, I think you reviewed around 20 different wedding industry businesses looking at the SEO and their copy. And I love that you call it tough love, because I always say to people, if you want me to review something, be prepared for me to be honest.
And I always say you have to ask yourself, do you really want to know? Because sometimes people ask for a review, but they actually just want you to tell them everything’s fine.
So I love immediately that you called it tough love. And I’m sure you found some amazing things for those businesses and I’m sure it’s helped them move forward.
But what’s interesting is having done that exercise the beginning of this year, you’ve now seen some correlations, some things mistakes or opportunities where there’s been similar things going on for the different businesses. And I think you’re going to share a few of them with us today, which I’m super excited about.
So, yeah, tell me what’s probably the biggest thing, the one thing that comes to mind first from doing those audits that you think, yeah, more people need to know this.
Jennie
00:21:28.120 – 00:22:28.150
Good question. Yeah. So just to recap, like you said, I did 20, I did 14 in Q1. 6 at the end of last year across many different types of wedding businesses.
And it was a way for me to really understand, like, what. What was going on in the wedding industry.
You know, as someone who’s just kind in, I’ve worked with a lot of different industries, but what’s going on in the wedding industry, what those common sort of themes or opportunities in terms of SEO and web copy.
So the biggest thing for me is actually not even with my copywriter hat on, but with my SEO hat on, was the lack of SEO strategy, keyword strategy in particular, and missing out on getting your website found on Google. Basically, that was the biggest one.
Especially if I would say if you are a local business and you’ve got people searching for your service and location, there was a big. There’s a big opportunity often around getting, making your website optimized for Google. That was one of the biggest ones.
Becca
00:22:28.150 – 00:22:51.040
I think one of the biggest hurdles immediately that I know that people listening will be saying, and it’d be interesting if you got any insight into this, is they don’t know whether or not they’re doing okay on Google. Like, they don’t know what they don’t know. So how would they find out whether or not they’re ranking for any keywords?
How would they find out whether what they’re doing is working? Because it may be that they’ve tried to do something, they just don’t really know what they’re doing.
Jennie
00:22:51.040 – 00:26:30.250
Yeah, I thought about this a lot, actually. Like, what is that SEO? Why is SEO a kind of pain point, if you like?
And I think when people set up a wedding pro, set up the website initially and, you know, you might have some thoughts on this. I feel like they go either create it themselves. Okay.
And perhaps have limited SEO knowledge because they are a wedding planner, they are a photographer, they got. They’re wearing all the hats and yeah, you’re right. They might try and do a little bit of the SEO piece and then.
Or they go to a web designer who says, yes, I can do the SEO, but ultimately they are a web designer or they might do a Little bit and then it kind of stops. Whereas SEO is, it’s not a done and forget thing, although you can put the foundations down and make get a solid strategy in place.
But there are ongoing bits and pieces you do need to do as well. So how do you know? So first of all, Google Search Console, if you don’t already have that set up, it’s a free tool.
So make sure you’re, you’ve got that set up for your website if you’re not sure how to do it. This is going to sound very meta, but you can Google it.
There are great videos on there and that collects data and shows the keywords that people are currently using to find your website. Okay. There’s also a free website tool. There’s a free and paid version and it’s called ubersuggest.
And if you use a free version, you get number of searches free. But you can basically put in your URL and it will spit out lots of valuable information.
Audit your website basically in terms of SEO and it will show you like how you’re doing and what keywords people are currently using to find your website and things like that. So, and you can also use keyword tools like I use use key search and that can show you keyword volume.
So at the very, very first step, just put in there what keyword you think your clients or couples are using to find your service. Now often the problem is what we think our clients are using is very different actually what they’re putting into Google.
And I’ll give you an example. So I did a tough love review for a lovely lady who made custom or bespoke wedding veils.
And she was using bespoke wedding veils as a keyword on her wedding website in a couple of places.
When I went in and did a little bit of keyword research, people were also searching for custom wedding veils, embroidered wedding veils, like lots of different terminology. So it’s really good to just die. Nothing ever bad has come out of doing keyword research.
Another example is I wrote a website for a real estate agent in America and that threw up a lot of different keywords around Realtor, which is a word they use over there in America. And also they do use real estate agents. So it’s being really strategic and looking at what people are actually using.
And then obviously you can actually actually also Google the keywords that you think or you know people are using and then see what comes up on Google itself. Because Google will often tell you what people are using. But there’s Like a section called Related Searches or the featured snippet section.
And Google will show you like other keyword ideas.
So you start to get this bigger picture and then also you can look at whoever’s coming up on like you say your competitor who’s coming up on 1, 2 or 3 or ranking in those top three positions and start to have little store around to see what they’re using. And this just starts to get you thinking like an SEO strategist, which is the very, very first step.
And then the second step is obviously where to put those keywords, which is the second step on your website, which is like the keyword placement side but as a starter. Do some keyword research, hit Google up and start having a play around.
Becca
00:26:30.410 – 00:26:53.560
Yeah. So important in terms of keyword volume though.
I think again this is another sticking point for people because obviously our volumes aren’t necessarily huge.
So for example, if we are are a wedding stationer in Kent and our keyword is wedding stationery Kent, it may not be a huge volume, but it may still be worth us ranking for. So is there like perimeters that we’re looking for in those numbers when we’re deciding which keywords to use?
Jennie
00:26:53.560 – 00:27:47.760
Yeah, that’s a good point.
I always think the tools that are on the low side in terms of numbers, like in terms of the keyword, like the volumes, I would always say they’re a little bit higher than the tools often say.
But also I would say that if people are searching in something like, I don’t know, wedding photography, Yorkshire, that is a very highly intent transactional keyword. Okay, these are, Even if it’s 10 people, they are 10 people who are looking for what you offer.
So obviously where you spend your time in terms of your marketing, but it’s totally up to you.
But I would say if you get your SEO side, your SEO game strong and you can attract start to get traffic from high intent couples, that can only be a good thing because once it’s set up, it’s on repeat as well. It’s not like Instagram where you’re always on the visibility wheel. It’s set up and, and it’s, you know.
Yeah, you have to kind of make tweaks and updates, but it’s not like everyday like Instagram visibility. It’s a, it’s a long game.
Becca
00:27:47.760 – 00:28:01.000
Amazing. Okay, so that’s a great tip to start with on the SEO side of things.
So go do your research, look at where you’re maybe not focusing enough on keywords, do some keyword research, give Me something you learned on the copywriting side of things when you looked at these websites.
Jennie
00:28:01.000 – 00:29:12.200
Yeah. So fundamentally, this is a huge one, is you need to make your client the hero and you are the guide.
So there’s a lot of websites out there that are talking all about themselves. And the issue with that, it’s very hard for people to connect. You know, we talk a lot about copyright copy that connects with people.
And the way to do that is to make the, the, the reader the hero and really involve them. So rather than, it’s like, you know, we offer full day coverage. It’s.
You’ll get full day coverage so you can relive every tear, laugh and you know, try and condense, move or whatever that is. But you’re immersing someone in the copy and you’re sh. The energy.
It’s like going on a date with someone when they talk about themselves, it’s not as off putting.
Whereas actually if you have that conversation and write to them, write copy as if you know you’re speaking to your very best favorite couple, it instantly becomes more conversational. It’s more. Yeah, just more full of personality and it’s just magnetic. If someone’s writing something with the word you, you. You want to read it.
Becca
00:29:12.200 – 00:30:10.950
Yeah. So true. And I see that all of the time.
My, I go on wedding business websites, especially on the homepage, for some reason, the first thing they want to do is tell me how amazing they are. All of the time I’m like, save it for the about page. Let’s make this about. Like, they don’t care about your 27 different awards at this point.
Like, they want to be bought into the dream first. And then maybe later down the line we can give them a bit of, you know, bit of credibility and that kind of thing.
But I think a lot of wedding businesses, if they go on their homepage of their website, will realize the first thing they talk about is themselves and not the couple who are, you know, quite honestly, they’re looking. They’re selfish themselves. They want the best thing for their wedding day. They’re not really interested about your business or giving you money.
They just want to make sure they get the best service. So I definitely resonate with that one.
And I think just changing some of those eyes to use and to talk with your couples in mind is a really, really simple way of updating the copy. Okay, give me one final thing then from either SEO or copywriting that you learn.
Learned during this process because these are really, really helpful.
Jennie
00:30:10.950 – 00:31:45.100
Okay. What makes you different so When I land on your website, I want to know what makes you different and I want you to tell me.
Like you said, couples are thinking about themselves. They are making lots of decisions. This is where you want to be persuasive and you want to put your salesman hat on as well.
I worked, I know a lot of people say, oh, my wedding photographer, I don’t know what makes me different. You know, there’s nothing about me. And I know it is really hard and you do have to dig deep sometimes. But I.
One of my first fun fact, one of my first copywriting Gigs was writing 100 product descriptions about mattresses. Okay?
Now if I can find different things about 100 mattresses, I’m pretty sure there’s something different about you as a wedding photographer, as a human being. Okay?
So make it obvious and shout about it and don’t make your couples work hard to figure it out because you are probably in a competitive market and if you think about the customer stage of awareness, awareness, they, they know what your product or service is. You don’t have to spend a lot of time saying what wedding photography is. It’s not like a technology product.
But this is where you can really lean into that differential differentiation piece. And you can say things like, couples love working with me because X, Y and Z.
Like on my about page, I have a section that says why I’m different to all those other copywriters out there. And yeah, be direct, be very specific. Use humor as well. If it’s on brand for you, you. But don’t make them figure it out.
Don’t make them have to jump around your website or get that feeling you can actually just tell them why you’re different.
Becca
00:31:45.260 – 00:32:10.450
I think again, sometimes people get stuck on this.
Like you said, either they think nothing makes them different or they, they decide on something that makes them different which is actually the same as everyone else. And so they, they’re like, oh, I’m different because I’m rustic and luxury and you know, and it’s just the same words everyone else is using.
Do you have any examples of maybe clients you’ve done this for? Or you know, how can you could a florist or a cake maker, how would they describe themselves in a way that shows that they’re different?
Jennie
00:32:10.450 – 00:33:22.329
Yeah.
So I worked with an amazing wedding stationer earlier this year and one of the things she did, she’s, she’s based in London and she is like the preferred wedding stationer for major five star hotels in London. Okay. And she’s done with these Amazing curated collections. And it was kind of like buried in a way.
It was mentioned, but it was buried in the website. I don’t even know what page.
And I was like, oh my gosh, this is like not many, if any other wedding stationers can put claim that you work with these amazing. Let’s make this visible. So it can be something like that. It can be something like who you work with or the type.
Like for me, for example, I talk a lot about copywriting and SEO, so there’s not many copywriters who have that SEO knowledge. So for me, I build my messaging a lot around that and then also some of how I. Some of my processes as well. So yeah, it can be hard to see.
It’s basically just digging deep and also looking to your customers, like looking at some of those reviews. What are, what are customers raving about? What do they love about you?
And it doesn’t always have to be wildly, you know, you know, groundbreaking, but it needs to be meaningful and something, yeah. That can make you stand out from 99% of the other competitors in your area.
Becca
00:33:22.410 – 00:33:56.950
And I guess that’s what a copywriter like you does.
Well, is that when you work with a new client, you get that stuff out people by asking them the right questions, by asking them leading questions so that they start, start to, you know, this stuff flows from within them. I find that on the podcast all of the time. I’ll start a conversation with someone before I hit record this.
I don’t know if I’ve got anything interesting to say.
And then, you know, a bit like when we talked just in the first 30 seconds and you introduce yourself and your background and there was loads of interesting things to talk about because actually people have all this stuff within them, but they just don’t realize it’s interesting or exciting or different because it’s the life they’ve lived. And so for them, it’s just every day.
Jennie
00:33:56.950 – 00:34:54.690
Absolutely. I think like you said we said before, it’s a process as well and giving it yourself space to really think about it.
So for example, when I work with a client, first thing they do is this like questionnaire where I’m asking them all about who they’ve worked with, what led, you know, what’s their origin story. And like you, I’m like, oh my God, why are you not shouting about this? You know, it’s very, very rare that I don’t work with someone.
And I’m like, don’t let this be your best kept secret. You know that original planner that I Worked with, she’d. She’d organized over 400 weddings in Paris. Okay. And it was not mentioned on her website.
It was like, no, we need to be talking about, you know, that’s a huge credibility booster. So, yeah, I guess the biggest takeaway there is also give yourself space to kind of look back at where you come in your business often.
We’ve outgrown our business a little bit as well. You know, our business has moved on from when we first wrote our copy.
So it’s like, okay, let’s look at the last two, three, four years, the weddings I’ve done. And yeah, really celebrate and bring that to life in your copy.
Becca
00:34:54.690 – 00:35:27.310
Shout about it, love it. So much. Good stuff that.
Jenny, I’m so glad you did all these audits at the beginning of the year and at the end of last year because there’s been so many learnings for you that you’ve been able to share just a few of them today. And I’m sure if I get you back on in the future, we can share some more as well. But we do need to round this up.
It’s been a fantastic conversation and I could, as always with my guests, talk to you all day. Now I believe you’ve got a bit of a gift for some of my listeners.
A document that’s going to help them, particularly with their copywriting when it comes to blogs. So can you tell me a bit about that?
Jennie
00:35:27.310 – 00:36:16.750
Yeah, this is more SEO, but Ultimate Blog SEO Checklist. It’s a nine page checklist and basically what I don’t want you to do is write more content for your website that isn’t optimized for Google.
So I’ve got a checklist which will help you work through that. I also include 13 ways to drive more traffic to your blog. So what we don’t want you to do is spend time writing a blog and then it just dies.
We want to be driving traffic to it.
And the reason I’m talking about blogs as well is because when I often look at my clients analytics and what, like what keywords or what pages are driving most traffic to the website, it will often be a blog post that they wrote four years ago. So blogs are still huge, hugely important. And I think this checklist will do a good job of making sure that that is optimized for Google.
So Google, Google loves your. Loves your content.
Becca
00:36:16.910 – 00:36:49.510
Fantastic. I’ll make sure I put the link to that in the show notes so you can all go ahead and grab that from Jenny if you want to.
And if you’re not blogging at the moment. I know it’s a word that you think, oh, I don’t want to talk about blogging.
It is still really helpful for being found on Google and the people that do it well and do it in an SEO optimized way are benefiting getting from it. So blogging works if you do it correctly. So absolutely go and grab that checklist that will really help you now.
Jenny, I always end my podcast episodes by asking my guests the same question. So I’m going to pose that one to you now, which is what’s one thing you personally wish you’d known sooner in your own business?
Jennie
00:36:49.590 – 00:37:55.000
Yeah, so for me it is a cash management system or a cash flow management system called Profit First. So when I first started my business, bearing in mind I’ve been employed for a number of years, I was very used to just getting my paycheck in.
And yeah, here are my wages wages. The whole money management around my business was a very unknown area for me.
So about I used to just had a business account, but I was never very sure how much to pay myself, how much I needed to kind of keep to side for taxes and operations. So about one or two years into my business I discovered the Profit first system.
And basically that’s where you have different pots of pots or bank accounts for your money.
So I have one account where all my income comes in and then I strategically at the end of each each month take based on a percentage, take out say bits for tax operations and then my wages and I set up different accounts for it. So I have that peace of mind that I have a pot set up for my taxes. I know how much I’m paying myself.
And yeah, just a much more strategic way of managing my money.
Becca
00:37:55.240 – 00:38:48.220
So important. If you haven’t ever read Profit First, I do recommend it, go and find it on Amazon.
Or if you’re like me and you’re not very good at reading, reading a book, you can get it on Audible as well because I listened to it when I listened and went through Profit First. But I think it’s a really important lesson actually. And it was one that I learned as well quite early on in my business.
And I see business owners in the wedding industry making this mistake all the time when they’re not really on top of their finances or they don’t want to think about their finances. And what ends up happening is they end up making no money and working really hard.
And actually it’s only sometimes a few small tweaks and a few small Changes to the way they think about and manage their money. That makes a big difference. So yeah, that was a great one.
I don’t think anyone’s ever said that in all of the episodes I’ve had of this podcast, so love it, love it, love it. Jenny, thank you so much. I’ve loved having a conversation with you today.
I know there’s loads more we could cover, so I may have to get you back again maybe next year, but thank you for your time. If people want to find out more about you and about your copywriting and SEO services, where’s the best place for them to go?
Jennie
00:38:48.220 – 00:38:55.350
Yeah, so I hang out on Instagram Jenny Hawkins copywriter but also my website, jenny hawkins.com fantastic.
Becca
00:38:55.350 – 00:39:22.510
And I was looking at your website today to have a look at your good copy on there and there are some great things as well. So do go and have a look.
I always think looking at a copywriter’s website is a good way to learn about how to do copy because they always have some good stuff on there. So go and have a look at Jenny’s website as well.
And again, I’ll put all of the links in the show notes and I will also link to some of those tools that you recommended earlier as well so people can find them. Jenny, thank you so much for your time. I hope to see you in person somewhere very soon.
Jennie
00:39:22.510 – 00:39:24.760
Thanks Becca. Thank you so much. Great talking.
Becca
00:39:24.840 – 00:39:53.830
Such a fantastic conversation with Jenny. I think it was a really interesting thing to think about these audits that she’d done and to see some of the lessons that we can learn from it.
Both copywriting and SEO go hand in hand and they’re key skills to have. I recently had Jenny inside the members lounge as well for my members where she talks in depth about copywriting for the next generation for Gen Z.
If you’re interested in hearing that full session, then why not consider becoming a member of the Wedding Pro Members lounge. And if you are a member and you haven’t watched it yet, make sure you go and get catch up. I’ll see you all next time.
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