I recently featured a vendor on my blog (in this post) and since then, I’ve been asked by a few photographers why I feature other vendors on my blog. Since it’s a question I’ve been asked more than once, today I thought I would answer it in a blog post.

Why feature other vendors on your blog?

There are many benefits of featuring vendors on your blog and if it’s done right, featuring other vendors on your blog will be beneficial to all parties involved. Let’s talk about the benefits I have found to be most common. By featuring other vendors on your blog….

1. you become a resource for your readers. I talk a lot about this in my FB group and there’s a reason for that! Creating engaging content for your blog is what will keep readers coming back to read what you publish week after week. By publishing helpful information for your readers you are adding value to their lives and this will keep them coming back to your blog.
2. you get to connect with other vendors and make industry friends. As a wedding photographer, I work with countless vendors for each and every wedding and it’s always a pleasure when I work with people I’ve worked with before and often whose work I admire. When I know some of the vendors that we’ll be working with on a wedding day I feel like I’m part of a team, a team that will work together to make our couple’s day go as smoothly as possible.
3. you get to introduce a favorite vendor or product to your audience. Have you ever worked with a vendor who you wish you could work with more often? I have, and guess what? Featuring them on my blog allows our audience to get to know them, gives them credibility, and increases the chances of our client hiring them. Recently, I featured one of my favorite local invitation designers in a vendor spotlight and in less than two short weeks I’ll get to capture the gorgeous invites she designed for one of our couples thanks to that post. Our bride actually emailed us shortly after that post to thank me for recommending her. It was a win-win-win situation. Our bride has beautiful invitations, the designer got to work with an entirely new client that found her thanks to our blog, and soon I get to include stunning wedding invitations in our bride’s detail shots.
4. you get introduced to another vendor’s audience. Once you feature a vendor on your blog, that vendor will inevitably share about the feature on his/her social media and maybe even their email list, too. Now your blog post will get traffic from an additional source and you’ll be introduced to an entirely new audience!
5. you get to help someone grow their business. I’m a huge believer in #CommunityOverCompetition and helping others in our industry grow is something I find truly rewarding. By featuring other vendors on my blog I know that I am helping to improve someone else’s brand awareness, grow their business, and maybe even increase their website traffic and strengthen their SEO.

Who to feature

Once you’ve decided to feature vendors on your blog, the first order of business is to decide who to feature. Be very careful with this one. You want to make sure that anyone you feature on your blog produces work or offers a service that is in line with your ideal client. This part is really important. You don’t want to feature a vendor on your blog if their aesthetic is totally out of line with yours. Also, it goes without saying: choose vendors who you know, like, and trust.

 

How to feature other vendors on your blog

Now that you understand why you should feature other vendors on your blog and you have an idea of who to feature, let’s talk about how you can make it happen. Here are three examples:

• Invite vendors to write a guest post. This is essentially a full post written by someone else that is then published on your own blog. For example, last year I invited Jeanne from Bogath Weddings and Events to write A Guide to Hiring a Wedding Planner. I ended up working with Jeanne on several different projects within the last year including three weddings, two styled shoots, she even planned and styled my blogging workshop in April, and now she is working hard on our July workshop as well as working on a secret project for Day 2 of the workshop. Having her share a post on my blog has allowed me to educate our brides while giving us the opportunity to grow and learn from each other.
• Create vendor spotlights. These are a favorite of mine! These are blog posts that include images of a vendor’s work as well as a handful of questions that the vendor has answered. As an example, you can check out this vendor spotlight that I just published a couple of weeks ago: Boutique Rental Company: Rustic Drift. In this case, I worked with the vendor to figure out how I could photograph her recent work and then I sent her a set of questions that she answered in writing. Once that part was done, I published the interview-style article on my blog. Not a wedding photographer? You can do this in any area of specialization! I did this for my favorite newborn prop vendor recently – click here to view the post.
• Write venue spotlights. I’m not going to lie, this requires a lot of work. Basically, a venue spotlight is either a short article written by you that shares information with your reader on a local venue or it is an interview-style article with questions and answers that you ask the venue to provide. I started a collection of venue spotlights last year and chose to write them myself; you can view them by clicking here: NJ Wedding Venues.

 

As you can see, featuring vendors on your blog will require a bit of leg work on your part, but it will allow you to create evergreen content for your blog that your readers will be able to enjoy time and time again, you’ll become a resource for your audience, and in the process you’ll be able to help grow both another vendor’s and your business, too.

Vendor Credits for Featured Image

Rentals + Styling | Rustic Drift
Venue + Catering | Parker’s Garage & Oyster Saloon
Florist | Lily in the Valley Florist
Menu Cards | Britt Larson Designs
Drink Signage | Sandy Plum Design Co.

Interested in learning more about blogging for your photography business? Registration opens soon for the next Blogging for Creative Entrepreneurs Workshop! Stay tuned!