In 2019, we made a major shift in how we do editorial placement with Offbeat Wed.
Going forward, we are only offering blog placement (what used to be known as Vendor Spotlights) as part of custom annual campaigns. This means that we are no longer writing one-off sponsored posts on the blog about wedding vendors. Our annual campaigns start at $3000, and are freaking awesome. We'd love to talk to you about putting one together, so email us!
If that's not in your budget, then we offer one-off editorial placement via our Insta Spotlight posts.
INSTA SPOTLIGHT POSTS
What exactly does an Insta Spotlight include?
Businesses that already appear in our Vendor Guide (or want to purchase a listing) can submit a pitch for one of our Insta spotlights. Each Insta Spotlight package includes:
- One photo posted in the our Instagram Feed, complete with a caption, tags, and an @reply to your business.
- Two slides posted in the our Instagram Stories, a little over a day apart to ensure that they get seen by two day's worth of people.
How's the process work?
We try to make it simple for you:
- You submit your business for consideration via this form
- We approve your submission.
- We work with you via email to schedule the post.
- You send us the materials: photo, tags, @reply account, and any promotions you want us to write about in the post.
- We write the posts and publish it as scheduled.
- We'll email letting you know the post has gone up!
Can you help me figure out a fun offbeat promotion or discount to include in my Insta Spotlight post?
While we're happy to scheme post angle and focus with you, any promotion you offer to Offbeat Bride readers is a business decision that only you can make — we don't feel it's our place to advise you on how to run your business. We're happy to work with you to feature a promotion hosted on your site, but for liability reasons we are not able to offer guidance on what promotion (if any) you should offer to Offbeat Bride readers.
Can I do a giveaway as part of my Insta Spotlight post?
Yes! We're happy to mention any giveaways you're doing. That said, we do not administer any giveaways — that is to say, we do not promote giveaways that involve entrants leaving comments on our posts. We find that our clients get WAY more engagement if we promote a giveaway on their own page.
Can I use a video as my Insta Spotlight?
We consider videos on a case-by-case basis.
Can I do multiple Insta Spotlight campaigns?
Absolutely! Although your Insta Spotlight post includes a feed post that remains in our feed, you're welcome to run additional Spotlights with new promotions or work you'd like to share.
BLOG EDITORIAL POSTS
Who gets to be featured on the blog?
We have recently shifted our offerings to only do blog editorial posts about businesses in vendor guide who have purchased an annual campaign. Unlike many websites, we're deeply invested in how our sponsors' campaigns do, and we won't accept your money unless we truly believe you'll get a return on investment. We are proud to say that 85% of our sponsored post clients get sales from Offbeat Bride readers. We've reached this level of success by being selective about who we feature in Vendor Spotlight posts. We act as an editorial filter, so readers find vendors, products, and services aligned with their values. Advertisers, meanwhile, receive the added credibility of editorial recommendation and don't waste their money on a campaign that isn't going resonate with our readership.
Where exactly does blog editorial placement appear?
Our editorial placement posts appear as an editorial blog post on the homepage of offbeatwed.com, in-line with quality editorial content read by about 50,000 brides each day. As the Vendor Spotlight post ages, it moves down the homepage like a regular blog post, moving into the paginated archives after about a week. These posts also appear in any relevant search results.
In addition to appearing on offbeatwed.com, your Vendor Spotlight post is also pushed out to:
- Email newsletter (17k+ active subscribers — we cull the list to remove inactives)
- Facebook page (153k+ fans)
- Twitter (22k+ followers)
We also selectively share sponsored posts on Pinterest (90k+ followers). If you're interested in having your business shared on Instagram, that's a separate purchase.
Who writes editorial placement posts?
We do, which is part of the cost of the advertisement. We treat our advertisers like publicity clients, and offer our copywriting services as part of the advertising package. Our founder, Ariel Meadow Stallings, has over a decade of experience as an award-winning copywriter and web marketer for industry giants like Amazon.com, Disney, and Microsoft, and she works with site editors to produce every sponsored post. We work closely with our annual campaign clients to know what keywords, products, and promotions they want us to feature. We then write the post for them.
Do I get to choose the photo(s) you use?
Yep. We'll scheme with you about photos. Alternately, we know what our readers love and we're happy to pick images from your website!
Do I get to approve editorial placement posts before it's posted?
Generally not. That's the “editorial” part of the post. We promise to hit on all the keywords, features, and benefits you specify, but we do so in our own voice, in our own way. In six years of Vendor Spotlight posts, we've yet to have a client who's unhappy with final product post! (If you find any errors, let us know and they will be immediately corrected.)
When we work with national brands, we are more flexible with this rule.
Will the links in editorial placement posts be followed by search engines?
No. We respect Google's stance on paid links and use “nofollow” links in all our sponsored Vendor Spotlight posts. This ensures that neither our site nor yours gets penalized for any perceived SEO rule-breaking. Trust us, you want to make sure Google knows we're being cool about our links. Here's more information from Google about avoiding perceived linking schemes.
