As a professional wedding planner, you not only need to impress brides with your wedding planning skills and experience to get hired, you also need to impress them with the way you communicate. Since so many “introductions” and “relationships” are begun and carried out online through emails and posts on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, it’s important that you have good written communication skills.
You don’t have to be a great writer, you just want brides to know that you can clearly and professionally communicate with them.
Here are 4 tips that will help you make a good impression:
1) Correctly use upper and lower case letters
I’ve seen Facebook posts where all words are uppercase and I frequently get emails where all words are lower case.
All uppercase writing makes it look like you are shouting your message. All lowercase makes it look like you are too lazy to change cases.
Neither is good. Your posts and emails should look like you gave time and thought to writing your messages.
2) Use a salutation in your emails
While you might not use a salutation when writing to friends, start your business emails with a “Hi” or “Hello” or, if you want to be more formal, “Dear” and the person’s name. Remember, an email is really a letter sent electronically.
3) Don’t use text shorthand in social media posts and emails
A new wedding planner recently asked me to connect with her on social media. Her email to me was full of text shorthand such as, “u” for “you” and “gr8″ for “great.” When I reviewed her page on LinkedIn, I was surprised and put-off by the fact that she also did this on her profile.
I realize that many of you are sending emails and posting from mobile phones, but you need to take the time to write in a business-like manner no matter what you are using to send your emails and posts.
4) If you text, identify yourself when doing it for the first time
The brides you are texting may not have you in their contact information and may not recognize your mobile number, so be sure you tell them who you are. (Of course, always ask if it is okay to connect via text messaging before you do it. Not everyone likes it or uses it, and you certainly don’t want to annoy your brides.)
When you are texting as a professional wedding planner, don’t use text shorthand. You need to spell out words so there are no doubts about what you are saying. Also, save the use of smileys and other emoji for interactions with friends, they are too casual to use in business messages.
And if you want more help to become a top wedding planner, sign in to get my ezine “Wedding Planner Tips.”
