Nuts and Bolts: Making the Most of Wedding Trends

We’re talking Design Trends once again, but this time, we’re not focusing on elements of design that have become trendy and fashionable, but how to make the most of your efforts when uploading your new cards.

The focus will be on wedding cards in this article, but the advice goes for any card in any category for any occasion, when you’ve taken the time to incorporate trends into your design, such as the latest color combinations, elements, or styles. Actually creating the greeting card is only half the battle.

The other half, and the key to success, is DESCRIBING your card in the Artist’s Notes, keywords, and/or titles.

We’ve covered the importance of card titles, keywords, and product descriptions in previous Nuts & Bolts articles. If you thought, “oh, it’s not that important,” let me assure you… it is. To ignore these important steps will hamper your card’s chances at the very beginning. If you’re putting in the sweat equity to create cards for the purpose of enticing shoppers to buy, it makes no sense not to follow through and give your card the best chance to sell.

Take wedding cards, for example. Wedding cards but are some of GCU’s hottest sellers. Brides can be very fussy about choosing color combinations, favorite flowers, and other details, and will often shop for cards using search terms like “mint and coral wedding attendant invitation.” Or “pink roses wedding invitation.”

However, doing a search on GCU for specific trendy color combinations or for flowers and/or styles (like bohemian or rustic) nets surprisingly few results considering the sheer amount of cards in the wedding categories. Either artists aren’t bothering to study wedding design trends and create cards catering to trendy brides, or artists aren’t including this information in their titles, keywords, or descriptions.

So what should you do?

I hope she doesn’t mind, but I’m going to use one of Penny Cork‘s cards as an example of what you SHOULD be doing with all your cards (and if you’ve entered the competitive wedding card field with your designs, you should not only be doing this now, but go back and fix your older cards, too). She does an A+ job putting the title and description together and getting them right.

Here’s the card, a bridal party invitation for a musician:

Card title: Musician Music Aqua Coral Flowers Greeting Card

Product Description: Fun, tropical colors of coral and aqua for your wedding. Works well for beach themes, also Spring and Summer weddings. To see more cards with this design, please type “aqua and coral trend” into the search box. 

You see how Penny’s not only told potential buyers about the color combination, but also what type of wedding this card would suit, and that there are more cards in the series that can be easily found with a site search. Very convenient, and if there’s one thing brides love, it’s something that saves them time and energy. By making it easy and straightforward to find matching cards, Penny has created a prime sales opportunity for herself.

If you’re not watching wedding trends, you should be. Many brides and wedding planners choose hot new color combinations for their weddings, or choose a popular theme. To create great selling opportunities for yourself, don’t get stuck in a rut – design wedding cards in the trendiest colors with the trendiest themes, and add to your collection as needed. And don’t forget to add these fashionable elements to your card titles, keywords, and product descriptions.

Don’t miss the boat!  Or as we say in Holland, “don’t be a thief of your own pocket.”