Is Matchology the Right Platform for Your Wedding Submissions?
If you’ve been in the wedding industry for a while, you surely remember the early days of real wedding submissions. Every publication had different requirements and, if a submission didn’t get picked up, it meant you had to start nearly from scratch.
Then, Two Bright Lights entered the scene and pushed the industry in the direction of commonplace guidelines and streamlined submissions. More recently, Aisle Society’s brainchild, Matchology, hit the market as the industry’s leading publication submission tool, which might leave some of you wondering whether it’s a good fit for your company.
To answer this question, let’s start by understanding what Matchology is all about and how wedding professionals can use it to their advantage.
What is Aisle Society?
Aisle Society is the largest influencer network in the wedding industry, with a combined reach of over 16 million followers. It brings together around 40 top industry blogs under one umbrella to simplify the submission process and provide a collective approach to wedding inspiration. The group’s vision is to provide a comprehensive resource of the best wedding content online while propelling the industry forward.
This approach to marketing takes advantage of the cumulative network between the blogs, allowing them to play virtual matchmakers between wedding brands and engaged couples like never before.
Naturally, this approach requires a certain level of technological innovation and cutting-edge ideas. Thus, this unique collective of bloggers developed Matchology, a singular platform that curates wedding inspiration from across the industry.
What is Matchology, and how does it work?
Simply put, Matchology introduces a streamlined platform for wedding pros to submit content to all of the Aisle Society bloggers under one set of universal guidelines.
Consider it as the dating app of wedding submissions. You start by uploading an event or styled shoot into the system through Dropbox, Pass, SmugMug, Pixieset, or other systems you use. Then, you complete a questionnaire and let the platform’s algorithm work its magic. It will match your event with the best publication based on photography style, location, theme, and setting, but allows you to make the final say when it comes to which blog(s) to submit. After you’ve picked your chosen blog, you can submit it, and then all you have to do is wait to see if the blog would like to feature it. If not, you can move on to your other choices, and the platform will alert you to if it is selected and when it is published.
What’s so great about Matchology?
The platform itself is clean and streamlined, which takes a lot of the legwork out of a real wedding submission. The matching technology that gives Matchology its name is also extremely valuable since you can skip the guesswork and let the algorithm point you in the right direction. Other helpful features include:
- A user-friendly dashboard
- A universal questionnaire
- One-click resubmission
- Auto-fill vendor crediting
- Status updates by email
- Copyright protection
Altogether, it’s a pretty solid platform for real wedding submissions — but that’s not to say it’s for everyone. There is a fee for using Matchology, so that leads us to the biggest question.
Is Matchology right for me?
There’s no question that the platform itself is well-designed and effective, but the answer to this question lies in the blogs that make up the Aisle Society. Review the list of publishers and determine whether there are enough blogs that interest you. How many are on your media wish list? Most, if not all, of these blogs, accept direct submissions, so if only one or two are a fit, Matchology may not be worth it for you at the moment. New blogs are added regularly, so it’s worth keeping an eye out to see if any additions make it worthwhile.
On the other hand, it could be a valuable investment if several blogs are on your wish list. If you can check off a handful of boxes and win some great press, then the monthly (or annual) fee could undoubtedly be well worth your while. At the end of the day, only you can make this decision for your business.
Fortunately, Aisle Society offers a free 30-day trial for Matchology, which gives you plenty of time to decide whether or not a paid subscription is the right choice for your company.
When it comes down to it, you’re producing beautiful work, and it deserves to be published and seen by couples. Whether you go through traditional means to submit or you choose to jump onboard a collective platform like Matchology, your press efforts don’t belong on the back burner — especially if you’re trying to grow your business and increase your revenue. The more time you can spend on real wedding submissions, the more impact you’ll see on your brand reach, your sales conversions, and your bottom line.
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