In November last year, I launched the very first Love My Dress Annual Reader Survey. The response to the survey was amazing and exceeded all my expectations. To this end, I would like to thank every one who took the time and effort to submit their feedback – thank you so much.
Whilst I'll be keeping some all-important data back for development purposes, I'd like to share the statistics included in this blog feature to help reassure my Sponsors of my personal commitment to and ever growing popularity of this wedding blog. I also hope it encourages my readers that I am dedicated to making Love My Dress one of the best Wedding Blogs out there.
Just to mention briefly – I've updated my 'Advertise' and 'About' pages based on this new data, as well as the most recent data from my Google Analytics account. I'd also like to thank the lovely Alexis from the 'OMG I'm Getting Married' Wedding Blog for her assistance in creating these fabulous graphics 🙂
Firstly, whilst there is one other rather fab UK wedding blog with a higher world ranking, Love My Dress is ahead of them all in the UK according to www.alexa.com – a reflection of how popular the Blog is with UK readers. This ranking is reflected in other site ranking tools such as ranking.com. In all, 64% of readers are UK based. The next biggest readership is in the USA, who represent 15% of readers.
Infact, since I published this feature, readership has rose to 230,000 monthly page views!
I was thrilled to discover that a whopping 70% of visitors are Brides to be!
83% of respondents due to be married, planned to do so in the UK. And, I suppose unsurprisingly, only 3% of survey respondents were male...
Survey respondents used the following words to describe Love My Dress. This certainly made me smile 🙂
As part of my survey, I asked my readers which media format they preferred; wedding magazine or wedding blog.
I admit I've been a little hesitant at posting this data, because I wasn't too sure how my colleagues working in print media would react. Personally, I love and adore print media and purchased my own body weight in wedding magazines! But that was 3 years ago now, and things have changed drastically in the time since; online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and the ability to have blog posts delivered to your email inbox have opened up huge opportunities, and without doubt, an increasing number of Brides are turning to the web, and wedding blogs, for daily bridal inspiration.
According to my survey, 80% of survey respondents prefer the format of a Wedding Blog, as opposed to a traditional wedding magazine.
That's a pretty impressive statistic.
Several hundred survey respondents also cited their reasons why, which largely fell into the following categories:-
♥ A wedding blog is updated daily
♥ A wedding has a personality you can identify with and is therefore more trustworthy
♥ A wedding blog is free to read
♥ A wedding blog can be accessed anywhere, at any time
♥ A wedding blog features REAL, real weddings, not just traditionally 'aesthetically' pleasing ones
♥ A wedding is more interactive
♥ A wedding blog features the latest news
♥ A wedding blog is far more addictive than a magazine
Only 2% of survey respondents in fact said they preferred the format of a wedding magazine, and 18% weren't sure.
I also asked my readers which they felt held more influence amongst its core readership; a wedding magazine or a wedding blog; 51% of survey respodents felt a wedding blog held more influence, 18% felt that a wedding magazine held more influence and 31% were undecided.
The majority of survey respondents spent/will spend between 12-18 months planning their wedding.
48% of survey respondents said they had left a comment on the blog – many people cited being "too shy" or "not sure what to say". This has definitely give me something to think about in terms of how I can and would like to improve the sense of 'community' here at Love My Dress by encouraging greater reader interaction and feedback…
As I was pulling together this data, my Husband said to me, "I bet April is the most popular month to get married in". His reasoning was that the weather is usually OK in April, that it marks the start of Spring and that he would have thought most Brides would avoid the Summer months as we have such unreliable weather!
He wasn't wrong; April is by far the most popular month to be married amongst survey respondents…
I guess I wasn't too surprised to find out that survey respondents class the wedding dress and wedding photography as the top two most important elements of planning a wedding…
A dress designer contact of mine recently asked me which era they thought my readers warmed to the most, as they were considering producing a brand new vintage-era inspired collection…
….let's just say, they picked the right era 🙂
So there you have it folks :) The survey has furnished me with so much more incredibly useful information that I will be using to develop the quality and content of this Blog, so a big thank you once again to everyone who took the time to respond – I really appreciate it. Love My Dress has only been around for 14 months, but the data I have gathered via this survey has enabled me to set high standards for improving and developing the blog over the coming 12 months.
Just one final fantabulous fact to share with you that really made my day 🙂
I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on any aspect of this survey data – please do take a moment to leave a comment below 🙂
Much love 🙂
Annabel xXx
♥
Annabel View all Annabel's articles
Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.
