Wedding Industry Blog

Before you think this is just another post about the depressing economy, think again! If you are a regular visitor to the blog then you will know that the results that I’m seeing suggest that there is no economic problem in the wedding industry, far from it in fact!

THE number one reason your enquiries have dropped off is that your website just isn’t up to it - FACT. You may have even been getting enquiries right up until recently and then all of a sudden they’ve dried up, coinciding with the credit crunch, but I’m telling you that is not the reason - you will almost certainly find that a competitor has launched a website which is performing and they have stolen all your enquiries!

That doesn’t sound good does it, a competitor profiting from what should be your enquiries!?!?

Well I’m afraid that is the nature of the business world, if you are not up scratch, there is always someone else willing to step in to take your customers!

Fortunately there are a few quick and easy things you can do to improve your sites performance:

Look at the words on the site - are they focused on what your customer wants, or are they completely focused on what you do, how long you have been trading and why your are so great? I’ll let you in to a little secret - people don’t care how great you say you are, they will make up they’re own minds based on the information they find on your website. Let’s face it, even if you were the worst company in the world you would still say you were great wouldn’t you? Brides aren’t stupid and they now this too!

How can brides contact you? - I see so many sites viagra the contact details are hidden away on the “Contact Us” page which can be hard to find. You’re telephone number or, better still enquiry form, should be in a prominent position on every page of your website. Also, don’t be mysterious, the worst thing I see is suppliers who just put a mobile number with no address!!! I guess the thinking is “I will travel anywhere for a customer it doesn’t matter to me”, well I’ll tell you that it does matter to a bride, if you don’t have an address on your website, she isn’t going to waste her time calling you to find out where you are (that’s right, while it doesn’t matter to you how far away you are, she doesn’t want a videographer traveling 200 miles on the morning of her wedding!!!).

Can you introduce a “bribe” to trigger an enquiry? - Don’t worry, I’m not talking about underhand cash incentives in exchange for their contact details, but what if you offered a free guide on choosing the best wedding dress or 10 tips to have the best wedding day? Do you think you would get more enquiries? NB. You should have a sequence in place to follow up with these enquiries as well, but that is for another day.

How does your site look? - This is a bit harder to fix, but it will give you an excellent insight into whether you need a website overhaul. Look at your site objectively, how does it look (honestly)? Are the pictures bright? Is the design tidy? Does it look like the site of someone who is meticulous, high quality and reliable? A lot of people find it very hard to analyse their own website, so I’d highly recommend getting someone else to do it for you - I’m always at hand if you can’t find anyone, use the free consultation form to book something in with me.

If you look at your site and it doesn’t tick all the boxes above then it is time for a serious rethink on your website, and my advice, get it fixed as soon as possible before it’s too late.

Remember, your website is no longer an important thing, it’s the only thing!

Until next time.

Edward

General Marketing, Websites

Well it’s Wednesday again and the weeks seem to be absolutely flying by at the moment, Sarah is now due in just 21 days!!! It feels like only yesterday that I found out I was going to be a daddy.

I’ve had a most enjoyable week as I’ve been contracted by the British Institute of Wedding Planning Professionals to write marketing articles for their members. They are a great bunch to work with, I met some of their members in person and they are EXTREMELY passionate about weddings but have a pretty basic knowledge of business and attracting customers so they should get some real benefit from my stuff. If you’re a wedding planner I’d definitely recommend that you take a look at their membership, it starts at just £27 per month and you get some great stuff included in that.

The reason for this weeks title is that I’m getting asked more and more about low cost and free ways to get wedding sales (apparently there is some sort of financial problem happening at the moment, but there is no sign of it here ;)) and there are some really great ones that many people don’t think of or just don’t know.

1 Ask for referrals
If you can get referrals you are on to a winner, it’s 100% fact that you will sell more to referrals than you will to someone who has never heard of you, makes sense right? Where are the best place to get referrals? From your existing customers. Ask your brides if they know anyone else who is getting married and whether they would mind putting you in touch. Asking the question can literally open a landslide as brides love telling people how great their suppliers are - just make sure you are great (see point 5)

2 Follow up with prospects
Just about every wedding business I speak to is desperate to get as many new leads as possible. This is great, but what they don’t realise is that they are sitting on a pot of warms leads already in most cases! Go back through your old enquiries and follow up with anyone who you don’t have a definite yes or no from, you’d be amazed at how many sales you will generate just from this exercise alone, one wedding photographer I work with generated 5 new sales in a single day after carrying out this action, 3 more than his previous best ever day!!!

3 Send out emails
This technically could fall under the above category as well, but I wanted to give it its own category as it is such an under used marketing medium in the wedding industry. I work with lots of companies and this is one thing which is never used to the maximum and I just can’t understand why - after all it’s free and it works!!! You should have a series of email templates that you can send out to brides so it doesn’t take you any time at all and keeps you at the forefront of their mind. Principals are the same as before, people don’t buy when you want them to, they buy when they are ready.

4 Social Networking
Facebook ring any bells? How about Linkedin, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter…. the list goes on. These tools are all classed as social media networking, are all free and all have a huge membership of young woman and current and future brides. On some of them it is just a matter of creating an account and getting going, other are a bit more involved, but I would recommend definitely having a look at them all and seeing which one(s) is right for you. You could well hit the jackpot if you do it right!!!

5 Be the best
The final way I’m going to talk about today is my favourite - being the best. In my opinion it is what everyone should be working towards as, no matter what the financial climate is, people are always willing to pay whatever it takes to have the best. Think about your product, your presentation, your marketing, what can you do to make yourself the best? Once you feel you are close, start telling people you’re the best, you’ll be amazed at how quickly word will spread!!!

If you want any help with any of the above, then take a look at the Evolution Programme, it’s really cost effective and contains articles on all the above points.

Until next week, happy marketing.

Edward

Free Stuff, General Marketing

I’m getting back in the swing of things now and trying to make Wednesday morning my regular blogging morning!

I’m getting asked about advertising on a daily basis at the moment, it seems that people know they need to step up their marketing activity and they see placing a few adverts as an easy way to do it.

The truth is most advertising is dying, and I’m not talking about getting old slowly and gradually fading into the background before disappearing, I’m talking about advertising in the way we know it now, being gone within a decade.

But why is this?

It’s because most businesses who advertise are literally throwing their money away because they don’t understand how the advertising model now works

The old model was easy:

Company Place Advert - Customer Sees Advert - Customer Calls Company - Company Sells to Customer

A seamless four step process. This was good, everyone knew where they stood and if you needed more business, you just placed more adverts.

The new model is a bit harder for people to get to grips with (at the moment anyway):

Company Places Advert - Customer See Advert - Customer Visits Company Website - Customer Browses Company Website - Customer Sends Enquiry to Company - Company Sells to Customer

Its not a massive difference admittedly, but you would be amazed how much those two small steps change things.

You see it’s no longer a matter of how good your ads are, or by how many people they are seen, the whole process depends on your website being effective - FACT. An ineffective website now will be the reason why you, and the many people who call me every week, have seen a massive drop in your enquiries. Don’t be fooled, the economy has nothing to do with it - if you sit back and think there is nothing you can do about it then you’re wrong, my customers aren’t just seeing their enquiries stay constant, they are seeing a big increases! Why? Because their competitors are pulling their marketing as it’s not working so there is less competition and they are cleaning up!!!

Action points:

Look at your website and compare it to the best website in your market, how do you compare?
Make sure you have a call to action or a way of contacting you on every page of your site.
Look at your follow up to enquiries, once you have an enquiry you’ve done the hard work, its much easier to sell to that enquiry than it is to generate a new one!

If you are having problems with any of the above then book a free consultation or give me a call and I can give you some pointers

In addition to this whole process there are no much, much more effective ways to advertise than the conventional print and directory based ads, but thats a different story altogether - we can save that one for next week ;).

Until then

Edward

Advertising, Websites

I know, I know, I have been extremely slack on the blog front recently - it’s one of those things that once you get out of the habit, it’s hard to get back in! As a quick and easy way to ease me back into the blogging habit I thought I’d just give you some small snippets of information.

Contrary to popular belief in the press, the world hasn’t completely collapsed and there are a lot of people out there still spending money in the wedding industry. I haven’t seen a decrease in enquiries in any of my customers yet and, more encouragingly, the average customer seems to want to spend more - is this a result of working with Evolution? There’s only one way to find out

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last 3 years, you will have heard people talking about Facebook, Twitter and Social Media Marketing. I have been sceptical about the value of these services as business tools, but three weeks ago I was in Atlanta for an internet marketing conference and there was a massive focus on these emerging technologies and I know see huge opportunities for small businesses to take advantage, especially in the wedding industry! I’ll be posting more details on this soon.

In addition to my travels around the world, researching the social media phenomenon and looking after my pregnant wife, I’ve also bee working on a redesign for the Evolution website. The site in its current form has been live for nearly 18 months now and is starting to look a bit dated in my opinion. We’ve almost decided on a new design and will be working through the functionality of the site in more detail oner the next two weeks or so. If anyone has any suggestions on tools, information or anything else they would like to see on the site, please leave a comment below and any suggestions we use will earn that person a one hour consultancy session with me.

Hope this update has whet your appetite sufficiently for my upcoming posts - they will appear soon I promise!!!

Until then

Edward

General Marketing, News

I hope you are tucked up at home on the warm while you are reading this! I am in the office - it seems pretty much on my own as reception have been given the afternoon of for fear of hazardous driving conditions - and it is absolutely freezing!

Fortunately the cold weather hasn’t frozen my brain - no more than usual anyway - and it got me thinking how ironic this freezing weather has come at a time when there is so much talk about things freezing - sales are frozen, assets have been frozen, people are being frozen out, it seems everything is cold in one way or another.

With all this in mind I want to try and fight the freeze and talk about what I am seeing in the wedding industry.

Yes there are a lot of people who are struggling big time (if you are one give me a call as soon as you possibly can as I can help I guarantee it!), and there will be plenty more who feel the cold before we make it through to the other side, but it’s not all bad.

The results from the businesses I am working with is extremely positive, not only are bookings up but also profits, completely bucking the trend, not only of the industry, but of the whole country!

So what do all these companies have in common?

Well obviously they are all customers of ours which I would like to tell you is the reason that they are experiencing these great results, but the main reason is that they have a machine working in their business which sucks in potential customers, squeezes their contact details out of them and then primes them ready for you to get in touch with them! Sounds too goog to be true doesn’t it?

So do you want to know what this amazing machine is and where you can get one? Well the truth is, you probably have one already but just haven’t switched it on yet.

What all these success stories have in common is that they have a streamlined website with a structured internet marketing plan to back it up. They don’t spend any money on expensive print advertising, no expensive brochures and most of them don’t even attend wedding fairs!

So ask yourself these questions:

• Can you handle more enquiries?
• Do you get 5 enquiries from your website per day?
• Are you willing to to be a leader and not a follower?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes then you seriously need to analyse your website and how you can make it work better for you - I guarantee it won’t just be the best decision you make on this frozen Monday afternoon, but for the whole of 2009!

If you are interested in learning more about how you can make your website work for your wedding business, contact Evolution Wedding Services the wedding marketing experts and we can put you on the fast track to success in the wedding industry.

Enjoy the snow (and the warm if you are at home)

General Marketing, Websites