Wedding Industry Blog

I know from my experience in the wedding industry that very few businesses have either a business plan or a wedding specific marketing plan, even fewer have one that they adhere to and is actually useful to their business!

If either of those scenarios sound familiar then you are seriously missing a trick! While a business plan is important, a marketing plan is essential and will seriously take your business forward year after year.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

A Wedding Business Marketing Plan shouldn’t just be a few ideas and a summary written down, referred to once and then forgotten forever, it should be a working document that you know like the back of your hand and that is constantly updated. You should look at it at least once a week to see what your actions are and update your results.

Your marketing plan should include the following:

1. A list of marketing activities that you have used previoudly in your business.
2. A description on how each activity is carried out.
3. The previous return from each activity.
4. A calendar listing when each activity will be carried out.
5. An up to date report on how the marketing plan is working this year versus last year.

If you keep track of this information then I guarantee your business will move forward in leaps and bounds.

If you need some help writing your own wedding business marketing plan then I recommend that you look at the Evolution Programme which will not only guide you through the process step by step, but will also identify and outline the best marketing activities for wedding businesses to achieve results. To learn more about the Evolution Programme click here.

Free Stuff, General Marketing

Further to my recent post on the effects of the wedding industry on the recession, I have been inundated with calls and emails by conerned businesses asking what they should be doing to ride out the recession so here are my recommendations.

THE most important thing to address at any time but especially moving in to the recession, is your website. Nothing has a bigger effect on the number of enquiries you generate or your companies image within the industry. I’m not talking about getting a friend or relative to do it or even doing it yourself, I’m talking about getting a professional looking site from a company who knows about doing business online, internet marketing, search engine optimisation and converting visitors to customers.

Here are the reasons why it is essential:

98% of brides search for wedding suppliers on the internet
95% of brides will check out your website at some point during the sales process no matter where they meet you.
You will reach more brides on the internet than any other form of marketing.

What does this mean? If you don’t have an excellent website then all of these points will apply to you:

You are losing enquiries - FACT
You are wasting money on your advertising - FACT
Your customer acquisition cost is too high - FACT
Your business is at risk from th recession - FACT

Let me give you an example. One of our customers had a website and was receiving one or two enquiries per week from it, we redesigned the site to make it more functional and addressed the conversion and they have now doubled the enquiries they get without doing anything else! Obviously by doubling the enquiries it has also led to their sales doubling as well which means that their annual turnover has doubled from an investment of just £1500.

In part 2 I’ll be describing the next biggest mistake wedding businesses make that could be affecting their bottom line big time and it’s something that can be addressed immediately without spending a penny.

Until then

Edward

Wedding Recession

A recent report by the Weddingplan insurance firm has indicated that the average cost of a wedding in the UK has risen to nearly £21,000! What’s more this appears to be a national average meaning that this figure could be substantially more for couples in the south of the country and even more that that for those tying the knot in London.

The soaring price of commodities has helped push up the cost of food and drink which is magnified by the change in trend to have a full sit down meal rather than just a buffet spread. This has pushed the average reception cost up to over £7000 including the venue hire, catering, drinks and entertainment making this by far and away the biggest cost for a majority of couples.

The second biggest outlay is the honeymoon coming in at £3220 and third is the Bride’s engagement ring averaging just over £1400.

The figures generated by the report , produced this summer, may well change fairly quickly however with the wedding industry expected to be hit by the recession even more than was thought at the time of writing.

The report continues the unbalanced trend in the wedding industry of a decreasing number of weddings against an increasing industry value.

To read more about the average UK wedding cost in the uk visit the main Evolution site or to find out more about the effects of the recession on the wedding industry view the Wedding Recession category of the Blog.

Here is a link to the full story which appeared in the Daily Telegraph - Wedding costs soar to more than £20,000!

Wedding Industry, Wedding Recession

No doubt you will have heard me say more than once that there are better ways to spend your money than buying advertising and hopefully you have read the Evolution Guide to Free Wedding Advertising. Whilst I stand by this view unreservedly, it is possibly a little harsh on one or two sites

My view on web advertising is that if you divide the price you pay for the ad by the number of click throughs you get from it (use Google Analytics for this) and the result is more than 50p then it is a waste of your money and a majority of advertising sites fall into this category.

There are however a small number of sites who do deliver good value for money on the number of visitors they send through, here is a list of them with a few comments about each one.

Your Wedding In - Yes I know, I know it’s one of our websites so I am biased, but there is noone else out there who offers to guarantee you a set amount of traffic or refund the difference - yet again a case of us putting our money where our mouth is! As a result you are ensuring your budget is being maximised more than if you were buying traffic on Google through their Adwords service. The site is based around usability and useful information from the bride’s point of view which is why the results are so good. If you’re a bit weary about parting with any cash then don’t worry, why not try it out for free? For your free wedding advert follow this link.

Wedding Services 4U - While Wedding Services 4 U isn’t as cheap to advertise on as some sites out there, time and time again my customers stats show good referrals from their adverts on the site. The site itself is fairly basic, but sometimes Brides prefer a more basic experience. 

Wed Network - Whilst the site may not be the greatest and the click through rate isn’t brilliant, the fact that they send you a list of qualified leads in your area makes it a fairly good solution. You need to be careful though as not all supply types get a great response so it can be quite expensive. I recommend trying it our for a few months and seeing how it works for you.

Easy Wedding Search - Easy Wedding Search used to be a free to advertise site and as such built up a large database which in turn generated a fairly large following. They’ve now introduced a charge for each advert however it is only £14 per year so certainly won’t break the bank and should bring fairly good results. You get a few added bonuses for signing up as well so well worth a look.

Guides for Brides - Not so long ago Guides for Brides would have been my number one selection but, although they still get good traffic to their site, the price of the advert needed to generate sufficient traffic has become quite expensive and they are also quite scarce as well. Still well worth a try if you manage to find space for a premium advert in your area though.

If you want to learn more about increasing the effectiveness of your wedding advertising then read our Wedding Advertising Guide on the main Evolution site.

I’d love to hear if you agree or disagree on any of these sites and if you have had good or bad experiences with these or any others. Please use the Submit a Comment option below to give your view.

Advertising

We’re using the christmas slump to really crack on and make progress on developing our new product, due to be launched next year and need help from you guys to make sure the product meets your needs.

As a thank you for helping us out I’ll give you a couple of featured listings on one of our bridal focussed sites worth nearly £200 just to make it worth your while. The conversation will last no longer than 20 minutes and you’lll get £200 worth of advertising in return for you time - surely that’s got to be a good deal?!?!?!

If you’re interested in helping us out, please call me in the office on 0870 300 4971 or email me advising of a suitable time for us to call you.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Edward

Evolution Products, Free Stuff