The start of January will prompt Wedding planning season and all seasoned wedding professionals will know that the months between January and April will make or break their year. With the current financial turbulence, this year is going to be even more important than previously as Brides are going to be fewer and competition more ferocious! With this in mind it is very easy to get sucked into the trap of spending extra money on advertising, but you should hold on to your money - certainly don’t spend it on advertising anyway!
Here is a list of 7 FREE methods you can use to make a difference this year:
- Joint Ventures - this is the biggest untapped market for wedding suppliers and is really easy to implement provided you are willing to give something back. If you want more information on creating Joint Ventures in the wedding industry then visit the main Evolution website.
- Blog - You’d be amazed at how effective a blog is as a means of communication and marketing method. They are seriously easy to set up and don’t have to cost you a penny. For more information on creating a wedding blog & blogging for wedding businesses visit the main Evolution site.
- Email Follow Ups - Many people do all the hard work by attracting potential customers, but then let all their hard work go to waste by neglecting to follow the enquiry up. This method can increase your profits by as much as 100% depending on how bad you really are.
- Business Networking - Ok so this one isn’t entirely free but for the cost of a breakfast its pretty close! Business networking can open doors in various different ways, but you need to understand how to get the best out of it as it can be worthless if you don’t!
- Advertising - You probably know that I am NOT a fan of advertising! 99% of the time it is overpriced, mis sold and as good as worthless. HOWEVER, there are numerous places where you can advertise free on the internet and this has got to make sense right? It certainly can’t do any harm thats for sure. There is a guide to free wedding advertising on the Evolution site which will give you some of the sites which offer free wedding adverts. Please let me know if you know of any that aren’t on there.
- Publicity - Getting yourself publicised can really give your business a massive boost! There are a variety of different places you can get publicity, by far the easist is online PR. To get more details on publicising a wedding business visit the main Evolution site.
- Your Website - If you have a website already, then unless you are in the 0.1% of people who have analysed their conversion analytics and made the necessary changes, it is probable that just by thinking in a different way you can get more enquiries from the visitors you are already getting.
If these points are of interest to you then I would highly recommend that you check out the Evolution Programme which is a step by step guide to creating a marketing plan for a wedding business. The programme will take you through each one of these points in detail and tell you how to implement them in your business. There will be a January Bonus on the Programme which you can keep up to date with by filling in your details below.
Advertising, Blogging, Free Stuff
If you are a supplier of the wedding industry you used to be able to get an advantage by having a web site. Things have come a long way from those early days of the internet and now it’s not only an advantage having a site but essential, with over 95% of brides visiting a supplier website before she will make a decision on them.
It doesn’t stop there though, you may have a friend or relative who know’s a bit about computers who can put something together for you on the cheap, but you need a site which fulfils the needs of the modern bride for it to be fully effective. If it doesn’t match these criteria, not only will you be losing money from potential customers, but you will also be rendering any money you spend on advertising almost worthless as your site will be the first stop for a bride who has seen and liked your advert.
All in all over 99% of brides use the internet to search for companies to supply their wedding so it is vital that you have something for them to find in the first place. Once they are there, if your site isn’t designed and constructed well, over 50% will leave within the first 2 seconds never to return again.
At Evolution we use our extensive knowledge of all areas of the UK wedding industry to establish your customer requirements and then build an advanced customer focused site aimed at delivering results to you, the business owner.
If you want to find out more about wedding website design then please either visit the main Evolution site or alternatively call us on 0870 300 4971. Alternatively, if you already have a website which you want to improve yourself then the Evolution Programme can walk you through the steps that will take your site from being an also ran to an industry leader quickly and easily and in a cost effective manner.
General Marketing
Your wedding website is the key to the success of your business and will be the hub of all your marketing activity. For 95% of brides that you reach, the first port of call after seeing your name, advert or leaflets is to check out your website. This means that if your website is poor, your enquiries will be as well!
Don’t worry though, here are 10 things which your wedding website must have for you to check and improve:
- Clear Design and Layout
- Easy Navigation
- Customer Focused Headlines
- Optimised Page Titles
- Focused Keywords
- Custom Descriptions
- Useful Content
- A Blog
- Calls to Action
- Contact Details or an Enquiry Form on Every Page
Whatever your business, your website should be returning at least 10 enquiries per week on average, if its not then one or more of the points above need to be addressed. For a full review of your wedding website you may be interested in our Website Review Service for Wedding websites.
To address any issues you find when looking at the 10 points above we recommend that you join the Evolution Programme where you can find all the information you ned to make your website a bridal trap!
General Marketing, Websites
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:
- A list of marketing activities that you have used previoudly in your business.
- A description on how each activity is carried out.
- The previous return from each activity.
- A calendar listing when each activity will be carried out.
- 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
