Are you catering to the middle? Are you trying to just play it safe and satisfy that giant pool in the middle of the market? Where are your superlatives?
One of the first questions that I ask a new client is what makes them special. You would be amazed at how few people can answer that question. Guess what, if you don’t know what makes you special, your clients won’t either.
The goal of your marketing is to give people a reason to exchange their money for your goods or services. So what’s your reason? What makes you the single best place for them to part with their money? What do you offer to make people seek you out? If you can’t answer that question and are trying to market, you are marketing mediocrity.
What the heck do you do better than anyone else in your market? Unless you create a truly one of a kind product like hand painted invitations, you had better figure it out. There are about a bazillion wedding vendors out there today all scrambling for the same dollar. If you can’t give your potential clients one good reason why they should pick you they aren’t going to!
You can spend a bloody fortune on marketing and never really get anywhere. Or, you can tweak and tune your business to be a superlative and you won’t have to spend a dime. It will market itself.
When was the last time you saw an ad for Google or Starbucks? Do you know why? Because they have created such stellar products that they market themselves. They have such customer enthusiasm that the customers do the marketing for them. What have you done?
It is time to stop swimming in the middle and to start exploring the fringes. That is where that kind of customer enthusiasm lives. Have you ever met an enthusiastic WalMart shopper? I bet not.
But Christine, you say, if I don’t try and have something for everyone I might miss a bride. Oh groan! If your only claim is that you have a bit of everything you are going to become a price destination. If you have the same motley mix as every other vendor in your category you have no choice but to compete on price. Those are not the kind of customers that breed enthusiasm.
The ones that breed enthusiasm and word of mouth are the ones with unique needs that you fill. The obvious one that stands out to me is the plus size brides and the bridal salons. If a bridal salon buys deeper in those size samples and treat those brides better than anyone else they are going to build some amazing word of mouth among a fairly large (no pun intended) target market. Or what about the edgier brides, the ones that don’t want a traditional gown, but something hip or goth or in red. Take a risk. You may miss a sale, but you will build a very enthusiastic audience. Which will bring more sales.
I know a planner that every one of her weddings looks alike. Believe it or not she has a pretty large following. Why? Because for brides that like that look, no one does a Mary Ann wedding like Mary Ann.
When I did wedding cakes I specialized in fondant and handmade sugar flowers. I love doing both and at the time I did it better than anyone else in this city. I had some very enthusiastic customers. Did I get a lot of brides that wanted basic buttercream cakes? Not really, they could just as easily go to Publix or Costco for that. The brides that wanted high style, magazine worthy wedding cakes sought me out. Did I miss some brides? You bet. Things is, I didn’t have to advertise once I had gotten my name out and the brides that did choose be didn’t ask about price.
What are you doing to stand out from the crowd? You can’t stand out by being mediocre.
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