For years now I have been telling you to think like a bride; the question is: are you thinking like the right bride?
If you have ever heard me speak then you know that one of the first questions I ask is “Who is your target market?” followed immediately by “Brides is not the correct answer.” I’m sure my subscribers are smart enough to have defined their target market better than the vague term bride. You know what her general socio-economical range is, what her educational level is and you understand to some degree her desired level of formality. Now I ask you, how closely have you looked into what her psychological motivators and primary drivers are? In other words, why is she buying from you instead of your competitors?
We already know it’s not price; unless you are WalMart. It most likely isn’t location; these girls will go to the ends of the earth to get what they want for their wedding. It isn’t your advertising; Gen Y doesn’t pay any attention to advertising. It isn’t your unique creative style; there is nothing new under the sun and you know as well as I do that they will steal your ideas and take them down the street in a heartbeat. So what is it that makes you the chosen one?
Closing the sale and making the deal is entirely about how you make them feel. I know that sounds vague and rather touchy feely but it is what it is. The question becomes, how do you make the clients that choose you feel? The corollary to that is how do your clients wish to feel? Once you know the answer to that you know immediately who and how.
Take for instance the bride that needs to feel like she is cutting edge; you are not going to sell her the same way as the bride that wants to know that all her choices will be viewed as ‘correct.’ Is your bride someone that needs to have her choices validated or one that needs to be led to her decisions? Are her choices dictated by her social standing in the community and if so, how does choosing you reflect upon that?
What is it about your personality and the personality of your business that most people notice? Here is what I mean. There is a planner that I am acquainted with that has two things about her style that characterizes her. First, it has to do with social standing in her market. Yes she is way up there at the top of the reputation heap but she didn’t just place herself there. There was obviously something that was appealing to her target market. Trust me, it wasn’t her great flamboyant cutting edge personality, this woman is a mouse. It wasn’t her gentle handholding. No, it was that she would listen to your ideas, formulate a design and then damn near eliminate every single decision a bride had to make. “Do you want A or B?” The bride either picked one or the other; if she took too long the planner said something along the lines of “A it is. Moving on.” She was a freight train at full throttle. Spot on perfect for the bride that hired a planner to actually plan her wedding, not hold her hand as she vacillated between choices.
I know another planner that will accompany a bride to each and every vendor meeting. Her brides are looking for a best friend or Mom substitute. Trust me, these two planners will not appeal to the same bride.
My point is, your brides choose you, not for the reasons you may think. They choose you for some pretty deep psychological reasons. It is up to you to figure out what they are and use that to tweak your marketing. Think back on your most successful clients and see if you can determine what their motivating factors were. Of course you could always ask them but I doubt if they know themselves.
For some further insight into how women form their buying decisions and consequently, how to market to them differently you should read the excellent group of posts by Michelle Miller at Wonder Branding.
4 Neighborhoods of Female Customers
Neighborhood #1: The Regal Queen
Neighborhood #2: The Sorceress
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