One of the things I love most about the one on one consulting I do is that it always gives me ideas on what matters most to my target market…you, the readers of Think Like A Bride. While every consulting client has a different specific need (Hey, that’s why they called me in the first place) in a larger sense they are all struggling with similar issues.
I see so many wedding vendors struggling with identity issues. Whether they are looking for a web make over, trying to figure out what to put in their blogs or if and where to place advertising it almost always boils down to an issue of identity. What is your businesses identity, what is your “Brand”.
Exactly as I have told brides over and over, first figure out the style and theme of your wedding; you as wedding professionals have to do the same. By finding, defining and understanding your unique brand you have a template for all of your other decisions. When faced with a question simply ask yourself, “Does this fit with my brand?”
For many, defining the brand is the hardest thing they have to do in marketing their business.
Here are a few articles that may help and I plan to explore this yet again in the March issue of Think Like A Bride.
Branding. What Are You Missing
Branding. Again> Or why you need a second opinion
If all else fails, call me.
Every now and then I run across these videos. I’ve used some of them in my presentations and seminars. This one has a lot to say about the power of social media. If you think it is just a fad or that you don’t need to use it for your business you are sorely mistaken.
As wedding vendors, your target market IS GenY. If you ignore the media that they use you have no hope of reaching them. In order to sucessfully market anything, you have to:
- Understand your target market
- Know where they are
- Reach out to them in a way that they are receptive to hearing
You can not market your goods or service only in the way that you would be receptive to; or that worked well for previous generations.
Because of how unique our industry is, our target market is constantly shifting. They move at light speed and you have to stay on top of their trends to find them. It is no longer enough to stay up on the latest trends in weddings. You have to constantly scan the jungle to see where the herd you seek to capture is lurking.
This newsletter was in my inbox this morning.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
I’m Getting Married — And Social Media Is Helping
By Joe Marchese
So Saturday I say “I do.” It has been an incredible whirlwind trying to keep pace with work and wedding preparations, although I have to say, @ChristieM ( www.twitter.com/christiem) did all the real work for the wedding. The other thing I have found interesting is how much social media has impacted the planning of the wedding. It makes me wonder how people did it before.
First the obvious, I was able to find almost every friend and family member I needed to reach on Facebook. No calling old numbers or mailing invites to old addresses. And Facebook gave me a permanent connection by which to bug people for RSVP responses.
I never would have imagined how hard it is to pick wedding music, but with a combination of iTunes Genius feature and Pandora’s magical ability to suggest other music based in part on the wisdom of the crowd, we have one kick-ass play list. Christie and I could even turn to Twitter and Facebook to ask our networks which song (”The Blower’s Daughter” or “First Day of My Life”) Christie should walk down the aisle to, when we had differing opinions. Everyone agreed with Christie’s choice (”First Day of My Life”) by the way, something I am sure I will be getting used to in married life.
The honeymoon was my responsibility, and again I turned to Twitter and Facebook to get suggestions on where to stay in the cities we will be visiting in the coming weeks. The responses were amazing. Thanks to all the feedback, I am feeling very confident about the hotels we are staying in, even though I have never been to any of the cities before. For example, in Dubai we are staying at Mina A’Salam at the Madinat Jumeirah (. Dubai was particularly difficult, because sites like Travelocity and Expedia seem to rate every hotel five stars. But people in my Facebook network actually introduced me to friends they have living in Dubai, and I was able to get some local insight on a city I knew very little about.
I plan on trying out iPhone apps and crowd sourced programs to find great places to go while traveling. (Does Paris or Rome have Foursquare?). The whole time, I’ll be keeping my Twitter network apprised of how the trip is going and asking for more suggestions @joemarchese ( www.twitter.com/joemarchese). So if you want to keep up, or have any great tips, come say hi on Twitter or Facebook. I will try not to tweet during the ceremony.
How did people do all of this before social media?
Just saying….
I have been a follower of Holly Buchanan”s for a very long time. Along with a few others, she has been at the forefront on marketing to women. Face it, as wedding professionals we market almost exclusively to women.
I was reading an article of hers recently on her blog Marketing to Women Online
and ran across the following quote:
“Although both men and women assign higher scores to own-sex designs compared to opposite-sex designs, men interestingly ascribed higher scores to female-designed products than the women do to male-designed products and this is further evidence of the fact that, given a choice, men have a greater tolerance of the female design aesthetic than women do of the equivalent male aesthetic.”
Clearly, men and women see things differently. They shop differently and take in details much differently. It isn’t about making things ”girly,” it has to do with layout, color choices, image selection and navigation. You can’t slap a coat of lipstick on a pig and make it suddenly female friendly. I have written extensively on Think Like A Bride about this very subject. You can find more there or on Holly’s site.
My question for you is: Who is designing your website?
Do you really think that a smear of lipstick and a scrap of tulle will do the trick?
Announcing release of Kertesz2 our new WordPress based full dialog website for Professional Photographers. Featuring an easy to configure landing page and impressive dynamic image content gallery Kertesz2 offers style and ease of use. Kertesz2 is an excellent full featured stand alone website, or ideal companion configured to enhance and increase the search rank of Flash based photographers’ template sites like Bludomain. Kertesz2 is provided to you fully setup, tested, SEO optimized and integrated on the webhost of your choice. It can even allow your existing site to remain in place, while your new site is being completed.
Take advantage of our introductory special between now and July 20th For this limited period you can buy Kertesz2 for only $297 not the regular $397. Be quick this offer expires 11:59pm 7-20
Click here and use coupon code KERTESZ2INTRO
Photographers have long been considered visionaries of our industry in terms of internet marketing. They were among the first on the web and the first to see the value in the heavy use of images in marketing to brides. But in choosing their website platform they have faced a dilemma, select a Flash template like Bludomain for its optical appeal or choose a standard HTML type site sacrificing optics but getting much better search engine traffic. They know they need a visually beautiful site to show off their images and talent. But the brides, over 90% of whom use Google to help plan their wedding, never see the photographer’s website in the search listings. Kertesz2 is the remedy
Building on the inputs of our clients and the advancements in WordPress over the last year we have totally reinvented Kertesz, with Kertesz2. The code base is all new! (and 30% larger.) Fully compatible with WordPress 2.8 and using all the 2.8 features. Compatible with the past and even better, it takes advantage of today’s new features in an even easier to use and customize theme. If you are currently using WordPress it is easy to add Kertesz2.
Using the technology of Kertesz2 we have increased our clients website traffic 500% in less that 4 weeks. We have even taken brand new domains to front page Google search search results, also in less than a month.
Kertesz2 retains all the features of the old Kertesz, updated. Better, more interactive, easier to design main page options, improved photo galleries and contact forms. Easier to style and with more impressive graphics. If you already have a Flash based website, like Bludomain, with the inherently poor search potential, Kertesz2 can easily replace your splash page, making it easy to add search friendly content, integrate your blog and Twitter and Facebook feeds and rapidly move your existing Flash site towards the front of Google.
Regardless of your situation Kertesz2 will increase your site traffic and prospective clients. If you have any questions just send me an email.
Last year we began pioneering the concept of using WordPress not only for a blog, but even better using it’s content management system for a full website including the blog. Our clients saw instant search marketing results. Plus the new found ability to manage their own websites with lower costs. The win-win of a web/blogsite.
For the last few weeks I have been working to add a shopping cart to a new WordPress web/blogsite I am creating for a friend. We are doing the full site from art to design to programming/implementation. The purpose of the site is to market Trollbeads. The goal was to have a small business affordable website, that can be managed by the business owner and with superior front page organic search results, so the choice of WordPress was pretty quick.
But what for the cart? Third party shopping carts even from Yahoo or GoDaddy can cost $50 to $100+ a month plus transaction and processing fees. We wanted a less costly option with better styling options. We looked at ZenCart, osCommerce and WPe-Commerce. All of them were good and provided an excellent low cost self hosted cart with the ability extension. I was familiar with ZenCart from some other projects but wanted to try something a little different and that would not have the standard Zencart look.
WP e-Commerce is what we used for Trollbeads Trail. Like many WordPress plugins, it is free with full functionality and the upgrades with a grid layout and really cool drag and drop cart are very inexpensive. It is a little complex to setup (all shopping carts are to some degree), but very straight forward once you understand the application’s terms (the developers are from New Zealand).
The finished look is outstanding and the SEO power over the first 30 days has been even better than expected. So much so that we cloned it for a second site for the same customer replacing the existing website for her jewelry store, Santa Fe Trail Jewelry.
This is excellent for anyone wanting to increase their item sales or rental potential while keeping expenses as low as possible. Take a look at the finished site, remember it is all WordPress even the shopping cart, and let us show you how we can put this feature to work for you -
It is well recognized that to convert a prospect to a client requires a dialog. In the past that had to be done with a personal presentation, conversation, a phone call, a series emails or a combination of all. The website was just a static information resource. Now we have advanced the website to be a large page of the dialog, to become a Dialogue-Site.
A Dialogue-Site will,
- Allow for the simple additions of new information, images and files. Done as easily as creating and sending an email.
- Integrate your blog within your website, directly increasing the ranking or your website and reducing traffic leakage due to people’s resistant to click into new sites.
- Dynamically, automatically display featured content in different locations on main page and other pages within your website.
- Allow site visitors to rate your content and even post comments. Even support comment threading allowing true discussions to evolve on particular subjects.
- Automatically post notifications of any new information to Facebook profiles and page and Twitter. Yes your website will automatically Tweet your changes and also post your Tweets to the front page of your Dialog-Site.
- Create XML sitemaps, save them and confirm notification of Google, Bing and Ask search engines to retrieve the new sitemaps. All automatics every time you make a site change.
- Built-in social media links on every page allowing your site visitors to bookmark and note your site on their social profiles and within their favorite social media/networks.
- Site content syndication. Allow off site subscriptions and reading of your site and its content updates via feedreader or direct email. At not cost to your or your subscriber.
- Easily add new features and pages.
Find out how to get your site to be a Dialogue-Site
See an Example of a dialogue-Site
When the Tennessee Wedding & Events Specialists Association decided to replace their old website they had a long wish list. First it had to appeal to a very web savvy target market and be easy to use across multiple generations. It needed to be updatable and expandable. It needed to be fully optimized for both social media and search and compatible with mobile devices. It needed to integrate membership accounting functions such as membership applications and online renewal. What they chose was a website built entirely on a WordPress platform!
TWESA turned to the experts at the Agency@Think to find a solution. What they got was more than they expected.
TWESA.com is a full website including extensive galleries, blogs, video and member listings all built on a WordPress platform. It is fully integrated into social media such as Twitter and Facebook, even the calendar has its own RSS feed. This is just what visitors see.On the non public side, members are able to post to the site as well as update their listings.
The Agency@Think included a member’s only blog that functions more like a Facebook wall or a Twitter feed. Since the private blog is fully optimized for mobile devices, members can use it as an instant way to communicate with each other while working an event. The importance of having a private one to many back channel means of communication on a busy event day is priceless.
Also an important factor in choosing WordPress was the ability to incorporate membership accounting functionality. The site now has the ability for new members to apply and pay online, members to renew or upgrade online and automatically bills members when their annual dues are up. The system generates full reports on member billing and accounting activity; eliminating many dollars previously paid to an accountant for billing and record keeping. Because WordPress integrates so easily with so many plugins, the Agency@Think was able to set the payment function up completely with in PayPal eliminating the need for and expense of a traditional shopping cart.
Search Engine Optimization is important for any website. Previously TWESA had been paying over $200 a month for SEO. With the new site, because it is built on the semantically correct WordPress Platfom the site is virtually self-optimizing. With each new post or listing the site’s search power increases. But at the end of the day it is results that count. The new Dialog-Site website has increased search engine referrals over five fold in just its first 30 days, with no additional advertising or other time expense.
According to Vicki Sanders, President of TWESA, “When we started this project I don’t think we fully grasped the possibilities. The Agency @Think understood our needs and not only showed us what was possible, but even added functionality that would benefit us that we never even knew existed. Many of our members have WordPress blogs that they loved. So we knew how well WordPress worked for that but we were surprised at how well The Agency@Think was able to use WordPress to build an entire website on those strengths.”
Blogs and Blogging
Way back in 1998, blogging was born and in many ways is responsible for the kick off of the whole Social Media shift. Estimates vary from 77 million up to 112.8 million blogs out there. In the Technorati “State of the Blogosphere 2008”, citing the McCann Report it is estimated that 346 million or 77% of internet users read blogs regularly and that worldwide 184 million people have started a blog.(March 2008).
What caused this exponential growth? For one thing, the tools became available to make every man, woman and child, no matter how technically challenged, a citizen journalist. From free to cheap, anyone could now pop their own page up on the web and let their thoughts out into the wild. That single thing began to change our world.
Before blogs, the information available to the average citizen was controlled by big media or entities with deep enough pockets to buy and maintain a website. Today, that is no longer the case. Blogger (Blog Spot in the early days) wasn’t the first blog platform, but is certainly the one that sparked the revolution for the average man. For absolutely no money and in as little as an hour, anyone with an internet connection could have a web presence.
My how that little seed has grown. The technology behind social media has been growing as fast as the number of blogs. Led by the technorati among us, newer, better and faster tools are being launched on an almost daily basis. The brightest constellation in the blogospere today is Twitter, the micro-blogging platform. In posts of 140 characters or less, anyone with a bit of wit or wisdom and a touch of dedication can become a rockstar in their field.
Let’s look specifically at the wedding industry. Today blogs platforms have become sophisticated enough to replace websites. This site is built on a blog platform. For years small wedding vendors have struggled with their web presence, often held hostage by their web designer over any changes. Web sites were an expensive proposition that once launched, rarely were updated. By using a blogging platform, the ability to update a website at the click of a button is with in the reach of anyone willing to devote the initial time to learning the platform. Unlike the old days, that learning curve has been shorted to a few hours. On a simple to use platform like WordPress, anyone can be confidently in control of their own web presence in a few short lessons.
Why do you need any of this? Well we know that our brides are on the web, we also know that the single best way to get them to find us is through search. The best way to get good search rankings is by having lots of great, search friendly content. The more often that content is updated or added to, the better. That spells one thing, blog.
If you read yesterdays post than you already know that blogging is about sharing. My advice is to use these new tools and this new media to share your passions. You have 346 million potential readers.
Here is some further reading on blogs and blog statistics if you are interested.
Social Media
Social media, when you get right down to it is nothing more than human conversation. Conversations like you have every day, at work, at play at any social gathering; with one exception. Social media makes it happen on a global scale in the blink of an eye.
When you talk about social media, you are talking about tools like Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and a dozen other sites just like them. The common denominator is that they each have the ability to turn what you have to say into a conversation. You put your thoughts and ideas out there for your network to respond to. You share what you know and what you have with others and they share what they have with you. It really is that easy.
One of the comments/concerns I get from people when I suggest they start a blog or join Facebook or Twitter is “No one wants to know what I had for breakfast.” Well that’s true, but if you think that is the only thing you have to talk about you’re not listening to yourself. Don’t you have more intelligent conversations daily? I bet you do.
Think about what you have talked about today with a bride; or what was said on the phone with a colleague. The thing most people don’t realize is that each one of us has a truly unique perspective. We all see things differently than anyone else on the planet. Take for example a group of photographers; if you give them all the exact same subject they will all capture it differently. Whether it is the equipment they choose, the angle or the lighting, no two images will be exactly the same. It’s the same with florists; give eight florists the same bucket of cut flowers and you will get eight completely different arrangements.
Being a part of social media is sharing your unique perspective. The more you share, the more your network will grow. Then you have all these people that are sharing their unique perspective with you. Whether you are learning and sharing with other wedding professionals or sharing your unique perspective with your target market, everybody wins.
Tomorrow I’ll start exploring some of the tools of social media.
