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New Ideas for Bridal Show Email Follow-up

February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

OK, you’ve invested your time and treasure in a bridal show, or several and you have a fat, juicy lead list. Now what?

I have already given you tons of ideas to use both short-term and long-term like cherry picking your lead list and outrageous marketing. The question people still are asking is what  to put in that first email?

An interesting answer popped into my inbox just this morning that I think you should give a try.

How about instead of telling them something you ask them something?

Check this quote from today’s Research Brief from The Center for Media Research.

A new survey from Cint shows that 62% of those surveyed said they were more likely to purchase a brand’s product if their opinion has been sought by brand in a study. The survey highlights the importance of customer insight, says the report, as over half of the 1,200 consumers polled felt more loyal to a brand if it takes the time to find out their opinion.

Personally I can’t think of a better way to get them engaged from the very beginning. You know me, here is an example. If it were me sending the email for Indulgence Custom Bakeshop I would have said something along the lines of:

“Hey there {add first name}, it was great to meet you at the XYZ Bridal Show.  I was wondering if I could get your input on something. It’s a new year and I really want to add some new and exciting flavors to the menu.  If you could have any flavor or combination of flavors for your wedding cake or dessert what would it be?”

Better yet, put in a very brief survey or poll.

Don’t be crass and ask what their budget is. Ask them something that they may just have an interesting opinion on and ask it like you mean it. Give them some reason to believe that their input matters. Tweet the answers like a horse race. Build some excitement. Keep a tally going on Facebook. Foster engagement.

Here is one more tip that you probably already know but needs to be reinforced.

That email needs to be finished and uploaded to your bulk mailer BEFORE  you set up your booth. As soon as the show is over you need to load the emails you collected in your booth and hit the send button. That night. I know you are tired; shows can be brutal. Not taking care of the follow through is the biggest mistake that bridal vendors make when using bridal shows to market.

 

Bonus.

Here is another great article I just found on Asking as Marketing.

Filed Under: Back to Basics, bridal shows, email marketing, Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Website for Fisher’s Tudor House

February 2, 2012 By 2 Comments

It may not look like it on the surface, but this was a huge project. The mandate was to take two very dated, very old school websites and bring them into 2012. There were so many pages and interior links that just sorting it out required a flow chart. The SEO was Jurassic but losing ranking in such a competitive market wasn’t an option. Top it all off with an eCommerce component and a former webmaster that didn’t want to be a team player. I even pulled in old friend Marc Fuller to tweak the SEO.

 

The shining light was a client I just love. He understood the challenges and listened to my advice. Now he is no longer held hostage and is amazed at how easily he can update the new site himself.

Fisher’s Tudor House 2012

Just so you can get some idea of where we started…

thanks Pete.

Filed Under: Announcement, Website Design, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Are Bridal Show on the Up Swing?

January 22, 2012 By 7 Comments

 

OK, you all know how I feel about Bridal Shows. For many reasons they are near and dear to my heart but for several years now they have been a crap shoot. Things may be changing.

I keep hearing from clients and friends that this has been a FANTABULOUS year for shows. Rumor has it that phones have been ringing off the wall for appointments. Do tell? I even witnessed a conversation that this year has been almost like 2007!

WooHoo!!!

I need a bigger sample. QUICK!

 I want to know how the shows have been for you this year. Post a comment and let me know ll the details. I also want to know what kind of show are you doing:the big mega shows or the smaller more intimate, niche shows. It does make a difference.

How have the early 2012 Bridal Shows been?

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Tell me about the show?

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Thanks for playing! Leave a comment and tell me more.

Filed Under: Blog, bridal shows Tagged With: , , ,

Mastering a World in Flux

January 21, 2012 By 3 Comments

 

I caught this great quote in the editors column in the February issue of Fast Company magazine

“In our hyper-networked world, the rules and plans of yesterday are increasingly under pressure; the enterprises and individuals that will thrive will be those willing to adapt and iterate, in a disciplined, unsentimental way.”

This is more or less what I have been saying since 2008, much more eloquently stated. You have to keep your eyes open and be agile and unafraid; but that isn’t what this post is about.

This post is about this philosophy in action; a case study if you will. This is a post about my dear friend, Paul Pannone and how he is single-handedly and unflinchingly transforming a very stuffy, nearly dead industry.

The men’s formal wear industry had all but written its own obituary. Stuck firmly in the past; saddled with outdated looks and hopelessly chained to traditional marketing channels, it was sinking fast. They were living in a bubble. Paul, however saw the bigger picture:create product that followed fashion and market it in a way that would appeal to a younger demographic. To survive, the industry had to get with the program…This ain’t your Grandpa’s tux!

To accomplish anything he had to break down the walls of the stuffy, ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ men’s club that ran the industry. To do that he had to get noticed and show his chops. Chops in formal wear he had in spades having been in the industry for 28 years and publishing a successful industry newsletter, E-formal News. What he needed was to show his mastery of the new marketing. Enter eWedNews. Well, that worked for a while, but it still wasn’t quite it. It did open his eyes to what it was going to take to get this done. Throwing off the bonds of a traditional milquetoast editor he struck out on his own with eWedNewz. Look out world!

Paul understood that in today’s fast paced, information heavy, 24 hour news cycle world you needed a little sensationalism and controversy to shine through the haze. Love him or hate him, he got your attention. More importantly, he proved to the powers that be that he knew what the hell he was doing in the new social media world.

Enter the Weintraubs and FLOW Formal Wear. One of the largest manufacturers of men’s formal wear in the US, they had a lot to lose if the industry failed. Seeing that it was time to adapt to a changing market, they brought in Paul.

Finally in a position to influence change in an industry he had been in since 1984, he stepped up to the plate. Styles were updated, marketing changed and you started to see formal wear that didn’t look antiquated. That was the first step.

 Time to raise the roof.

A big part of marketing today is celebrity endorsements. What you want is a celebrity that understands social media and eyeballs. Oddly, it’s less about how closely the celebrity personifies your brand as it is whether or not they are getting the eyeballs of your target market. So who does Paul pick? Not a dapper James Bond type, but the Situation from Jersey Shores, Mike Sorrentino. Again, love him or hate him, he loves clothes and gets a ton of media attention.

The traditionalists in the formal wear industry blew a gasket! To say they were appalled is an understatement.

This is what MyTuxedoCatelogBlog.com had to say:

When FLOW Formal Wear announced that Mike Sorrentino (aka “The Situation”) from reality TV series ‘The Jersey Shore’ was going to be the celebrity face for their new line of tuxedos, we were admittedly… concerned?  Confused?  We didn’t really get why anyone would choose for a tuxedo line spokesperson a guy best know for losing his shirt

Get over it, you wanted new, you got it. The Situation got his own branded line to stand alongside the lines of Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. You want to appeal to a younger demographic? Here you go.

Was it a risk? You bet it was. The top style in the line, the Avalon is just beginning to arrive in stores and according to Mr. Pannone, “Without going into numbers, let’s just say if this was a book, we blew away our first printing and are already on our third.”  Here is how the industry reviewed the Avalon once they actually got their hands on it.

From the original quote,”adapt, iterate in a disciplined and unsentimental way”; I would say that pretty much sums it up. How one man, unafraid to take risks but with a vision of what can be is on his way to saving an industry.

So what are you doing to shake up your world?

 

Filed Under: Inspiration, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Facebook or Blog?

January 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I ran across an interesting question today about where you should put more effort, in your blog or your Facebook page.

I’m not really sure why that is a question. Let me break it down for you.

Your website is your own personal piece of  internet real estate. Think of it as your home because in terms of your marketing, it is. Your blog should be the heart and soul of your website. In web design today, integrating your blog as a page on your website is the only way to go. If your blog is off on another url from your main one you are missing the boat.

Today’s brides go to one place to find their vendors above all others:

SEARCH.

If you aren’t ranking high in search engines for what you do and where you do it, you are behind the game.

Reread that last sentence. Notice I did not say for your name. I hope to hell you rank number one for your name. Unfortunately, that isn’t how brides search. They search for things in places.

Huh?

They search for florists in Bucks County.They search for wedding planners in Washington, DC. They search for caterers in Fairbanks, AK. They don’t search for Polly Sue Purebreds Catering. If they do it is because they have already been made aware of Polly Sue from a referral and that is a post for another day.

Now that you understand this, you understand why your personal piece of real estate is so important.

Back to the original question: your blog or Facebook.

Every time you post to Facebook, you are sending all that Google juice to Facebook.com, not to Polly Sue’s url. Great, I’m sure Mr. Zuckerberg appreciates the Google juice, but frankly, you need it worse than he does.

Think of it this way, you have an office or a store but you still meet people in the local coffee-house. Instead of investing to improve your office or store, you take time and treasure to improve the coffee-house. That’s just dumb.

How about this instead, you work on improving the store, and then post updates on the coffee-house bulletin board. When your potential customers start looking for you the coffee-house bulletin board is one of the many signs pointing to your store. When they get to your store, they see how amazing you are.

Enough with the analogies, if you don’t get it yet you never will.

Your blog should be an integrated part of your website.

Facebook should send traffic to your website, not the other way around.

Post to your blog and have it automatically cross-post a headline and an excerpt to your Facebook page leading them to your website.

 Done.

 

 

Filed Under: Announcement, Marketing, Social Media, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Bridal Shows: How to Bag an Elephant

January 11, 2012 By 1 Comment

 

Bridal show ROI and goals are interesting things. If you think the only goal of a bridal show is to book brides at the show you are missing most of the opportunities.

I had a most interesting conversation last week with a florist concerning his recent booth at a bridal show. Now this was a small show, but popular among the luxury wedding vendors. Our florist knew that booking more than one or two brides from the show was probably a pipe dream, but he had another goal.

You see, there was a planner in town that he had been stalking (only in the business sense of the word) for several years. This planner was known to use the same vendors over and over, throwing them a ton of work. If our florist could finally get the planners attention, it would mean a lot of additional business.

The planner had booked a booth at this show.

Time for a little research. Our intrepid florist made it his business to learn every thing he could about the planner’s style. He scanned images on her Facebook page, in local magazines and on her website and looked for patterns. Of course there were patterns, we all have them. Then he designed his booth to reflect her style, down to the use of her personal favorite color.

Like I said, it was a small, lightly trafficked show and the vendors had plenty of time to schmooze. Our florist chatted with friends in adjacent booths but stayed pretty much in his booth. In other words, he didn’t approach his target at all.

The target found him.

On the planners FIFTH visit to the florists booth, as she oooo’d and ahhh’d over a particular bouquet for the fifth time and the booth in general she invited the florist to lunch for the following week.

That my friends, is how you bag an elephant!

Filed Under: Blog, bridal shows, Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Is E-commerce Something You Could Do?

January 6, 2012 By 1 Comment

I am seeing the twinkling of a trend among small independent wedding vendors. E-commerce is beginning to come into play more and more as either an additional service or product or a full on pure play. Monday I’ll start my third E-commerce site in the last 2 months.shopping carts and ecommerce for wedding vendors

How, you ask, are wedding vendors using Ecommerce? They are using it in a variety of ways. I’m not going to give away their ideas, but I can tell you that it runs the gambit from hand-crafted products, to personalized design services to gift cards.

This all ties into what I have been saying about really thinking about what makes you unique and how you can use that to enlarge both your offerings and your niche.

Capitalize on your reputation to expand your business.

Think about what you can pre-package, so to speak. Suppose I were still baking. Now my wedding cakes were all one of a kind designs and not something I could have sold on the internet, but my hand made truffles would have worked. For that matter, if I had really wanted to go for it, I could have sold just the designs, cake blue prints, if you like. Brides could have then taken them to their auntie or local baker to bake and decorate.  Do you see where I am going with this?

Put on your thinking cap and go for a walk outside the box. 

One of the amazing things about the internet, is that you can try these kinds of things out relatively cheaply. Put a page on your site with your products and a simple shopping cart for a small investment. If it works, then you can think about really investing in it. If it doesn’t, take down the page off your site and you are out a couple of hundred buck, tops.

Next week, I’m going to take you on a tour of what I think are a couple of the best sites to emulate to market both your current business and an eCommerce play.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Blog, Building Your Business, Trends, Website Design, What's Hot Tagged With: , , ,

Top Post for 2011-Groupons for Weddings

December 30, 2011 By 2 Comments

With all the controversy and news of closings and consolidations in 2011, who would suspect that a story advising against wedding vendors getting sucked into the Groupon culture would be number 1?

Groupon for Wedding Vendors? Not!

I am willing to wager that it wasn’t wedding vendors looking for a boost that sent that traffic through the roof. Now as far as I know, there are still more brides than wedding vendors. (Although some days I question that!) I will bet you money that it was brides looking for a deal. You should see the list of search terms used to find Think this year! Of the top 50, 10 were Groupon related.

  • wedding groupon
  • groupon wedding
  • groupon for weddings
  • groupon weddings
  • groupon wedding deal
  • wedding groupons
  • groupon wedding deals
  • wedding deals on groupon
  • groupon for wedding
  • wedding planner groupon

Right about now you may be thinking , “Hey, I could get a lot of traffic if I did a Groupon”.  Well, yes, yes you could most likely use that to get a ton of traffic, but is it the traffic you want? You may want to read this first…

A photographer works for free for a year through Groupon

Sounds like fun to me.

Here is what brides have to say on Wedding Bee. You might want to notice the comment by the bride than got a deal on here engagement photos…not a word about her booking them for the wedding. Hmmmmm Also the one that bought cake pops, didn’t see her commit to a cake from that baker.

What does this mean to you? Front and center it means brides are looking for deals, but you already knew that. I think that you would be smart to find a way to offer some deals, just not through Groupon-type sites. Come up with your own deals and publicize it yourself with your social media. Put it out on Facebook and Twitter. Publicize it on the local wedding platforms you advertise on.

You might even consider doing it in a Groupon-type manner. Limit the number and require a tipping point. Have a deal on a regular basis, say weekly or monthly posted on your website to keep brides coming back to check.

I can’t even begin to tell you what kind of deal to offer. You will have to think long and hard about that one. Make sure that it gets them into your store or your website. Make sure you will at least make something off of it. Make sure that you don’t do something that will overwhelm you.

Just don’t do what the photographer above did. I want you around next year!

 

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Outrageous Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

The Year That Was: 2011

December 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As I sit here and watch the sun slowly set on 2011 I was reflecting on what an interesting year it had been. There have been some radical upheavals in the industry and some small sparks of life.

Get Married Folded

Priscilla’s of Boston Folded

Encore Invitation left brides high and dry.

The Knot got downgraded.

Wedding business advice has seemingly become an industry of it’s own.

The bloggers and the photographer feuded.

…and the list goes on.

Those little sparks of hope?

It isn’t those people that are coming into the market thinking they are going to make 6-figures as a planner; it’s the small handcrafted mavens that jumped in with out a playbook. Not the ones that brought all their corporate speak and think; it’s the ones with passion and heartfelt joy for what they do. It isn’t the ones that are crying for the world to go back to the way it was; it’s the ones that saw the big picture and changed with the times.

I have seen so many success stories this year and they have all been from folks that are willing to think outside the box, break a few rules and change. Either they stopped looking at weddings through the lens of 2008 or they never had that lens in the first place.

Much like our economy, our industry has a huge gap in the middle. The very big have enough of a cushion that they are succeeding as they slowly turn their great ships around  and the very small are creating a new craftsman sector of the industry. One built on customer service, quality and a vision of weddings as special moments not spectacles.

It’s kind of refreshing.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Rants & Raves, Trends Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to Handle a Bad Review

December 23, 2011 By 1 Comment

I don’t know if you have been following the recent string of articles over on eWedNewz concerning reviews on wedding websites. If not you can catch them here, here and here.eWedNewz logo

What started as a story regarding the sale by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia selling their interest in Wedding Wire grew to be an indictment of Wedding Wire and it’s review program. Whether you like Wedding Wire and it’s review program or not isn’t really important to my point. They are only one of many review programs out there and I happen to think Wedding Wire does a pretty reasonable job.

Here is the thing, you are not going to please everyone.

Yes that is what we all strive for, but it isn’t going to happen.  So on that rare occasion when someone is upset enough to take finger to keyboard and put it out there, how you react is of vital importance.

The first thing you want to do is step away from the keyboard. DO NOT post a response in the heat of the moment. Your feelings are hurt and you are probably angry. Give it a day or two to filter.

Then post one or two reasonable sentences. Something along the line of

“I am sorry that we did not meet your expectations. We are actively reaching out to you via private channels to help resolve these differences.”

Of course you will need to reach out to them, but the point of the post was to let anyone reading the bad review know that you stand behind your work.

What you don’t want to do is post some long, rambling explanation or string of excuses. That is just going to start a very public pissing contest and that is the last thing you want.

Be sure to contact the hosting website to have the review verified or moderated. Sometimes this works. Sometimes.

What if you have no idea who this bride is?

Yep it happens. What if a competitor that is sneaky, malevolent and underhanded lies and posts a bad review on your page?

First you will contact the hosting website to have it verified. That can take forever and they may not even take your side. In the meantime, you need to respond to the review.

“I am not finding any reference to such an incident in my records. Would the poster please poivide her wedding date and location so that I may attempt to resolve this issue.”

Now you have publicly called them out and the ball is in their court. If they continue without providing the information they look like fools. You have also done a lot to CYA.

The main thing you want to keep in mind is that today’s bride is savvy enough not to base her opinion on just one bad review in a long list of stellar ones. In fact in some ways, it makes the other ones look more real. If every single review is Amazing!! Stellar!!! Way beyond expectations!!!!! they start to look a little fake. You know, like those late night infomercials.

Come on now, you do that yourself when you read reviews.

If worse comes to worse and you just can’t take it or find a way to resolve it; contact the website and have yourself removed entirely from the site.

Since this whole bruhaha started with a Celebrity planner’s bad review on Wedding Wire, I reached out to Sonny Ganguly, CMO at WW to be sure you could have Wedding Wire rated badgeyour business removed. Here is his response:

In regards to your question, a wedding professional can inactivate their WeddingWire account by sending a request to our Support team at support@weddingwire.com. Our team will then inactivate the wedding pro’s account and remove personal information that they entered from the Storefront.

Ok, so that was kind of vague and didn’t really answer my question; so I followed up with this:

I need just one point of clarification please.

 Our team will then inactivate the wedding pro’s account and remove personal information that they entered from the Storefront.

Would you remove ALL information regarding said wedding pro? All traces of them, including reviews or would you leave a basic listing?
I still haven’t received an answer to that one yet, but I will post it to the comments when/if I do.
If nothing else comes out of this dust up and the press from it, I do believe that WW will be more closely watched with regard to the review process. To quote one of their, umm, associates “That’s a good thing!”

 
 
As I was writing this I saw this come through my Twitter stream

@idillionaire: If you’re not making enemies, you’re not doing well enough.

Filed Under: Announcement, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,
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