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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: , , , ,

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: , ,

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: , , , ,

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: , , ,

Are you Selling “Happy”

December 16, 2011 By 2 Comments

I was doing some much needed maintenance today on my Google Reader and ran across a post from last week on Broke Ass Bride and had another one of those light bulb moments. Take a second to run through the images on that post and see if you get they same “well damn” flash.

There are few moments in life that should evoke “Happy” the way a wedding does. It is at its heart a day of joy and hope.  Shouldn’t  a smile be one of the symbols used to market it? Now look at all those faces in that post. One, only one shows any real joy. Guess who’s ad it is.*

I know, you are thinking, “But C, those ads are about the dress, not the wedding.”  Hold it right there Bucko!  Everything we do is about the wedding, it’s about the fairy tale, it’s about the JOY!  Are you selling JOY or just some item or service?

Have a look today at your marketing materials. Is there JOY? Are people smiling?

There is an old saying, that no one ever goes to Home Depot because they need a drill; they go because the need a hole.

Your client needs JOY, not a flower or a planner or a dress. Those things are there to help create the fairy tale that she envisions. The fairy tale that, in her mind, will bring her JOY.

* Oh ya, the ad is from David’s Bridal. Any wonder why so many brides gravitate to them. There is a sense of pure joy in their photographs, not high fashion.

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Back to Basics, Marketing Tagged With: , ,

What Brides Want

December 8, 2011 By 2 Comments

 

Some days the universe just seems to present itself in ways that make thoughts and ideas crystal clear.

I ran across an article from last month on Forbes Magazine’s website talking about why so many Millennial women are burning out at work by 30. It made perfect sense. They have been pushed since birth to reach higher, strive harder. To get the best grades and the best resume in order to get the right job and shatter the glass ceiling. Go! Reach! Strive! Succeed! The one thing they never learned is how to take a little time for themselves. I mean for heaven sakes, they are answering email while they squeeze in a pedicure!

I’m short of breath just thinking about it.

Now let’s throw in a little touch of wedding planning for good measure.

Do you have to wonder why today’s brides can be a little frazzled and touchy?

Then low and behold, the universe laid two different answers on my table.

Brides want wedding vendors to take the pressure off. Oh, they may not know it, exactly, but they do.

First I received an email blast from a wonderful wedding professional I have know for years and highly respect, Kellie Bryson of Main Event Productions. Kellie had the opportunity to interview one of her MoBs and shared it in her newsletter. With her permission I want to share parts of it with you.

Getting right into the details — how long did you have to plan the wedding?

A total of 13 months.

Tell us what you thought were the most important aspects in selecting a wedding venue.

The number one priority was a beautiful outdoor setting with a backup plan in case of rain. It was also important that the venue have a wedding package available because we did not have the time or opportunity to shop for vendors. 

Ok, this family had 13 months to plan but felt they did not have the time to shop for vendors. Hmmm, so having a package took off some pressure. You can read the entire interview on The Main Events Newsletter  The point is, they specifically chose a vendor that could take off some of the pressure. Look for this trend to continue.

 

Next an email came to a website I’m webmaster for from a website I had not heard of  that was beginning to explore my local market. I figured I would check it out. My immediate suspicion was that it was just another wedding portal looking to be the next Knot. Well if you have read Think for more than a month you know where I stand on those. This one caught my eye, specifically these few lines

 She wanted something fast and easy that could help her find her vendors. She realized much of her precious time was being spent asking vendors about availability and price range, as well as exchanging basic wedding details. She wanted a location where she as a bride could “shop for vendors,” as well as give vendors a way to see her wedding details and budget without having to pick up the phone.

Wait, you mean to tell me this site was designed from the brides point of view? This bride was sick of wasting her time on the phone telling the same details to multiple vendors just to find out they were booked or out of her price range.  Why couldn’t she just put all those gory details out there and then contact vendors she might be interested in to have a look?

Damn, makes perfect sense to me.

Enter Haley Suggs, the genius behind the nearly brand new website The Bride Link. With most sites vendors buy listing and the lead list that comes with them; a bride registers and then get spammed by every vendor in a 200 mile radius on no information. With The Bride Link, our bride starts the process by listing her information, date, location, guest count, budget, her hopes and dreams even her Facebook page if she wants. Then she looks through the vendors (which are required to list some type of ball park pricing) and for the ones that look promising, she sends them a link request. (Think: Facebook friend request. )  Once the vendor accepts the link request, they can see the full details of our bride’s information and start the contact back and forth.

Brilliant!

This puts the power in the brides hands, gives them the information they want, blocks out all the spam from vendors they don’t want and keeps them from wasting time telling the same details over and over again, Brilliant!

Over the last year in development and the last 4 months post launch, Haley and her team of developers have honed this site down until it is sleek and flawless, just what today’s bride expects. It’s clean, easy to use and easy to navigate. Now it’s time to start scaling.  You see up until now it is specific to Knoxville,Tn. Smart move roll it out locally, perfect the processes and systems then start to scale.

If you are smart and want to be on the forefront of what I think may be the next big thing, contact Haley for a demo.

So what is your take away from this? Find ways to make it easy for your bride. Do what you can to take some of the pressure off. Think packages like Kellie or a streamlined system like Haley.Make yourself their lifesaver.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, wedding marketing, What Brides Say Tagged With: , , ,

Increase Your Bridal Show ROI

December 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It’s that time of year again. Bridal show season is right around the corner. Are you ready?

Do you know how to pick the right show to reach your target bride?

Do you know how to take advantage of pre-show publicity?

Have you designed your show collateral?

Do you know how to design your booth for maximum effect?

Have you written your post show follow-ups? You are doing more than one, right?

I have said it before and I will say it again, bridal shows are expensive in both time and treasure. You need to get the best return on your investment that you possible can and there is only one way to do that.

Be Prepared!

Proper planning from the moment you decide to do a show gives you the jump. One of the keys to high ROI is a total cohesion of all aspects of your show marketing. Decide early on your message and then don’t vary, just keep pushing that one message home.

If you want more information, in a clear, point by point style, you have to read the book. Don’t wait until the last minute, do it now. You need time to develop your message, get stuff printed, get the word out early to build interest and get the booth designed.

Seriously, if you are going invest money in a show, (not to mention a day on your feet) don’t you deserve to get all you can out of it?

Bridal Show Success is the only comprehensive guide to trade shows written specifically for the bridal industry.

It takes you through the planning, to the show to the follow -up. Step by step it will teach you how to produce the most ROI off any bridal show.

Think of how much you have riding on your bridal show marketing, $14.95 is a drop in the bucket to make it all work flawlessly. Heck that’s less than you are going to spend on coffee for your team the day of the show! Isn’t that a small price to book more brides?

Buy the book today, reap the benefits for years to come!

Here is what one reader had to say…

TaylorMade Weddings>Think Like A Bride

My Bridal Show was a success yesterday. I took your advice – “Go big or go home”– and made quite the impression. Let’s just say…the fish was a BIG hit! Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge in your book. It pays!

 

Filed Under: Announcement, Back to Basics, Blog, bridal shows, Marketing Tagged With: , ,
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