Web design by thinkllike a bride   marketing consulting   other sservices

What is the Purpose of Your Website?

March 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Really? Have you actually asked yourself that question recently?

In yet another epic example of “the cobbler’s children have no shoes” I just recently asked myself that question. The answer was to sell my services. Yep seems pretty simple, doesn’t it. The problem was, years ago when I first started TLAB the goal was to sell subscriptions and the site was still set up that way.

That isn’t what I sell anymore. Now I sell website design, ebooks, consulting and copy writing. Hmmmm, time for a change.

I am sure you have noticed the changes on the website recently, those are all a reflection of finally doing what was right for my own marketing.  Front and center are now 3 calls to action: website design, consulting and other services.  Those pages used to rank at the bottom of my stats. Now I am pleased to say that they are in the top 5 pages every single day.other services

My homepage has my most current blog posts and those are what draw visitors in, but once here they can’t miss the calls to action. Aren’t those really the point?

So back to the original question; what is the purpose of your website. Ask yourself that question and be as brutally honest and precise as you can. Then take a fresh look at your website and see if it is doing what you pay it to do.

One more note about all this, stop looking at simply how pretty your site is. Yes it should be attractive and reflect your unique style and branding but if it isn’t doing the job you pay it for it’s just eye-candy to make you happy. Isn’t that kind of like hiring a supermodel to be you receptionist even though she can’t figure out how to answer the phone? (no disrespect meant to supermodels, just trying to make a point)

Frankly I think TLAB looked better before the change but it wasn’t doing half the job it is now.

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Building Your Business, Marketing, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Creating Your Contact Form

March 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

By now you know that you need to have a contact form on your website. The question is, what makes a good one.

I completely understand that the more details provided the better able you are to evaluate the potential client and answer their questions. You want to know wedding date and guest count. You want to know where they heard about you and you would LOVE to know their budget.  The problem is that with each question you make a required field the more people you lose.

The goal of a contact form is to start the conversation.

All you really need are the following fields:

  • name
  • email address
  • wedding date
  • How may I be of service?

Remember you are just trying to start the conversation.

You are going to get a ton of the following:

  • How much?
  • Send more information?

I am willing to bet you already get a bunch of those now. Right?

Once again, remember, this is just a conversation starter, so start the conversation.

But Christine, you’re saying, I don’t have time to answer all those non-specific emails over and over again. Sure you do. That is if you set up a system to handle it.

Set up a small collection of form letters that answer the most general of questions. Fill in the brides name and send them out.

Here is one for the “How Much” question.

“Hi (Bride X),

Thanks for contacting (XYZ Events).

Let me see if I can help. Our pricing is dependant on the (package, specifics, food, flowers) you choose but generally start at (insert price here).

If you can fill me in on a few of the specifics you are looking for I would be happy to give you a better idea of pricing.

Or if you would prefer, let me know the best  phone number and a convenient time to call to discuss your wedding in more detail.

You can find out more about some of our options here.(insert link to the appropriate page on your website)

I love weddings and look forward to finding our more about yours.

sincerely,

yada yada yada

 

Here is another example for the “could you send more information” question.

Hi (BrideX),

Thank you for asking. I’m not really sure what specific information you were looking for but if you can fill me in I will be happy to help. In the meantime, here are a few links that you might find useful.

You can find information on our pricing here. (insert link to pricing page)

Menu suggestions (insert link)

Available dates (insert link)

What out past clients had to say (insert link)

Please feel free to give me a call at xxx-xxx-xxxx and we can talk in more detail. I am generally available from xxx to xxx. Better yet, let me now a convenient time to give you a call.

Thank you again for your inquiry and I look forward to helping in any way I can.

sincerely,

yada yada yada

Since you have these all set up, you can respond very quickly to most of the email inquiries. That is very important to today’s bride. They want immediate feedback. You have now very quickly thrown the ball back into their court.

The ones that are just tire kicking won’t bother to respond but the real leads will get back to you with a much better thought out request.

You have used your contact form in the best possible manner:to start the conversation.

 

Here is my analogy for the day. You may recall that I often liken client attraction to dating. In this instance you want your initial contact to be more  of a suave, cool, causal pick-up line than a speed dating interrogation. Just sayin’

 

 

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Blog, What Brides Say Tagged With: , , ,

Brilliant Wedding Marketing

March 14, 2012 By 4 Comments

Marketing is tough. How do you decide where to start, where to invest and how to design your marketing material.

You are getting pitched daily by this one and that one telling you have to advertise with them.

“You have to do print!”

“I can deliver  (insert ridiculous number here) leads to you a month!”

“If you want to do well in this market you have to do this bridal show!”

Who do you believe?

The only real way to know what to do and who to believe is to build a marketing plan specifically for your business and stick to it. Don’t you wish someone would just tell you step by step how to market.

BINGO!

Brilliant Wedding Marketing is the step by step guide to building your marketing plan in a logical, layered way.

It tells you where to start and why. As you grow your business, add a layer.

Not only where and why, but how to perfectly execute each facet of your brilliant plan. From what to include in your website to  how to design an ad for print, here are the answers. What about Email? It’s covered! Outrageous marketing? You didn’t think I would leave that out did you?

It’s all here in one clear, logical road map to marketing your wedding business brilliantly!

Brilliant Wedding marketing ebook

What do you spend in a year on marketing your wedding business? Isn’t it worth $19.95 to make sure you get it right? You bet it is. One decent print add will run you at least $2400!  Isn’t it worth less than 20 bucks to get that right?

I know there are about a million books on marketing, but how many of them are written specifically for this wacky industry known as WEDDINGS? More than that, how many of them are written by someone you already know and trust?  One of the reasons you read THINK is for marketing advice in a clear and easy to understand style. No bullshit, no gobldygook; just straight talk from someone who has been there.

Brilliant Wedding Marketing boils it all down to a step by step plan to keep you on track with your marketing.

Brilliant Wedding Marketing ebook

Get the e-book today!

 

 


$19.95
Still haven’t bought Bridal Show Success? Let me tell you, Bridal shows are a key part of your marketing plan and you also have to do those right. If you buy both ebooks I’ll take $5.00 off.

Buy the e-book bundle and market like a pro.

Brilliant Wedding Marketing and Bridal Show Success

 

 


$29.90

Already bought Bridal Show Success? Check your email for a coupon code for Brilliant Wedding Marketing as a thank you from Think.

Your Shopping Cart

Your cart is empty

 

 

Do you want to share these books with everyone you know? Become an affiliate.

Filed Under: Announcement, bridal shows, eBooks, email marketing, Marketing, Website Design, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Southernmost Weddings of the Keys

March 6, 2012 By 1 Comment

When wedding planner and officiate Mary Beth came to TLAB she had nothing but a name and a url to market her new venture. Because she was in Key West there had to be some aspect of “beachy’ to her branding but something like that can so easily go over the top. Elegant was the other thing she wanted her marketing to express. I think we nailed it.

We started with a logo.

Logo design for Key West wedding planner

 

 

Added a landing page.

custom coming-soon page for new website for Key West Wedding Planner

And finally a website.

website for wedding planner

 

Does your branding or website need a new look? Give me shout.

Filed Under: Branding, Portfolio, Website Design Tagged With: , , ,

Sharing Your Images on The Internet Despite Copyright Issues

March 2, 2012 By 1 Comment

Last week’s post Can You Stop Copyright Infringement drew some interesting responses, especially in some of the groups on LinkedIn.

There is a split between those that are old school and trying to sell based on emotions and those that get it. Even if you never post a single image anywhere online, be it your website,Facebook or Pinterest; even if you use film and never produce a digital image, somebody, somewhere is going to use a scanner and put it online. You must not underestimate how savvy people are today. I could go online right now and in a matter of minutes find a high enough res image of the Mona Lisa to print.

For photographers, many are doing business differently. They have changed their outlook to keep pace with the changes in the world around them. This comment from the WPPI group on Linked In says it best. (Printed with permission)

I have to agree with Chuck T. and Christine. With photoshop being taught in High School and lower the kids growing up today have all the skills to do it themselves. They like having the images to work with, and they have learned that working with negitives from their parents of their childhood and want to have that same control over their wedding prints.

*******  this does not mean I disagree with you or think what you said is anyway wrong, it’s just that with the programs out there now, even low resoulution does not protect the image and with the availabiltiy of high end scanners that cost low enough for the average photo junkie to own, there is no way to have complete control over the prints. If you can make a 4×6 / 4×5 print that looks good then the technology exist to be able to make at least 11×14 or even larger prints from that file, and this is not a big ticket software.

In today’s world, I think you need to protect yourself up front. Make your packages worth your time, your cost, and profit up front. Then if you get any additional sales your way in front of your income needs. This way, you take the worrry out of the sale, you do not have to go to an extra length to watermark, or worry about copying and it makes your sales time more productive. No more scheduling return visits to your studio, and no more sales time looking for more sales to make a profit.

This isn’t something that just effects photographers, it isn’t new and truthfully, it isn’t just about the internet. Shortly after I started getting my cakes published inQuilted wedding cake with satin detail magazines, I started getting phone calls from other bakers asking how I had done this or that on a cake. Yep, it kind of freaked me out. That is until I realized that there was a learning curve to much of my decorating skills and for them to recreate my work wasn’t going to be easy on their first go-round. I also realized that if brides wanted the real deal, they were still going to have to come to me because even with a picture in hand no other decorator was going to have my exact skill set. That didn’t make me better than anyone else, just different and unique.

From a marketing stand point, having your images out there can only increase your reputation. Sure, brides are going to show your images to cheaper competitors to try and get the same thing for less money. Just remember, as a creative, your are selling your skill. It isn’t about a 5 x 7 print, it is about your skill in capturing the image in the first place. Charge for your talent. The brides that value your particular talent are going to seek you out.

Bottom line, you cannot keep your images from being shared online, nor do I think you should. Re-post your images everywhere you can, but be smart about it. Watermark your images and always post them on your own website and re-post from there so the image always links back to your primary marketing tool.

 

Side note: The above cake was designed and created by Christine Boulton and photographed by David Wright. The interior was Vanilla pudding pound cake, double chocolate mocha cake, raspberry jam and vanilla bean buttercream. No that isn’t fabric, it is sugar paste. Damn I miss those days!

Filed Under: Marketing, Trends, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , ,

What’s Up with Think’s Website?

February 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The short answer is that I’ve been playing!

The long answer is a bit more complicated.  Have you ever heard the old saying “The cobbler’s children have no shoes?”  What that means is that way too often, people are very good at what they do but they stay too busy to get around to doing whatever ‘it’ is for themselves. The classic example is that in all those year that I owned one of the top bakeries in the city, my kiddos usually got a cake from Baskin & Robbins for their birthday! I know, it’s pretty sad!

It’s the same thing now that I do marketing and design website. I can’t remember the last time I updated Think, a year and a half maybe. Sure, I did a tweak here and a tweak there, but nothing major or thought out. Besides, I really like the way my site looked. marketing consulting

Two things caused me to get in there over the weekend and start rooting around.

Call to action. I preach it all the time that all of your marketing material needs really clear calls to action. No,duh!  You would think I would have had mine front and center. I imagine it was a bit of not seeing the forest for the trees. I had a session with one of my consulting clients last week and in the course of conversation it came up that they didn’t even know I designed web sites. Well Shit! How are going to sell something people don’t even know you do?

Mobile Responsive. The second thing that made me do it was the recent launch of some really sweet mobile responsive child themes for the Genesis framework.   What is mobile responsive you ask? I am not just talking about having images that show up on iPhones and Androids.  My new site will resize itself depending on what device you are viewing it on. No more scrolling from side to side. Really, try it out.

That is a really cool thing, but there is a learning curve and I wanted it on my site, not a clients. There are still things to tweak, like I have to find a new way to display my portfolio. That will come.

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on. I’ll continue to play, especially with the graphics. I’m not in love with those, but you see one of the things I love about the web is that it’s “liquid ink.”  Don’t like something, you can change it on the fly. Keep watching as the new site and framework evolves.

 

Filed Under: Announcement, Marketing, Personal Coaching, Website marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Can You Stop Copyright Infringement

February 23, 2012 By 2 Comments

I am sure you know that I am part of an interesting discussion group, The Wedding Water Cooler. We have some pretty serious back and forths. interestingly enough, the same day I published my post on Pinterest, the group got into a fairly heavy discussion of copyright infringement.

Pinterest and copyright infringement is an issue that is all over the internet right now. This article on theverge.com explains it pretty well. Recently Pinterest has created a snippet of code to place on your site that will disable pinning. That won’t prevent people from downloading the image and uploading it anyway. In light of this from The Wall Street Journal, why would you want to?

It has also been a boon for some small businesses. “Our traffic converts to sales,” said Amy Squires, co-founder of The Wedding Chicks LLC, which posted about $540,000 in revenue last year, up from $340,000 in 2010. The four-year-old online retailer of wedding-party gifts, which joined Pinterest last summer, said

Pinterest now brings in more than double as many monthly visitors to its website than Facebook and Twitter.

Here is what I told the Water Cooler.

Watermark example

see disclaimer

Copyright infringement sucks. Having said that, I have to say this…

 I am speaking only of images here.

The more ways people spread images of your work the better it is for you in terms of marketing, branding and SEO. That is why I believe so strongly in Pinterest. I think you should have the Pin It button on your site and encourage your visitors to use it.

I can set a site to lock down images but a semi-savvy geek can still lift them fairly easily. Trust me, I do it all the time for bridal salons to show images of gowns they stock.

My advice, share your images and encourage people to share them for you BUT watermark anything that goes on the web. The way stock photography sites do it is great. (see above) They use a semi transparent all over mark that is unobtrusive to viewing the image but damn near impossible to Photoshop out.

One more thing to think about is how are your images being used. Is a bride grabbing your image for her pin board with a link back to your site to say she loves this bouquet or is another florist putting it on their site and saying they created it? Big difference. Either way, having that watermark will mean a lot.

 The written word is another story.

You can embed it in a watermarked image but that does nothing for your SEO, maybe even hurts it. So you may try using it for your packages, but not for content you are writing for SEO like your blog post. My only answer is to write in your own distinctive voice and be vigilant in checking with utilities like Copyscape. Computerhope.com has some more great tools.

This is a conundrum that is going to continue for a long time to come. 

Let’s add to the conversation the very nature of the internet and the effect it has on the generation that are our current brides and grooms (and most likely all the ones to come after them) The internet is inherently about sharing and connecting. Today’s generation of brides grew up with torrents and Pirate Bay. They view any content on the internet as fair game. Convincing them otherwise is going to be a bitch, to put it lightly.

 

disclaimer: The image above is a fully licensed image. I spoke with iStockPhoto to get permission to use one of their watermarked images in this article on the condition that I also purchased a licensed copy of  the image. As you can see by the unwatermarked version in the thumbnail on the homepage, I did just that.

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Understanding Pinterest

February 21, 2012 By 2 Comments

For the un-initiated, Pinterest can be a confusing mess. Some see it as a time waste, while others can’t figure out why it would even be popular or useful. Maybe I can help.

I am going to approach this from a marketing stand point. Be warned once you are hooked it will go way beyond that.

A poll just out from Shareaholic shows Pinterest refers more traffic than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined. That should certainly answer a part of the ‘why’. The rest of that answer has to do with today’s brides. Pinterest is over 90% female. Today’s bride and millennials in general are very visual. They look at the pictures rather than read content. Pinterest is right up their alley. What once was a wedding planning binder is now a pin board. Got it? Good.

The next thing I keep hearing is “I signed up but I don’t know what to do”

 

Getting started with Pinterest

Give yourself an hour or four to get familiar with it. In this image you see a couple of things  I am going to point out to get you going. Hint, click the images to enlarge.Pinterest: An Overview

At first you have nothing, no boards, no pins so hold off on finding friends until you populate a little bit.

In the middle top under the word Pinterest you have some options. Click on ‘Everything’ and a drop down menu opens, you probably want to choose weddings & events as a jumping off point. An entire page of images will open. Now just start pinning stuff you like. Click on a picture, you will have the option to Pin it, Like it or Comment. You will also have a button to follow that person. If you like the stuff they are posting, by all means follow them. You can always unfollow later.

When you pin something it will ask you what board you wish to pin it to. Better create some boards! You can create boards on the fly when you pin something. So maybe “table decor”, ‘cakes’, ‘gowns’ whatever you fancy. It really is easier to create boards this way because you will be able to see what you’re pinning and organize it accordingly.

Now that you have a bit of a feel for it and some boards and pins it’s time to start connecting to people you know.

Finding friends on Pinterest


On the left hand top, under your name the drop down menu has the option to find friends. You can see which of your friends from Facebook are on Pinterest and
connect to them. Since I am talking about using this as a marketing tool you might want to start with the people in your industry that you know from Facebook. You don’t need to limit yourself to that, it is just a good place to start.The next time you open Pinterest, you will see all the pins from the people you are following. Repin all you want.

How, Christine, is this marketing my stuff?

It isn’t yet, that was just learning the ropes.

 

Marketing with Pinterest.

At the top left it says Add+  Open that and you have a screen that gives you the option to Add a pin, Upload a pin or create a board. You want to Add a pin. Just copy the url for an image on your website and paste it in. Rather that choosing the Upload option, the pin will link back to your website.

You need to have a Pin it button on your website so visitors can share your images and they will also link back to your website.

One more thing, when you set up your profile, you did make sure to include the name of your business and your website address, didn’t you?

How about using Pinterest for research?

When you open a pin, it show you who all has pinned it. With a little luck and a bit of intuition, you can tell which pinners are brides and which are in the industry. See how this one calls the board “Our Wedding?” Dead giveaway. Just takes a bit to get the hang of it. Check out the boards on the ones you suspect are brides. See what they are pinning. It should give you a decent read on the pulse of the market, both their dreams and their reality.

Also pay attention to which of your pins get repinned. Obviously something in that pin is worth paying attention to, it may just be a coming trend. You can change your email setting in your profile to notify you when certain actions take place.

I haven’t even touched on the search function.

Just like any other social media, if you are using this for business, think about what you pin. The pins you choose will show your personality in a way you can only imagine.

 

Let me know if you need an invitation.

 

 

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Marketing, Social Media, Trends, wedding marketing, What's Hot Tagged With: , , , , , ,

BHLDN by Anthropologie Turns 1

February 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I am always talking about change and thinking differently; well here is an example that seems to be working.

BHLDN, the bridal and party dress line from Urban Outfitter, parent company of Anthropologie turned a year old on Valentine’s Day.  They took the position of being centered more on changing things and offering new options than just trying to jump into an already saturated market.

“”What we saw was a limited market,” said Kristin Norris, chief creative officer at Anthropologie and the creative force behind the BHLDN concept.

Elizabeth Cooksey works to set up the new bridal and event dress store BHLDN from the owners of Anthropologie on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012 in the Gold Coast.

“We saw a lot of space for dresses that weren’t the princess dress, maybe with details and embellishments that are less expected. Maybe the bride didn’t want to pick up the dress nine months ahead of time.”

The chain launched the concept online to test the waters, followed by flagship stores in Houston and Chicago’s Gold Coast. While they state no plans for more stores in 2012, if the concept holds strong they would like to increase to between 50 to 100 locations.

Also from the same article

The idea behind the BHLDN shopping experience is to erase the intimidation that can often accompany shopping for a wedding dress, said Elizabeth Cooksey, director of stores.

In contrast to bridal salons, where a sales clerk sizes up the bride, disappears into a stock room and brings out gowns she thinks the bride will like, BHLDN keeps its wedding dresses on the racks so shoppers can browse on their own. And one room is devoted to a dozen mannequins dressed in wedding gowns and posed as if at a party, allowing shoppers to walk among them.

In a nod to both nostalgia and modernity, sales clerks are dressed in gray pinafore shopkeeper uniforms, while oversized dressing rooms tout iPod docking stations that allow the bridal party to listen to their own music selections as they shop.

Party dresses are near the entrance so shoppers don’t feel they have to be a bride to enter the store. Dresses and gowns range from $400 to $7,000.

Thinking differently seems to be working out for Urban Outfitters. ”According to the Chicago Tribune article, “ the company has said initial sales exceeded their expectations.”

How are you thinking differently?  Are you trying new things, boldly and fearlessly? You better be!

You can read the full article here.

 

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Building Your Business, Trends, wedding marketing, What Brides Say, What's Hot Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Bridal Shows: Break the Rules

February 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Before the show opened, I visited a booth that had a nice display, but failed on my pet peeve, NO SIGNAGE. Not bad signage, none! Hmmm.This was a cake booth and I know just a little more about cake booths than most. There were no pre-cut samples, there was a table in the front of the booth with ~gasp~ a chair behind it.  This I had to keep an eye on.

This is the line outside her booth an hour later.

Here is why…

Because she was hand cutting those samples, she got to talk one on one with every person that sampled her cake. Her booth placement helped; she was the first cake booth.  I am sure she gave out far fewer samples than the other cake vendors, but every single one counted. (I checked. She gave out about 50% of the other cake vendors.)

Unconventional thinking; I love it. This was an interesting twist and I doubt that it would work on a really large show or for a different type of vendor, but for a smaller more elite show…maybe.

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Blog, bridal shows, Marketing, Outrageous Marketing Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »