Rants & Raves

Content is King. Even the SEO Rapper Says So

April 21, 2011 By Christine 2 Comments

I stumbled upon this on YouTube today. The SEO Rapper on Page Rank.

I love this guy! Not only does he know what he’s talking about but he is one dang Out of the Box thinkin’ Gorilla Marketer! He took a skill and zigged when everyone else was zagging. Oh sure, he could have taken that talent and rapped about sex and guns and drugs, but NOOOOO, he flipped it to the world of internet marketing. I’m sure he is doing quite well for himself and I bet he sleeps better.

Watch the video an learn a little about Page Rank, Content and SEO.

Here is another one just for the fun of it. Social Media

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Marketing, Rants & Raves, Website marketing Tagged With: SEO, website management, Website marketing

Game Changers in the Wedding Market

April 8, 2011 By Christine 3 Comments

I talk to a lot of different wedding businesses over the course of a week. I also talk alot about change and our changing marketplace.

When I run across the former that really gets the later I want to jump up and down with joy. You have heard me talk about photographers that are switching focus, florists that are changing to showcase rental and planners that are putting thier talents into an Etsy store with all the things they make for weddings.

Here are two that are jumping into the wedding fray from other industries that might just be game changers.

My Flip Wedding:

My Flip Wedding is the brainchild of Storymix Media. These guys have been doing editing and fusion media for pro-photographers for a long time. Now they are jumping into the retail side.

Couples can rent Flip Video cameras and have their closest friends and family members video their wedding, shower, stag & hen nights or any other part of their celebration. Then they send the cameras back in the pre-paid envelope and let the Apple Certified pros create a highlight reel. It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s really inexpensive and couples are loving it.

I know that videographers are going into convulsions right now. Look, this doesn’t have to be about cutting you out, it is about adding a different POV. It is also an option for the 70% of couples that weren’t going to hire a pro anyway.

Here is a company that read the numbers, found a new solution using cutting edge tech and are poised to be the hot new trend.

Just an example of reading the market and giving them what they want in the way they want it.

Something Borrowed NY:

We have all watched the changes happening in the bridal gown market. Vera Wang saw it coming and hooked up with seemingly strange bedfellow, David’s Bridal.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Brittany Haas last night of Something Borrowed NY. Haas and her business partner met while in university studying fashion, both design and business. As they watched their older sisters and friends search for the perfect wedding gown and grapple with the cost, they listened and learned.

It seems that the newest generation of bride still longs for that high end designer fairy tale gown, but don’t attach the same sentimentality to it as generations past. Yes they want to wear it, but once the wedding is over, they could care less. After the wedding, these same brides tried, mostly in vane, to sell their very expensive gowns. Despite the now seeming abundance of resellers and consignment sites on the web, they had no takers.

As a response Haas is working the plan and building the foundation of what may well be a new trend. Rentals. It may not take off tomorrow or next week, but mark my words, as more and more Gen Y brides enter the marketplace this will become acceptable. They are already comfotable with concepts like Rent the Runway and Bag, Borrow or Steal. When it comes time to decide what to wear on the big day, well, Something Borrowed NY will look pretty good.

Yes, it is a fledgling business in a fledgling concept, but when it hit’s; look out world. Something Borrowed NY is an idea whose time may very well have come.

(I purposely did not include Something Borrowed website because is isn’t ready for prime time, but give them a follow on Facebook and watch these dynamic ladies leap forward?)

How are you changing the game? Or are you content to just stand there and get run over.

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Rants & Raves, Trends, What Brides Say Tagged With: Customer Service, Trends

Know Your Market: Gen Y Brides

March 28, 2011 By Christine 3 Comments

Have you been paying attention?

Brides today think differently and it isn’t just about the economy. Oh, that’s part of it. I guess I should say it isn’t just about the money. It is about the experiences they have had, the way they think and the way they were raised.

We now live in a time that values self-service and self-reliance. Ask the internet any question short of brain surgery and you will find not just instructions but a video tutorial on how to do it. Your brides are well aware of this. They were also raised to believe that they could do anything they set their mind to. Forget the fact that they may have no talent whatsoever. No score soccer leagues where everyone gets a trophy ring a bell?

How about transparency? Everything you have ever done is on the web. Every complaint or ruffled feather in the last 15 years is still out there for someone to search.

Transparency and the internet color their take on pricing too. Yes you may be in a very expensive market, but hey, they look at the websites of vendors in small town middle America looking for ideas and don’t understand why you are more expensive. They talk to brides all over the world in forums and see that one bride got her bouquet for $$ and don’t see why they should pay you $$$. They surf the web for the lowest price and find it, then use that to convince themselves that you are just out to scalp them. If there are photographers on Craig’s List that will do packages for $250 doesn’t that mean that the other $2750 just go in the higher priced photographers pocket?

Make no mistake, I get it. I understand why what we do is expensive and I get why you charge what you do. Remember though, I’m on the inside, she isn’t. Her lens is much different from yours or mine.

Self-service and instant gratification is another part of what makes her different. If she wants something, she pulls it off the rack and takes it home. Instant. Long gone for most of today’s women is the hands on, well-trained sales rep. It is a concept that she has never know. The friendly face that you saw every time you entered you favorite boutique that knew your style and was right there to recommend new things and steer you clear of what didn’t work is a joy they have never known. In short, they have never known the service level that true wedding professionals provide on a daily basis and when they see it they are dis-trustful.

Here is a little story that illustrated my point.

I have a friend, a life long New Yorker, who recently went to a medium-sized city in Canada for a conference. I spoke with him while he was there and his take was “Everyone is so nice and friendly here that I keep looking over my shoulder for the knife to get plunged in my back.” He was so used to things being one way that when he was treated with kindness, respect and great service he just didn’t trust it. Your brides don’t trust it either.

Do I have a point to this rant?

Just this, it’s not you. Today’s brides are different. That is why things like Costco Bridal and Micheal’s DIY invitations, iPod Weddings and Flowers by the Box are getting traction.

Keep thinking re-invention. Know your market, reach them in the way they want to be reached.

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Rants & Raves, What Brides Say Tagged With: bridal marketing, Wedding Business Success

Who’s the Boss?

January 24, 2011 By Christine Leave a Comment

I was following a thread on a forum today about some employee issues. I occurred to me that ya’ll could use a pep talk.

One of the hardest steps many of us take in growing our business is hiring staff. It is a tough move to make. You have to have help to grow your business. You love your busness passionately, like a child you have lovingly raised that is now happily toddling.

You want to build a team around you that has the same love and passion for your baby as you do.

Sorry. Not gonna happen.

They are your staff, they are not your friends. Oh, you may have great relationships with your staff, you may even enjoy their company outside of work. Ultimately though, in the end, their ties to your business are tenuous ones bound by the power of the zeros on their paycheck.

Once you understand that, you can begin to treat them as they should be treated.

I understand that at first, this kind of sucks. How could someone not love your business like you do? Reality check, to them it is just a job. Now if you have hired the right people, they will have the moral character to do a great job for you, because that is the right thing to do. Something along the lines of an honest days work for and honest days pay. Heck, great employees will even take joy in the work they do for you.

Make no mistake, they are only invested in your businesses growth to the extent that it provides them security.

Now, start acting like the boss.

Suzy Q may really want to work the party for the client that always tips outrageously. Well if Suzy Q has been slacking or grumbling lately, you don’t need her on this important of a job.

Bobby may prefer working the front of the house, but you need his back more on load-in and heavy lifting.

Start thinking about your employees as assets. Use them where they benefit “your baby” the best. Like any asset, take care of them with good compensation and working conditions.

Listen, this may sound crass, but your employees, just like your camera or your oven or your van, do what they do for you not because they love you or your business, but because currency was exchanged and you took the time and care to keep them in peek condition to perform their tasks.

Filed Under: Blog, Rants & Raves Tagged With: employees, growing your business, Wedding Business Success

Wedding Experts and Web Content

January 13, 2011 By Christine 3 Comments

This has been bugging me for a while so prepare yourself for a rant!

I have been following a couple of discussions over on eWedNews, one about wedding portal websites and another about so-called experts in the wedding industry. Gah!

First off, have you done any bride-style surfing on the internet lately? Seriously type in any search string that a newly engaged woman might use, like “How to start planning a wedding”? Every damn one on the first page for that search is some self-serving drivel written as “keyword content”. There were 5,240,000 results. The 7th listing was from a website called MamasHealth. For real! What makes them experts in wedding planning? The 8th result was for a site called the Power of Home Biz telling you how easy and lucrative becoming a wedding planner is. For crying out loud, the Knot didn’t even make the first page! Not that they are an example of great content, but still.

This is the world your brides step into the minute they get engaged. It is one loaded with hucksters and shysters and carnival barkers all wanting a piece of the supposedly rich, recession proof wedding market.

If you take the time to read some of this stuff you will quickly get an understanding of why today’s brides are so confused/deluded/insane.

Once they get past the basic search and start hitting the blogs to gather information to put into their binder they get hit with fairy dust stories of spectacular weddings on a buck .95 budget. Whoops, that bride with the over the top wedding on a $5ooo budget neglected to mention that her sister is a photographer on a par with Jasmine Starr, her aunt owns a posh boutique bakery, her uncle Louie is a caterer to the stars and her best friend is Martha Stewart’s assistant. But hey, she did it for $5K, so can you!!!

How did all this happen? Greed. Greed for search ranking.

In a post Google world, search ranking is the golden ring and content is king. Google is after all only an algorithm, it can’t discern the quality of the content, only if it has the right searchable keywords. Therefore, any article with the right keywords, no matter how bad the information, can get to the top of the list. To the searcher, that gives it credibility. Google has judged your content to be worthy and declared you an expert. Pffffft! Give a huckster a list of the right keywords and they can game the system to make themselves look like an expert in any field, not just this one of badly informed brides. Go MamasHealth!

With the portals, well they aren’t much different. They want your money, they use their website stats to show you how wonderful they are so you will advertise with them. How did they get those stats? Content. Have you ever actually read any of it? Most of it is bullshit with dash of recycled garbage and a touch of fairy dust. When brides read it, one of two things happen: either the site completely loses credibility or worse case, the bride buys into the bogus information. The first group won’t bother to look at vendors on the site and the second group you don’t want as your bride anyway.

Then there are the bloggers. I’m not talking about all wedding bloggers. Please don’t think that I am.Some of the only really credible, honest information today is found in the blogs. There are two kinds of wedding bloggers. There is the vendor that chats about their business and the weddings they have done as a way to market their business and educate brides on their business and their part of the industry. Good on you. Then there are the ones that are just trying to keyword load and will post anything they can think of to wrap around a keyword. My all time favorite was the DJ that was telling brides if your baker wouldn’t guarantee you that your cake would be baked the morning of your wedding, move on and find a reputable baker.

Then there are the probloggers. Generally these guys are pretty good. After all they make their living off this and know where and how to find the real experts to quote and inform. They have a little work to do on budget honesty, but all in all, most are pretty good.

I know this was a long rant and I appreciate you patience in reading it. Unfortunately I don’t have an answer for you…yet. I just wanted to make you aware of the lay of the land in a Google world.

Filed Under: Blog, Rants & Raves Tagged With: internet marketing, search optimization, Website traffic, wedding experts

Are You in Denial?

September 24, 2010 By Christine 1 Comment

If you have been following along on the numbers that have come out this week and some of the reasons why the number of wedding are declining then you were most likely already fairly well informed.

I was over on the Wedding Wire pro forums today and I still see people that aren’t facing the facts. This industry IS NOT recession proof. Oh, sure maybe a tiny blip of a recession but not one of the enormity of this one.

For years the mainstream media has been calling us recession proof and touting the tremendous growth in the industry. The number of couples reaching marrying age was about to start an unprecedented boom. How could anything go wrong?

Past recessions have affected portions of our economy. This recession has affected our economy across the board and that is why it has been so devastating to the wedding industry.

One of the biggest factor that plays into it is the high unemployment numbers. There are two ways that they are hurting us.

The obvious one is no job or to little of a job means no disposable income to throw at a wedding. As couples feel less secure in their finacial future the less likely they are to splurge on a wedding. Even those still getting married are doing it in a much more fiscally responsible way.

That’s the first whammy.

Here is the second. When unemployment rises, the corallary is that the launch of small businesses rises with it. Given what the mainstream media has been saying for years and the realativly low cost of entry, why not jump into the wedding industry?

Pros like you and I that have been watching this for a while had some inkling of what was about to come. Not so for those newly embarking on a career as a wedding professional. So here they came in droves. Little to no experience, no idea how to value their service and a pair of rose colored glasses to see it all through. ~sigh~

Ironically, I see more money being made in the industry today by “experts” doing seminars on how to grow your wedding business or wedding vendors dumping thier business to become pro bloggers.

As you hear all the noise about how “you, yes you! can become a wedding rock star in five easy lessons!” remember, the numbers aren’t there to support all these wanna be rockstars.

*As a side note, I have been predicting this since at least 2006. If you read Think regularly or have joined and combed the archives, then you have already started to re-invent yourself for this new reality and you are going to survive this.

Filed Under: Announcement, Blog, Rants & Raves

Why Are The Number of Weddings Down?

September 21, 2010 By Christine 1 Comment

Did you catch today’s story on eWedNews.com?

For the first time, the number of weddings has sunk to the level of 1968. This is from a peak of 2,477,000 marriages in 1984 now down to 2,077,000 marriages in 2009. This is even though we have the largest birth population ever moving into the average marriage age.

So what’s the deal?

Well, here’s my take on it.

There is plenty of blame reason to go around.

Part of it has to do with the stigma of living together and the stigma of babies out-of-wedlock having disappeared.
Part of it has to do with the economy. Some couples may simple be waiting for an economic uptick. Although what I am seeing for 2011 doesn’t lend much credence to this.
Part of it has to do with so many of this generation being themselves children of divorce. “It was a nasty time, why would I want to risk that.” “My mom was a single parent, I turned out OK.”
Part of it has to do with the wedding industry itself. Weddings in the media have gotten so over blown that I think some couple are avoiding marriage just to avoid the wedding.

There are probably more reasons then these few, but, with over 25 years of analyzing this industry under my belt, this is what I see as the big ones.

All this is coming at a time when the wedding industry is becoming over crowded with “professionals”.

As a true wedding professional what are you going to do?

You had better be nimble. Face it, one of the best things about being a micro-business is the ability to move quickly and with agility. So start looking at the options.

Reinvent your business.
Consider rebranding to something less Platinum and more friendly and warm.
Readjust your packages.

Just a few ideas, you have to come up with the ones that are right for you.

Business has always been about one thing:

Find out what the market wants and how they want it delivered and give it to them at a price that you can both live with.

It’s just as simple as that!

Filed Under: Blog, Building Your Business, Rants & Raves Tagged With: industry news, Wedding Business Success

NY Times Article Must Read

September 13, 2010 By Christine 1 Comment

If you haven’t caught the article in the Sept 12th edition of the venerable New York Times, Blogging Brides please take a minute to read it.

Some of you may think that at times I bang the drum a little hard when it comes to blogs and your online presence but I do it for a reason. That reason is because it works at a time when not much else does.

From the article, here is what one bride had to say:

Sara McCarty of St. Louis said that during the 14 months of planning for her July 2009 wedding near Jackson Hole, Wyo., “I started with some of the magazines, but I moved to the blogs because there were so many more ideas.”

Ms. McCarty, 30, added that she subscribed to more than 50 blogs, where she heard directly from brides about the ups and downs of wedding preparation, and was able to chat with some of them on online forums.

She added that this was “more helpful than a million pages of ads” in bridal magazines.

This is where today’s brides are getting thier ideas.

Couple this with another trend, that of brides having a very clear picture of what they want but having no idea of what it costs and it gives you a very strong opportunity. An oportunity to educate.

For too many years, you and I and every other wedding vendor has looked at the editorial content in magazines, TV shows and major websites and just rolled our eyes at what is being pushed by those that aren’t out there on the front lines. Who can forget the debacle created by the Knot on the Today show quoting the price of an over the top centerpiece at $100?

Blogs put the power to educate in your own two hands. Stop blowing smoke up these brides wedding gowns! If you post a picture of something, give them an indication of probable cost. If you post a picture of flowers, let them know what months they are available. I remember the cake in MS Weddings that was adorned with golden raspberries on the stem. When my produce broker stopped laughing he said he’s call me back. Answer? $75 a 1/4 flat overnighted from New Zealand. Educate, educate, educate!

If you post a DIY project, put some indication of the cost and time needed as well as maybe some indication of skill level.

Also in the article are some powerful example of what can happen if you get your work featured on one of the top blogs. Not a bad thing at all.

Now, do you want to tell me where you want to devote your marketing time and money?

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Rants & Raves, Website marketing Tagged With: blogging, bridal marketing, wedding marketing

Content is King. Even the SEO Rapper Says So

Game Changers in the Wedding Market

My Flip Wedding:

Something Borrowed NY:

Know Your Market: Gen Y Brides

Make no mistake, I get it. I understand why what we do is expensive and I get why you charge what you do. Remember though, I’m on the inside, she isn’t. Her lens is much different from yours or mine.

Do I have a point to this rant?

Who’s the Boss?

Wedding Experts and Web Content

Are You in Denial?

Why Are The Number of Weddings Down?

Well, here’s my take on it.

As a true wedding professional what are you going to do?

Business has always been about one thing:

NY Times Article Must Read

Join Christine Online

What I Do

Subscribe

Brilliant Wedding Marketing

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

Bridal Show Success

How To Really Make Bridal Shows Pay Off

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

Get the Newz

Tweets to You!