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Notes From a Bridal Show. Part 4

August 24, 2011 By 1 Comment

The booth for A Magical Affair was a giant hit. Not because it was the prettiest one there and not because I had the tiniest bit of input in it. No, it was one of the best booths there because I can just about guarantee that every bride there saw it and will remember it in the morning.

One of the hardest booths to design is one for a planner. What do you do? A tablescape? People think you are a rental company. Set up a lounge? Nope then they don’t know what your business is. Cover the walls with mood boards and excel spreadsheets? Hey that might  get us somewhere. (scratches head)  Never mind. Let’s just agree that it is difficult to use visual impact to set apart the booth of a bridal planner in a unambiguous way.

 

La Azteca paletas from Chicago

I sat at lunch with Courtney Hammons of A Magical Affair a month or so ago and chatted about her booth. She wanted to showcase trends but do it in a way that had a big impact and more importantly, get brides into the booth.  One of the trend that came up were food trucks. NashVegas has some great ones but you can’t exactly pull one into an eight foot booth in a hotel ball room. Still we all really like the idea so we thought outside of the “truck.”  It’s August, it’s hot as blazes and has been since June. What would get your attention? How about the paletas guy?

 

Gourmet Popsicles, sort of a food truck, very trendy. Works for me!!

 

Finding the paletas and figuring out how to tie it together turned out to be easier than actually tracking down the local guy with the cart. No matter, it still worked!

They called it Sweet Trends, capitalized on the paletas and made sure that the collateral drove the point home. It was hot, and by the time I got there, they had almost run out of the gourmet pops but had some back-up that still worked.

 

 

Love this crowd and plenty of staff to connect with the brides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The palentas made it all the way to the next booth over, Designs in Paper. Double score because they are the one that designed the cool collateral

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the business card made for the show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The printed material is all by friends of Think, Steve and Donelle at Designs in Paper. Check out how perfectly it carries the message forward. I am sure that anyone that found the popsicle shaped business card in their bag the next day knew exacltly where it came from.

Collateral for a bridal show

Wait until you see what this team has planned for January!

 

 

 

 

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

Notes from a Bridal Show. Part 3

August 22, 2011 By 2 Comments

Another weeked, another bridal show. Where should I start this week, hits or misses?

Considering the fear and trepidation that I was greeted with by some yesterday, I think I’ll let the misses off for another day and start with a lesson.

Two different vendors took my advice to heart and it was really working. The first is a small tale with another chapter yet to write.

At last weeks show a videographer pulled me aside and said ” I have listened to your advice and gone tall.” Sure enough he had, he brought in his crane and raised it to it’s full height. Problem was, only he really knew it was up there because it just sort of faded into the ceiling and I told him so. The point of going tall, afterall, is to catch the attention of people over the crowds and from across the exhibition hall. Here is a really bad photo of last week.
Do you see how it gets completely lost?

 

This week, he had a sign hung from the camera. He’s almost got it, but of course I made a couple of suggestions to kick it up another notch. Better background color, some signage to catch the eye, much better.

This morning I got this email. I have left out what the changes I suggested were. You will just have to wait for his next show. If you think you know what they are, leave it in the comments. If you get them both right, I will send you a copy of Bridal Show Success.

 

Hi Chris,
I wanted to thank you for stopping by our booth today and chatting with us.  I also appreciate your comments very much and have taking them to heart.  You’re right that a____________________ would be a great addition to the crane setup, and I know you’re right about adding _________ to it as well.  Next time we will have ____________
Thanks again, and let me know if I can do anything to help you.

I’ll leave the next little tale for tomorrow, but trust me when I say they knocked it out of the park and OH was it sweet!

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

Notes from a Bridal Show. Part 2

August 17, 2011 By 1 Comment

Anatomy of a BoothBridal show fail

Some people do the same booth every show.

Some people grab whatever is handy at the last minute.

Some people don’t even try.

 

…and then there are those that consistently grab the bat with both hands and KNOCK IT OUT OF THE PARK!

 

This is the story of one of those hits.

I have been watching the ladies from Enchanted Florists for several years. Their booths never cease to amaze me. This time I was in a position to watch their booth creation from empty floor to thing of beauty. From the time the floor show opened for set up until the show started, they were like a team of busy, industrious bees.

Take a look at the set up.

From a bare concrete floor, to a shaby chic, boho thing of beauty.

Here is my question to you: If you are going to participate in a bridal show, are you going to do everything it takes to make the most out of it? With bridal shows, it really is “Go big or Go home!”

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

Notes from a Bridal Show

August 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

I worked a bridal show over the weekend and I saw some good things and I saw some not so great.

Now by work, I don’t mean I had a booth, but  several of my clients did. I was there to tweak their booths, and lend support. So, just like you, I was in on the planning, the load in, the set up and working the show for one person or another. It is a very interesting perspective.

Something else that made it interesting was that it was a local show. For me, working a show in my own back yard means I already know all the players, I know what to expect from most of them and am completley caught off guard on the odd occassion.

The misses:

One company had a beautiful booth, a double actually. They did a great job of showcasing their rental products. Well, maybe it was a little over-crowded, but still nicely done. So what’s the problem? I had no idea who’s booth it was. They failed so miserably at signage that even I couldn’t find their sign. If a bride did stop to admire a table setting or chair, I am sure they were handed some collateral but when tomorrow comes there was nothing there to make her connect that table to the collateral. What a waste!

 

 

click to enlarge. Oh PLEASE click to enlarge

Then there was David’s Bridal. WOW! One of my clients was right across the aisle and I had the privilege  pain of watching them for almost 2 hours. Repeat, WOW! They were like predatory cats laying in wait to pounce. At one point I looked across at one of the worse offenders and asked “What’s your quota for the day?” She was not amused. Two things, there is a HUGE difference between being up and informative and being overly agressive.  Second, the number one complaint of the brides I exit polled…the overly agressive vendors !

 

 

The hits:

Showpiece:

This is from another rental company.That skirt is made out of napkins and the sash is a chair tie! Can you tell that they stock a LOT of colors of linen? I hope they used a picture of this in their collaterol.

 

 

 

Swag:

This little swag bag was in the booth of every vendor that participated in the Wedding101 pavillion. I don’t know any of thier client that didn’t feel the love at some point in the day.

Contents:

  • bottled water
  • Ibuprophen
  • trail mix,
  • tissues
  • breath mints

 

Sometimes it’s the little things that mean the most.

Tomorrow some thing that were just very cool.

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

Bride Overwhelmed! Throw her a Rope.

August 8, 2011 By 1 Comment

I was working on refining  next weeks presentation for The Professional Wedding Guild of Minnesota when I ran across this article from the archives of Think. With Bridal Show season upon us, I think it is a great time to republish.

Bride Overwhelmed! Throw Her A Rope.

I have yet to do a survey that didn’t have a high percentage of brides that checked ‘overwhelmed’ when asked their opinion of a bridal show. Try for a minute to see the show thru their eyes. The newly engaged are thinking only of the wonderful personal wedding that they have either dreamed of since childhood or have seen plastered in every magazine and all over TV. They are under the illusion that beautiful weddings just fall magically into place, make a few choices, hit the web and make a phone call or two and its done. Then they go to their first bridal show.

If you have ever worked one of the major wedding shows you have seen the look: that deer in the headlights look on the brides face. You just know that the one thing running thru her head is “ELOPE NOW”. They come to the show full of hope and excitement and by the time they are half way through they are overwhelmed by the task they have in front of them. The options at their feet boggle the mind. “Do I really have to have a custom aisle runner for my wedding to be complete?”  If you think about it that is the kind of message a lot of wedding vendors send. That is the old way of marketing for weddings.

Today’s bride is very savvy to the hard sell. They are at the show to gather information not have it crammed down their throats. Today’s bride is more thoughtful and less emotion driven in her wedding purchases. You will not get her by trying to convince her that today is the last chance she will have to order the only tulle draped crystal encrusted golden scepter guaranteed to make her wedding the envy of all her friends. They just aren’t buying that anymore. They are planning and choosing in a manner that pleases their dreams, not what the magazines or you tell them they must have.

How can you reach them? With patience and calm gentle help. I know that as a general rule I tell you to be up and excited when you work a show and I still stand behind that. This is another opportunity. When you encounter one of these dazed zombies take them under your wing, be their guide so to speak. Take a “Now honey, it’s not as bad as you think; with a little help it can all be accomplished easily” attitude. Be the expert that will thoughtfully listen to their wants and concerns and find them helpful, personal solutions. Offer to set up an appointment to talk with them in more detail as they move forward in the process, personally write your email address on your card with a “You can reach me here anytime.” Let them know that you can see just how overwhelming the show is for them and you will be available for them when they need you. Empathize with their current state.

It goes back to the hospitality theme, turn off the hard sell and turn on the caring and compassion. They will love you. What’s more they will tell all their friends about the lifesaver they found at the show. Hey, you can’t buy that kind of word of mouth.

Filed Under: Back to Basics, bridal shows Tagged With: ,

Bridal Show Success Goes Live

August 2, 2011 By 1 Comment

You’ve read the book, now hear it live!

I will be at the Marriott Southwest in Minnetonka, MN on August,17th to do a live seminar on Winning at Bridal Shows for the Professional Wedding Guild of Minnesota.

It takes more than showing up with a portfolio and a bowl of mints to get any kind of return on your bridal show investment. I dig deep into my 25 years of working shows, helping my clients maximize theirs and assisting bridal show producers to give you what you need to squeeze every dollar you can out of yours. I show you everything from how to pick the right show for you, plan it, work it and then do the all important follow up to really win.

Thank to Gary Swartz, publisher at Perfect Wedding Guide of Minnesota for inviting me. Not only is Gary a publisher, but he also produces bridal shows.  He wants his client to succeed!

You can get more information at the the Professional Wedding Guild of Minnesota’s site..

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    • Filed Under: Announcement, bridal shows, wedding marketing

    It’s Time To Pick A Bridal Show

    October 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

    I know, it’s only October but you need to be on top of this. Bridal shows are expensive and for many of you they are a huge part of your marketing budget. It is critical that you choose well.

    The options seem to be endless these days. There is everything from the giant mega-shows with 500+ brides to tiny intimate invitation only shows. There are Thursday evening shows with cocktails  and Sunday afternoons with tea. There are little hotel shows and members only show. There are church shows and temple shows and shows in the mall. How do you choose?

    There are three keys to choosing the right show for you.

    • Know your target market. No, your target market isn’t “brides” and if you say that I might just leave the room. If you are a regular reader then you know all about how to define your perfect bride. She is the one that you know you work well with.She is the one that has similar taste to your. She is the one that has the budget for your product or is willing to let you work with her to make the numbers work. You know where she works, you know where she hangs out and you should know what her hobbies are likely to be. If this is an area that you need to work on then here you go.   Define Your Market- Then Target It (this is from the Members Content side but I am bringing it forward for the sake of this article)
    • Know about the show. What kind of track record does it have? How long has the producer been in business? Are they using accurate numbers to promote the show. In short, how is their reputation. Do they do what they say they will do. Talk to some of your other vendor friends if you haven’t done the particular show before.
    • How is their promotion? Many bridal show promoters spend all of their time marketing to wedding businesses and not enough time marketing to brides. You need to be sure that they are marketing to bride even more heavily than they are marketing to you. Without brides you have wasted your money. What’s more important is who is their target market bride. Does she mirror the bride in your target market. This is very important. Why waste your time and voice speaking to 500 brides that probably can’t afford you anyway. If on the other hand, if your bride is a low-budget bride and you make your money off volume like Wal-Mart, you don’t want a show with only 75 very hip, well-heeled brides. Are your brides traditional or trendy? Is the show traditional or trendy. Find the show that matches.

    Bridal shows are big business today. The can be a big part of your marketing, particularly the January and February show cycle.

    Once you have selected the right show for your particular wedding niche. You need to know how to make the most out of

    it.

    Better read the book, Bridal Show Success

    or don’t even bother wasting the money on a show.

    Filed Under: bridal shows, Marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , ,

    Why You Should Cherry Pick Your Lead List

    July 7, 2010 By 3 Comments

    We all know about lead lists. I’ll bet most of you do one of 3 things: Ignore it, Email blast it or send out a single post card. Suppose you did something outrageous instead?

    It’s tough/expensive to do much more than the three things I just mentioned with a lead list of 500 to 2000. With direct mail, you have to put together a piece that will get noticed. How many postcards do you think brides get right after a bridal show?  What is going to make yours stand out enough to even get noticed? Add to this, it is proven that you need multiple mailings of standard direct mail before you have any chance of the lead acting on it. So now it isn’t just about sending out 500 to 2000 post cards; it is about multiplying that by at least 5 to get the response you need.  Now that is starting to get expensive.

    Blast email can work with a couple of caveats. For one, you have to have permission to send them. Any reputable bulk mailer will require that you have gathered the leads yourself. That means that the list that you get from the shows or from bridal mags you advertise in are usually prohibited. What’s more, even if you found a way around the system, about half of those email addresses are bogus or are just junk mail dumping accounts. The second caveat is to get around the spam filters you really have to know what you are doing when you craft your email. That is particularly true in crafting your headline.  If you start getting caught by the spam filters you may well find your email address or isp blocked altogether.

    Of course at least these two options have a bit more of a chance than doing nothing. Unfortunately, that is what most people do with the lead lists.

    Now suppose you really analyzed those lists ,compared a few different lists, pared them down to only the really juicy prospects, and separated them by wedding date? You may end up with maybe 3 leads some months, maybe 7 to 10 for others. Now that is a doable number. You could pull out all the stops to get their attention then, couldn’t you?

    So now what? That is where your unique creativity comes in to the equation. How outrageous do you want to get and how much are you willing to spend to get a great client?  I read something recently about a house cleaning service that would cherry pick their leads and send the ripe ones a DVD player with a DVD full of testimonials of happy clients shot in their clean homes. Now that is pretty dang outrageous, but if you get one out of 3 and stand to make a good bit of money on their weekly service, it was worth it. They did this once a month and grew their business by at least one or two new clients a month.

    Now I am not saying you need to send brides DVD players but there are other outrageous things you could do. I spoke with a florist recently about sending out a small floral arrangement to 3 leads a week. She would just order a bit of extra flowers and deliver them herself. I can guarantee that she will be on that bride’s radar so much more that an email or postcard would have done. If you are a baker, how tough would it be to send out a few boxes of cupcakes a week?  Hey DJ’s, how about a CD of the 15 Best First Dance Songs?  Caterers, could you invite 4 couples to a tasting a month? Remember, you are only hitting the very best prospects, those prospects that your close ratio should be high on if you can get their attention.

    I know a bridal salon that does appointment only champagne shopping on Sundays. There are signs posted and she tells the brides that come about it. How much more effective would it be if rather than waiting for brides that already had been in her shop to book an appointment she started sending out selective invitations to good prospects off of her lead lists. Maybe do a private fashion show once a week for a select number of girls.

    Yes, all of this costs money; all marketing does. This kind of marketing is done on a small scale and is highly trackable. It is also so outside the box that you are bound to get noticed. Or you can keep doing what you have been doing and hope it works.

    Filed Under: bridal shows, Outrageous Marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , ,

    Outrageous Marketing:More Ideas

    June 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

    I have had several people contact me after buying Bridal Show Success or reading my posts on outrageous marketing that wanted more specific direction.

    The whole point of outrageous marketing is to stand out from the crowd. Perhaps the best way to get your creative juices flowing is to catalog what the ‘crowd’ is doing.  Let’s start with bridal shows. In the book I suggest that you have one statement piece in your booth. Go to the next show you can find and see what everyone else is doing; then do something else. OK, that sounds pretty lame, but think about it. If you look at the photographer’s booth every one of them has beautiful wedding images hanging in their booth and after a while they all look alike. Hang something different.  I am not saying don’t put wedding images up, I’m just saying as your statement piece do something completely different.  If you do fine art photography, use one of those, blown up to an outrageous size.  If you have some award winners put them on one wall with the awards. In a sea of wedding photographs you booth will be the one they remember.

    If all the sugar artists in your area fill their booth with 3 or 4 full size cakes make one larger than life dummy and than a wall of centerpiece size cakes that are all different. Get some vertical shelving (I used to pull the chrome shelves out of my shop) and fill the shelves with different thing that you do: cookies, small cakes, examples of sugar flowers and put something amazing on that top shelf that will be seen above the crowd.

    Are all the florists doing a major statement piece arrangement in the center of their booth? Do a variety of smaller, more realistic ones. A client of mine gets a corner booth and takes down the outside wall. On that point she puts a 7 foot tall wrought iron tree hung with bouquets and boutonnières. Smaller arrangements and tabletop décor line the back wall, again going vertical with stands. They are grouped to go with the various bouquet styles. Trust me, that tree draws a lot of attention. Brides first see it as a whole and then start discovering all the parts that make it up. If a bride zeros in a particular bouquet, she can show her ideas for centerpieces that go with it.

    If you are looking for follow up ideas, send in an accomplice to sign up. Seriously.  The only way to know what kind of follow up your competition is doing is to get on their list. Find an employee or friend or daughter of a friend and have them sign up for services in your category. Use an email address that can be forwarded to you. Once you know what they are doing, again, do something different. You should read the article on Cherry Picking Your Lead List for more ideas on outrageous follow up.

    This is for the July issue of Think, so in a perfect world, you can go scan the late summer shows and start planning your booth for January. If not, you may have to see if you can dig up some images from last season.  If there are multiple shows in your area, go to the ones you aren’t doing. Sign up to their mailing list off their website, that may give you some indication of what they are thinking.

    Some of you may think this all sound a little shady. If I were telling you to go steal their ideas I would agree with you; but I’m not. I’m telling you to do this kind of research so you can zig when they zag. Marketing is about making you stand out from the herd. If you are doing the exact same thing as everyone else you are just going to blend in. Be outrageous, be flamboyant, be uniquely, marvelously YOU!

    Filed Under: bridal shows, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , ,

    Putting Prices on Your Website

    June 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

    This seems to be a question as old as the internet. Most vendors I have worked with or talked to have struggled with this at one time or another.

    My answer 99% of the time is a resounding “Yes”

    When a recent website design client broached the subject last week, for her, I thought about it a different way.

    Sometimes just listing prices or “Our packages start at..”isn’t necessarily the best way to handle this sticky issue. If you have a lot of pieces and extras in even your smaller package just putting those numbers on your webpage might not be the best way. The result of putting in those prices with out having the opportunity to explain or  sell them first may scare some away.

    Here is something to try: Create a full blown, glossy shiny brochure as a pdf that they can download from your site. That way, your site has already had the opportunity to seduce them into loving you/your product before they see the prices.

    They still get the instant answers on pricing that they demand today but you have the opportunity to wrap in in soft, pretty marketing spin. You will have the opportunity to really get into detail on what is included and why. Rather than just scan the “investment” (BTW, I hate that phrase on a website) page, they will have to go through another level of marketing. If they go to the trouble to download the pdf, they are already interested.

    Bonus: You are going to need a nice marketing piece for any face to face marketing you do like bridal shows; might as well make it do double duty. Design you pdf so that you can update the prices yourself. On the print side, don’t over print! It is a little more expensive per piece to order fewer but you gain the luxury of being able to update your prices on each reprint. Better that than having 5000 pieces that you can’t use or having to honor the out dated prices.

    Tomorrow I’ll talk a little about design.

    Filed Under: Blog, bridal shows, Marketing
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