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3 Reasons You Need to be on Pinterest

February 3, 2012 By 4 Comments

Surely you have heard of Pinterst by now. Pinterest is an invitation only site  (but invitations are easy to come by) where people curate images.

 

The number one reason you should be on Pinterest

is because your brides are.

Pinterest has replaced the binder full of pictures. Don’t be surprised to have brides waltz into your shop, pop out their iPad and start showing you their pins. You want them to be pinning your work! You can upload your images or just pin images of your work that others have posted.

Number 2. There is no better way to know what trends1 are rising then to keep up with what brides are pinning. Follow brides in your market and around the world. You will quickly see what is catching their eye.

Number 3. It gets your creative juices flowing. One idea leads to another. Don’t be afraid to pin the work of others. Brides will get a good idea of your taste and that helps them choose you.

 

FYI Pinterest is also the biggest time sink going right now, so be forewarned. You really should  follow my boards.

1 Top trends I am seeing, ombre cakes and it seems every other bride is in love with chuphas and mandaps, regardless of their religion.

Filed Under: Trends, What Brides Say, What's Hot Tagged With: , ,

Is E-commerce Something You Could Do?

January 6, 2012 By 1 Comment

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

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

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

Capitalize on your reputation to expand your business.

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

The Changing Face of The American Wedding

June 29, 2011 By 1 Comment

I set out this morning with the intention of doing one of my Trend Tracker post. You know, where I run through about 1000 posts in my reader quickly to see what jumps out. Well today, what jumped out was a little deeper than colors and feathers, circuses and painted signs.

What jumped out was a different way of thinking about weddings, to be more precise, how couples are thinking differently about their wedding.

There seems to be a feeling or yearning for the small town, tight knit community of family and friends. Gone is the urban chic. Even the Mad Men look was no where to be found. I felt transported to a time and place when life was simpler. A time of picnics in the town square, concerts in the band shell, carnivals that appeared magically on the outskirts of town, a time of farmhouses and faded picket fences.

I saw more and more of families pitching in to help the couple realize their dreams. Think of the new American wedding as a modern day barn raising.

If you will notice, I used the word ‘couple ‘ in the 4th sentence instead of ‘bride’. That is another change that is just beginning to emerge. Because weddings are increasingly being financed by the couple, the men are becoming more involved and to a lesser degree, more excited by the wedding planning process.

I have long maintained that more and more, brides are getting their information from blogs, chat and forums. I ran across an interesting thread that helps to explain why. There are several pages to this thread, but this one statement tell the story better than I ever could. Mainstream wedding media, pay attention.

Shortly after getting engaged, a recently married co-worker suggesting I check out Weddingbee. She said of all the wedding websites, Weddingbee was her favorite as it followed real brides on real budgets. (emphasis mine)

Two more  interesting threads concerns the desire of some brides to blow off the fluff and pouf altogether. The first is from Weddingbee and illustrates that despite their desires, brides were into full on planning mode due to pressure from not only their families but also the groom.  In the second thread the Tribe Community manager for OffBeat Bride explains that she really isn’t all that OffBeat. This quote explains why she wasn’t a fit for traditional wedding media:

I don’t do the poetic schmoopy thing very well, but to ME, being offbeat is putting your marriage and relationship ahead of your wedding and being true to the people you are every day. It means that your wedding (ie: a party) exists to honor the two of you, and to celebrate you choosing to spend the rest of your lives together with the people you adore. It’s not a showcase of wealth and taste, carefully tailored to inspire envy, covetousness, and awe in as many people as possible … it’s a showcase of your love

Well said Ang.

More and more I see the face of the American wedding changing in some very positive ways. Oh maybe not positive for the wedding professionals that still yearn for the “More is better” heyday of  2008; but a big plus for our society and for the vendors that change and adapt with it.

 

Oh ya, the Trend Tracker

 

Colors are softer, dresses are softer, finishes are softer, it is like the world is looking at wedding by squinting.

 

 

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Filed Under: Announcement, Trends, What Brides Say, What's Hot Tagged With:

Twitter. How the Big Boys Roll

May 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

…and I bet you are doing it better than some.

I ran across this article that shows the results of an experiment digital agency IQ ran to see just how Fortune 500 companies were doing at social media. With the exception of a few, most of them sucked.  Check this quote:

The results? HP, UPS, Wells Fargo and GM stood out as top-performing brands, according to five best practices that IQ gleaned from the study: clearly labeling the purpose of a Twitter account; clearly identifying who is replying to a question; keeping the tone light and friendly; making sure you respond; and responding quickly.

Of the 50 companies, IQ did not send tweets to 16 because the agency couldn’t find a Twitter account, couldn’t find an account that seemed credible, or the Twitter accounts it did find were too specific in their topics.

Of the remaining 34 companies, 23 responded to McFather’s tweets. Among the 11 that didn’t: Boeing, Exxon Mobile, Home Depot, Walgreens and Wal-Mart. The fastest to reply were GM, UPS and Best Buy — getting back in 2,3 and 4 minutes, respectively. (Best Buy has previously gained recognition for its Twelpforce customer service page on Twitter.) These companies also quickly redirected messages sent to the incorrect accounts for customer service.

For companies that spend more on marketing than you or I could ever fathom, that says something. What that something is I’m not quite sure.Are you a Twitter Queen?

  • Are they afraid to take risks?
  • Do they just not get it?
  • Are they still trying to turn the battleship of their giant company?
  • Like so many, are they deluded into thinking that things will go back to the way they were 10 years ago?

I follow the Twitter feeds of many of you and I see how in touch you are. I also see far too many client come to me with no plan or in some cases even a glimmer of understanding of the what, why and how of Twitter.

Everyday, social media like Twitter becomes standard operating practice as a way for people to find the information that they need. The simple fact that Twitter is searchable is reson enough that you can not ignore it.

You can read the full article here at Media Post Publications or download the white paper with the full results from IQ’s website. It’s a short paper; be sure to check out page 2 for some great examples.

Filed Under: Social Media, wedding marketing, What's Hot Tagged With: , ,

My Flip Wedding and Staying Ahead of the Curve

March 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

I have built a reputation of being pretty spot on in terms of trend tracking, well here is the next one.

I rarely take on clients for full on marketing campaigns anymore, but this one was too hot to pass up.  I want you, my faithful readers to be ahead of the curve.

In the coming months, your brides are going to be asking you about My Flip Wedding. What, you ask, is a Flip Wedding? It is the brain child of the wonderful folks at Storymix Media and it is a way for brides and grooms to capture the memories of their wedding (before and beyond) in a DIY way with amazing results.

Storymix Media will rent the simple to use little Flip cameras as a package, your bride then gets them into the hands of the people who know her best, her friends and family. Once they have filmed the bits and pieces of the big day from their unique point of view, the cameras are packed up and sent back to Storymix Media. They upload the footage and then the bride can use their easy-peasy storyboard editing system to pick the scenes, the theme and the music. The Apple Certified Pros at Storymix then edit them into a wonderful highlight reel.

Videographers, don’t panic. This isn’t to replace you, this is in addition to you.

I think, even cooler than couples using it for their wedding are all the other applications I am seeing. Grooms are using them for their bachelor party, brides are capturing their shower and girls day. Couples are taking them on their honeymoon. The possibilities are endless. You see the thing is, sometimes your best friends and family see things that you (and your videographer) miss. It is like getting to be a guest at your wedding.

You can find out more in today’s press release. You can also check out the Man Registry for a post later today. Next month, OffBeat Bride is doing a feature on My Flip Wedding.

Here is one more thing that you might find useful. Mike and Ariane Fisher, the brains behind Storymix Media are offering an affiliate program. If you have a retail storefront or are a planner, this is one more way to add a little cha-ching to your bottom line. Think of the impluse buy possibilities. We are still in the building stages of the affiliate program, so if you have some input, let me know.

Here is another heads up. I am seeing some copy-cats start to climb out of the wood work. Don’t go there. Mike and Ariane at Storymix Media have been doing this since 2006 for pros and consumers alike. The new part is that now they have launched a wedding division specifically for the bridal market. Trust me, the team at Storymix Media knows what they are doing.

 

For the record, no this isn’t a sponsored post but they are a client of mine.

Filed Under: Announcement, Trends, What's Hot Tagged With: ,

The Power of WordPress

February 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you are still using a Flash website or something like Website Tonight, you may want to take a look at this infographic from TechKing.

Isn’t it time to switch to WordPress?

While you are at it, add a premium theme from StudioPress. Yes, I am a Studiopress afiliate but that is because I use it and believe in it and the power of WordPress.

I’m not alone. Such entities as The New York Times, CNN and Fox News use WordPress to power their blogs. So does the NFL. In September 2010, Microsoft replaced Windows Live Spaces with WordPress. Do they know something you don’t?

Infographic: The Power of WordPress

The Power of WordPress by Tech King

Filed Under: Website marketing, What's Hot Tagged With: , ,

The Affordable Bridal Market

October 5, 2010 By 3 Comments

What do J Crew, White House Black Market, Ann Taylor, Vera Wang know that you don’t?

They know how to capitalize on the current trends. They have seen the handwriting on the wall and are making adjustments. Business is all about giving the customer what they want, not what you want and these companies are doing just that. They are offering bridal gowns that are more affordable to the majority of brides.

What does that tell you? For one thing, these companies aren’t going to sit on the sidelines and hope that the bridal market rebounds. They are re-inventing and targeting todays more fiscally conservative brides.

I dare say that the companies above have spent the time and money to deeply analyze the market and current trends. Seriously, if Vera Wang thought that in a few more months  the couture bridal gown market would come roaring back to life would she have sold her soul to David’s?  That’s pretty doubtful.

Here is something else, Ann Taylor’s wedding line is exclusively online. Hmmm, do you think they have done any research on that? You can bet your bottom dollar on it. The marketing team behind Ann Taylor after all are the ones that have done such a remarkable job of getting Ann Taylor Loft so much traction in social media. In terms of fashion, they have mastered Facebook. This gang knows where the market is and knows how to target it. Good quality, fairly priced and easily accessible. Wow, what a concept.

What about JCrew? Yes they have some up market gowns hitting close to $3k but also a lot of gowns under $800. Again, this line is online and in the catalog. JCrew is a trusted brand to our target market, so they would have no problem ordering online. What’s more, they are sized like the rest of their clothes. Not the freakishly odd sizing that most bridal gown manufacturer use. You wear a size 8 in JCrew street clothes, you will most likely wear a size 8 JCrew wedding gown. Gee, that just makes too much sense.

So what do you have to learn from all this?

Well for one thing, if this wasn’t a smart play, I can bet they wouldn’t all be doing it. Companies of this size make the occassional mis-step but I can’t imagine that this many would be doing it if the reasearch wasn’t there to back it up. Afterall, I don’t care who you are, launching a bridal line is no cheap thing. Heck, the research we have is saying the same thing. (Hat tip to Shane and the Wedding Report.)

How do you translate this to your business.

First what you don’t do:

You don’t start dropping your prices. Look, you don’t see Vera Wang doing a slash and burn on the price tags on her Flagship line, do ya? Heck no.

What you do is create an entire new line that hits the price point and delivery system that your new brides want. No on wants you to lose money.

Just like Wang, your flagship line carries the cache of your brand but the new line puts it in reach of the fat, juicy middle of the market. The flip side of this is that as the market does start to uptick again, you’ll be among the first to know because your flagship will start pulling the weight again. Is it just me that thinks this is a no-brainer?

It’s October, the wedding season for 2010 is just about over. You are going to have some down time coming up to get your house in order.

Here is my challenge to you. By the time the January push rolls around, I want you to have a new budget friendly line in place. The January Bridal shows will be the perfect place to roll it out. (You have bought the book, right)

I really don’t care what category you are in, from stationery to floral to catering, there is a way to do this. You just have to put on your thinking cap.

If you have put in the time and really tried to think this through and aren’t getting anywhere. Give me a shout. From now to the end of December I will be offering my one on one consulting in one hour only blocks just to help get your juices flowing. Just put the word Re-invent in the subject line of your email.

Filed Under: Building Your Business, Trends, wedding marketing, What's Hot Tagged With: , , , , ,

Think Different

October 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

It is time to think different.

Over the last few months you have heard me repeat two things over and over.

  • In 2008 we hit the reset button.

  • It’s time to reinvent.

You know that the first statement is true, you have been reading the numbers and predictions. Weddings are down because couples just aren’t seeing the need or aren’t willing to spend the money to have a wedding.

As a result, if you are still here, it means that you have already taken steps to reinvent yourself. Good job.

My question is, how deep have you gone; how radically are you willing to think? The post I did about WordPress and Genesis is a manifestation of just how radically I am willing to think. What about you?

Here is the deal with radical thinking: You are going to be shot down by some of the people you thought were your biggest supporters. Ouch. But you know what, too bad.

It seems that I am not the only one that has been thinking this way.

Over on Ittybiz, Naomi had this to say

It takes a level of courage that borders on dementia to knowingly do something other people think is crazy. It is painful and terrifying and lonely as hell. But try to remember that your loudest detractors are the ones with the most invested in the status quo. The biggest complainers have an agenda and it’s probably not in line with yours.

If you are going to truly reinvent yourself for the new normal the first thing you have to remember is that this isn’t about following the crowd. It is about pulling your head out of the sand, looking around and coming to grips with exactly who YOU are and exactly how YOU want to run your business. In short, it is about being authenticly YOU. Any time you step out from the crowd there is about a 100% probability that you are going to piss some people off. How many, who knows and frankly who cares. The ones that stay with you when you are completely authentic and true to YOUR ideas and ideals are your real tribe.

I love this quote from Phoinix

It’s better to be a truly authentic individual who offends 99% of humanity but makes a deep and powerful connection to the remaining 1%. Because that remaining 1% will support you no matter what happens. Not only that, but you won’t be living your life buckled firmly into a two-dimensional marketing straitjacket.

That 1% will help you storm the gates of Hell with only a mouthful of spit to fight with. They will also buy your art (which is slightly easier on them). Realistically, you’re probably not going to offend 99% of humanity no matter how authentic you are. Hell, even I don’t piss off that many people and I’m a trained professional.

So answer me this: As we come to the point where because the world around us has changed and we have been given the opportunity to reinvent and rebuild our businesses, wouldn’t you rather have a business that truly reflects you?

Are you crazy enough to think you can change the world?

Filed Under: Ask Christine, What's Hot Tagged With: ,

Tuxedos, Old Spice and Wedding Marketing

August 3, 2010 By 1 Comment

I have been following the articles over on eWedNews concerning the demise of the formal wear industry. So, you know me, I started looking at their marketing.

First question: What marketing? Why isn’t there a gorgeous man in a gorgeous tux in every bridal gown ad? Isn’t there usually a groom at most occasions to wear a bridal gown?.

Second, the ad I do see most is the Men’s Wearhouse ad that speaks directly to men. Pffffft! If you want men to wear tuxedos you have to pitch the brides.

Which brings us to the Old Spice Man. If you haven’t caught this bit of viral brilliance then you have been living in a cave. What started as an ad on the Super Bowl transformed itself into a social media phenomenon with the Old Spice man responding to tweets in YouTube video spots. Brilliant social media marketing, but that isn’t the point I want to make.

*pause for random opportunity to include gratuitous half naked hunky guy video

This is: 80% of the purchases made in the US are made by women. The Old Spice campaign is aimed at women. Yes it is a product for men, so are tuxedos. However, body wash isn’t something that most men think about, neither are tuxedos. They are both something women think about. Whether it is a wife or partner that does the shopping and decides which body wash to buy or a bride deciding what to dress the men in the wedding party in, it is the women that make the decision. That is why you need to pitch to her.

Seriously, do you really think that an ad with a hunky half naked man was created to appeal to MEN? I didn’t think so. But what happens to the single guy that sees his date pay attention to said hunky half naked guy? He is going to pick up that product thinking that he may get her to pay that kind of attention to him. Either way, it was the woman’s influence that drove the sale.

Back to formal wear. If you want men to start wearing tuxedos, you are going to have to sell women on the idea first.

Say for instance, when the most recent Bond movie came out, why wasn’t there a tie in with how sexy Daniel Craig looked in formal wear? I mean come on, he had on a tux in the poster for Casino Royale!!! Sexy man> sexily dressed. Pitch perfect for a campaign directed at women.

Here is another, I ran across a couple of beach wedding pictures that had the bride in a traditional formal gown and the groom in cargo shorts and a bowling shirt. How about a picture like that with the tag line, “Don’t you deserve better?” Maybe if the tuxedo manufacturers produced a line specifically for the beach weddings, after all the gown manufacturers have.

Back to the gown ads. Those ads I do see in magazines with men in tuxedos usually have him looking disaffected and women fawning over him. That is pitching to men. Let’s turn it around, how about have him looking on adoringly at her? Every girl is crazy about a sharp dressed man, but on her wedding day the last thing she wants is all of her bridesmaids fawning over her new hubs. The better story is “Look at this gorgeous man that only has eyes for me.”

More important than the end user of your product, think about who is most likely to influence that purchase. That’s where you aim the pitch.

Filed Under: Announcement, wedding marketing, What's Hot Tagged With: , , ,

Is Email Eating Your Life?

June 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In the early days of this website one of the things I used to go on about was email; how if you weren’t using it with today’s brides you were way behind the times. With the state of our inboxes today I almost wish I would have kept my mouth shut.

While it is true that email is still the primary form of communication with today’s brides some of them have gotten completely out of hand. The other side of that coin is that we have let them do it. A few weeks ago I sat next to a wedding planner at a board meeting and she spent the entire meeting replying to email on her blackberry. I know another planner that is notorious for sending email on her Treo while she’s driving. I won’t ride with her anymore. It is not unheard of for people to have 400 emails a day. Now I’ll grant you that 1/2 of them are things that don’t require a response like newsletters, humor or those “keep it going” chain letters but how do you sort through that large of a tangle to get to the stuff you need. For people like me that spend my day on a keyboard the constant ping telling me I have new mail can get deafening. Then comes the angry post on the forum that so and so doesn’t answer his/her email. Every little question a bride has is of earth shattering importance to her and if you don’t respond in a timely fashion –read nanosecond- she thinks you are dropping the ball.  What the heck are you supposed to do?

There is a growing movement to shut it down. More and more people are taking the step of putting an auto responder on their primary email accounts saying something along the following lines:

“I appreciate your email but I have made the decision to only check my mail at the following times: 7:00 AM and in the late evening. If this is an issue that needs a more immediate response please reach me on my cell phone.”

This way they know why they haven’t heard back from you. It also lets you pick up all seven or eight of those silly little questions some brides have and bundle the answer into on email response, saving you a bundle of time.

Another tactic that some are employing is if an email conversation runs into three or more exchanges they pick up the phone, settle it all out in one conversation and be done with it. Great idea.

Personally what I have done is set up multiple email accounts, gmail, Outlook and thunderbird. I have different addys running through each one. Depending on my work load that day I can keep one or all of them open. I also use IM for quick discussions and if I have an ongoing conversation there I can easily switch it to my cell. I have also shut down all my newsletters, if they have an RSS feed I can catch it on my blog reader when I have time with out it cluttering my inbox.  Just to give you an idea there are 700 unopened email in my inbox right now. If any of them were that important they would have called, don’t you think?

Filed Under: What's Hot Tagged With: , , ,
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