marketing consulting for wedding professionals    Writing, branding, logo design.newsletter design

Optimizing Your Photos Just Got More Powerful

March 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

You know where I stand on how powerful the photos on your website are. If you somehow missed this, read this article on labeling your images for SEO.

In a nutshell…

Today’s bride search by images.

You have to label your images for the search engines to find them.

Well I have just discovered a new tool that will make those images even more powerful. It’s called ThingLink and allows you to embed links, music, videos and even more labels in your images.

Here is a slide show that explains it all

Here it is in use, Click on the icons.

Style shoot for local wedding magazineI

I can’t wait to play with this over on Wedding Dish.

Here are the details.

It’s free.

It’s a breeze to use.

It has analytics!

You can install it on your website as a WordPress plugin.

It connects with just about anything you could want from YouTube and Vimeo to Sptify and Sound Cloud, Facebook and Twitter.

The images on your website just got even more powerful.

Yes, it adds another step but oh it is sooooo worth it.

Filed Under: Announcement, Marketing, Social Media, Website marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Your Best Referrals Come From Other Vendors and I’m Going to Show You How to Get More

February 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment

You have heard me say it when I talk about Bridal Shows and in articles like The Art of the Suck Up. One bride may send you one or two referrals, but a fellow wedding professional can send you dozens and even more over the course of your relationship. Isn’t it time you made it a bit easier for them to refer you?

I met with my friend Scoobie Schneider over lunch last week to talk about his new company, ShareWed.com. In a word, it’s brilliant!

Just imagine how much more often you would refer your fellow vendors (and they would refer you) if it was just a mouse click away? Bunches, I’m betting.

This system is so seamless and so intuitive that you will not believe it. Working with partner Glenn Cooper on the tech (FYI, Glenn works as a consultant for companies like Cisco Systems and Microsoft ) they solved the puzzle.

Here is how it works:

You meet with a bride and as a natural part of the conversation you ask her what other services she needs.

You plug her name, date and email into the system and all the vendors in your network pop up, conveniently sorted into categories.

You scroll down the list and click on your favorite vendors that fit her needs and the system sends her an email with your hand curated recommendations.

What could be easier?

Oh, ya, if that vendor is already booked for that date, they are marked out in red. Brilliant!

Not only that, but the vendors you referred get a heads up by email or text. Now they know you referred them. Good stuff.

Oh heck, why don’t I just let them explain it.

 But Christine, there aren’t any other vendors in my market yet :-(

That is a good thing! Huh? Because they have an affiliate program. For every vendor that signs up for ShareWed using your affiliate link, you get $20. Sign up your 6 favorite wedding professionals and you have recovered your costs for the first year.  

That is why I am posting this. I want my savvy readers to be the first in their markets. I want them to be the ones that benefit the most. There are coins to be made here; not just from the referrals but from the affiliate program too! I want you to be the ones to make that money. You deserve it.

Now, not only are you building an air tight, seamless referral network of your favorite wedding professionals, but you are basically doing it for free. What’s not to love.

Compare that to what you pay for listing type sites like the Knot or Wedding Wire where you hope brides see your ad.

Go on, click the link. You know you want to.  While you are at it, share it on Facebook and Twitter.

 

ShareWed

 

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

Good Ideas From Sunday’s Bridal Show

January 9, 2013 By 2 Comments

Well I kicked off the 2013 bridal show season by visiting a very large show that I am very familiar with.  I have been involved with this show through 3 owners, as a vendor, an employee, a visitor and then there was that one incident with the emergency room. Suffice it to say I have seen it grow, shrink and start to come back.

2 things struck me, the number of people who grabbed me to say, “Look at my booth! I’ve been listening!” and boy they had! The signage was spectacular, the promotional collateral was really good and the booths had some serious POP.

Here is one piece of collateral that I first saw last year and it worked so well that he kept using it. You all know that giving show discount coupons is a great way to get bookings directly from the show but aren’t sure how to do it. Well here you go.

AccentDesigns bridal show coupon

Another thing I saw for the first time was using reviews, blurbs and awards is booth signage. Apologies for my craptastic photography skills.

Good bridal show booth design

In addition to the use of the reviews and blurbs on the signage, the layout with that fabulous image in the center makes you feel like you are walking down that aisle. Of course there was a video montage playing on that flat screen. It was a corner booth which is why the screen is pointing in the direction it is; to capture attention before they even rounded the corner. Simply a great use of the space available. Bravo, Scarritt-Bennett!

Something else of note. I was touring the show with a woman friend of mine. I had gotten there early and done my work so she and I grabbed a Bloody  Mary(yes they have a bar, love it!) and just walked the show. There were a lot of people who didn’t know either of us, many of whom, for some reason assumed we were a couple. What really impressed me was their total acceptance of the prospect of doing a wedding for a couple of middle-aged women. Don’t ever tell me that Nashville isn’t progressive!  Very proud of my hometown.

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

Let Think Like A Bride Help You Advertise to Brides That Get it

November 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Are you ready to kick it up a notch?

Wedding Dish is rocking and rolling these day and you need to jump on board. I trust you have been following my posts about the little blog that could. Now it is time to share the joy.

I will be accepting advertising on my blog for brides, the Wedding Dish. You can choose from a banner ad in either 300px x 120px or 300px by 300px; a text link in the resources box, or an advertorial.

If you aren’t familiar with the Dish, it is a quirky little blog for brides with the same no BS style you have come to trust on Think Like A Bride.  It has been around since 2006 and appeals to a wide spectrum of bride. It has a curation style highlighting all areas of wedding loveliness. I highlight not only the most luxurious but also the DIY. One thing you will notice is that I am very honest with brides as to the realities of DIY and I always advocate for professional wedding vendors.

If there is one thing that I have learned in my 20+ years working with brides, it is that even the highest budget brides are still going to scrimp in some areas and that the brides sticking like glue to a $4000 budget are going to splurge somewhere. That is why Wedding Dish spans the spectrum from the Plaza Hotel to the backyard in Des Moines. I firmly believe that any bride, no matter her budget, can have the wedding of her dreams.

Something else I have always done and will continue to do, is tell brides the truth about what goes on behind the scenes. It is my belief that part of the reason brides stammer and shutter at the cost of our goods and services is because no one is telling them the truth about what goes into it. Leave that to me. Let me carry the banner like I did with this recent post or this one from a few years back.

Honesty. What a concept.

If you have come to the point in your business where it is time to advertise to brides

contact me for rates and policies

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Filed Under: Announcement, wedding marketing Tagged With: ,

Marketing Tip for Wedding Photographers

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Dear photographers, I have a marketing tip for you today.

You know that the primary way that today’s brides and grooms find their wedding vendors is by personal referral, right? Well one of the places they are going for those referrals is to their planner and the other wedding professionals that they hire. That makes these professionals very important to your marketing picture.

Do you know one of the best ways to woo these professionals? Give them what they need most for their marketing, Pictures! Now that is pretty easy, isn’t it?

So why aren’t you doing it?

I was speaking with Lisa of Scoobie Photography and Courtney from A Magical Affair Saturday when this topic came up. Here is the deal, by Wednesday, Courtney will have, at the very least, some sneak peek images from Saturday’s wedding. With some other photographers, she can wait weeks or months for images. Those images are an integral part of marketing her planning firm. The more weddings she does, the more photographers she can refer.

All things being equal,  she is going to refer the photographers that are conscious of this and get her images quickly. Wouldn’t you agree?

So why aren’t you doing it?

It isn’t just planners that this works with. Think about all the vendor portfolios a bride and groom looks through as they plan their wedding. If they are

Ivory wedding cake with swiss dot and sugar ribbon and bows

consistently seeing the same watermark pop up in portfolio after portfolio, that means something.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. When I was doing cakes, one photographer, Martin O’Connor, always did it right. I knew that by Wednesday I would have an envelope in my mailbox containing an 8 x 10 image like the one in this post.

When I pulled out my portfolio to grab that image, it was funny that about every 5th page had an image like this. Now even if I never actually spoke his name in conversation with a bride, she knew his name.  Now imagine that they saw similar images in the portfolios of other cake designers and florists and caterers and bands and DJs. How much power do you think that had.

I will admit that these images hadn’t been corrected nor had the photographer taken the time to work his Photoshop magic on it, but this was 10 years ago and things have progressed immensely since then. What it took Martin hours to do, you could do in much less time.

So why aren’t you doing it?

I know that you have your hands full taking care of your clients, but if you want that pipeline of future brides to keep flowing, this is a great way to do it. Yes it take some of your time, but unlike when Martin was doing this, you can send them all digitally. It’s not like you have to print them and put them in the mail!

So why aren’t you doing it?

The wedding professionals you work with have to feed their social media stream. If they are tweeting and updating during the lulls in a wedding, they want to be able to show their followers more as soon as they can to keep the hype going. Wouldn’t it help your marketing to have them speaking well of you and showing off you images as part of that?

So, one more time, why aren’t you doing it?

 

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Marketing, Outrageous Marketing, Rants & Raves, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Thoughts on Branding: Wedding Planners

October 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

We work in a very diverse, very curious industry. For many of us, it is no simple task to clearly define what we do. Oh, we grab the convenient handles and think it ‘sort of’ fits, so we go with it.

I think the place it is most evident is with wedding planners. After a deep conversation with a close friend, that just happens to be an amazing wedding planner, I started thinking about how badly most wedding planners express what they do. Face it, they all do it differently but, damn, if their websites don’t all sound the same. Yep, even hers, and I built it. (Yes C, we will be re-writing your copy)

what wedding planners really dream of

what wedding planners really dream of

I have a planner that has sought me out to help with her branding. Now it is time in the process to get inside her head, to find out what she really does. I am excited to put her superpower into words.

Let’s take the example of C, my planner friend. She doesn’t design events she plans them.

What she does is:

  1. Listen. She listens and hears what the bride envisions. Because she listens, she has a unique ability to see the brides vision and understand what is important to her and why.
  2. Translates. She takes the brides vision and puts it into words that wedding professionals understand. She can communicate the bride’s vision in a way that most people outside the industry simply cannot. I told her she is the Bablefish of the wedding world.
  3. Sources. Because she understands the vision and the why behind it, she can send the bride to the right sources(wedding professionals) that can execute her dream on her budget. She also understand the bride’s personality enough to pair her with the vendors that she will get along with.
  4. Logistics. That is really her forte; who, what, where and most importantly, when. She can see the plan and the steps to get it all accomplished on time and on budget.

No where has she designed anything. The bride designs it, she makes it happen.

Wedding planning isn’t about what linen goes with which flowers. It is about executing a plan. Today’s bride usually has a pretty clear picture of what she wants her dream day to look like. She has been busily pinning her way there for months. What she doesn’t know is how to make it happen.

Now look at someone like Preston Bailey. He freakin’ DESIGNS!  he doesn’t claim to be a planner, in fact, he usually works with one.

One more example:

On-site Wedding Planners. They are there to help orchestrate what goes on in their venue. Nothing more. They aren’t there to help with invitations or time lines or budget spreadsheets. So why to they have the same “title” as C?

Back to the original premise of this article. Does your branding and marketing express what you really do, or what you think brides think you do?

Take a few minutes and sit down and brainstorm exactly what you do for your clients. Take it from initial meeting until you finally kick your shoes off after the wedding. That is what you have to put into words for your branding and marketing. Stop with using a mindless checklist in your marketing, tell me what you do.

Maybe I watch way too much HGTV, but why don’t we start taking our cue from the words the building trades use. Wedding General Contractor, Wedding Stylist, Venue Co-ordinator.  Or the movies: Producer, Director, Set designer, Costume design.

Like I have always said; branding is more than a logo. It is an important part of you marketing and it deserves your thought.

Filed Under: Blog, Branding, wedding marketing Tagged With: , ,

Tips From a Master on Getting Press for Your Wedding Business

July 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

With everything you have to do, worrying about getting press for your wedding business is probably not high on your to-do list. Well it should be.

For most wedding businesses, by press I mean getting your work out the on the top blogs as well as the multitude of local and regional wedding blogs. Those are, after all, where today’s bride is finding her muse and inspiration.

Just as important, being able to show all those posts on your own Press page is a huge boost. Somewhere in the back of many of today’s brides mind is the secret dream of having their wedding splashed all over their favorite blog. If they see that you are regularly being published, that is one more point in your favor.

Now the question is, “How do you get your work on all those blogs?”

I have one client that is a master at it. Kathy Best, owner of Front Porch Farms seems to do it without really trying.  Truth is, Kathy has a bit of an advantage over most of us, she also owns Front Page Publicity, a PR agency in Nashville. When she started Front Porch Farms she had no problem using those skills to promote her new venue. Bottom line, she knows the power of PR and how to get it.

fpf on Style Me pretty

Here is how she does it.

 I do think my PR background played a huge role in our success. I know from PR that images are everything and there are times when I go way above what I’m paid to do or what is included because I want the images for the website. Everyone fusses at me about this but I look at it as a form of marketing…we want weddings to be a certain look at our venue so we were making them that way long before brides could really afford to do it.  Brian finally got used to everything we did having to be about the photos. Now he gets it.

First of all, she makes sure that her event are “press worthy.”  We live in a visual age and Kathy know that it is all about the pictures. That often means going above and beyond the original contract.

(Brian is her hubs and partner. He builds many of the cool props they use)

The next thing Kathy does is seeing to it that her work gets submitted to Two Bright Lights. I know this because I maintain her site and I see the emails. Today she had one picked up by a blog in the UK. Not bad for a site in the hills of Tennessee that is just over 4 years old!

“But Christine”, you ask, ” Two Bright lights only accepts submission from Photographers. I can’t even get them to send me images how do I get them to submit to TBL?”

Make you events press worthy.

As Kathy said, go above and beyond if you have to. Think of it as part of your marketing budget. Believe me, the bit you spent on some extra flowers or better linens is a pittance compared to what you would spend in advertising to get the same exposure. I am not saying do it on every wedding, but if you have one that comes close, do what it takes to get it there. Re read this part of the quote “we want weddings to be a certain look at our venue so we were making them that way long before brides could really afford to do it.”  Doesn’t that tell you that now they do “afford it”.  Kathy made an investment and it is paying off.

Ask them!

I don’t know many photographers that don’t want their work praised and raved about. Who doesn’t want to be published. If you give them “press worthy” events they are going to want to show them off. Ask them to submit to Two Bright Lights. The more often your events get picked up, the easier it will be to convince photographers to submit. If all else fails, hire your own photographer even if you have to write it into your contract.

Beyond TBL, you can still submit your own work to the blogs individually. You will have to have the approval of the photographer that holds the copyrights. Read and follow their submission guidelines carefully. Submit to the blogs that already showcase your style. Another tip is to find out what blogs your brides read and submit to those.

Yes, Kathy has an advantage but only because she has done PR for so long.

You can do it if you try.

One more itty-bitty thing: You may be on blogs and not even know it. Set up a Google alert for your company name, that way you’ll know.

 

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Blog, Inspiration, Marketing, Outrageous Marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

A Word About Keywords to Attract Brides

June 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

By now everyone knows that you have to use keywords on your  website to boost your search ranking, but are you using the right keywords to attract brides?

Huh, what? Of course you do! If you are savvy you come up with some keywords you think describe your business and run it through the Google  Adwords tool and refine it a bit and you are good to go. Well that is true ~ IF ~ you start from the right assumption.

Here is the problem I see most often, you are starting with the words that YOU and YOUR INDUSTRY use to describe your product.  You should  start with the words brides use to describe your product.

Here is an example of what I am talking about.

I was working with a lovely woman who had been in the men’s formal wear industry forever. At the time I was webmaster for a membership site that had vendors upload their own business listing. She called me and was pretty mad that when she searched the site for “tuxedo’ her business didn’t come up. Off to her listing I went to see what was happening. The word “tuxedo” never appeared in her listing! Every where she could have used “tuxedo” she had used “formal wear” which is, of course, the correct term in the industry. It isn’t, however, the word anyone outside the industry would use to search for it.

Google is pretty damn smart but it is only an algorithm, not an intuitive brain. It doesn’t understand what a tuxedo is, it just pulls the word or related words.

I did a little experiment on the Adword Tool and here are the result. The search term Formal Wear had 832,000 Global Monthly Searches. In related terms the highest was Formal Wear Dresses with 550,00 Global Monthly Searches. (not even close)  The search for Tuxedo yielded much different results; 1,500,000 Global Monthly Results. The only related term that even came close I was Tuxedos. Which keyword should my tuxedo client use?

Yesterday I was working with a bridal salon on tagging images for their website. I asked her point-blank, how would a bride ask for a gown like this? The words she used were much different from the almost clinical description that the image came with.

You have to remember that your brides don’t have the same level of knowledge of your segment of the industry as you do.

You need to listen to your brides. How do they describe your product? That is how they will search for it. It may sound silly to you, but not to them.

Take a stroll through the brides forums on sites like Wedding Wire. How are they describing what you do. You may be pretty surprised.

You know the beautiful lighting used for monograms on walls and dance floors is a gobo, but they may search for “monogram for dance floor”

Why put all that work into refining your keywords and keyword density if you are using the wrong keywords to begin with!

 

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Marketing, Website marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , ,

Writing a Blog Post to Sell Your Product

June 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The first question you should ask yourself when you start writing a blog post is “What is the goal of this post.”

Be brutal and precise with your answer. Vague won’t help you hone it down.

Are you trying sell something? Make an announcement? Get your readers thinking about something in a new way?

What ever your answer, craft your post to reflect that.

If you are trying to sell something, you have to pitch it.

I am working with a client that is a caterer/banquet facility and they had a post about a recent prom. They reviewed the prom and really said very little about it, even threw in some poem.  it was more like a news report.What they didn’t do is give anyone a reason why they should book their prom with them.

Here are my suggestions on writing a winning blog post:

Define what problem your clients have that this “thing” solves.

Schools need some where to hold a prom. They need food, decor, a dance floor and sufficient electrical for the entertainment.

Explain why this solves their problem.

Our facility provides everything they need from an elegantly furnished room with dance floor.  It has hosted many such event so there is no concern about the electrical.  On site catering allows personalized menus. Great location with free parking.

Explain what makes your solution different.

Because we have done so many, we make it easy for you to set up yours. Rather than a blank location our is already decorated. All you have to do is add centerpieces and linens in your school colors. (Oh wait, we’ll take care of that too)

Ask for the sale.

“Riddel High’s prom was such a success. won’t you let us make you prom just as great?”

Give them a clear way to contact you or buy the product.

“Call Denise today at (555)555-5555 today to make sure we haven’t already booked your date! While you have her on the phone, go ahead and schedule your tour so you can start dreaming about your prom!”

 

Here is the post

Riddel High’s Prom at XVC Catering was a Smashing Success

Saturday night the Versailles Ballroom at XVZ Catering was the hotspot of choice for the Senior Prom of Ridell High.(put this in h1 tags)

The ladies sparkled in the soft glow of candles and crystal chandeliers while DJ Angelo rocked the house!

The evening began with a sumptuous dinner of Prime Rib,  Chicken Parmigiano and Pasta Primavera . Denise saw to it that the tables were set with linens in purple and black to match Riddel’s colors.

After dinner the students and teachers indulged in a decadent Sundae Bar. Then they packed the Versailles Ballroom’s huge dance floor for the rest of the night.

“Give me Everything Tonight” by Ne Yo (feat. Pitbull) was dedicated to the entire class that night and I’m sure the words, “tonight, let’s enjoy life,” was at the top of their minds and hearts.  This night marked the end of their senior year and an end to a wonderful four years as students at Riddel and appreciation towards their teachers and classmates.  Other dedications of the night included Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” to the faculty, and “Just the Way You Are,” to the ladies.

Such an elegant night for such a wonderful class. Watch the fun for yourself in this video.

Insert video here 

Riddel High’s prom was such a success. Won’t you let us make you prom just as great?

In the 20 years we have hosted the proms of Philadelphia high schools we have seen them change and evolve. Each year they just get more beautiful.We have everything in place to make your prom the one of a kind evening that you have in mind.

Call Denise today at (555)555-5555 today to make sure we haven’t already booked your date! While you have her on the phone, go ahead and schedule your tour so you can start dreaming about your prom!

Please, feel free to share the video and images with your friends on Facebook, just click the button below.

There you have it. It certainly isn’t the kind of review that you would see in the local paper, but then that wasn’t the intention. It’s purpose is to sell that ballroom to next years prom committees.

Filed Under: Back to Basics, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Why Do You Blog?

June 6, 2012 By 2 Comments

I bet the majority of you answered, “For SEO”  or “Because I was told to do it to market my business.”

Well, those are both really good reasons to blog. The real reason you should be blogging is to market your business. Unfortunately, too many of you are acting more like you are trying to market your blog than you are trying to market your business!

If you are modeling your blogging on sites like Style Me Pretty you are missing the point. Sites like  SMP are pro-blogs that are trying to build eyeballs because they are selling advertising. You on the other hand are trying to sell your service or product. There is a big difference in the anatomy of  the posts.

Here are some tips for writing good blog posts for your wedding business

You need a catchy headline, solid content that applies to your business in some way, good keyword density and a call to action.

The post that sparked this was for a banquet hall and was talking about the trend of Candy Stations. What they said was what a candy station was, how it worked and using it to carry your color theme.

What it didn’t contain was images of such stations at their facility or a call to action. Telling your visitors about a trend without also telling them how you can implement it for them is a waste of pixels.

One thing they could have done was showcase their own displays. Even better would be to show visitors that they have a lovely selection of containers that brides could use for their candies, making it a kind of plug and play solution.

“Look at all the great candy station containers we have for you to use! We save you the bother of having to buy a dozen or more glass jars or vases that you just have to store afterwards.

We take care of all that and you just do the fun part: picking out all the yummy candy!”candy-bar-at-weddings

How much more powerful is that?

Finish the post with a strong call to action:

“Call Denise today at  (555)555-5555  to get started designing the candy bar for your event at  XVZ Banquets. She even has a whole list of the best places it get all the yummy candies.”

Now you have highlighted a trend and showed how you can help to implement it for your bride. You followed it up with a call to action.

Another type of post that you must have on your blog is showcases of your work. Photographers and florists are usually very good at this. What they aren’t good at is telling the reader how they can translate this to them.

You have shown them beauty, now make them believe they can have it for their own and that you are just the person to do it for them.

What made shooting Brad and Angie’s engagement photos so much fun was shooting at (random cool location). Call us today to discus all the amazing hidden locations we have discovered to make  your engagement photos just as fun.”

Don’t forget the pitch.

Speaking of which, do you need help with your blogging? Find out about my Blog Post Analysis Package and then  drop me an email, I can help!

 

 

 

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Blog, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , , ,
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