If you haven’t seen Kertesz you are missing the boat.

We all know that today’s brides love eye candy. They spend hours online looking at pictures of weddings and wedding details. If your website doesn’t give them great visuals they aren’t going to waste their time on it. Kertesz offers the ultimate solution for today’s Wedding Professionals to reach today’s bride. Its capacity to showcase big beautiful images in both galleries and your blog gives you the visual edge that you need.

Now, add in the integrated blog with its capacity to show images up to 900 pixel wide and you have a real winner. Built on the fabulous WordPress platform you have a blog that is dynamic and ever evolving. The way the system works is ever time you add content, you add a new page and one more place for brides to look. Are you stuck on an old school five or six page website that never changes? Are you married to a totally flash site that has the search capability of a brick and that you can’t easily update? It is time to move into the new way of life on the web. One of the advantages you have as a small business is to be capable of rapidly changing to meet your markets needs; shouldn’t your website have the same ability?

Speaking of change. We have just added a new service to our Kertesz family of products. At $297 ($247 if you use coupon code AGENCY) Kertesz is an amazing value; but not everyone is completely confident that they can handle all of the customization by themselves. While we offer great customer support in our video tutorials and forums sometimes that still isn’t enough. Since Kertesz is so highly customizable you may want to do more, like change the size of the Flash Banner or something that no one else has thought of yet. Not to worry, we are here for you. We have added an hourly consulting service to handle as much or as little of your build out for you as you like. We will take care of any little bits and bobs you want us to tackle. Easy, done! What’s more, is our crack team has customized so many of these fabulous site we can do it quickly and efficiently. So if you find yourself getting bogged down or just too darn busy to finish some of the details just give us a call and we can take care of it for you. There, now doesn’t that make you just a bit more confident?

Don’t forget, use the coupon code AGENCY at check out and get your new site started in time for the January rush.

Happy New Year everyone.

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Blog Stats

I am fanatical about tracking the stats on my blogs. I don’t mean just page views and visits, either. While those can give you an idea of how you are doing, the real meat is in the referral stats and the entry page stats.

As I said in a previous post, the search engines read each post as a new page on your website, (disclaimer: at least they do on a good blog platform). By monitoring your entry page statistics you can easily see which post is getting the attention of your readers. Go back and analyze the top few posts and see what it was that you did that is attracting so much attention. Was it the topic, the image or a great use of key words and phrases? Is there a common thread among them? Whatever it was, repeat it.

Look at your referrals with the same mind set. Which words or phrases are resulting in visits to your blog? Look at the searches and follow the links if need be. Find out what terms brides are using to find you. I think you will be amazed by what you see. It isn’t generic “keywords’’ like wedding flowers; it’s extended strings like “wedding centerpieces with branches and crystals”. It’s not “wedding gown Denver” its “sweetheart neckline wedding gown by Monique Lhullier discount”.

This is why blogging is so powerful. Every time you post you add words and phrases that brides are searching on. Those build up over time. If a particular term is strong for you, keep posting on topics that relate to it using similar terms.

I also get a remarkable amount of referrals for Google images over on my Wedding Dish blog; something like one in three is from an image search. Now remember, the search robots cannot see what is in your pictures, they only read the words you put with them. The key is to title, label and describe your images when you post them. Again, click through the referrals in you stats to see what they were originally looking for when they found you. Now use that in your posts.

If you follow this, and continue to refine your posts by the referrals you are getting you don’t have any choice but to raise your traffic and your visibility.

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Now if you figure that every one of those posts contains 2 to 3 possible terms that your future brides may be using to search, you have built a powerful base of keywords, without really trying.
Without really trying I mean that you can’t just write a blog post as a frame for your keywords. You may or may not know that I ghost write for some blogs. The first thing a client says is I want you to include these keywords. Sorry gang, it doesn’t work that way. Don’t get me wrong, keywords are important to search but just seeding your posts with them doesn’t work. You have two end users for your blog: your readers and the search engines. If you write exclusively for search your readers will disappear.

If you want to write effective copy for your readers you have to think more about what you want to say and less about the keywords you think you need..First off, brides don’t search by keywords, they search be questions and descriptions. Second, the images you choose and how you label them may be your most effective search weapon anyway. Unlike a static website, you get more than one chance to hit the words they are using to search.

Let’s look at how that works. Suppose you put up a post talking about a recent wedding and you use descriptive words. Example:

Contemporary Wedding Centerpiece in Yellow and Orange

“I loved how this contemporary centerpiece of red and orange gerber daisies turned out for Sara & Mike’s wedding at (local hot venue)in (town) last week.” Follow it up with “Designing the floral décor for (local hot venue) is always fun because it offers so many possibilities.” Now label your image as “Contemporary wedding centerpiece at (local hot venue), (town).”
Every one of those highlighted words is a possible search term but the paragraph reads well to the end user. You add a dozen posts like that a month and without really trying you are going eventually cover just about every possible search term that a bride could use to describe what you do.

Are you starting to see how this works? It is about volumes of descriptive words that you use every day to tell people about your work that just build up over time. You bundle that with a well designed blog that is built to be search friendly in the first place and you have gold.
The bonus is that once indexed by the search engines, those posts are there forever. I am still getting hits off a post I put up nearly 3 years ago on an old blog I don’t even post to anymore. Yes, I do check that stuff and use it to improve my search rankings, but that if for tomorrow’s topic.

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Bride Trying on 2Be Wedding Gown

I keep hearing people say they can’t blog because they don’t know how or what to write. Just stop that. You do know what to write and you do know how; well that is if you are capable of carrying on a conversation about something you are passionate about with a friend. That’s what blogging is really, a conversation with a friend that shares your passion.
Blogging, and all of social media for that matter, is about personal engagement. It is about sharing your thoughts on a particular topic and inviting feedback. You aren’t writing your thesis and there isn’t a white collared professor that is going to nit-pick your syntax. If you can use spell check and have mastered elementary school grammar, you’ll do fine.
With that out of the way, the question of what to talk about is next off everyone’s lips. Don’t over think it, my friends. There are only 2 rules to this:
1. Stay on topic
2. Think about what your audience wants to know

Stay on Topic: this is easy if before you ever start to blog you write the tagline or mission statement for your blog. Use one brief sentence telling your audience what they will find in your blog, then just stick to that. It doesn’t have to even be a sentence, just a phrase works. For instance:
Beautiful Wedding Gowns and the Things That Go With Them

Now just keep every post to that topic; don’t go off the reservation and start posting about your dog or your vacation. If you own a bridal salon you can’t tell me that you don’t run across at least 3 things a week that make you go, “Ooooh,pretty”. Isn’t that why you got into the business in the first place? Now keep a list of those things and start sharing. Use as many descriptive words as you can and tell why it made you notice it. There you are done. No research, no struggling, just a running stream of consciousness on something you love.

What your audience wants to know: Whatever business you are in, your customers ask questions. Well here is your platform to answer in detail after you have had time to think about it. Let’s keep with the bridal salon example. Show a real bride in a gown and explain why the cut of that particular dress worked well on her particular figure. Tell why the color works when a different one wouldn’t. Give them real information; they will keep coming back for more.

As I said at the start, blogging is just a new form of conversation. You mastered conversation via email and you can master this too.

Now that I have convinced you that you can do it, tomorrow I go into why it works to help your search rankings and how you can master that too.

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Bridal Show Booth Example

Bridal shows are a lot like speed dating. You are there to find potential matches for your services. The more you can run through quickly the better chance you have of find those few that will actually book you. Don’t waste your time on the ones that obviously won’t.
I found this quote from Jason Frederich of Screaming Light Studios on the Open Source Forum that sums it up fairly well:

As one of the speakers at the last convention we attended said, while they’re in front of you at the show is the best possible time to figure out if they’re worth spending any more time on, or not. Do they have a wedding date? If no, hand them a brochure and move on. Does your price put them off? Thank you, next! The whole point of the show is to match you up with potential clients, not to stand around for 6-8 hours talking to people who can’t afford/don’t need you.

Read the thread, it has some great information for everyone, not just photographers.

That is Jason’s booth in the image above. Great job Jason. Does the cat make a lot of sales at the show?

Here are the major take-aways from this series.

• Start your prep early
• Do as much pre-show marketing as you can
• Set your booth apart and tie it into your handouts
• Be on during the entire show and leave the right impression
• Network with the other vendors
• Gather leads in your booth for your post show marketing
• Follow up, follow up, follow up
• Track your response for next year’s marketing plan

Bridal shows are a lot of work and expensive to do. They are a few hours of brutally intense marketing sandwiched between prep and follow up. If you are going to invest your time and treasure in this marketing tool you need to use every trick in your arsenal to make them pay off. Otherwise stay home and put your feet up.

For more good stuff on bridal shows, subscribers can check out this month’s Marketing Column at Think Like A Bride. Not already a subscriber of Think? Here is a free month on me.

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Luxury Market Weddings

Nearly every new client that calls me says the same thing; “I want to reach that top end luxury market bride.” Well here is a tip: you won’t find them at a bridal show. You won’t find the mid-level luxury market bride there either and here is why.

Brides in the top 3% don’t plan their own wedding. It’s just that simple. They hire planners and delegate the leg work out. Brides in that market are there for one of two reasons; they are either wildly successful in their own right or are the children of privilege.

The first group is too busy to manage all the minute details involved in a wedding. They know how and when to delegate and aren’t afraid to do it. They are business savvy and know how to find what they want and get it. They are either going to get a planner referred from a friend or from whoever has been planning their other events. With the exception of the gown, you are more likely to be dealing with their personal assistant than the bride herself.

The second group isn’t planning their own wedding either. They too, are using a planner but it’s probably the one that Mom finds. If this is your target market you need to direct your marketing to her and her social group. Period. Oh the bride may have a lot of input into the style and look of the event but you can bet your bottom dollar that Mom is picking the vendors. Those vendors will be the ones that her friends use and that her planner recommends. For this group it is about status. They are not going to trust their social reputation to someone they “find” at a bridal show.

So what about the tier right under this one? Well they just don’t want to screw it up. That is why they hire a planner. They may be at a bridal show to get ideas, but not to buy.

Do I still think bridal shows are a valuable marketing tool? Sure, just don’t go in looking for something that isn’t going to be there.

For more good stuff on bridal shows, subscribers can check out this month’s Marketing Column at Think Like A Bride.

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Table Top Display from Bridal Show

Depending on your market, you will have anywhere from one to fifty bridal shows. My little market has an even dozen. Well, a dozen that count anyway. You can add to that if you start counting all the little nearly free ones at malls and churches and community centers. It seems that about five years ago the rumor got started that producing a bridal show was a fun easy way to make a ton of money. (insert insane laugh here )

So how do you decide which one to invest your time and money on? Well here is what I tell my clients: What do you want to get out of the show, what is your objective? That may sound easy but it really isn’t. There is more to it than ”I want more business.” Do you do best with high end brides that usually hire a planner? Are you there to work on your branding with mass exposure? Do you need to get yourself better know within the community of wedding professionals? Or are you just there to pick up a new bride or two?

First define your objective and then look at the shows location and likely draw. You can look over lists of vendors in past shows; are they like minded in terms of the clients they serve? If you trend toward the high end bride is this show filled with mass merchants and low end newbies? What is the demographic of the attendants of past shows? The producer has this information, maybe not in dollar values but you can take a look at the zipcodes the brides live in to get a rough estimate. How many brides came to past shows? Be careful here; make sure you get the number of brides, not just bodies through the door.

Look at the advertising that is being done for the show? Look at where and how. Is it being heavily promoted on a radio station that your bride is likely to listen to and what about print media? Your bride is not reading the daily newspaper, but will probably read the local alternative weekly that has the club and event listings.
How long has the show been in operation? I will only advise a client to do a first year show if it is remarkably different; say a very cool new venue or done in a vastly different style.

Don’t take the producers words at face value. A few years back I was approached by a fairly new show. It was in a massive regional mall, they were going on about the high traffic the mall receives and their extensive radio advertising due to a tie in with a local station. All of what they were saying was true, however here is the but… The mall does receive a huge amount of traffic, mostly out of towners and tourists in the 30 to 50 age range and a host of local teenagers. Not your market. The advertising was on a local Christian station with a heavily conservative, married and settled demographic, again not a lot of clients there. The sales staff hadn’t lied, but they hadn’t told the whole truth either. It would have been a massive waste of time and treasure to do this show. (not to mention that load in would have been a true pain ).

Are there other ways that you can get exposure by doing a particular show? Can you present to brides from the stage by way of a seminar or performance? Is there a fashion show where you can shine? Is there pre-show promotions that you can get in on. I have done everything from print, to radio to TV spots as part of pre-show publicity. If you can hop on that gravy train, do the show even if the turnout is likely to suck.

So figure out your objective. Is your market likely to be there? How much effort are you likely to put in for the possible outcome. Don’t try to do them all unless branding is your objective.

Here is a clue, I don’t sell to brides anymore, but I still work the largest bridal show in the southeast to meet new vendors. They are, after all my target market and there are a bunch of them there!

For more good stuff on bridal shows, subscribers can check out this month’s Marketing Column at Think Like A Bride.

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Show Floor at the Special Event 2008

6. Network with vendors. Some of your strongest referrals come from other wedding vendors so arrive early and network with them. In that hour before show time walk the floor and connect; pass out business cards and pick up theirs. Make as many friends in the industry as you can. As a baker, I always held back some samples to feed the vendors I was working later in the day, when the floor clears for the fashion show is a great time to do something like this.

7. Gather leads. To tell the truth, the lead list you get from the show is usually garbage.: toss it and get your own. Gather real leads in your booth; offer something that brides want and get their real email address in return. For a good list, all you really need is their email and first name. Put together a white paper on a topic that relates to your category that you can send out by email after the show. For example, I working with the Director of Sales at a local hotel yesterday, I suggested he put together a two or three page paper on the ins and outs of booking you hotel for your reception.; things like room block and additional fees brides should be aware of before they decide.

8. Write on your brochures. When you connect with a bride, put a little handwritten note on your brochure. They collect so much clutter that they seldom remember which flyer came from which booth. A little hand written note sets you apart and will remind her what you spoke about. He is an example. I work the booth for an invitation company one year; if a bride seemed interested in a particular invitation I made a point of writing the number and book on a brochure and handing it to her. Nearly every one of them called us.

9. Act professionally. I know this sounds like a no brainer, but apparently it’s not. You are your advertizing at these shows. No eating, no drinking, no sitting down in front of the customers. The first thing I do at set up is get rid of those show issued folding chairs. Keep breath mints in your pocket and stay off your cell phone.

10. Work the entire show. Do not break down early. Work the show until the last bride has left the room. You would be amazed at the girls that want to visit the booths that interest them most on the way out of the fashion show. Be there to catch them. When you do start to break down, be helpful and make connections with the other vendors around you. Shared grief bonds people; face it you just survived 4 hours of hell/stupid/sore-feet all with the same goal. Consider dinner or drinks with your comrades at arms after the whole thing is over to commiserate and connect and de-compress.

I want everyone to have a successful show season. Bridal shows are a lot of work, but done right they can still pay off.

Tomorrow I will take a look at picking the right show for your business.

For more good stuff on bridal shows, subscribers can check out this month’s Marketing Column

at Think Like A Bride.

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1. Design your booth early and do a trial run. You need to know what is going to be in your booth and what distinctive features it will have so you can use that information to design all the other bits that go with a successful show. Consider traffic flow and the surrounding vendors in your plan.

2. Use a distinctive feature from your booth design in your sales collateral. Put something memorable in your booth and then have that same thing on your printed material and your after show email layout. A great example is for a bridal salon to use a very hot, unique gown in the very front of the booth, say red for example. It may not be the gown you sell the most of, just something that will stick in bride’s memories. Then when they see that same gown on your sale material they will remember you. Your unique design feature can be an unusual cake, or centerpiece, or a remarkable print; anything that stands out.

3. Create good signage. Just setting your business cards out is not enough. Your sign has to be large and distinctive. If your show allows it, consider paying to have yours hung from the ceiling of the convention hall. Be sure to tie that image into your sales material too.

4. Most show promoters do a good deal of pre-show publicity across a range of media. Get with the show promoter about getting a spot on their TV exposure or writing an article for their website, blog or any print outlets that are covering the show in the weeks running up to it.

5. Do your own pre-show publicity. Send out a press release if you are doing anything noteworthy at the show like participating the fashion show of giving show day discounts. Talk about it in your social media outlets like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and your blog. Send out a pre-show email blast and/or postcard inviting bride specifically to your booth.

That will keep you busy for today. Tomorrow I’ll look at what you should be doing at the show itself.

For more good stuff on bridal shows, subscribers can check out this month’s Marketing Column at Think Like A Bride.

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