Social media marketing is a much more complex animal than most people seem to think. You cannot just do a bit of it and think it will achieve your goals. In truth, for it to work it has to be a full on social media campaign. Like a well orchestrated symphony, if one part is missing or off key, it will fall flat.
All the tools of Social Media are but pieces of the larger puzzle. Some are to build buzz, some are to spark interest and build tribes, some are used to give deeper information and yet others are best used as a clear call to action. Then there are tools like Twitter and Foursquare that serve to provide the constant beat of jungle drums in the background to keep the movement alive.
Let’s break one down. In our example we are marketing an event to showcase our business.
First off, get your information ready for your blogsite.Big, splashy, information rich with links and details aplenty. This is in essence, the home base for your media campaign. But don’t launch it all yet, just tease it.Put a lead generator on the page to gather email addresses. “Be the first to know more”
Next you should start teasing it on your FB and Twitter. Lay it out and start building excitement. Put up tweets and status updates saying that “You won’t believe what we have in store for you.” Then start leaking details. You have to do this frequently and you can’t stop. In your symphony, this is your base line. Mind you, you can’t just keep retweeting the same thing over and over. Change the notes. Every thing should link back to the page on your website.
Now that you have tweaked everyones curiosity, roll out the full content on your blog/website. Start getting into buzz building detail on FB. “Just met with {caterer} for a tasting and OMG the food will be fabulous!” “What do you think about our signature cocktail {name}?” “Just saw the mock-ups from {florist}. Wow, just Wow”
Everyone of those vendors needs to be in on the campaign, even if you have to write the content and set up the tweets for them. This is a multipronged attack and it all has to work in unison to achieve it’s goals.
Now you send out the email blast. You send it, your vendors send it and you track your response. The email should match the page on your website and it simply must limit the number of reservations accepted and a time frame. The more scarse and coveted you make the tickets the faster they will sell.
Now you and all of your vendors should be posting updates on their blog helping to build the excitement.
One week later, send the next email blast. In fact, do two. On would go to the people that opened the first but did not respond. Say something along the lines of “Don’t miss the boat” or “Last chance to register”. the other email should go to the people that did not open the first one. Your subject line has got to make their mouth water.
Don’t forget to keep up that baseline of Twitter and FB. On Twitter you should start thanking people for registering. “@{name} I’m so glad you are coming! Can’t wait to see you.” “Dear friend of {company name} @{name} just registered. I can’t wait for you all to meet her.” Put those names out there and make it a social event.
Keep this thing running until the event starts and beyond. Heck, Tweet the event. Those that missed it won’t miss your next one.
Yep, it’s a lot of work. If you look at the alternative of using traditional media you are looking a a massive spend in money instead of time. If this is important to you, take a fraction of what you are saving by not doing traditional media and hire some one to orchestrate the campaign. Money well spent.
or you could just wing it. LOL yeah right.
I met with a friend last week that needed some advice on promoting an upcoming event. We talked about the time frame (very short), we talked about what they were doing already(great event, some advertising, no social media) and what they hoped to get out of the event.
In the course of an hour we tossed around ideas and looked at some possibilities. By the time we were done I thought that we had laid out a fairly comprehensive plan. The thing was, it needed to be implemented almost immediately. Now, yesterday if possible.
I still haven’t seen one word on social media. Not. One.
This needed to be mobilized by all the people that are involved in it. By getting everyone involved, setting them all up to update automatically and letting it roll, it should have been an easy thing to do.
Sometimes, when you have a lot riding on your PR and marketing and your hands are already full running your business, it just makes sense to hire someone to do it for you.
The more websites I build, the more I learn. So time for a little sharing.
Here are the top five things that have to be on your website, in no particular order. These are all aimed at wedding professionals. The list may not be the same for other markets.
Images.
Your target market is visual, very visual. I once had a young lady stand up in one of my seminars as I was talking about tagging your images and how GenY mostly surfed for pictures. She stated straight up that she was firmly Gen Y and truth be told, they ONLY surfed for pictures, rarely ever reading a word. So, add them to your blog posts and include large galleries of eye candy. Bue sure that you images are added in a way that the search engines can read them, in other words, don’t use Flash. Be sure to annotate and tag every single image with any relevant keywords, paying special attention to include subject matter and location.
Local Content
Most of my readers are based locally, by that I mean that even though they would love to book wedding all over the world, most of them are in their home town. With that in mind, be sure that you put a lot of local flavor in your website. If brides are looking at your site they want to know that you know all the best places and faces in your location. Remember brides search locally for their vendors. The other part of getting local on your site is that it give you an excuse to use the name of your town or neighborhood frequently. Why is that important? If you want to come up high for wedding planners in Washington, DC you need to have the actual words”Washington, DC’ appear in your content for the search bots to see. Search bots read words, only words; so the more often you can logically mention wedding & Washington, DC in you site the better off you are. (assuming of course you are a planner in Washington, DC, but then you know that)
Testimonials
As many and in as many ways as possible. Give them their own page, add pictures of either the smiling couple or the service that you provided. If they are complimenting you on the flowers and décor, add a picture of that.
Get the Wedding Wire Review widget and put that on your front page. Not only will brides read your reviews but it will make them more likely to give you a review themselves.
Add endorsements from other vendors. Those carry a lot of weight as a bride tries to decide if you are stable and reliable. Any one can get one or 2 good reviews from clients but it is the people you work with week in and week out that can really speak to what you are made of! Incidentally, I spoke with Wedding Wire last week and in their next revision they are adding a widget to add your endorsements just like the review widget. Yeah!
Prices
The number on thing that brides ask to have included in their online experience is pricing. This is something that hasn’t changed in as long as I have been at this. They want to know if they can afford you before they fall in love with your work.
Lead Generator
Right there on the front page and even in the post sidebars, you have to have a lead generator to collect email addresses. You never know when you are going to need them. Email marketing should be an important part of your overall marketing plan. Read why here. You can use it to promote any events you have coming up.
Of course there are other things that will be specific to you, but these 5 things are a must have for any wedding vendor.
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.
How are you re-inventing your business?
Last night I was at a networking event and had the opportunity to speak with quite a few wedding professionals in a wide range of categories. I saw an interesting pattern emerge.
There are a lot of very smart people either in the middle of or in the beginning phases of completely 
re-inventing their businesses in light of the new economic realities in the wedding market. Instead of continuing to do the same old thing they are reading the market and rolling with the punches.
Two different photographers are seeing the light, one is fairly new and the other is a seasoned pro, but both are no longer putting their emphasis on shooting weddings. Instead, both are moving into the portraiture market but in entirely different ways. Both are using their established connections and unique skill sets. Very Cool!
I spoke with a new linen company that is completely re-inventing the wheel. I am interviewing them later to get the skinny for an in-depth article on this topic for the members content side of Think.
I also got to check in my florist friend that is placing her emphasis on rentals to both brides and florist. She is in the unique position of having ‘things’ that other, new florists haven’t had the time or treasure to amass.
I also met the owner of an invitation company that is branching out into event planning. (OK, don’t get me started on new planners but at least they are re-inventing)
What I want to know is how you are reading the market and re-inventing yourself? You all know what I did six years ago to re-invent brand “ME”. What are you doing?
I am putting together an article and if you would like your unique story included, just leave a comment of send me an email.
My readers are some of the smartest wedding professionals out there, I can’t wait to hear your stories.
In a recent post I asked the question, Why Do You Blog? And I followed it up by trying to explain that the best way to blog is to be yourself. I want to elaborate on that and why I feel that way.
So many n00b bloggers get hung up on getting every word perfect, on making everyone like them, of having something for everyone. What they end up with is a bland, generic almost corporate”been run through legal first” boring blog. That’s not what engages customers.
What engages customers is when they can relate to you. They engage when they have a sense of who the person writing is, what they believe and how they think. If you concentrate too much on making it perfect or not offending anyone you are not going to show your personality.
OK, so you don’t want to offend anyone. Well, in the real world that isn’t going to happen. Not everyone is going to ‘get’ you or like you. That’s just the way it is.
Blogs are a marketing tool for most of us. Marketing is about client attraction. Client attraction isn’t just about numbers, or attracting everyone. Client attraction should be about attracting the customers that are the best ft for you.
Reread those last 3 paragraphs.
So if you write from the heart, there is a good chance you are going to offend someone. Guess what. They weren’t your client any way. Your goal with your blog should be to attract the clients that are a good fit. I have written about refining your target market enough that by now you should know that not every bride is your bride.
The best way to attract ‘your’ bride is to let them know who you are.
Let’s take an example: Offbeat Bride. Now I can just about guarantee that some of the content is going to offend some people; especially traditionalists. Guess what, she has one of the loyalist followings out there. Oh, I’m sure it isn’t as big as Style Me Pretty of Wedding Bee, but baby, they will defend that site to the end. That is what you want from your followers; evangelical loyalty.
Vanilla may be the most popular flavor by the number of gallons sold, but it isn’t a flavor that will get you off the couch in the middle of the night.
You can’t be all things to all people. If you are true to yourself and your passions, you will attract the people that are like minded. Those are the people that are going to become your clients.
We don’t sell widgets that can be prepackaged and commoditized. We are in a creative field and as such, people hire us as much because they like the way we view the world as for the product itself. The only truly unique selling point that you have, that no one can take away or copy is you.
If your blog is too cut and dried, too sanitized, you aren’t showing readers the one thing that will make them come back for more: Your unique view of the world, warts and all.
Trust me, I’ve taken my share of hits from people that don’t agree or like my point of view. Too bad, don’t read my posts. What my followers know is that they will always get my honest opinion. They know that I am never going to pull any punches. They know that I am genuinely who I say I am.
That is what your clients want to
I get a lot of different trend reports and as we head into the New Year I thought I would share a few with you along with my unique analysis on how it ties to our market.
First up, from TrendWatching.com “10 Crucial Consumer Trends For 2010”
There is so much on this report that you don’t want to miss. I felt that the real-time review section was so important I give its own column this month.
Also very relevant to our industry is #10 Maturialism. Keep in mind as you read this that your target market is under 30. Those of you that are greatly concerned with how Mom will view your website need to think deeply about how far you can now go. If you link this trend with # Urbany, I think you will be more comfortable being a little edgier as you move forward.
Why do I think Maturialism and Urbany are so relevant? The rising trend of gay and lesbian unions comes to mind. It is rich market that in some areas is underserved. Don’t be afraid to step into this arena, as long as you can do it without crossing any personal moral lines you may have. What I am saying is that if you are ok with it, your potential clients won’t be offended if you are open about promoting that you can serve this segment too.
In the section on (F)luxury, I especially like this mandate to ‘go your own way’ and take your client along with you. Why follow trends when you can create them.
From the article:
So don’t worry about missing out on the next big thing in luxury, focus on defining it. How? By finding and coining the right (status) trigger for the right audience. Just declare that the end is nigh for anything that’s getting a little too affordable, too accessible, too polluting, or just too well-known. Then introduce something very different (if not the opposite), appealing to the in-crowds who are ready to jump ship anyway 
This also from TrendWatching, Status Stories
The underlying takeaway in this report is that you need to give your clients a compelling enough story about your product or service to get them to talk about it. Helping them to understand your story will go a long way towards them spreading the word for you. Let’s take for instance a photographer, say a husband and wife team, if they put their unique story on their website/blog and keep mentioning it, they are giving their clients a story to share. “Our photographers are just the cutest couple, they met in the Peace Corp and are still giving back by leading the youth group at their church.” Another photographer may include his/her history as a true photojournalist covering the war in Afghanistan or shooting on location for National Geographic. Or how about the custom invitation artist that shares on her site that in addition to creating invitations she is also a galleried artist. “Yes, our invitations were done by so and so, I see where she recently had a showing of her paintings. I really can’t wait to get one of her pieces for our home.”
Anything about you or your craft that can build your image above and beyond you core craft will boost your brand.
The 2009 Holiday Special Report
While this report focuses on e-commerce and the holiday season there are still some important takeaways in it.
Paragraph 3 on page 4 is especially enlightening. According to a Nielson report, 18% of all searches begin on a social networking site. Also, in a survey of social network activities, 50% included links to other websites and 25% included links to specific companies, products or services. You do want people to link to yours through social media, right?
You will also want to read page 9. It talks about how Best Buys is using Twitter. This one line says a lot; “adding value to the product through increased customer support and opportunities for engagement.”
While we all track the trends that rise and fall in weddings, sometimes it is even more important to watch the trend that are bubbling in the rest of the consumer segments. I know that I have given you a lot to digest, trust me; it will be worth your time as you try to navigate the post-recession economy of 2010.
(Wow, it felt really good to write post-recession!)
I am seeing more and more creative thinking in bridal marketing. It can take many forms but co-op marketing and alternative media are my two favorites.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
I ran across this press release today. http://condenastdirect.com/newlywednest/. Brides Magazine has teamed up with Ikea to sponsor a show house geared toward the nearly & newlyweds. Featuring furnishings from Ikea and hosting a bevy of bride-centric event it looks like a win-win for both entities. Wedding vendors from gown designers hosting trunk shows to wedding photographers doing snap shots to florists doing floral arranging workshops are offering something for everyone. Set up for only a limited time, it runs thru the end of May, this is a partnership that seems to make perfect sense. In another stroke of brilliance, they are also teaming up with the Lower East Side Girls Club as their selected charity with all proceeds going to the Girls Club. As you know, today’s consumers are keenly attuned to the “good works” of the companies they buy from and are likely to place more value on those whose charitable affiliations mirror their own.
Creating co-operative marketing opportunities is a great way to get you message across and share the financial burden. I wrote recently on my blog about dream teams of wedding vendors. Why not reach out to the vendors that you work with regularly and see what makes sense for you. I know of a caterer and a florist that are teaming up to showcase both of their work. The florist want to show off her collection of rentable containers to wedding planners and the caterer wants to showcase the talents of her new chef so they are throwing a party and inviting the planners. They have even embarked on a joint direct mail campaign.
In my own business, I am doing a seminar next month and using a Victorian B&B as the location. They get exposure for their venue and I get a place to speak. Not only is the event win-win, but by working together we were able to combine not only our individual lead lists but also add the list available to each of us through the organizations to which we each belong. Between the accumulated lists, the invitation and announcement will go out to several thousand leads. Yeah!
I also want you to think about alternative places to advertise. Think about the things that your particular group of brides has in common. I spoke with one planner that finds that almost all of her brides are attorneys. Why doesn’t she tap that by finding out what sites or magazines they read and advertise there? Another seems to do a lot of younger brides still in uni and most all are in sororities. I think she should check with the Pan Hellenic council and see what kind of event she could team with them to sponsor.
We have a program here in NashVegas called Grafitti Concepts that places adverts in restroom. Talk about a captive audience! If you hit the right upscale clubs that your brides at hanging out in pre-engagement you could strike a gold mine when they do get engaged. So far I have only seen one vendor even vaguely related to bridal on the ads, a boudoir photographer. I’m sure there is a company similar to this in your area. If not, you should start one.
Do a little creative thinking of your own and see what makes sense for your unique business. Don’t limit yourself only to the marketing opportunities that present themselves to you like the local magazines and bridal shows. There are as many creative ways to reach brides as there are bride.
For years now I have been telling you to think like a bride; the question is: are you thinking like the right bride?
If you have ever heard me speak then you know that one of the first questions I ask is “Who is your target market?” followed immediately by “Brides is not the correct answer.” I’m sure my subscribers are smart enough to have defined their target market better than the vague term bride. You know what her general socio-economical range is, what her educational level is and you understand to some degree her desired level of formality. Now I ask you, how closely have you looked into what her psychological motivators and primary drivers are? In other words, why is she buying from you instead of your competitors?
We already know it’s not price; unless you are WalMart. It most likely isn’t location; these girls will go to the ends of the earth to get what they want for their wedding. It isn’t your advertising; Gen Y doesn’t pay any attention to advertising. It isn’t your unique creative style; there is nothing new under the sun and you know as well as I do that they will steal your ideas and take them down the street in a heartbeat. So what is it that makes you the chosen one?
Closing the sale and making the deal is entirely about how you make them feel. I know that sounds vague and rather touchy feely but it is what it is. The question becomes, how do you make the clients that choose you feel? The corollary to that is how do your clients wish to feel? Once you know the answer to that you know immediately who and how.
Take for instance the bride that needs to feel like she is cutting edge; you are not going to sell her the same way as the bride that wants to know that all her choices will be viewed as ‘correct.’ Is your bride someone that needs to have her choices validated or one that needs to be led to her decisions? Are her choices dictated by her social standing in the community and if so, how does choosing you reflect upon that?
What is it about your personality and the personality of your business that most people notice? Here is what I mean. There is a planner that I am acquainted with that has two things about her style that characterizes her. First, it has to do with social standing in her market. Yes she is way up there at the top of the reputation heap but she didn’t just place herself there. There was obviously something that was appealing to her target market. Trust me, it wasn’t her great flamboyant cutting edge personality, this woman is a mouse. It wasn’t her gentle handholding. No, it was that she would listen to your ideas, formulate a design and then damn near eliminate every single decision a bride had to make. “Do you want A or B?” The bride either picked one or the other; if she took too long the planner said something along the lines of “A it is. Moving on.” She was a freight train at full throttle. Spot on perfect for the bride that hired a planner to actually plan her wedding, not hold her hand as she vacillated between choices.
I know another planner that will accompany a bride to each and every vendor meeting. Her brides are looking for a best friend or Mom substitute. Trust me, these two planners will not appeal to the same bride.
My point is, your brides choose you, not for the reasons you may think. They choose you for some pretty deep psychological reasons. It is up to you to figure out what they are and use that to tweak your marketing. Think back on your most successful clients and see if you can determine what their motivating factors were. Of course you could always ask them but I doubt if they know themselves.
For some further insight into how women form their buying decisions and consequently, how to market to them differently you should read the excellent group of posts by Michelle Miller at Wonder Branding.
4 Neighborhoods of Female Customers
Neighborhood #1: The Regal Queen
Neighborhood #2: The Sorceress
In 2010 it is a given that your website is your strongest marketing tool, it has also been a given that ranking high in the search engines, particularly Google, has been the primary driver of traffic to your site. The second part of that statement is no longer true.
What!! That’s right. According to Web measurement firm Compete Inc., Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites. I would expect twitter to show up in the next snapshot they take. Still think social media doesn’t matter?
First, the numbers; using a snapshot from December, web measurement firm Compete, Inc , found that 13% of traffic to the major portals like Yahoo, MSN and AOL came from Facebook, Google only served up 7%, falling behind even eBay at 7.61%.
What is happening here is that rather than simply navigating the net on their own, consumers are relying more and more on the recommendation of their online friends. Facebook users share links and photos as well as product recommendations with their friends at an ever increasing rate. Rather than going out in search of news and products, they are now coming to us by way of status updates and fan pages.
Everything you knew about where and how to market has changed in the last few years and that change continues. First it was do the right shows and be in the right magazines. Then it was have a pretty Flash website that was really just and online brochure. Next it was use blogs, galleries and HTML websites to rank high in the search engines. Now even that is beginning to fade.
If you think about it, we have come full circle: once again the most important place to market is in the town square. It’s just that the town square now exists in the digital world. Ideas are exchanged over the virtual back yard fence.
Here are a few tips to using your Facebook profile more effectively. First off you should try to separate your business profile from your personal profile. So many of us started out on Facebook on a personal level and to some extent this has helped to blur the line between the two. The question is how much of the comments your sister and friends make do you want broadcast to you business contacts. Set up either a group page or a fan page for your business and work at posting differently on each. For most of you, a fan page is the way to go. You can contact your followers via updates (not as great as PM’s but it works) and your page will appear in the list of pages they joined. Post links to your blog or website to your status anytime you post or update. You can set this up to happen automatically using FriendFeed. You can also link your Twitter account to post on your FB page. Just a word of caution, if you hook all these up you end up with annoying multiple posts.
You should have a link on the homepage of your website, above the fold to your business Facebook page and list it in your signature on your emails.
I was sent the beta last week of a new app for Facebook created especially for brides in the planning stage. Wedding List is a well laid out, very organized planning tool that brides use to ask their friends for recommendations. Hmmm, now doesn’t that tie in nicely with I just said about recommendations? As of 3-01-2010 the application had 2,712 monthly active users and this thing is only a month or so old. One of the people behind this new app is my old contact at Modern Bride, Michelle Prelli, so you know they understand the wedding market. Read the reviews and be on the lookout for the logo in your news feed. If you see it, by all means respond.
All in all, you can’t continue to avoid social media. Not only do you have to be there but you have to know how to use it. Trust me, even Google has taken notice…you have seen Google
Buzz haven’t you?
