Your business will not grow if you do not market it. Period. End of story.

That’s may seem like a pretty strong statement especially in an industry where word of mouth has long proven to be the number one source of new business. You can’t buy good word of mouth advertising so what are you supposed to do?  You can prime the pump a little, that’s what. Build some traffic, create some buzz. You just have to do it in a smart, transparent way.

Here are a few simple truths that when taken together can point you in the right direction

One tenant of smart marketing is to spend your ad money where your target market is looking for you. In our case that is the internet and they are fanatical about looking at and sharing pretty pictures.

Another truth about our target market is that they tend toward being self-centered and narcissistic. They love to see themselves and their choices held up and applauded.

If you applaud their choice they will do the work of spreading the word.

Here are some things I discovered from my blog stats over the last month or so. Recently I posted some wedding photos of the daughter of a friend on my blog along with a link to her photographer’s site so they could see more images. Out of courtesy I sent mom a link.  By noon the bride had forwarded the link to a few friends. By the end of the day my site traffic had QUADRUPLED and the photographer’s had TRIPLED.  Hmmmmmm. Remember, I only sent the link to one person, but that person cared about those images enough to want to share them.

Something else I have noticed is that my referrals are almost all coming from Google images now. Needless to say I am trying to post some type of relevant image on every post. My numbers continue to climb.

Here is something else I ran across last month: JEEP’s new site was being praised on one of the PR/Marketing blogs I read. Why? Because the have added a page where fanatical JEEP owners can up load pictures of their pride and joy. People will share that which they are passionate about. What is your target market more passionate about than their wedding?

Bear with me, this will all come together. I promise.

I recently came across a site for a bridal salon that posts photos of the “Bride of the Month”. Now don’t you know what that has done for their site traffic?  They ask for brides to submit their photo and chose one at random each month. The post a new one each month but don’t archive the old ones.

We are getting closer. Now how do we tie this all together? Use you blog to showcase something every week, our cake of the week, or centerpiece, or bouquet or ‘best looking Groom’ or funniest cake smashing, whatever works for you. Make sure to drop the bride an email asking for permission and then send her the link. They will do the rest.

What’s all this going to cost you? Maybe an hour a week to pick you favorite image, post it and send the appropriate emails. Some of you will need a small digital camera to capture your images, some of you will work through your photographer associates. It isn’t about the best images; it is about consistency and using real wedding material to generate word of mouth. Be sure to have your blog linked to your primary website.

I can hear it now, “How is this going to help me.”  Because if you have a large number of woman in the prime marrying demographic check your site, or better yet being referred to your site every week when any one of them gets engaged yours is going to be the first site they hit to set up an appointment. You have been referred to them over and over by their friends, family and sorority sisters.

It is about priming the pump for word of mouth and getting your market to generate the buzz for you.