Think Like A Bride-Marketing Mojo for Wedding Businesses
Everything you need to know about marketing and growing your wedding business
A couple of years ago I put together a blog for Courtney Hammon’s company A Magical Affair. This year she decided to finally bag her old flash website in favor turning that blog into a complete website. Yeah! Courtney. Now you get all the SEO power of WordPress and Genesis.
Of course we did some updates but kept the same basic look she loved in the blog. Click the image to visit the site.
OK, you all know how I feel about Bridal Shows. For many reasons they are near and dear to my heart but for several years now they have been a crap shoot. Things may be changing.
I keep hearing from clients and friends that this has been a FANTABULOUS year for shows. Rumor has it that phones have been ringing off the wall for appointments. Do tell? I even witnessed a conversation that this year has been almost like 2007!
WooHoo!!!
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Some days the universe just seems to present itself in ways that make thoughts and ideas crystal clear.
I ran across an article from last month on Forbes Magazine’s website talking about why so many Millennial women are burning out at work by 30. It made perfect sense. They have been pushed since birth to reach higher, strive harder. To get the best grades and the best resume in order to get the right job and shatter the glass ceiling. Go! Reach! Strive! Succeed! The one thing they never learned is how to take a little time for themselves. I mean for heaven sakes, they are answering email while they squeeze in a pedicure!
I’m short of breath just thinking about it.
Now let’s throw in a little touch of wedding planning for good measure.
Do you have to wonder why today’s brides can be a little frazzled and touchy?
Then low and behold, the universe laid two different answers on my table.
Brides want wedding vendors to take the pressure off. Oh, they may not know it, exactly, but they do.
First I received an email blast from a wonderful wedding professional I have know for years and highly respect, Kellie Bryson of Main Event Productions. Kellie had the opportunity to interview one of her MoBs and shared it in her newsletter. With her permission I want to share parts of it with you.
Getting right into the details — how long did you have to plan the wedding?
A total of 13 months.
Tell us what you thought were the most important aspects in selecting a wedding venue.
The number one priority was a beautiful outdoor setting with a backup plan in case of rain. It was also important that the venue have a wedding package available because we did not have the time or opportunity to shop for vendors.
Ok, this family had 13 months to plan but felt they did not have the time to shop for vendors. Hmmm, so having a package took off some pressure. You can read the entire interview on The Main Events Newsletter The point is, they specifically chose a vendor that could take off some of the pressure. Look for this trend to continue.
Next an email came to a website I’m webmaster for from a website I had not heard of that was beginning to explore my local market. I figured I would check it out. My immediate suspicion was that it was just another wedding portal looking to be the next Knot. Well if you have read Think for more than a month you know where I stand on those. This one caught my eye, specifically these few lines
She wanted something fast and easy that could help her find her vendors. She realized much of her precious time was being spent asking vendors about availability and price range, as well as exchanging basic wedding details. She wanted a location where she as a bride could “shop for vendors,” as well as give vendors a way to see her wedding details and budget without having to pick up the phone.
Wait, you mean to tell me this site was designed from the brides point of view? This bride was sick of wasting her time on the phone telling the same details to multiple vendors just to find out they were booked or out of her price range. Why couldn’t she just put all those gory details out there and then contact vendors she might be interested in to have a look?
Damn, makes perfect sense to me.
Enter Haley Suggs, the genius behind the nearly brand new website The Bride Link. With most sites vendors buy listing and the lead list that comes with them; a bride registers and then get spammed by every vendor in a 200 mile radius on no information. With The Bride Link, our bride starts the process by listing her information, date, location, guest count, budget, her hopes and dreams even her Facebook page if she wants. Then she looks through the vendors (which are required to list some type of ball park pricing) and for the ones that look promising, she sends them a link request. (Think: Facebook friend request. ) Once the vendor accepts the link request, they can see the full details of our bride’s information and start the contact back and forth.
This puts the power in the brides hands, gives them the information they want, blocks out all the spam from vendors they don’t want and keeps them from wasting time telling the same details over and over again, Brilliant!
Over the last year in development and the last 4 months post launch, Haley and her team of developers have honed this site down until it is sleek and flawless, just what today’s bride expects. It’s clean, easy to use and easy to navigate. Now it’s time to start scaling. You see up until now it is specific to Knoxville,Tn. Smart move roll it out locally, perfect the processes and systems then start to scale.
If you are smart and want to be on the forefront of what I think may be the next big thing, contact Haley for a demo.
So what is your take away from this? Find ways to make it easy for your bride. Do what you can to take some of the pressure off. Think packages like Kellie or a streamlined system like Haley.Make yourself their lifesaver.
I have said it for so long that I am blue in the face:
Yet year after year, so many wedding vendors throw money at the Knot for ads that aren’t working. They throw money at Wedding Wire and every little portal website that comes along. Then they wonder why they aren’t getting any return on their investment. ~gah~
There was a time when the Knot really was a place for brides to go to get the information and inspiration that they needed. Today? uh, no. Why would they sort through pages of nonsense when all the have to do is Google exactly what they are looking for and get pages of very specific related answers. Even better, pages of images.
Finally I have back up. Today the Motley Fool picked XO Group(formerly the Knot) as their “Throw This Stock Away” pick of the week. Below is the best quote of the article:
XO in general — and The Knot in particular — just aren’t as necessary as they used to be. Friends swap wedding service referrals for free through Facebook, and Angie’s List has grown into a powerhouse of vetted reviews.
Brides today are going to go where they already feel comfortable.
Now take a look at this quote about a stock they would pick to replace XO Group.
- Google: XO relies on wedding service providers paying up to be featured on TheKnot.com. Despite all of the lifestyle site launches and acquisitions over the past four years, revenue has climbed just 22% higher at XO. Where are the advertisers going? My best bet would be Google. The search giant’s AdWords platform makes it easy to smoke out leads for pennies per click. It’s also hard to argue against Google at less than 13 times next year’s earnings.
I hate to leave you hanging at the altar XO, but I’m just not that into you.
What does all this mean to you?
In a nutshell, brides are finding information by searching on Google. If your website isn’t top notch and built to be search friendly, no amount of money you throw at advertising is going to do you any good.
Remember when I said “In 2008 we hit the reset button?’ Well this is one of the things that has changed. Ignore it at your own peril.
Oh and one more thing. If you own any stock in XO, I’d probably take the Fool’s advice.
I stumbled upon this on YouTube today. The SEO Rapper on Page Rank.
I love this guy! Not only does he know what he’s talking about but he is one dang Out of the Box thinkin’ Gorilla Marketer! He took a skill and zigged when everyone else was zagging. Oh sure, he could have taken that talent and rapped about sex and guns and drugs, but NOOOOO, he flipped it to the world of internet marketing. I’m sure he is doing quite well for himself and I bet he sleeps better.
Watch the video an learn a little about Page Rank, Content and SEO.
Here is another one just for the fun of it. Social Media
I have been following some interesting discussions on what advertising works and what doesn’t. The general consensus is that none of it works; at least not consistently. Not print, not bridal shows, not wedding portals, not online adverts, nothing, zip, zilch zero, nada.
You know you have to market, you are even willing to drop a few coins in the pot to do it; but if nothing works what is the answer?
Here is where you begin. Notice that in the above copy I used two different words: advertising and marketing. They are not interchangeable. Advertising is static and marketing is active.
Time was when a bridal vendor could buy a page in the local glossy bridal publication and that was all it took. That was advertising, set it and forget it. OK, maybe do a bridal show or two and then forget it.
Marketing is constant. Marketing is networking. Marketing is PR. Marketing is reaching out to the people who can bring you work. Marketing is fluid.
Marketing for today’s bridal vendor is in two places: online and face to face.
Point 1:
A truth of the industry that has always been and I imagine shall always be is that the majority of brides find their vendors by referral. Yes, a lot of that is from other brides but a lot more is from other vendors. To sell today’s bride the biggest trigger is that she feels comfortable with you and that she trust you.
Yes, I know their opening salvo is always about price, but believe me, if she trusts you she will pay your price.
So, once she finds that one vendor that she trusts, she will take their recommendations in the highest regard. You need to be who they are referring.
This is the face to face aspect. If you aren’t out there networking with local vendors you are missing the boat. This doesn’t just mean calling them and asking them to refer you. Seriously, some people think that will work. No, not even close.
The real essence of networking with other vendors is getting to know them and building relationships with them. Work with them, help them, refer them, support them. All the work you put into and qualities you expect from a friendship are inherent in good networking.
This is an ongoing process and belive me, it is marketing. The more positive relationships you have with other vendors with in your market the more your business will grow. I promise you.
Point 2:
The other marketing today that does work is your own website. It is your marketing tool when you aren’t there. Again this has to be an ongoing project.
You need to keep your website constantly updated for 2 main reasons.
The first is search. Everytime you update or add to your site the search engines take a fresh look and index more pages. The more content, the more long tail keywords, the better chance you have of showing up in the long, complicated search strings that brides type in to their search engine. Keep adding content and keep fueling the search. This is the main reason that having (and using) a blog as part of your website is so powerful.
The second reason is that if your website looks stale and dated, that is the impression that prospective clients will have of you. If you look stale, they won’t even call. That wedding from 2008 may still be your favorite, but it probably looks old and tired to brides that have been searching the net for months. Give yourself a fighting chance. Keep updating your portfolio with new and exciting images of your work.
Just about now is where you are starting to argue with me that you just don’t have the time for all that. Tough. Make the time or invest those old advertising dollars to hire someone to do it for you. In today’s world, this is what it takes.
I think that we have already established that today’s brides are doing most of their research online. The question is where. To answer that, you need to figure out how they are doing their research.
From what I have looked at, here is my drill down.
Let’s take these one at a time.
The first thing they do is go look at all the pretty pictures. I know it sounds trite but that is just the way this generation is. They are very visual. What this means to you is that you need to make sure that your images come up in a Google image search. The best way to do that is to be sure you have done a good job of tagging your shots when you put them on your website. For more information on just how to do this, read Labeling Your Images for SEO Gold. Now mind you, this won’t make them call you, in and of itself, but it will start the process of making them familiar with your name.
Trust me, the newly engaged are completely clueless when it comes to planning a wedding. So they hit the internet for planning tips and tools. You know as well as I do that there is enough info on this topic on the internet to fill a good sized library. Most of it is bullshit, some of it is down right scary, a lot of it is worthless marketing junk and a tiny bit is of real value. The problem is, it doesn’t come color coded, so a bride is likely to mistake the garbage for gold.
You know what I am talking about. How often have you sat in a client meeting and wondered where they came up with such a harebrained scheme. She got a tickle of an idea in the back of her brain and then found some source to support it. ~sigh~
Which brings us to our next destination…
This is in reality where brides that spend the most time online will be: in the forums and bulletin boards of places like WeddingBee.com and WeddingWire.com.
According to a recent report, the only sites in the top 10 that didn’t lose ground are the ones that support community. Even the venerable Martha Stewart Weddings took a hit. The comments on Bee and the forums on Wire are very heavily trafficked. What our brides are doing is talking about their wedding with other brides and learning from them. They have become the primary authority on all things wedding. God help us. It is like kids that learn all of their sex-ed on the playground.
The other place they are finding community is on Facebook. They may notice your page there but that isn’t why they are there. They are there to socialize.
Now we are getting down to it. They start looking for you. Notice I did not say that start looking at the ads on the Knot, or any other site for that matter. They go straight to their favorite search engine. Ok, so ya, Google, but there are others too, at least that is what I hear. 
Something else you need to know, these ladies are really good at search. They don’t type in “DJ in New Jersey” they type in “DJ,Trenton NJ, Not Cheesy”. They don’t type in “Wedding Dress, Bellingham WA” They type in “2Be Brides by Gavin Michaels Style No. G233916S + WA”
As you can see, they have already decided what they want and know how to search to find it. That is the reason that you need to put as much information on your website as possible.
Now that they have found you and looked over your website, they still aren’t ready to contact you. They want support that they are making a good choice. For they they go back to their community and ask if anyone knows anything about you. Once comfortable that you are who they think you are, they will check your review on Wedding Wire and Yelp. Save them the step and put the WeddingWire.com Review widget right on your website. Something else the net savvy bride will do is type in “{your name}+complaints”.
Now, maybe, if you have come out on top on all this, they might send you an email.
As to the original question, “Where are brides online?” the answer is search. They aren’t paying attention to banner ads or paid listings, they are doing their own research. When they finally hit your website, it had better be top-notch. It might be the only shot you get.
Simply put because it is the future.
Check this blip about the new Glamour magazine app
Each digital issue includes the entire contents of the magazine, PLUS exclusive extras like video, photos and app-only fashion picks you can tap to purchase straight from your iPad, iPod touch or iPhone! You can also save your favorite fashion and beauty items–complete with details on where to buy them–for easy shopping reference when you’re on the go.
This may be just the thing that causes the revival of bridal magazines. Oh stop, I know that Glamour isn’t a bridal rag but they are owned by Conde Nast, so is Brides. Which means that Brides has access to the tech, if they are smart enough to use it.
Why carry a bridal magazine that weights a bunch around when you can just read it on your iPad or iPhone? Double score that you can just click to buy or link to a vendors website. Sounding better? What’s better, since it is in the app store it is now an impulse buy. Bored on the train to work? Buy the latest Bridal porn. Done.
The iPhone is great but the screen isn’t really big enough to really give the reader the same feel of a high end print glossy. But the iPad does.
Next you are going to tell me that, yes the app lets you view the entire magazine but you have to pay for it and no one will pay for content. Au contraire my friend!
Check out this article from the New York Times
The News Corporation said on Tuesday that it had gained 105,000 paying customers for the digital versions of The Times and The Sunday Times of London since it started charging for access to their Web sites this summer.
The company said about half of those additions were regular, active subscribers to the newspapers’ Web sites, iPad application or Amazon Kindle edition. The rest were occasional purchasers. Another 100,000 readers have activated free digital accounts that are included in print subscriptions to the papers, the News Corporation said.
“These figures very clearly show that large numbers of people are willing to pay for quality journalism in digital formats,” said Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, the London-based arm of the News Corporation that publishes The Times papers.
The advent of the iPad has given a glimmer of hope to the currently on life support print media.
So there are two things I want you to think about:
First if you are considering putting any money into print, make dang sure that their presence on the iPad is what it should be. Don’t let them get away with telling you that they have a website. Tell them you want something like Glamour has put together.
Second, make sure you back up your purchase with a website that will show up on the iPad when a bride to be clicks on your ad. That means one thing—NO FLASH–. Yes I know it’s pretty, but it is totally useless with the format that today’s brides use to access the web most. You may just want to read this to be sure your site is where it needs to be.
The iPhone and more importantly, the iPad are not fads. This is particularly true with the higher end brides.
Check out what Mary Schmidt has to say about the future and the iPad.
Back on October 1 I told you that I was doing a major upgrade on this website. Nothing much changed on the face of things. I think you will agree that it pretty much looks the same and works the same, right?
What changed is on the back side. I upgraded to the Genesis Framework from Studiopress. I figured that if I was going to be an affiliate and since I build nearly all of my client’s sites on it, it was high time I use that mojo for myself.
One of the reasons I did it was because of the powerful built in SEO that it offers. I picked a keyword that I wanted to own, using the Google Keyword tool to help in that selection. I took care to configure my settings well and I let it roll.
The reconfiguring and theme change only took me a few hours on a Thursday afternoon. (10-7-2010)
This morning I hit Google, 16 days later, to see what the results were.
Now do you understand why I love Studiopress?
Drop me a line if you want this much mojo in your corner too.
I posed that question in a recent email blast to my subscribers and members. Hopefully it got you thinking.
Today I ran across a recent survey done by online wedding planning site, MyWeddingWorkbook.com
Here is the meat of the survey:
Wedding websites, wedding-related blogs and online search engines are the first three places brides look for ideas, followed by online wedding forums, bridal magazines and shopping at bridal boutiques and salons.
“Generation Y and the Millennials have been using computers and the Internet practically their entire lives, so it only makes sense that these are the first resources they use when they start planning a wedding,” said Jeff Kear, owner of My Wedding Workbook.
In fact, when brides were asked what will be their main source of aid throughout the wedding planning process, the Internet (17.8%) ranked just behind brides’ fiances (28.4%) and their mothers (21.3%) – one of the more interesting statistics from this wedding planning survey…
“It’s no surprise that wedding guidance and shopping are definitely the two areas of most interest for online brides,” says Kear. “However, the recent recession has made brides even more reliant on the Internet for assistance in these two areas. Brides are more budget conscious than ever, so they are planning more events and details themselves and need more guidance. They are also spending more time comparison shopping and browsing for bargains, and the Internet has become the default venue for comparing prices and vendors.”
If your website is old, tired and out of date you are missing this generation. They are on the internet all day and have been for years. They use it for work, they use it for entertainment and they use it to shop and research. They use it on their phone and on their iPads. They have seen the best that the web has to offer.
In light of these new statistics, it’s worth taking a look at your current web presence.
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