July 2010
I have been reading some interesting things lately about branding and the Wedding Industry. For years now I have been telling you how important branding your business is, and to a certain extent in your local market , it is.
Where I see it beginning to change in on the larger national level.
Let’s take a look. First you have things like Vera Wang banding together with David’s Bridal. That pretty much dilutes her brand to smithereens. She has done the same thing with her line for Macy’s. Once a brand that epitomized luxury and understated elegance, the Vera Wang label now is within reach of anyone.
While we are on the topic of bridal gowns…
I recently interviewed several of the bridal salons that I have worked with over the years. These salons all carry both moderate and couture labels. The one thing that they all said was that brides were no longer seeking a specific label of designer but a particular style and price point. As opposed to saying, “I am looking for a Reem Acra” they are more like to say I want a trumpet style in the under $1000 price range. This is a strong departure from just a few years ago when high end brides would often identify themselves on forums as being “ A Reem Bride.”
I am getting a sense of this happening across the board. With such a glut of wedding vendors in the market place today, brides are finding what they want in a variety of price ranges. Those labels don’t mean a lot anymore.
Take for instance invitations. Having Crane invitations once said a lot about your wedding. Now brides just buy Crane paper and print then at home.
As the average budget for weddings is dropping due to the current economic stress, the label, it seems, has been the first thing to go.
What does that mean for the small local vendors?
For one thing, it means that you can no longer depend on the lines you carry to draw in clients. You are better off trumpeting the fact that you offer goods and services in multiple price ranges than advertizing your lines.
As for branding your own business, I think that is still important in a local market. But you had better be doing it on customer service rather than price. Build your brand and your reputation around an image of being the most dependable and honest vendor in your category. Brides know they can get anything cheaper just down the lane, but it is still true that for this occasion they are willing to pay a bit more for peace of mind and anything to relieve stress.
Here is one tip, go back through you testimonials and rearrange them putting the ones that compliment your customer service closest to the top.
Get in the habit of asking your brides what you can do to make their planning easier? It could be something like if you are a florist you can arrange their linen rental for them. First, you have made their planning easier but you should have also made a little extra coin on it.
Photographers; you could offer to recommend, even set up consultations with make-up and hair professionals for your brides.
Band, DJs, are you recommending dance instructors?
The beauty of all this is that you are offering them help at a time of certain stress in their lives without it costing you any coin, just time.
You won’t have to cut your prices if just holding their hand gets you the sale.
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.
Twitter isn’t really all that hard to grasp yet I see people do a complete fail on it every day. Why? Well mostly because they either won’t take the time to understand it or because they try to farm it out to some hack to do it for them.
There is one that come to mind instantly for me. I won’t tell you who but I will give you the what and why. Then there are a few that I think do it brilliantly.
I follow twitter in a sort of subliminal way all day. I sit at a computer and I have the feed run constantly in the side bar. If something catches my eye, I click over to Seesmic to take a closer look. As a result I see the good and the bad. It takes a lot for someone to annoy me enough to unfollow them, and only once have I been so miffed I reported someone as a spammer. Usually if someone is failing I find it amusing and keep following to see if they ever get it.
This morning I tipped over.
I have been following a company that I know has hired a marketing agency to handle their twitter account. I know this because I have talked to them several times about it. They are paying an unholy amount of money every month and yes the agency is tweeting and yes the tweets are related to the kind of business they have , well sort of. What tipped me over is how rich the possibilities are for this place to have one of the most drool worthy feeds out there. The problem is that every tweet sounds canned and almost clinical. There is no passion, no personality, nothing to make me want need to go explore them. There is no way some flack sitting in an office 100 miles away can make me want to come smell the flowers that are in bloom that day or greet the koi fish as the pond awakens for the spring, or feel the morning mist as it rises off the lawns. This is the reason that the best tweets come from the people that are passionate and in the moment.
The best of twitter is when someone lets us in on their passions. They suck us in and make us want to be a part of their world. Face it, in marketing that is the very first step to client attraction.
Yes, most businesses use twitter for marketing, but twitter isn’t the same old kind of marketing. It is about client attraction first, sales later.
I use dating as a metaphor for client attraction a lot, so that is what I going to go with here. When you are at a party or club or somewhere with a group of potential dating material, first you check out their looks and presentation (Branding) but over time, it is their personality, how they behave and interact the really seals the attraction. We are all more likely to want to bond or pursue those that display the passions and characteristics that we seek. Do they show the traits that attract you? Are they real? There are always those people in the group that are perfectly turned out and presented but that show absolutely nothing about who they really are. They might as well be mannequins.
The same thing goes for your Twitter feed. Show your passion if you truly want to stand out in the mass of chatter. Be real.
This goes for most of us.
There are some who have been able to be amazing on Twitter without showing a bit of personality. They do show passion, and we want to share that passion. The one that comes to mind immediately is @GuyKawasaki. As much as he tweets I doubt seriously that he does it all himself. Still I and 223,562 other people follow him. Why? Because the links he shares are always interesting. He has possibly assembled a team that shares his passion for the interesting and amusing. However he does it, he is brilliant.
You can be brilliant to, just share your passions with me. If something makes your blood rise, tell me. If something makes you smile, share it and make me smile too. Share your triumphs and let me cheer with you. Share your reality with me. You never know, you may find out that we really like you. That’s when we buy from you.
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
If you really want to reach your clients you have to focus on their needs, not what you have to provide. Like any good story, in marketing there are 3 parts: the set up (their needs), the tension (what is preventing them from fulfilling those needs) and the conclusion (the solution).
To successfully market your brand you have to approach it like a good story. First you must let them know that you understand their needs. Let them know that you know that they want a beautiful wedding that represents them without any headaches or drama at a price that they can afford yada yada yada.
Next comes whatever it is that is preventing that from happening and for them this is the most important part. Here is where your listening skills come into play. Until you really hear what they are saying you don’t know what it is that is keeping them awake at night, what is driving them forward, what thoughts color their days and cloud their dreams? If you listen closely, you will discover what dragons they need you to slay.
Now it is up to you to provide the magic sword. You aren’t really just providing a service; you are slaying their dragons, solving their problems. Face it, if they didn’t have any problems, they wouldn’t need you. Your job as a marketer is to discover their problems and then hand them the one true solution for the problem. You have to uncover and slay their dragons.
Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t only pointed at planners. Their dragons will take many forms. Their dragon may be the fear of cheese in a DJ, or it may be that every video they have seen sucked, or they may be a size 22 that pictures themselves in a slinky sheath or their dragon may be that they want navy blue flowers.
There is no better way to market than to tell these stories. Tell them one about the MoB that really was a dragon and how your team managed to run interference for the bride. Or how about the one that was in love with the $3k designer gown she couldn’t afford but you found her one that had the same cut and style at a much better price point. Or how about the bride groom that hated cake so you suggested that they have wedding cheesecake instead. Or the couple that didn’t want a band OR DJ because they were afraid to dance in front of everyone that you hooked up with dance lessons. I know that you have a million of them and everyday you create more because that is really what you do. You solve their problems.
Those are the kind of things that need to be in your marketing. Truth be told, brides today don’t give a rats rear about what you do or have. They only care about one thing, do you recognize their dragons and can you slay it.
In marketing today, content is king. Your story is your content. Spin your tale, highlight your magic sword . Just remember, that without the dragon, your magic sword is useless.
Too often I see marketing getting it backward. They put all their emphasis on what they have to offer, not on their customers’ needs. Think and speak about how you can solve their problems instead. I realize that this may require a rewrite, but believe me it’s worth it.
Today it is more important than ever to use every tool in your arsenal to close the sale. Are you using the ones that are right in front of you?
I hear brides say it all the time, ”Once I saw it, I knew it was the one.” It isn’t just the dress; it is just about anything that creative professionals have to offer. A lot of brides seem to be lacking the ability to visualize what we are presenting; so you have to show them. Even more, you have to show them in as much vivid detail as possible.
Let me preface what I am about to say by being clear, I am talking about the higher
$$ end of the spectrum. I wouldn’t recommend that you do this for your budget brides. I also think this works well in terms of upping the sale more than simply closing. So…
Let’s say you are a florist that has a bride sitting on the fence about her centerpieces. You want her to buy the high end choice, right? Your best bet is to do a trial, but not just a centerpiece in your shop. Go the extra mile; get a sample of her linen and china, even her chairs and set the thing up in her reception venue. Get the planner and rental company to play along. Heck, they may even want to bring in an upgrade or two themselves.
Same thing with cake designers. Do your tasting as a second appointment. By then you will have chatted with the couple enough to have a feel for what they like. Then rather than just doing a variety of small tastes on a tray, pick maybe three that you think they will like and do them plated and garnished, add a dessert sauce and fresh fruit or the like to present them with a full dessert view/taste. Serve champagne.
Early in the process, do a custom sketch for them; put their name on it and sign it like a work of art. Make a copy and give them the original as a keepsake. Woo these couples.
This isn’t a new tactic. Bridal salons have been doing it for years. The minute a bride shows the least bit of interest in a gown she is trying on out comes the veil, jewelry, shoes and bouquet. They go the extra mile to give them the full view. I know some lovely salons that keep several fresh bouquets on had on the weekends because they do so much to enhance the experience. (Work out a deal with your favorite florist to cross promote)
Caterers, you have to do tasting to close the big ones today. You should do the same thing, set the table, set the ambience. I know your food is fabulous and should sell itself on its own, but in these times, give it all the additional support you can. Sell the whole experience. Light the candles, pair the wines and bring out the right china to showcase your work.
DJs send put a mix together of music that fits with what they have expressed an interest in; add voiceovers with their names in it. People love to hear their names. I know it sounds lame, but try it.
In a lot of cases, just the sheer fact that you have gone this extra mile above and beyond what your competitors have done will be the difference in closing the deal.
I know that there are some that will tell you this is crazy talk. They will tell you that your art should sell itself on your reputation. Pfffttt! That was then and this is now. Do everything in your power not to leave their interpretation to chance. Show them the loveliness so that they can fall in love with “their” wedding.
In a recent post, Why You Should Cherry Pick Your Lead List, I wrote a bit about Outrageous Marketing. That prompted this question from Debi,
“How would you be outrageous as a wedding planner? I can’t think of a “product” to send/email/provide. Any ideas?”
You have to put your thinking caps on and get creative. What I told Debi was to sit down and brainstorm with her network of vendors and see what they could come up with collectively, sort of a “Congratulations on Your Engagement ” swag bag. 
Another idea would be to plan a little intimate meet and great with 4 or 5 of your favorite vendors. Heck, you’re a planner-plan something.
You just have to be creative to get their attention.
I was talking to a friend with connections in the formal wear industry and I suggested that he put together a short video on how to tie a bow tie and send it with a tie for them to practice on.
Another formal wear vendor I know each year assembles a troop of young men and women from the local high schools and turns them into a little dance and modeling team. Then she sets up prom fashion shows at all the highschools and colleges for prom, evening gowns and formal wear with her Ambassadors. Brilliant!
I have a florist that monitors all the local bridal salons and takes in fresh bouquets on any weekend that they are hosting a trunk show.
If you are in the food end of the industry, it’s really a no brainer. Get your portfolio in their face and you food in their mouth. Cookies, truffles, cupcakes; anything along those lines beautifully packaged that arrives at their door will get their attention.
If you are a calligrapher, send them a pack of 6 handmade note cards.
No matter what you do, there is something outrageous you can do to capture their attention.
Don’t even think about
doing a bridal show until you read this book!
$14.95
I know you have heard what I have had to say about bridal shows. How they are a crap shoot at best, how there are way too many, how they aren’t the sure bet they used to be. Well all that is true!
Unless you know the secrets
Bridal shows can still be a tremendous way to market your business if you pick the right one and use every tool in your arsenal to get it right.Here are the tips and trick you have been searching for, all in one easy to follow guide.
Nothing vague here, just good solid information to take you every step of the way from choosing the show to closing the sale.
I tackle everything from what makes a show worth doing (and how you can get even more publicity before the show) to why your old email campaigns just didn’t work.
One of the questions I see popping up all the time is “How should I design my booth”. This book has the answers from how to lay it out to what you absolutely have to include to be successful.
Want to know how to squeeze every last marketing opportunity out of your costly investment? Of, course that’s covered. I’ll tell what extras and freebies you can get before you sign on the dotted line to do the show.
Let’s face it, bridal shows are an expensive way to market your business. It’s not just the cost of the booth, but what you put in it and your time and that of your staff. Don’t you deserve to get the best return on that investment you possibly can. Yes you do!
I will share with you my personal secrets for bridal show success. Secrets I have learned in years of doing these things as a successful wedding vendor down in the trenches, right where you are.
When you consider the investment you make in a bridal show, whether is is a single booth at a tiny show with 100 brides or a quad booth at one of the mega-shows with over 1500 brides, $14.95 is a drop in the bucket. This book will more than pay for itself before you even do your first show.
How can I say that? Because not only will it keep you from doing the wrong show but my tips on email follow up can translate into a year round campaign. (that alone makes it worth the read)
What are you waiting for? Don’t you want to get the biggest return on your marketing investment that you can? Or would you rather just complain that bridal shows don’t work?
Like I said…
Bridal shows CAN work, but only if you know the secrets!
Go on, click the button. You know you need to.
I see it all the time, wedding professionals tweeting like crazy but never really getting it. Twitter is really a powerful tool 
for marketing if you take a little time to understand it. Here are some pointers if you want to use Twitter as a marketing tool.
I see so many people using Twitter as a platform for chat. Fine, that’s fun and a great way to make friends but it isn’t really a marketing tool.
The other thing I see is the ones that pretty much do nothing but tweet spam. Wow, that’s annoying.
So what is the right way? Share your passion with me. Chances are good that you are passionate about your business or you wouldn’t be trying to grow it. So show me!
I teach best by example so here we go.
Last night I spoke with a chef for a catering company that had been assigned the twitter account. She was at a total loss. I told her to tweet about the fabulous artichokes that came in today and the ideas she had for them. I told her to tweet about the new recipe she was developing. I told her to tweet about how amazing the spring lamb smelled as it roasted for tonight’s party. I told her to make me drool.
I have a client that is a floral designer that always takes pictures at the wholesaler of anything that looks particularly lovely and tweets it. She tweets pictures of brides reaction as she hands them their bouquet on the morning of their wedding. She shares her passion. Sometime she tweets about the madness that is a floral design studio on the day before a huge function.
Another tweep I have been coaching to talk about all the amazing changes taking place at her venue. They are doing some moderate renovations and everything in the garden is coming to life. I suggested that she talk about the interesting way each bride transforms the space into her own. I suggested that she tweet that some of her brides are renting the place for an afternoon well before the wedding to use a setting for boudoir photo shoots. In the telling of these, she is intriguing me enough to want to find out more about her property.
Talk to me about your passions; show me why I want to join you in your world. Invite me in and inspire me.
No matter what you do, if you share your passion with me I will feel it and most likely become engaged enough to want to explore you and your product or service further.
That is what customer engagement is all about in the time of social media.
I don’t know about you, but I am constantly analyzing the best place for wedding professionals to place their advertising dollar. With the current economy, there have been few sign posts to guide most of us.
The newest development in the world of wedding marketing online brings an interesting new spin to the equation.
When Wedding Wire debuted I praised it as a site that I thought brides would like and find useful; but with new players entering the market on a daily basis it is hard to make solid predictions at the launch of a new site. To be honest, few of them have the brains and talent, unique concept and perhaps most importantly the deep pockets to make a serious play. Well, Wedding Wire had the brains, talent and concept in spades. When they added the clout of Martha Stewart Ominmedia as a partner they certainly picked up the exposure and perhaps the cash.
Now in a rather interesting play, they have added the considerable strength of eHarmony’s wedding assets to the network. Among those assets is the behemoth in it’s own right, Weddingbee. Weddingbee is perhaps the most popular collective blog for brides. Not with out it’s detractors, even the concern over loss of traffic due to it’s sale to eHarmony has not stopped its growth.
So what happens when you bind players this large together in a collective advertising play? One heck of an opportunity in terms of exposure. I am willing to bet that darn near every bride in America is going to hit one of these sites at sometime or another. One ad buy, maximum exposure.
What does that do for the big daddy of them all, the knot. Good question. The real question is are they still the big daddy? That really depends on how you read the numbers.
You know for sure I will be exploring this in a more in depth my for my subscribers on the main Think Like A Bride site next month. I can’t wait to see how much more information, if any comes out between now and then.
