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New Ideas for Bridal Show Email Follow-up

February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

OK, you’ve invested your time and treasure in a bridal show, or several and you have a fat, juicy lead list. Now what?

I have already given you tons of ideas to use both short-term and long-term like cherry picking your lead list and outrageous marketing. The question people still are asking is what  to put in that first email?

An interesting answer popped into my inbox just this morning that I think you should give a try.

How about instead of telling them something you ask them something?

Check this quote from today’s Research Brief from The Center for Media Research.

A new survey from Cint shows that 62% of those surveyed said they were more likely to purchase a brand’s product if their opinion has been sought by brand in a study. The survey highlights the importance of customer insight, says the report, as over half of the 1,200 consumers polled felt more loyal to a brand if it takes the time to find out their opinion.

Personally I can’t think of a better way to get them engaged from the very beginning. You know me, here is an example. If it were me sending the email for Indulgence Custom Bakeshop I would have said something along the lines of:

“Hey there {add first name}, it was great to meet you at the XYZ Bridal Show.  I was wondering if I could get your input on something. It’s a new year and I really want to add some new and exciting flavors to the menu.  If you could have any flavor or combination of flavors for your wedding cake or dessert what would it be?”

Better yet, put in a very brief survey or poll.

Don’t be crass and ask what their budget is. Ask them something that they may just have an interesting opinion on and ask it like you mean it. Give them some reason to believe that their input matters. Tweet the answers like a horse race. Build some excitement. Keep a tally going on Facebook. Foster engagement.

Here is one more tip that you probably already know but needs to be reinforced.

That email needs to be finished and uploaded to your bulk mailer BEFORE  you set up your booth. As soon as the show is over you need to load the emails you collected in your booth and hit the send button. That night. I know you are tired; shows can be brutal. Not taking care of the follow through is the biggest mistake that bridal vendors make when using bridal shows to market.

 

Bonus.

Here is another great article I just found on Asking as Marketing.

Filed Under: Back to Basics, bridal shows, email marketing, Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Wedding Industry Renaissance

January 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Is that a break in the clouds I see?

A stray ray of sunshine on the horizon?  

Why, by George, I think it is!

On last week’s post about bridal shows the poll results are more than 50% positive. I would have liked to see a landslide but any improvement is a good thing.

It is more than just the numbers though, it is some of the comments that I have gotten not just on the post but in private emails and on Facebook. There is an upbeat feel in their messages. Positive energy is crackling in the air. One client tells me she is so busy with appointments she doesn’t have time for laundry or groceries. Another is so backed up writing proposals that she is looking for a temp secretary!

This from Cathy in Wisconsin:

Better than the last 2 years. Booked 4 at the first 2 day show, and more after at our studio.

This from Angie in Preston, UK

Hi ,We are late in starting this year 1st one 19th Feb but everybody seems to be buzzin about an upturn in the market this year.

This from Tony in Long Island

yes! I’ve had great success thus far at bridal shows

What I am trying to say here is that I firmly believe we have turned a corner.  Maybe it hasn’t trickled down to everyone yet, but it will.

No, it isn’t rockin’ at the rate it was before the bubble burst, but it is on the upswing for the first time in years. There is hope, there is a glass half full attitude.

The wedding market is different. You can’t market to brides the way you did, the same buzzwords and triggers don’t work today. Engaged couples today have less of a “This is the BIGGEST day of my life” attitude and more of “This is important but I am not going to break the bank for it.”

Pitch your product accordingly. Show value. Work within the brides budgets. Offer alternatives. Make it personal.

There are ways to sell and there are couples to buy.

Filed Under: Back to Basics Tagged With: ,

Facebook or Blog?

January 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I ran across an interesting question today about where you should put more effort, in your blog or your Facebook page.

I’m not really sure why that is a question. Let me break it down for you.

Your website is your own personal piece of  internet real estate. Think of it as your home because in terms of your marketing, it is. Your blog should be the heart and soul of your website. In web design today, integrating your blog as a page on your website is the only way to go. If your blog is off on another url from your main one you are missing the boat.

Today’s brides go to one place to find their vendors above all others:

SEARCH.

If you aren’t ranking high in search engines for what you do and where you do it, you are behind the game.

Reread that last sentence. Notice I did not say for your name. I hope to hell you rank number one for your name. Unfortunately, that isn’t how brides search. They search for things in places.

Huh?

They search for florists in Bucks County.They search for wedding planners in Washington, DC. They search for caterers in Fairbanks, AK. They don’t search for Polly Sue Purebreds Catering. If they do it is because they have already been made aware of Polly Sue from a referral and that is a post for another day.

Now that you understand this, you understand why your personal piece of real estate is so important.

Back to the original question: your blog or Facebook.

Every time you post to Facebook, you are sending all that Google juice to Facebook.com, not to Polly Sue’s url. Great, I’m sure Mr. Zuckerberg appreciates the Google juice, but frankly, you need it worse than he does.

Think of it this way, you have an office or a store but you still meet people in the local coffee-house. Instead of investing to improve your office or store, you take time and treasure to improve the coffee-house. That’s just dumb.

How about this instead, you work on improving the store, and then post updates on the coffee-house bulletin board. When your potential customers start looking for you the coffee-house bulletin board is one of the many signs pointing to your store. When they get to your store, they see how amazing you are.

Enough with the analogies, if you don’t get it yet you never will.

Your blog should be an integrated part of your website.

Facebook should send traffic to your website, not the other way around.

Post to your blog and have it automatically cross-post a headline and an excerpt to your Facebook page leading them to your website.

 Done.

 

 

Filed Under: Announcement, Marketing, Social Media, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Year That Was: 2011

December 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As I sit here and watch the sun slowly set on 2011 I was reflecting on what an interesting year it had been. There have been some radical upheavals in the industry and some small sparks of life.

Get Married Folded

Priscilla’s of Boston Folded

Encore Invitation left brides high and dry.

The Knot got downgraded.

Wedding business advice has seemingly become an industry of it’s own.

The bloggers and the photographer feuded.

…and the list goes on.

Those little sparks of hope?

It isn’t those people that are coming into the market thinking they are going to make 6-figures as a planner; it’s the small handcrafted mavens that jumped in with out a playbook. Not the ones that brought all their corporate speak and think; it’s the ones with passion and heartfelt joy for what they do. It isn’t the ones that are crying for the world to go back to the way it was; it’s the ones that saw the big picture and changed with the times.

I have seen so many success stories this year and they have all been from folks that are willing to think outside the box, break a few rules and change. Either they stopped looking at weddings through the lens of 2008 or they never had that lens in the first place.

Much like our economy, our industry has a huge gap in the middle. The very big have enough of a cushion that they are succeeding as they slowly turn their great ships around  and the very small are creating a new craftsman sector of the industry. One built on customer service, quality and a vision of weddings as special moments not spectacles.

It’s kind of refreshing.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Rants & Raves, Trends Tagged With: , , , , ,

What Brides Want

December 8, 2011 By 2 Comments

 

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.

Brilliant!

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.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, wedding marketing, What Brides Say Tagged With: , , ,

What Do Hotdogs Have To Do With Brides?

October 27, 2011 By 3 Comments

Way back in November 2006 I published an article about the wedding industry becoming a target for anyone thinking they could make an easy buck.

We have all seen the droves of people try and parlay their experience in meeting planning, their kids birthday party or their love of cupcakes into wedding businesses. Then it started on the B2B side.

Those of you who are really, truly in the wedding industry, those professionals among you that have worked with brides and grooms and MoBs and even the occasional Maid-zilla know what a wacky world this is. Our industry, because of the emotions, the budgets and the drop dead deadlines is a pretty unique playing field. You don’t just walk into it  from the corporate world and think you can understand it.

More and more people get displaced from the corporate world and as a traditionally non-corporate industry made of primarily mom & pop businesses bridal looks like a great place to land. ~sigh~ I am sorry, but if you haven’t been in the trenches, you just don’t understand it.

Ok come on board, but for lands sake at least dive in and get your feet wet first. Work with us to understand the uniqueness of this world. You may make it you may not, but at least you will know what it’s really like.

Recently I ran across a prime example of the arrogance of some of these people. There is a person out there with an all in one, do it yourself content marketing system built for wedding professionals.  Great, content marketing is a good thing.  That is if you know what the hell you are talking about. How can you possibly write content to market a wedding business if you have never WORKED with a bride?  I have no doubt that her ‘system’ is well organized and planned but my problem is with the content. The media is already flooded with bad information for brides, now someone is mass producing it. Lovely.

Oh, the headline? Well this particular persons bio very proudly states her marketing experience for Oscar Meyer and Kraft Foods. I can think of no way that hot dogs relate to brides. Unless of course you count pigs in a blanket as a reception food!

You may see this a just another rant, but understand, I have been in the wedding industry since 1988 and I am very protective of it. I was all prepared to just drop this company as another flash in the pan. That is until they contacted me and offered to guest blog. Needless to say I had some questions for them in terms of experience in the wedding industry. Here is a direct quote from that correspondence.

{name removed}1 doesn’t work with brides.

She also has years of experience in market research and used that to help her learn about brides and their buying habits by interviewing friends, family and online research, as well as talking to other wedding professionals to learn more.

Ok, you want my respect? Get your butt down here in the trenches and begin to really understand what the wedding industry is all about.

 

1I thought long and hard about whether to include a name or link. obviously, I opted not to promote this company.

 

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Blog, Rants & Raves Tagged With: , ,

Why Should I Buy From You?

September 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We have been having a discussion over in the Wedding Water Cooler about Costco and their continued push into the wedding market.  I find it interesting that so many of our members are  in denial. Costco pushing weddings isn’t new. They were doing bridal shows at least 4 years ago.  What is new is that they are now more aggressively pursuing the market.  They have added wedding gowns and are doing it in a trendy way: pop up sales.


They have been doing this with flowers and cakes for a while now. If you want flowers from Costco you can order them in bulk, but you can’t specify a specific cultivar.  So you can order red roses, but not a specific one. You are still going to save a bundle and no one is going to argue with you over your choices. You can order a tiered cake, but you can’t get high style decorating on it. People know what the value proposition is for Costco. They accept that when they walk in the door.
Every one knows what to expect from Costco and David’s and any other big box operation. They are selling reasonable quality products at a deep discount in a no hassle, no frills, no pressure  environment. The fact that people know what  stores like this represent is what brings them through the door.The problem with so many small bridal vendors is that they haven’t expressed or publicized what they are selling that adds value.

Think about this for a minute…

No one ever went to Home Depot because they needed a drill;

they went to Home Depot because they needed a hole.

I have been reviewing a lot of websites lately that clients want me to update. I am running across the same thing in many of them. Nobody is telling me WHY?

  • Why should I buy from you?
  • What makes you different and a clear choice?
  • Why is your product different?
  • What makes you stand out from the other gajillion photographers/planners/florists or DJ’s?
  • How do you fill my unique need?

With some clients it is like pulling teeth to get an answer. If you don’t know what sets you apart, how are you ever going to express that it in a way that has brides beating down your door.

You know me, here is an example.

Bridal salons, by an large market using the designers and lines they carry. News flash, brides believe that they can buy the same thing on line and with a lot of lines, they can. Why on earth should they pay you more for what they believe is the same item. So the lines you carry don’t make you unique.

Here is what makes you unique. You have seen hundreds of women in hundreds of gowns. You know who cuts how, you know what designers and style work best on which body types. You know whose shade of  ivory works best on what shades of skin and a dozen other things that matter. In short, you are the expert. They can bring you a picture of the gown of their dreams and you can find a similar gown that will be more flattering, easier to alter and in their price range in your damn sleep. That is what you should be marketing.

Look, brides need a gown, but really what they need  is a garment that works for them to make them feel and look special on a very special day. They need to walk down that aisle feeling confident that they look the very best that they could. They need your expertise to put them is the gown that is right for them. That is what you should be marketing.

I don’t mean to pick on bridal salons. It is true with most every type of vendor; in and out of the bridal world.

If you want your marketing material to work, you need to know what you are really selling. If whomever is designing your marketing material doesn’t have this information they can’t give you great marketing and without great marketing you can’t hope to survive.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , ,

Cute Booth, But Who the Hell Are You?

August 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This is one of my biggest pet peeves at bridal shows.  You invest all this time and money into a bridal show and then drop the ball when it comes to signage. Come on, what are you thinking?

Check these booths that dropped the signage ball. (now you know why I don’t take pictures for a living)

http://www.thinklikeabride.com/theagency/2008/07/flash-sites-vs-html-sites/Come on, you can get an 8 foot vinyl banner with a stand for around a hundred bucks. It isn’t something you can neglect.

Here are some booths that get it.

I especially like the one center right. While their signage is not stellar, the over all booth really nails it. They are babysitters for events and weddings. The minute you see the set up you don’t even have to ask what they do. They have a collection of childrens books and toys; what else would they do?

I included 2 booths from Enchanted Florists because they were able to get the point across with both a huge over the top display and a small booth at a small show.  It just proves the point that it doesn’t matter how big your booth is as much as how big your message is.

Filed Under: Blog, bridal shows, Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Notes From a Bridal Show. Part 4

August 24, 2011 By 1 Comment

The booth for A Magical Affair was a giant hit. Not because it was the prettiest one there and not because I had the tiniest bit of input in it. No, it was one of the best booths there because I can just about guarantee that every bride there saw it and will remember it in the morning.

One of the hardest booths to design is one for a planner. What do you do? A tablescape? People think you are a rental company. Set up a lounge? Nope then they don’t know what your business is. Cover the walls with mood boards and excel spreadsheets? Hey that might  get us somewhere. (scratches head)  Never mind. Let’s just agree that it is difficult to use visual impact to set apart the booth of a bridal planner in a unambiguous way.

 

La Azteca paletas from Chicago

I sat at lunch with Courtney Hammons of A Magical Affair a month or so ago and chatted about her booth. She wanted to showcase trends but do it in a way that had a big impact and more importantly, get brides into the booth.  One of the trend that came up were food trucks. NashVegas has some great ones but you can’t exactly pull one into an eight foot booth in a hotel ball room. Still we all really like the idea so we thought outside of the “truck.”  It’s August, it’s hot as blazes and has been since June. What would get your attention? How about the paletas guy?

 

Gourmet Popsicles, sort of a food truck, very trendy. Works for me!!

 

Finding the paletas and figuring out how to tie it together turned out to be easier than actually tracking down the local guy with the cart. No matter, it still worked!

They called it Sweet Trends, capitalized on the paletas and made sure that the collateral drove the point home. It was hot, and by the time I got there, they had almost run out of the gourmet pops but had some back-up that still worked.

 

 

Love this crowd and plenty of staff to connect with the brides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The palentas made it all the way to the next booth over, Designs in Paper. Double score because they are the one that designed the cool collateral

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the business card made for the show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The printed material is all by friends of Think, Steve and Donelle at Designs in Paper. Check out how perfectly it carries the message forward. I am sure that anyone that found the popsicle shaped business card in their bag the next day knew exacltly where it came from.

Collateral for a bridal show

Wait until you see what this team has planned for January!

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, bridal shows, Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Notes from a Bridal Show

August 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

I worked a bridal show over the weekend and I saw some good things and I saw some not so great.

Now by work, I don’t mean I had a booth, but  several of my clients did. I was there to tweak their booths, and lend support. So, just like you, I was in on the planning, the load in, the set up and working the show for one person or another. It is a very interesting perspective.

Something else that made it interesting was that it was a local show. For me, working a show in my own back yard means I already know all the players, I know what to expect from most of them and am completley caught off guard on the odd occassion.

The misses:

One company had a beautiful booth, a double actually. They did a great job of showcasing their rental products. Well, maybe it was a little over-crowded, but still nicely done. So what’s the problem? I had no idea who’s booth it was. They failed so miserably at signage that even I couldn’t find their sign. If a bride did stop to admire a table setting or chair, I am sure they were handed some collateral but when tomorrow comes there was nothing there to make her connect that table to the collateral. What a waste!

 

 

click to enlarge. Oh PLEASE click to enlarge

Then there was David’s Bridal. WOW! One of my clients was right across the aisle and I had the privilege  pain of watching them for almost 2 hours. Repeat, WOW! They were like predatory cats laying in wait to pounce. At one point I looked across at one of the worse offenders and asked “What’s your quota for the day?” She was not amused. Two things, there is a HUGE difference between being up and informative and being overly agressive.  Second, the number one complaint of the brides I exit polled…the overly agressive vendors !

 

 

The hits:

Showpiece:

This is from another rental company.That skirt is made out of napkins and the sash is a chair tie! Can you tell that they stock a LOT of colors of linen? I hope they used a picture of this in their collaterol.

 

 

 

Swag:

This little swag bag was in the booth of every vendor that participated in the Wedding101 pavillion. I don’t know any of thier client that didn’t feel the love at some point in the day.

Contents:

  • bottled water
  • Ibuprophen
  • trail mix,
  • tissues
  • breath mints

 

Sometimes it’s the little things that mean the most.

Tomorrow some thing that were just very cool.

Filed Under: Blog, bridal shows, Marketing Tagged With: , , ,
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