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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: , , ,

Group Therapy for ‘Gorilla’ Marketers

March 9, 2011 By 10 Comments

I can not believe the tremendous response to the video presentation on ‘Gorilla’ Marketing that aired yesterday on Book More Brides’ 6 Figure Wedding Business Summit. If you missed it, you can see  it here.

I want to thank Stephanie and Jeff for hosting such a wonderful program.

Having viewed the comments that poured in, it occured to me that for many of  you leaping out of the comfort of the vanilla box of marketing can be a little daunting. What if there was a place that you could bounce all those wild ideas off a select group of like minded gorillas? Kind of like group therapy for marketing.

Here is what I propose:

  • Small groups of 5 or 6 for video conferences.
  • Organize groups based on geographic location so that you aren’t sharing with competetors in your own market.
  • Meet once a month to help each other create and flesh out plans for outrageous marketing and mostly to learn from each other.

If there is a big enough response, I will be happy to put it all together on Skype. All you would need is a free Skype account, a web cam and a high speed connection.

 

Filed Under: Announcement, Outrageous Marketing, Personal Coaching, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Soul. Does Your Product Have it?

February 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Soul is a quality that is tough to define. Some products have it and some don’t; it is a uniqueness that makes it easy to fall in love with. It is a certain something that sets it apart from the herd.

Mini Coopers have it, so does Harley-Davidson.

I am rereading one of my favorite books on trends and came to the section on soul and it got me thinking of it in terms of wedding products and marketing {OK, I know, what doesen’t get me thinking in that direction}

I think the way it translates to us is in the uniqueness, that certain je ne sais quoi that our work has that no one elses does.

I came upon a photographer recently and showcased her on my other blog. There is a quality, a something that is undefinable in her work that transforms it for me from photography to art. I find myself looking at images now and wondering what Rene would have done with the subject.

I know a local cake designer that has it. She follows no trends and always goes her own way. Amazingly, her cakes don’t look appreciably different than they did 25 years ago when I first started decorating, but they still have it. They are still stunning in their grace.

It is difficult to see what it is that sets you apart. Your clients and your competetors can see it. So can your admirers. You have to find out what it is about your work that makes it what it is. What gives it soul? It was only yesterday while cleaning out some files that I figured out what it was about my cakes that gave them soul. Darn shame I’m not still doing cakes.

Once you figure it out, your job becomes using that quality in all of your marketing. Your print, your copy, your shop,  your website and every customer interaction should must capture that essence.

Here is just one example of using it to flavor all of your client interactions. Most Mini’s are custom build which takes up to 12 weeks. On their website you can “Follow my baby” while you wait. Now that line wouldn’t work for any other car, but it works brilliantly for the Mini.

You can continue to dillegently market to the mediocre middle or you can find your soul and your calling and build a tribe around it. Do it and watch your business skyrocket with clients that not just want your product, but love it beyond measure. Aren’t those really the people you want to attract?

I hope I got you looking for the soul in your product.

Bowls by Storykeeper

Cake by Dessert Designs

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Branding, Outrageous Marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , ,

E-mail Marketing Refresher

January 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Now that the bridal shows are upon us and you have gathered a nice little lead list, I think it is time for an email refresher course.

Um, you did gather your own leads at the bridal shows, right? I thought so.

  1. For all those new visitors to your website, let’s capture those leads too. Make signing up to your email lead list easy, have a lead generator on every page of your website and only ask for 2 things, name and email address. People are more like like to sign up the less information you require. (Your lead generator is different from your contact form. You can require more info on the contact form.)


  2. Use a good emails service, don’t try to do email marketing through your own email program. You will end up blacklisted. Instead use a qualified third party emailer. I am a big fan of A Weber and have been using it for years. The price is right and the service is easy to use. Yes, I’m an affiliate but only because I am also a fan.


  3. Use good, non-spammy subject lines. Your subject line may be the only thing people read to determine if they want to open your email. You should split test to see what kinds of headlines get the best response from your subscribers.


  4. Make your emails informative. Don’t just send out notices of sales and coupons. Give your readers a reason to open your email even if they don’t have a dime to spend today. The goal is to get your business top of mind when they do have money to spend. A good rule of thumb is 80% information and 20%pitch. If you look at my emails blasts, they are almost entirely information about what is new on the websites, but I include a link to my ebook and other services over in a sidebar.


  5. Resend your email blast to the people that didn’t open it the first time around. Wait 24-48 hours ansend to ONLY the people that didn’t open it the first time. You will be suprised at how many more opens your get.


  6. Track everything. I shouldn’t have to say it, but what is the point of putting in the effort if you aren’t going to keep track of what is working. It is even a good idea to divide your lists up. Have one that comes from a bridal show, one that is generated by your website and one that comes from any leads your get off websites you advertise on. They you will even know which places are working for you.

Email does still work, if you use it right. With so much marketing today being pull marketing, it help to add a little bit of push to the mix.

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Blog, Marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Re-invention and Marketing

January 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

I have been thinking about this comment of mine on a recent eWedNews article:

The vendors that I see showing real improvement are the ones that read the writing on the walls and decided to zig while the rest of the industry continued to zag

Well, as a result I did some deep thinking about a few of my favorite re-invention case studies, and you know what, it wasn’t the basics of their business that changed so much as how they looked at them and how they marketed them.

It’s kind of like the girl that never gets noticed until the makeup artist gets ahold of her and shows her that by highlighting her eyes instead of her lips she turns into a knockout. Same thing.

Both of these companies just shifted their marketing. They pumped it up and highlighted different aspects of what they had already been doing to appeal more to today’s brides.

Take a look at your own business. What parts are hiding in the shadows that would really make you stand out? Is it time for a little rebranding of your own?

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