Marketing to Today's Brides by:Kenneth Huber
Just to give you a little background on me, I own a Philadelphia based wedding company that offers Videography, Disc Jockey and Photography
. My company serves over 200 weddings annually.
First you need a webpage, which you probably already have. If you do not, I would certainly look into having a website designed for you or if you are computer savvy design it yourself. You will need to register a domain name. There are many registers out there that you are able to register with, many will offer hosting options. I advise you to register your website for as long as possible, preferrably 10 years. The reason for this, is that Google and various other search engines take note to how long your webpage is registered for as one of the pieces of evidence to their algorithm for how they will rate your webpage. The larger your rating, the higher you will appear on search results, the more clicks you get, the more revenue you earn.
Now that you have your webpage up and running, start finding as many places to submit your website as possible. I would not pay for advertising at first. I would do a lot of research on particular sites before you decide to shelling out large amounts of cash for advertising. See if they offer any type of trial period and see how much money you generate from them. I like to maintain a one to ten ratio, for every advertising dollar it costs me, I like to receive $10 in gross revenue. With certain sites, this ratio is almost impossible, hence I would eliminate those sites from consideration. There are certain large bridal marketing websites that charge over $250 per month. Which would breakdown to $3,000 annually and I can say with almost certainty that you will not receive thirty thousand dollars in gross revenue from those websites. There are a ton of websites that you can advertise your bridal company for free or a nominal charge. If you are paying for marketing, make sure the website has a lead program. The lead program will send you potential clients that are looking for your services. There are some pay for each lead programs out there, but I do not like those much. I like the membership websites that offer unlimited monthly leads and they automatically email those to you.
After you have the bridal websites you want to market with, you should start some site promotion. Try to get as high on Google and Yahoo's ratings as possible for the keywords for your business. For example, I try to be as high as possible for Philadelphia Wedding Videographer currently (April 10th, 2009) my website is ranked number 2 on Yahoo and number 22 on Google. I am trying to enhance my rating on Google. Most proven way to enhance your placement is to get your link out there to as many reputable and relevant websites as possible. Many website webmasters would be happy to exchange links with you. Another method is to join forums and be an active participant. You can write articles and post them on the internet, such as this one. Search Engine Optimization is not the main purpose of this article, do a couple Google searches on Search Engine Optimization for more methods of improving your website rating.
Once your webpage online, looking good, and advertised. There are the other marketing methods. You have a crap shoot with doing bridal expos. Bridal shows can be excellent for drawing in new clientele, but it is extremely difficult to close the deal at the actual bridal expo. I try to setup consultations to get the brides to come to my location and occasionally I will travel to them. The problem with the consultations is that many clients do not show. They have so many things going on at the bridal expo I assume they just forget about the consultation they setup. I usually will send an email and will call to confirm the meeting the day before. Many brides give excuses why they cannot make it, but the vast majority just do not show with no call to cancel or anything, it can be very frustrating. I usually get a booth at 8 bridal expos anually at seven hundred and fifty dollars each. At the average show, I setup 40 consultations, of the 40 consultations, 5 brides will actually show up, of the 5 brides that showed up, 2 brides will book my services at an approximate price of $5,000. Breaking the numbers down, I spend approximately $6,000 per year on bridal expos and receive $80,000 in gross revenue. The bridal expos are a viable marketing option for my field. Bridal shows being a good option for you would depend on the price of the product or service you are offering. If you decide to advertise at a bridal expo, I would strongly advise you to attend a bridal expo first, if you have never been to one. Simply to give you an idea of the handouts that the vendors give and the marketing techniques that they use. I would also suggest getting some brochures made and tons of business cards. I would also consider running some type of promotion for the day of the expo. If your service or item is a small ticket item, give them a promotion to buy it there on the spot. If you are offering an expensive service or item, figure out a large discount you can offer that will get the brides interested and thinking they are receiving a great deal. As they should be with the sale you are offering. Personally for my expos, I offer a very large discount off my regular rates.
Last and certainly not least is the most important marketing method is to keep in touch with past customers. The name of the game is previous client referrals! They are the most important type of advertising, because these are potential clients that are referred to you by someone they know and trust. This type of potential client will book with you almost one hundred percent of the time, just dazzle them with your work. So keep in touch with your past clients, occasionally send an email asking how married life is. I keep monthly emails ready to send out to all my past clients that got married in a certain month. I do this to wish them a happy anniversary, and keep in touch.. One last thing is to put in the best effort you can for every wedding and you will be successful.
About the author
Kenneth Huber is the CEO of Ken's Entertainment Group, a Delaware Valley based wedding company, which specializes in Videography, Photography and Disc Jockey services.
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