How To Market A Wedding Business
Updated: Mar 10, 2021
Doing marketing for wedding industry clients is actually one of our specialties because it’s the first industries we have ever marketed. We have lots of family members in the wedding industry and we have helped them grow successful wedding businesses using digital marketing. In this blog post, we will talk about all the marketing strategies and some of the pros and cons of each marketing strategy. Let’s get started.
GOOGLE ADVERTISING
Our agency has managed Google ad campaigns for countless wedding business owners, and it’s proven to generate quality leads that show real intent in your services and products. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, florist, cake maker, regardless of which wedding service you offer, chances are thousands of brides and grooms in your local city are searching for these services in your city. Do a quick Google search. Are you showing up on the top of Google for your search terms? If not, you are literally missing out on thousands of people that could be doing business with you, but are not because you are not showing up on Google. Don’t just google your business name, if you are a wedding photographer in Brampton, type that into Google and see if your website is on the first page. The same applies for wedding venues, limos, and all other wedding services.
FACEBOOK ADVERTISING
Launching a paid Facebook ads campaign has worked well for our wedding business clients, we create ads targeting couples who live within a 30km radius of our clients business location. We tested several ad copy messages and found that ads on Facebook convert really well if they are well targeted to the right audience. Very often we see business owners launch Facebook ads on their own and target the wrong audience. For example, if you are a local business, make sure you are actually targeting your local area. We often see wedding vendors “boost posts” and then find out that they got zero clients. “Boost posts” doesn't actually do any help for your business, since Facebook just shows the post to more random people. If you want to do proper Facebook ads, we recommend you to actually sit down and figure out who your audience is and create an ad campaign targeting that group of people specifically. Think about age groups, gender, duration of couples engagement, location, income brackets, education level, specific ethnicity and many more. The more targeted your ad campaign is, the higher chance of your ads generating the kind of leads that bring you the best value. Make sure you are testing out different photos in your ads along with different ad copy to see which variation yields the best conversions. We typically test out multiple variations of ads to the same audience in order to see which one converts more wedding leads. Believe it or not, the photos and text you select can play a big role in how well your ads convert. Some beginner entrepreneurs when they get started with their Facebook ad campaigns quit to early because they either don’t have the background or they don’t test enough to see which ad strategies perform the best. There is no such thing as Facebook doesn't work for “x” business; chances are there is a competitor out there generating lots of leads with Facebook ads.
WEDDING DIRECTORIES
Search on Google to find local wedding directories where you can submit your website. This method is not guaranteed to flood your inbox with leads, but you could get a few customer inquiries a year without having to spend money on marketing. Some directories have a one time fee or a small monthly fee. You can always opt in for a free account. If you do decide to get a free account or a paid account, make sure your profile is actually optimized. What we mean is, make an effort to actually add your best photos in your profile. Make an effort to write a great intro paragraph that gives users a better understanding of what your services area.
http://www.theperfectweddingguide.com/directory
http://www.canadasbridaldirectory.com/
http://www.torontoweddinglist.com/
http://www.canadaweds.ca/wedding-directory/
https://wedding-directory.org/
http://www.todaysbride.ca/wedding-directory
http://www.directoryforweddings.com/
BLOG FEATURES
Reach out to popular wedding blogs and ask them if they would be interested in featuring you for their upcoming posts. If you have a style shoot, definitely send that over and write a great article about the blog feature.
https://greenweddingshoes.com/
https://www.rocknrollbride.com/
https://www.rocknrollbride.com/
https://rusticweddingchic.com/
WEDDING VENDOR GROUPS
When you go on Facebook, type in wedding vendors (your city name), try lots of possibilities and see what kind of groups pop up in your area. The more local the group is, the better. Once you get accepted to these wedding vendor groups, take the time to get to know who is in your area. Perhaps you can create an alliance of wedding vendors that refer clients to each other. Share each other posts on social media such as Facebook or Instagram to help expand reach. Let’s say you are a wedding cake baker and your friend is a florist. Share each other's post on your social media and give each other a shout out. You could all benefit and potentially get customers that come across your posts on social media.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/308554152878700/?ref=br_rs
https://www.facebook.com/groups/146885002135969/?ref=br_rs
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1642486749380773/?ref=br_rs
https://www.facebook.com/groups/596334627229705/?ref=br_rs
https://www.facebook.com/groups/OntarioWeddingVendors/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/250558061948189/
MAKE FRIENDS WITH OTHER WEDDING VENDORS
This is by far the best marketing strategy you can implement in your wedding business. Make friends with fellow wedding industry professionals and take the time to get to know each other. If you find that they are true professionals who are committed to excellence, consider adding them to your referral circle. When you have consultations with couples, and you educate them on your services, once the meeting comes to an end
POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA
You should schedule 1 hour a week to post on social media, for some of you who are more passionate about sharing your story you can definitely do more. But try just 1 hour a week as a bare minimum. If you are a photographer, be sure to post some of your newest wedding photos on Facebook, Instagram so that your followers can see your latest work. Tag your recent couples in the posts along with all the vendors involved. This will increase engagement and allow your post to show to more people organically. If Facebook’s algorithm detects that this post is engaging, it will show it to more people and thus increasing the odds of you reaching more potential followers. The same strategy applies if you are a wedding venue, cake maker, florist or planner.
WRITE CONTENT ON YOUR OWN BLOG
Post informative content on your own website blog. Let’s say you are a wedding cake baker or florist. Write informative blog posts about how to shop for products and services in the wedding industry. If you are a cake baker, write a blog about how to choose a wedding cake for your business, or what styles of wedding cakes are popular this year.
CREATE VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE
People often forget that YouTube is one of the biggest search engines in the world and if your content is engaging enough, it can show up on the Google search results page when customers type in related services on Google search. If you are a wedding florist, or wedding cake maker or any other professional that creates things, you could create really cool videos showing how you make them or simply telling people about your services using video format. For example, you can create a video clip that shows a clip of the work you did at a recent wedding and what was unique about that specific project. For example, you can create a video clip where you can talk about how you went about creating that wedding cake design and how it relates to the bride and groom or how it compliments the wedding theme.
ATTEND BRIDAL SHOWS
Bridal shows can work really well under certain conditions. Firstly, the bridal show organizers have to do a great job at promoting the event so that real couples come to the wedding and not random people that are browsing around to waste time. We often hear from wedding business owners that they spent thousands of dollars on a bridal show and after they spent the time and money to set up their booth, then the volume of people that actually showed up to the event was lower than the actual audience turnout they were expecting. We often hear that bridal shows that were successful for some wedding vendors turned out to be not successful the next year because the event organizers wanted to cut back on their marketing spend to save money this year. Another important thing to keep in mind is how many competitors are they allowing for the bridal show? You want to go to a bridal show knowing that only a limited number of vendors from each industry are allowed. For example, you don’t want to go to a bridal show where there are 30 other wedding photographers because it will be toucher for you all to book brides when there is a price war going on amongst you and the other photographers in the bridal show. Ask the event organizers how many of your competitors have booths at the bridal show before you finalize the deal with them. The lower, the better.
PRO TIP ON HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR BRIDAL SHOW
Don’t be like every other wedding vendor just handing out business cards and brochures, you and every other vendor is doing the same exact thing. The odds of them contacting you after the bridal show are very little since your business cards and brochures are piled among other brochures and cards as well. All the people that pass by your booth figure out a way to get their name, email, or phone number in a creative way. Here is one idea that will work very well. Tell all of the booth visitors that you are having the most content of 50% off your wedding package and the winner will be announced in 1 week. Get everyone to fill out a form either on paper or on a laptop while they are at your booth. By the end of the event, you will have collected 200-400 emails of couples who are getting married. After the bridal show is over, our agency or you can send an email to all of the participants about who won the contest. On top of that, you know have the ability to follow up with everyone that passed by your booth and potentially close at least 30 weddings for your upcoming season. We know of many wedding vendors that have tried this strategy, and it turned out successful.
Bridal shows are usually very expensive to attend, and it may not be cost-effective for vendors that sell lower-priced services. These include, harpists, mc’s, etc. However, if you are a wedding decorator, caterer, photographer, venue or any other high priced service, this could work well depending on how targeted the audience at the bridal show is.
GUEST POST ON OTHER BLOGS
If you are a photographer, florist, wedding planner, cake maker, you could come up with really interesting topics to blog about and reach out to popular wedding blogs to pitch your content. Remember, wedding blogs are always looking for something to post on their social media or blog. See if you can find blogs that have a local following in your area. For example, WEDLUXE is a local blog that is popular in Toronto. Getting your article featured could potentially bring in some local wedding clients.
REACH OUT TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY MEMBERS
Chances are someone in your family is getting married at some point in the future or has a family member or friend that is getting married soon. Make sure you do your best to post regularly in your social media so that your friends and family know that you offer wedding services. By posting regularly, people will start liking your posts, and you could earn yourself some free clients in the form of referrals, thanks to your social media efforts. Although we recommend this strategy, keep in mind that Facebook and most social media platforms nowadays limit the reach of your posts. On average anything you post on Facebook will reach less than 10% of your total followers or audience. Unless your posts get shared a lot, then Facebook may give it a boost. The days of posting on social media and having all your followers see it are gone. Social media giants like Facebook Instagram etc. are purposely limiting the exposure of your posts so that you are more likely to spend money on buying advertising. This is not necessarily a bad thing since their paid ad promotion products work well and we use them for a large number of clients. Don’t let this discourage you, keep posting regularly on social media because it only takes a few customers to get you’re a sizable amount of income. Plus when you do paid advertising, potential customers will look at your social media to see if you are active and to see if you do quality work. Make sure your posts are helpful, relevant and high quality.
DO A WEDDING STYLED SHOOTS
Most wedding vendors that are entering the market as new startup entrepreneurs, we often recommend them to form an alliance of wedding vendors who are part of your referral circle. So that you can refer clients to each other on a regular basis. The best thing you can do together is to contribute a styled shoot. Get a group of all your close wedding vendor friends and come up with a styled shoot inspiration. Look through Pinterest for unique ideas to help you brainstorm. This styled shoot will cost very money to organize and implement since all of your vendor friends will be donating their time and service for a mutually beneficial outcome. Once you have a styled shoot setup reach out to venues and ask them if you can use their space in exchange for a mention in a blog that you’re planning on submitting. Once the styled shoot is complete, start reaching out to local wedding blogs and pitching them your styled shoot to see if they are interested in featuring your teams work. Majority of the time it will get accepted, and the exposure could help you get your first initial customers that will help you build your portfolio and get you some free customers.