A Picture on Your Site Is Worth 1,000 Words

We’ve all heard the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. When it comes to your website, it’s as true as ever.

When a bride comes to your site, she’s trying to get an overall idea of what you do. This isn’t just a matter of whether you’re a caterer or a florist, but the type of work you do, the style you work in, and the feel of what you produce.

If she’s looking for help with a DIY style wedding, she might click away from a site that is full of very formal and traditional photos. The images will tell the story of your business before any words on the site do.

Choosing the images for your site, and your blog, can be an important step in creating the right impression. Chances are you have loads of photos from weddings and other events you’ve worked on over the years. Use these whenever possible! There’s nothing like having real examples of what you do rather than stock photos.

If you want to know more about how to book more brides through your website and blog, get in touch with us today!

Why McDonalds is a Multi Million Dollar Brand and You Are Not

Isn’t it interesting that no matter where McDonalds decides to put up a franchise they’re successful? Why is it that some business owners bust their hump 14 hours a day and McDonalds can simply build a storefront, hire a few minimum wage workers and within 3 weeks make an average of two million dollars? It’s because they’ve created a system that works.

Every successful business, whether in the food industry or wedding industry has a system that they follow. Do you have a system that you follow? If you’re spinning your wheels and working too hard then the answer is no. If I showed you how to develop a marketing system that works for your wedding business, to turn fans into buyers on demand, how would that change your business? Martha Stewart Weddings is doing it. David Tutera does it. You can too! It’s a simple formula that works every time for wedding professionals regardless of their genre.

Ready for it? Here it is:

Write an informative problem -vs- solution type blog article with photos and bullet points. Each blog article should have a call to action at the end (ex. Looking for the solution to ________________? Give us a call and we’ll help) with your wedding company being the solution to the problem you just created. Make sure you follow the P.O.W.E.R of marketing (People, Ownership, What’s in it for me, Easy and Regular). If you don’t know what that means, download the book free.
Put a link to the article on Facebook and Twitter with a stirring one liner that gets fans interacting.
After you have four of those articles written, send out a blast email with teasers and a “read more” link that links to your blog articles directly. Of course, your blog has the call to action in it. That’s key to a successful program. Otherwise, you’ll have readers and fans but no buyers.

Don’t have time to do it? You’re not alone. Do you really think that McDonald’s CEO does the marketing for them? No! They let the professionals do it. Don’t worry, our experts will market your company to brides for you…and it’s only $199 a month (using coupon code “blog”). Interested in finding out more? Give one of our wedding marketing experts a call at 1-800-431-4628 and let us teach you how to go from working your wedding business to getting your business working for you.

About the author, Jakki Millo – In 2004, Millo started a wedding planning service that became a top contender within a few short months. Later that same year Millo pitched a television show idea to ABC which became one of the first shows on air about wedding planning. She hosted and produced the show resulting in the launch of a nationwide multi-media wedding marketing firm that has helped companies like Trump Towers in Chicago and the Space Needle in Seattle reach brides on a level like no other.

Do You Know Your Keywords?

You’ve created a website for your business. You’ve added some great information about yourself. Now you just wait for the brides to start e-mailing, right?

Well, not exactly. With so many websites for so many businesses, you need to be targeting the right audience, and that audience is pretty specific.

Here’s a quick test for you. Go to Google, and type “wedding dresses” or “wedding caterers” or “weddings” in the search. At the top of the results page, you’ll see an estimate of how many sites fit that search term. For “weddings,” that number is 271,000,000.

This means that with these vague search terms, you’re competing against that many millions of other websites! That’s a lot to battle against to make your site stand out.

Keywords are the key to getting the best results for your website. These are the search terms that brides use to find your site, and other sites offering the same services. When you come up with your site’s keywords, think about what brides are really going to be searching.

If you serve a large metropolitan area, it’s likely they’ll search the big city’s name rather than the smaller suburb your office is in. They’ll search for wedding trends and wedding style ideas, rather than a specific service that will help them achieve those trends and style ideas.

The best results come from having a combination of strong content and targeted keywords. Finding the right set of keywords can be a challenge, though. Aim for a mix of medium-competition keywords (i.e., phrases that are a bit more specific than “weddings” but less specific than “wedding caterers named Charlotte in Oak Park”).

There are plenty of online tools that can help you find a set of keywords for your website. Working with an online marketing expert like the Bridal Marketing Group can help you create great content with a mix of keywords that will help you move up the ranks and book more brides. Want to know more? Get in touch today!

Running Online Competitions: How To and Why Do It

“Share and Like to win…” “Retweet to win…” We’ve all seen the social media competition posts, and many of us have taken part in them, too. But when it comes to our own businesses, are we using online competitions in the right way?

Play by the rules

One thing that’s crucial in any online competition is to play by the rules. Facebook, for instance, doesn’t actually allow competitions to be run on their site! When you read their detailed terms and conditions, you’ll find that many of the competitions we see every day could very well get their promoters banned from Facebook.

Does this mean that you can’t promote a competition on Facebook? No. It means that you have to run the competition on your own site. You can link to this on Facebook, or even have it coded into your Facebook page through a specialist application.

Make it worth it

Let’s face it — an online competition is only as good as its prize. Consider what you can realistically afford to give away (and be very detailed about the prize in your own terms and conditions!) and go with the best you can.

You might find that your first few competitions fall flat or overstretch you. This is normal, and much of running a good social media competition is trial and error.

Whatever the prize for those who enter, make sure it’s worth your while, too. This means getting enough information from the people who enter that you can turn them into viable leads for your services.

Consider adding a few wedding-specific fields to your entry form, such as date of wedding, whether the entrant is a bride-to-be, and what services they need to book.

Market it well

When you run an online competition, the ultimate success of it will come down to how it’s marketed. Write blogs about it, and post about it regularly on all of your social media channels.

A competition can be a great way to get new leads, but can also be time consuming. If you’re looking for great marketing that will help you book more brides, check out what we have to offer!

Viral Marketing for Weddings?

Viral Marketing – which is the use of social media platforms to create a ‘buzz’ around your product or service. This is a major new corporate buzz-word and one that is growing in popularity. However, how can the wedding professionals benefit from viral marketing?

This post will evaluate the pros and cons of viral marketing for a wedding vendor marketing campaign.

The pro’s of viral marketing surrounds the cheapness and cost-effective nature of the method. If we use more traditional methods – like newspapers, magazines and billboards – which are more costly the comparable viral marketing solution could be nearly 200% cheaper than traditional advertising.

The other big plus about viral marketing is the local nature of the method. When you commission a local web marketer to help you conduct your online campaign. He/She will be able to focus your message on a select region which will help build a stronger and more coherent message.

The con’s of viral marketing surround the ‘fad’ image of the method. The ‘social network’ overkill argument is often used as a means of avoiding viral marketing solutions. The short-term approach of viral marketing, added to the fad nature, can result in some negative feedback from users.

In conclusion, if you can build up a local following – i.e. not the guy who drinks by himself down the bar but local champions who follow your buzz then the campaign will be a success. That being said never put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify your marketing approach for the best results.

If you need wedding marketing assistance the Bridal Marketing Group should be your next call. 1-800-431-4628! Or click here for our services and prices.

How Many Social Media Sites Should You Be On?

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, Yelp… the list of social media sites can drag on forever, with new sites cropping up on a regular basis. But which ones do you need to be on, and how many are too many?

The big thing to remember is that social media is social. If you aren’t being social on a site, you aren’t gaining anything from being there. Don’t feel like you need to set up profiles on every single site on the off chance a bride will find you there.

It’s more important to try things out, see which work, and do those sites well. If you find you can’t handle the work involved in any social media sites, get a professional to help you!

If a bride looks for you on Pinterest and can’t find you, she’ll assume you just don’t have a Pinterest account. However, if she finds an account that has been abandoned, or badly managed, she might not get the best impression of your business.

There’s no one answer for how many social media sites a business should use. The right number depends on what you do, how much time you can commit to each site, and what you’re actually getting out of them.

You also shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help! While you focus on turning brides’ dreams into reality, we can help make sure your blog and social media sites are maintained and getting you new brides. Get in touch to find out how we can help!

How Pinterest Analytics Can Help Your Business

Pinterest is a great site for bridal businesses. So many brides use the site for inspiration and as a way to come up with creative additions to their weddings.

Up until recently, Pinterest was a helpful tool for wedding businesses, but there was no real way to find out how much their content was being used on the site. However, the site has now added analytics that are great for business users.

Much like the information you can get from your Facebook fan page, Pinterest can now give you statistics about what pinners like most. It can also give you real data about things like how many people are pinning from your site, how many people have seen your pins, and how many have clicked on your content.

While many companies might still be wondering how best to use Pinterest — whether it’s an inspiration board or something more — having analytics can be the first step towards making it a more useful marketing tool.

Want to know more about Pinterest? Let us know in the comments!

If you’re looking to book more brides and boost your social media strategy, get in touch with us to see what we can do for you!

How Cross Promotion Can Boost Your Business

When you have a potential customer visit your website, your natural instinct may be to keep them there. However, by adding in some cross promotion, you can actually boost your business.

Do You Really Work Alone?

Unless you’re a one-man venue-caterer-dress shop-decorator-planner-cake baker-linen service-DJ-tuxedo rental-photographer-officiant-honeymoon agent, you probably don’t truly work alone. With every wedding you work at, you’re probably working with a lot of other professionals.

Even if they weren’t professionals you booked, or that you’d worked with before, you can build a solid relationship with them. When you make a good impression on these colleagues, they’re more likely to refer a bride to you if she’s looking for your particular service.

Linking Sites

Since you’re already working with other professionals, why not show this in your website? If you have a blog post about a wedding you were a part of, try linking to the other vendors’ websites.

By letting them know they’ve been included in your blog post, you can ask them to link to the post from their site. It can also encourage them to link back to you in their own post about the wedding.

This can also help encourage brides to book vendors you know you work well with. Knowing what you’ve done together can be a huge inspiration for a bride, and can make her more confident about booking you. (If you see one company that has great relationships with related firms, and another that seems to be isolated, which are you going to have more faith in?)

Search Engine Rankings

Having links to other companies isn’t just going to boost your standing among brides and your fellow professionals. Having different external links in blog posts can make your site more relevant as far as search algorithms are concerned.

This means that by linking to other vendors, other sources, and other blogs, you’ll be helping move your site up the rankings. When a bride Googles a wedding planner, the site that has better links is going to top the one that only links back to its own pages.

Who And What To Link To

Even if you’re convinced about the need to link to other sites, and help cross-promote other professionals, you might not know where to start. What companies should you link to?

Well, it’s often a matter of what you’re talking about. If you’re blogging a real wedding, link to the other vendors. If you’re blogging about a wedding trend, link to big name sites that are also talking about the trend.

If you see a blog post elsewhere that you find interesting, ask about reposting it on your site as a guest post. (Guest blogging can be a great way to boost business, but more about that another time.) You can also ask a service like Bridal Marketing Group to refer you to other clients’ blogs that you might want to link to.

Whatever cross-promotion methods you use, it’s important to regularly post both on your site and on social media. To find out how Bridal Marketing Group can help with this, get in touch!

Don’t Be Active, Be Interactive

Being active online isn’t enough for your customers. You also need to be interactive.

Online activity is everything from blog posts to Facebook and Twitter updates. It’s pinning to Pinterest, or adding photos to Flickr or Instagram. This gives your customers, both existing and potential, some sense of who you are and what you do.

However, what turns potential customers into real customers, and what keeps existing customers coming back and recommending their friends, is interactivity. Instead of simply posting and walking away, it’s responding to comments, seeing what your customers are up to, and building a real relationship.

Some of the biggest brands that have the best social media and online presence do just this. They reply to questions and comments, and take on feedback. You might not have a big enough staff to have a 24/7 online interaction, but having somebody dedicated to your interactions a few times a day can make a huge difference.

If you’re a small business, even this might be too much for you to take on yourself. You don’t need to do it all yourself, though. Our social media services give your company a level of interactivity that can make your company be more approachable, more human, and more successful. To find out ore about how we can help your bridal company, get in touch!

How Often Do You Tweet? Twitter Marketing for Bridal Businesses

A lot of wedding businesses are seeing how Twitter marketing can be a great way to engage with brides and other vendors. However, too many are missing out on the real power of Twitter by not tweeting enough.

Twitter vs. Facebook

Many people are comfortable with Facebook. They’ve used it personally, and have used it to communicate as their business. They post a couple of times a day and get a good response.

Yet when they apply the same concept to Twitter, it doesn’t give the same results. The reason is simple — a single tweet is a fleeting thing. Most Twitter users won’t scroll all the way back to the last time they were online. (In fact, Twitter makes it very difficult for users to do this!)

Instead, they’ll only really look at the last hour or so in their feed, at most. User following a lot of people will likely scroll through even less. Twitter is much more conversational, and works at a much faster pace.

What to do

This doesn’t mean you need to constantly update Twitter, though. Regularly tweeting will give somebody checking out your profile an idea of what you do, which can encourage them to follow you for future tweets.

Another great way to manage your Twitter account is by using an application such as HootSuite which allows you to schedule tweets throughout the day. This way you can prepare a few tweets in the morning, have them post during the day, and then check back in the evening and reply, if needed.

Of course, Twitter is also great for sharing things you find online, and creating a dialog with your customers and potential customers.

Don’t have a social media marketing strategy? Give us a call or email (or tweet us!) and find out how we can help you book more weddings!