Bridal Marketing Group

It’s one of the most common misconceptions in marketing to brides: that a marketing tactic is the same as a marketing strategy.   Not understanding the difference between the two leads to a whole lot of wasted money and frustration.

Have you ever heard someone say “I’m going to use Twitter to market my wedding business,” or “I’m going to use the Internet to market my business?”

This sort of statement rarely leads to success.

This is because most of the time, that person is already talking about marketing tactics but has skipped not just one but two critical steps:

• setting a specific, measurable goal and
• developing a strategy for reaching that goal.

The first thing you need to do before you can develop a wedding marketing strategy is to identify a specific, measurable goal.

Let’s say that your goal is to book 6 weddings within the next two months.  Your business is a wedding venue down in Southern California.    The first thing you’d do is identify where your target market—newly engaged couples — hang out.  You’d brainstorm a list of all the places (both online and offline) where engaged couples might be found.

Then you’d develop a strategy for reaching these couples and getting your message in front of them. You know that building goodwill with your target audience is a tested, proven approach, so your strategy might include offering something free to get them to to tour your wedding venue.

Then, you’d deploy one or more tactics, including running a Google Adwords or Facebook advertising campaign, email marketing, guest blogging on popular wedding blogs, or planning an open house.

Predictably, this approach works like magic. As a result of your tactics (adwords and Facebook advertising, email marketing, guest blogging, and open houses), 60 newly engaged couples come tour your venue. Ten percent actually book their wedding with you.  Yippee!  You achieved your goal…but did you notice what you did to do that?   Your strategy was to get in front of engaged couples and offer them something of value to come tour your wedding venue.   The tactics were the methods you deployed in the service of your strategy.

It seems so simple when you take the time to reason it out, but it’s also so easy to overlook an important step. The most commonly overlooked step—your strategy—is the “secret sauce” that leads to booking more weddings.

Come up with a wedding marketing strategy for your wedding business, and marvel at the results!

If you feel like your wedding business could use a shot in the arm but don’t have time to deploy a plan, why not hire us for a month to see how our services can help you expand the popularity of your company?  It’s never too early or too late in the game to re-vamp or launch an effective wedding marketing plan.