Wedding Marketing- Increasing Your Business Success
This E-class is the first of a series of E-classes on marketing your wedding business.
Marketing is the Single Most Important Factor in The Success of Your Business
You should spend most of your time marketing your business, which includes paid and free advertising, networking, promotional activities, social networking, and converting your enquiries to paying customers.
The number one reason why businesses fail is because they don’t have a great marketing strategy. Simply placing an ad in a local bridal magazine, or listing your business in the yellow pages, wont be enough to survive or get the phone ringing. A mixed marketing strategy approach is required, where you gather leads from a variety of different sources, and promotional activities.
Marketing Magic Formula: Lead Generation x Conversion = Sales!!
In effective business marketing, there are two majorly important factors. Without one you cant have the other!
The marketing terms you need to work on are called ‘lead generation’ and ‘conversion’.
Lead Generation
Lead generation is about drumming up website traffic, social media followers, and legitimate enquiry for your service.
Essentially a ‘lead’ is a potential paying client! So, the more leads, the better! Which can mean- the more social media followers- the better, and the more website traffic- the better.
Conversion
Conversion- Conversion refers to converting your followers or enquiries into a paying customer. Conversion can also refer to converting your website viewers to actually making an enquiry about your service- and having over their contact details.
The first thing we are going to look at is Lead Generation, and all the ways you can generate leads and enquiries:
Top Lead Generation Methods for Wedding Businesses
Referals
Online Bridal Directory Listing
Google Adwords
Facebook Ads
Youtube Videos
Wedding Blogs
Gumtree Classifieds
Local Business Directories
Bridal Expos and Wedding Open Days
Google Maps
Competitions- Online and Offline
Networking Groups
Local Venues and Reception Centres
The more leads you get the more chance you have at converting them into a paying customer. So a variety of leads from different sources can help increase your enquiries. An important note to make is that not all leads generation sources are equal. Some sources will have a higher quality lead, than others. So your conversion rate can vary depending on how your customer found out about your business. The great thing though is that you can continue to market to your lead several times, to help ‘warm them up’ and finally convert them to a paying client!
Increasing Your Conversion
How to convert your web traffic to an enquiry- or how to convert your enquiry to a booking!
Conversion is what marketing for your business is all about. It’s “where the rubber hits the road” and it’s what puts money your bank account! You might have what you think is a great looking website, you might like it A LOT; but without conversion all of that doesn’t mean a thing.
Conversion is an marketing term that defines a moment in time when someone does what you want them to do. ( that could mean they sign up using your web form for more information, or they make a physical booking for your service, or they enter their details for a Free report/ free consult.)
Its important to note that not web traffic converts equally.
The quality of your traffic and its source will greatly impact conversion. For example, if you own a bridal shop and you advertise your website at the popular online wedding planning resource EASYWEDDINGS.COM.AU the traffic you get from there, known as a referrer, is probably a real bride or groom. As a result, that “visitor session” is high-quality and more likely to convert.
On the other hand, if you advertise your bridal shop website at THOUSANDS-OF-FREE-LINKS.COM, it’s pretty fair to say that will NOT be a website that most brides and grooms know about or visit. The few visitor sessions you get, if any, would NOT be considered high-quality traffic and NOT likely to convert well.
Conversion is calculated by taking your total visits and dividing it by total desired actions (total actions/total visits). Let’s say you have an email newsletter subscription page at your website. If that unique page registered 100 visitor sessions and it generated 20 subscriptions, your conversion rate would be 20%.
Let’s say your Google Analytics tells you that 10,000 people visited your e-commerce website last month. If your website generated 500 sales in the same period of time, your conversion rate was 5%.
Let’s do ONE MORE conversion calculation, one that is probably a very common conversion goal at most websites – getting an online inquiry or sales lead. Let’s say 5000 people visited your website in the last 30 days. Of those visitor sessions, which you would know from Google Analytics data, you received 125 inquiries. Your conversion is determined by taking your total online inquiries and dividing it by your visitor sessions. In this case 125 divided by 5000, or a 2.5% conversion.
Conversion is what it’s all about!
Without it, your website and Internet marketing strategy becomes a big black hole and a huge waste of time and money.
Sure Fire Ways to Increase your Conversion Rate
Use the below points to increase your enquiries and bookings by up to 200%!
1. Use better quality images.
Use better quality photos that are ‘wow’ and attention grabbing. You can test out photos using facebook or instagram- to see what photo gets more likes. Not all images will capture the same amount of attention. Some images can generate double the amount of interest- so just by changing the image in your ads, and website, you can double the amount of enquiries your receive. (this is why its so important to test and measure your photos before using them in an ad campaign!) Essentially- don’t use stock standard photos!
2. Make sure your phone number and email address- are on the front page of your website.
It should be in large text, and stand out. Its so funny how many people get this wrong! Their contact details are really hard to find- and they wonder why no one contacts them! Make sure you ALWAYS include your phone number as well as your email address and a contact us web form. Different customers like to contact you in different ways- so make sure you have all three ways for your client to contact you!
3. Have a web enquiry form- sign up- on every page of your website.
Web forms promote enquiries, and it is proven that more people will enquire through a web-form over sending an email. You want to have a web-form on every page of your website if you can- so if they read something they like- they can easily and quickly enquire- rather then having to click away from the page to find a contact us page to enquire.
4. Keep your web enquiry form simple.
On your web enquiry form on your website- don’t put too many fields of information for your bride to fill out. This will lower your enquiry rate, as no body likes filling out loads of questions at initial enquiry. Just put the bare minimum- like name, email and phone number. This will make its easier and quicker for thr bride to enquire. You can ask further questions about the wedding at a later stage.
5. Personally call every enquiry.
If your enquiry puts a mobile number in the enquiry- make sure you call them personally. If they put their number in there, there is some expectation that they may receive a call- otherwise they will leave this field blank. Simply by calling your enquiry- you will double your conversion rate, and greatly increase the chance of getting a booking. You can use the call to quickly introduce yourself, and ask any further details about the wedding, that you didn’t gather already from the web-form. Making light conversation for a few minutes adds that personal touch to your business, and it starts to build credibility and trust between you and your client. Brides tend to book services from people and companies that they know and trust, and that they have a personal connection with. A phone call is the beginning of starting that personal relationship!
6. Follow Up!
So many businesses just send out a single email with info or a price list or a quote, and just sit back and wait! Follow up is essential to warming up the lead/ client to have a more personal and positive experience with you. You can follow up with an email containing the latest photos of a wedding you just did, or a helpful resource that you think the bride would appreciate. Follow up should always be warm and helpful, and contain something that will inspire the bride, and eave her with a positive experience. Simply following up with a ‘I haven’t heard from you- do you want to go ahead? email wont get the booking. You need to create ‘hype’ and ‘desirability’ in your communications!
7. Create ‘hype’ and ‘desirability’.
Its really important to create hype and desirability in your wedding business- as you don’t want your clients to shop around based on price. If you do a good enough job in creating ‘hype’ and ‘desirability’ in your business- your clients wont batter an eyelid about price. The wedding industry is built on selling a dream- so the better you paint the picture of that dream- the more enquiries and bookings you will get!
8. Add testimonials.
Add testimonials to your website, pricing brochures, and even your email signature! Brides want to work with reputable and credible suppliers- so building trust and credibility is essential! You can easily do this by adding testimonials to prominent spaces on your website- or a ‘real weddings’ gallery with captions and testimonials. Testimonials can increase your bookings by 10%.
Assessments
1. What is the marketing formula for getting sales?
2. What is ‘conversion’?
3. Name 10 Lead generation mediums
4. Name 3 conversion methods, and why they help increase enquiries and bookings.
Email Your Answers to these assessments to: admin@lamodecollege.com.au
The next eclass will give you 50 ways to market your business and get enquiries on a shoe string budget.