Wedding Professional Success!

Wedding Professional Success! has a New Home. And new URL.

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:21:00 +0000

Thank you all for your visiting and commenting on this blog.

In response to the success of your support and since self-hosted WordPress allows one to do so much more; from blogging to websites to marketing, I have decided to relocate Wedding Professional Success!

New posts are at the blog's new site.

Did a little redesign too. Hope you like the new look.

If you are ever updating your blogroll or bookmarks I would appreciate your adding the new URL -
http://www.marcfuller.com

Thanks in advance. Look forward to seeing you there!

Flash based websites: "the accessibility and searchability of a brick"

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:49:00 +0000

In the quest to find methods to help improve marketing results for wedding professionals I often look at website options/techniques. Previously I have discussed the impressive advantages of using a rich featured blog engine as the basis for your website, but ignored the almost crippling impact Flash based websites can have on your Internet marketing.

Well Christine Boulton of Think Like A Bride has just posted just such an article on her marketing agency's website complete with her attention to useful detail and frank discussion. Go read it - Flash Sites vs HTML Sites

A new wedding zietgeist

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:40:00 +0000

This is going to be one of those lazy blog posts where I suggest you go read someone else's blog, but it is Sunday afternoon and Rebecca Grinnals at Weddex blog has a great post about what I think will become the new wedding zietgeist, or cultural climate, which values meaning above luxury.

Her prime basis for the emergence of a new cultural climate? One of the most important cultural catalysts of the recent past ... Sex In The City. Rebecca's post is really worth the read and some thought.

Teleseminar recording with exceptional wedding/bridal marketer Lori Osterberg

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:29:00 +0000

A lot of people have asked when this recording would be available and I just finished the editing and upload. I think it was the best, most valuable teleseminar for wedding/bridal marketers yet!

This last Wednesday evening was our regular monthly Great Wedding Network wedding/bridal marketing teleseminar.

Guest expert Lori Osterberg CEO of Vision of Success and author of "Six Figure Wedding Photographer" provided some great advice and insights. Our discussion ranged from how she grew her wedding photography business to the marketing power of blogs as websites to improving direct email marketing to understanding how to use social networks for business. Lots of useful information from someone with first hand experience.

I invite you to download and listen to the mp3 at your convenience. Here is the link (mp3, 9.9mb) to the teleseminar recording.

Online Testimonials Image Generator

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:14:00 +0000

Ever wish there was a better way to present those emails of thanks you get from clients? Well this might help. And it's free!

The CopyDoodles™ Testimonial Generator

Just pick your paper color and style, font style and color, then enter the text and it will generate a gif that looks like a handwritten note. You can then put the gifs on your testimonials webpage and have some variety. Takes less than than five minutes.

A new marketing agency devoted to only wedding and bridal businesses

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:23:00 +0000

Colleague and friend Christine Boulton, well known wedding/bridal business consultant and writer extraordinaire, has new marketing agency for wedding and bridal businesses!

The Agency at Think Like A Bride provides a full range of high value/low cost marketing services to wedding and bridal businesses all dedicated to increasing profits.

Visit her new website and learn what they can do for you!

The secret life of a blog based website

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:34:00 +0000

A blog based website is not a "normal" website. Like Clark Kent it may look normal, but it has some special powers.

Recently I wrote that it was my opinion that for marketing purposes a blog based site made the best wedding professional website. It stimulated some questions that asked to me explain more why or how a blog based site is better.

There are four basic parts to my opinion on this and it is a little technical so I provided some links in my explanation for more detail.

First is fairly obvious, the desire of most brides-to-be to obtain a lot of information before making purchase decisions and the ease of which the owner of blog based site can present new information through site updates, for site visitors to share comments and easily bookmark it on social networking sites like Digg. This allows the blog based site owner to meet the target market bride-to-be desires for wedding related information and benefit the blog based site owner with the competitive advantage of customer engagement, and potentially viral marketing.

The second part is a little more obscure or secret to many of us and has to with the inherent nature of most blogs relationship to search engines. Blog based sites are very "friendly" to search engines easily presenting their text based content. In the background a blog based site creates a brand new web page for most updates, which is noticed by search engines and often gives the site increased search relevancy ranking. Blog based sites also have an additional group of blog only search engines. Blog only search engines such as Technorati work by indexing blog article tags and then presenting those articles in order of the most recent. The more a blog based site updates and provides relevant tags, the more the site will be in the top search results.

Compounding all this is the unique "push" power of web feeds and feed readers. Most blog based websites have the advantage of automatically creating a web feed which allows your target market to be presented information about website updates automatically on a daily basis, thereby enhancing customer engagement. This may be a little obscure to many of us but it is fairly well known by our bride-to-be target market's generation. They know all they need to do is click on the orange syndication image in the right side of their browser's site address window to add a blog based site to their feed reader, easily getting a summary list of updates of the websites in which they have interest. They can then click through from the summary to visit your blog based website. Helping to insure the blog based website owner the competitive advantage of customer engagement.

Lastly, development and ownership costs of a blog based website are frequently much less than conventional websites.

So, in short summary my opinion is based on the reality that the blog based website owner often has higher search results, receives the additional competitive advantage of customer engagement and saves money.

Help for the color scheme challenged, like me!

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:50:00 +0000

I love color! Unfortunately putting together innovative and attractive color schemes is a talent I do not have. One needs only to take a look at this blog for evidence. But, I have found help.

Colorschemer.com is sublime! Good for both wedding professionals and brides-to-be. The site has over 3,500 color schemes all tagged for searching. Plus tools to determine the colors of almost any webpage or the explore your own color grouping in a gallery type web-browser widget. They even have a professional color wheel based "color-matching application that will help you build beautiful color schemes quickly and easily" for only $49.00 in either Mac and PC versions.

If you are trying to find just the right color scheme for a wedding reception or a web-page a few minutes on their site will be time well spent. You could even use some of the tools to show a bride-to-be your ideas.

May everyone enjoy a great weekend!

The perfect wedding professional website is a …blog?

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:10:00 +0000

But, probably not your father's blog.

Web technology and, more importantly, web users are continually changing. We all realize the importance of our websites, and there is a range approaches from simple static text, dynamically generated pages to gorgeous flash presentation sites. They all have had a place in the evolution of the web and web users.

To understand what’s the best answer for today we need to examine two perspectives; 1) what our target market web users are seeking in their web experience and 2) what search engines value or rank highest. The good news is that these two perspectives have very similar and compatible objectives. They both seek; fresh, relevant, easy displayed and read content. And in these objectives contemporary blog platforms excel for the services business owner. Some of the fastest growing wedding professionals I have observed began with a simple blog that the used to regularly share their work and philosophy with prospective clients.

A blog is; content rich, easily updated, personal, search engine friendly (unlike flash), browse-able on virtually all devices including mobile (again unlike flash) and fast (once again …). And today’s blogs can be attractive. Many of them don’t even look like blogs, but they are. Take a look at the low-cost, easily adaptable WordPress themes available from Revolution. And, realize that you can easily post new images and stories about your work into those blogs almost as easily as sending an email.

I am beginning to think that over the next year new well designed blog platforms will become the standard for wedding professionals who want to have the highest website return on investment. If you would like more info just drop me an email. I can also refer you to web professionals who are familiar with these new style blogs. Look forward to your comments.

Today's brides-to-be want your email

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:04:00 +0000

If you still think that email doesn't work, please read this very recent article from eMarketer. It is an excellent summary of recent consumer direct marketing channel preference.

Some important information from the article:

"Asked to judge the acceptability of various channels for marketing purposes on a scale of 1 to 5, respondents gave direct mail an average score of 3.9, followed by e-mail at 3.7. All other channels averaged under 3.
Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said they had made a purchase because of a marketing message received through e-mail. More than three-quarters said they had made such a purchase in response to direct mail. ...
About two-thirds of respondents to that survey said they preferred e-mail when dealing with businesses, and about as many said they expected to continue to prefer e-mail in five years."(emphasis added)

The article has more info and very useful tables showing preferences by age groups. Please take a short read of the full one pager.

What the surveys used in the article should reveal is that if you are not getting good results from your email marketing it is probably the result of the marketing message. Don't settle for poor results.

With the cost of direct email being less than 10% the cost of direct mail while nearly as acceptable to the customer (and the fact that I also offer a unique quality targeted bride-to-be leadstream) one of my objectives is to help wedding professional clients refine their marketing message to reach today's brides. I do that not only through this blog, but also a weekly ezine newsletter, frequent teleseminars, dedicated small online groups and individual review.

The marketing messages many of us have relied upon have seemingly lost much their effectiveness as our prospective Internet savvy bride-to-be clients have become more sophisticated. Thankfully it usually only takes a minor rethink and some simple changes to recapture marketing success. Direct marketing still works and direct email has the best return on investment.

The Power of APPLICATIONS! Easy, Low-cost, Results - Expand Your Brand plus Direct Market in Facebook & MySpace

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:15:00 +0000

Many people have well justified reservations regarding the return on investment in marketing on social networks such as MySpace and Facebook. While brands are easily extensible into the social networking environment through profile creation, addition of friends, group presence and advertising, actually making sales is difficult.

Advertising on social network has had infrequent success. The initial comparison of social networking sites to portal sites Google or Yahoo has been proven wrong as network members demonstrate an established resistance to clicking to off-network websites.

Plus, the nature of social networks and expected privacy standards also make it impossible to easily include social network friends in direct marketing efforts.

Building your social network of friends can be expensive. While participation in most social networks is free, actively networking in their environment is very time consuming.

Yet there is a a very powerful, and mostly overlooked, low-cost way to build strong brand relationships and generate leads for direct marketing from your social network based target markets.

For full understanding first allow me to review some why and what related to users of social networks.

The reason why, is that social networks can be incredibly rich in certain demographics. For example, while engaged people comprise lees than 1% of the US population, they are as high as 6% within some networks on Facebook.

Secondly, what is a social network profile other than a collection of personal information that the profile owner desires to share with her friends.

These two points, a discernible richly populated target market with individuals wanting to share personal information is a potential "treasure".

The way to reach this social network treasure is through a social network application that supports the targeted profile owner's desire to share some particular piece of information, while at the same time extend your brand and support non-social network direct marketing efforts. In other words, someone using your application on their social network profile is virtually providing you word of mouth advertising and allowing you contact information needed to support direct marketing through regular email.

When we first began our efforts on MySpace almost two years ago I noticed that quizzes were madly popular. So we created our own quiz to appeal to our target market and provide traffic to our website. The quiz was just a few simple questions and a formula that, dependent upon the value of different answers, presented a banner to be displayed on the quiz taker's MySpace profile. The quiz is named "Which Princess Bride Are You?" and has five different bride types. This created a huge number of links and dramatic increase in website traffic.

And, last year when Facebook opened up their application platform. We developed an application to place in her profile an engagement announcement and a fully functional self-created Google wedding map where she can share all the important location details of her wedding. This application allow us to extend our brand to a large number of Facebook members who are engaged and supports volume lead generation for direct marketing efforts for us and our client wedding professional subscribers.

I have also developed custom applications for a social cause (womens shelter), clients and helped others to do the same. While these social network applications cost from a just a few hundred dollars, they will operate for months with almost no time (and money) consuming personal involvement from the owner or assistant while providing measurable results 24/7/365. Leads, traffic and virtual "word of mouth" advertising - automatically.

After many discussions and brainstorming sessions, I think that almost all business can benefit from an application, because almost all our businesses provide some services, goods and expertise that our clients would enjoy sharing with their friends. If you would like to talk about how an application could be linked and useful for your business or the value of targeted applications in general just send me an email*. I would be glad to share more specific in-depth thoughts.

(* - Or if you are a wedding professional who would like to participate in our unique bride-to-be leadstream.)

Surviving and avoiding weddings from hell

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:24:00 +0000

Just an article from CNN on weddings from hell and how to survive them.

Some astounding disasters are described, but I liked best the closing paragraph's argument for simplicity -

Future brides and grooms may also want to remember that the more bells and whistles they dream up for their wedding, the more chance there is for trouble, says Samantha Schoech. "Weddings have gotten bigger and grander these days and I think that leaves you open for more disasters," she says. "If you want white doves to fly over you right as they're saying 'I now pronounce you husband and wife,' you're asking to get pooped on."

Simplicity can be foundation for both elegance and economy. Perhaps Samantha Schoech has offered an Occam's Razor ( "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.") for weddings and receptions?

As professionals are we aiding brides-to-be in being able to consider that "less is more"?

A potential price increase is more powerful than a discount. A lesson from "Sway"

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:06:00 +0000

"Sway" the new book by brothers Ori and Rom Brafman (one a psychologist, the other an entrepreneur) has many powerful lessons for marketers. The most useful for us wedding professionals maybe the emotional motivation of "loss aversion" Here is a partial excerpt from their book:

... economists wouldn’t expect people to be more sensitive to price increases than to price decreases. But what Putler found was that shoppers completely overreacted when prices rose.
Anyone who’s made a shopping list with a budget in mind can tell you how this plays out. If the price drops, we’re mildly pleased. But if we see that the price has gone up since last week, we get an oh no feeling in the pit of our stomachs ... This feeling of dread over a price increase is disproportionate—or asymmetric—to the satisfaction we feel when we get a good deal.

We experience the pain associated with a loss much more vividly than we do the joy of experiencing a gain. ...

Putler’s research illuminates a mystery that economists have been grappling with for years. For no apparent logical reason, we overreact to perceived losses.

The take away here for us wedding pros is two points;

Be willing to share the any upcoming price increases with potential clients. As we now know, inflation is very real, particularly in energy costs, any oil based products and food, all very important components to a wedding and reception. Truthfully informing your potential client of the need to raise your prices soon is a disproportionally powerful influence for to her to contract for your services before any price increase.

If you are doing discounts or special offers to bolster sales, by all means include a meaningful expiration date in those discount offers. Don't overlook the powerful fact that"We experience the pain associated with a loss much more vividly than we do the joy of experiencing a gain." A savings of itself does not have equal power to the risk of losing that savings.

To learn more about "Sway" visit the book's website.

Indeed - Email Marketing Still Works!

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:10:00 +0000

For another insight into the value and power of well managed direct email marketing read this recent eMarketer article.

A few important grafs -

Half of US adult e-mail users surveyed in April 2008 for Merkle's "View from the Inbox" study, conducted with Harris Interactive, said they had made an online purchase in the previous year as a result of permission-based marketing.

In addition, e-mail was second only to customer reviews on Web sites for influencing online purchases, according to DoubleClick Performics' "Green Marketing Study," conducted by Opinion Research Corporation in February 2008. E-mail was roughly equal to search results in terms of influencing online purchases.

"There is a substantial gap between what marketers believe is relevant to the consumer, and what consumers rate as valuable," said Lori Connolly, director of research at Merkle.

This last point contributes to what I have been stressing in our weekly newsletters as we are attempting to help wedding professionals redesign their marketing communications.

There is a lot more info and statistics in the article. Worth the read.

Insights to Facebook and MySpace friends and our upcoming May 28th teleseminar

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:50:00 +0000

Just a short post, part of getting ready for our free teleseminar regarding how wedding/bridal professionals can use MySpace and Facebook to increase their income.

Newsweek has a helpful article online by Steven Levy covering Facebook and MySpace friending, "How Many Friends Is Too Many?" The article provides excellent info contrasting the two social networks and how their prime users manage online friends in the virtual social network.

Our free teleseminar on how to use Facebook and MySpace to increase your business will be Wednesday May 28th, 8pm EDT, 7pm CDT, 6pm MDT, 5pm PDT. Mari Smith published Facebook business author, business development consultant and former wedding DJ will be featured guest speaker.

If you would like to participate in our teleseminar just send me an email I will reply with call in phone number and access code.

Death Watch for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:09:00 +0000

I haven’t wanted to say much on this topic because the SEO voice is so loud. And for good reason, SEO had some great results and every website should still always have good search engine management and “hygiene”.

For the last few months I have been watching SEO consultants enhancing their marketing efforts at the same time SEO results are becoming less productive and reliable. But as a non-SEO expert I felt I didn’t have the "footing" to express my observations and ideas.

Then I came across this article by Chris Copland of SearchInsider titled the Last Days of SEO. To me the take away graf is - "So, the future of SEO as defined today is a bleak one. Whether we merely change the description of SEO or use a new acronym like DAO, the days of success being optimization for 10 text links on a standard results page is going to end up just like our old description of the engines: as dinosaurs. Extinct dinosaurs." Please read the entire article.

To me it is the growth of the internet combined with the increasingly sophisticated users and search engine providers that makes it difficult to rely on old style SEO.

Particularly in light of these points;

• Increasing and increasingly sophisticated users. Look at your website logs and see how specific many of their search terms have become. Generation Y has excellent, focused search skills that I respect.

• Increasingly sophisticated search engines, looking to deliver precise valuable results to their users. And at the same time seeking to maximize their sponsored link income.

• Overwhelming size of the commercial WWW. With 200 million websites and over 10 billion webpages and an almost infinite variety of search terms how can SEO reliably assure that one particular site will be in the first 10 results returned for any period of time?

Marc's tip to wedding professionals –
Use a balanced approach. Continue to follow good SEO practice and hygiene while utilizing other low cost ways to get your company’s website in front of your target market. Don't be consumed by getting a particular search rank result. Most importantly, shift to concentrating on having an effectively persuasive website thereby converting your visitors to clients.

It is not the format! It's the story! Change your message for success.

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:18:00 +0000

The buzz on wedding marketing is to use blogs and newsletters/ezines. Unfortunately many of us are simply putting the same low results text content into these new formats. And we wonder why we are not getting improved sales. Because we haven't changed the old message. Putting the same old message in a new "envelope" is not change.

Everyday we are presented 3,000+ buy messages. And we have become, particularly GenY and Millennial, very good at ignoring them. To effectively reach today's bride-to-be requires sharing stories and building relationships.

Our current wedding generations are focused on relationships. Their formative and current entertainment such as Battlestar Galactica, Roswell, Seinfeld, the Office to Charmed, movies from the "Breakfast Club" to "Sense and Sensibility" are all about relationships. Last week I was reading about a screen writer who shared that many of her best story lines for Dawson's Creek (what show was more relationship anchored?) came from Jane Austen novels. Look at the size and power of social networks like MySpace and Facebook, it is all about relationships.

Long ago I had a sales manager, who told me that "a salesman is only as good as his story". Stories are how we learn and share knowledge. If interesting, stories are able to pass through the defenses we have created to withstand the 3,000+ daily buy messages. What could be more interesting and persuasive to a bride-to-be than stories about what you do for weddings and the professional relationships you foster?

And this is why blogs and ezines can be so effective. Blogs and ezines are the superb at easily broadcasting your wedding stories to today's internet connected brides-to-be. Share stories!

If you want to discuss this approach further send me an email and we can arrange a telephone conversation.

Comparing three web marketing options on your profits

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:30:00 +0000

As a wedding professional you have three major channels for business development and marketing on the web, in addition to your website.

They are

Paid Search like Google Adwords,
Display Ads/Banners on placed on wedding directory websites or other sites either directly or with a service like AdSense
Direct Email.

All three are used to inform people of your goods and services, encourage them to visit your website to learn more and hopefully become your customer. Importantly for your business and profit decisions they also have different success rates and costs.

Fortunately on the internet there are ways and firms that measure the success rates of these different methods. Below is a table complied by Datran Media from DoubleClick, Morgan Stanley and WebSide Story for 2006-2007

Comparative marketing performance for Paid Search, Display Ads and Direct Email

Click-to-Conversion (sale) Rate:

Paid Search - 3.4%
Display Ads - <1%
Direct Email - 13.46%

So what does this mean? In short, display advertising is the worst, search is better and direct email is almost 4 times better than paid search. Out of 100 click throughs an average web marketer could expect over 13 new clients from direct email, over 3 new clients from search and fewer than 1 from a display ad.

Marc's tip to wedding/bridal professionals:
To be blunt, unless your conversion rate to sales is very high, don't buy display ads and do the math for paid search and direct email. From the measurements above you could spend 3 times as much for direct email as paid search and still, direct email would be the most profitable choice.

So explore what your Google Adwords are bidding at and what quality leads might cost then make an informed choice for the lowest cost and your highest potential profits.

For more assistance or questions just comment or send me an email.

Direct Email Marketing and the Rule of Seven

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:55:00 +0000

How many products have you ever purchased based upon the first and only commercial information you had? Any? That is the foundation for the Rule of Seven. And it is important because it is one the marketing rules, that when followed, will make you successful.

The Rule of Seven stems from marketing research work that Dr. Jeffery Lant and others have done that find in order to enter a prospective clients consciousness it takes 7-8 messages. So it has become known by many as the Rule of Seven.

It makes sense once you consider how many of the marketing messages you come across are repeated. How many times have you seen the same commercial on television? Why is it repeated? Simply because it works!

It is my opinion that brides-to-be are possibly a little easier to reach. After all a bride-to-be is very “tuned-in” to any attractive, informative and helpful wedding and bridal information. Still if the average person is 7-8 messages, even reducing this by half because of a bride’s focus on her upcoming wedding means that you should be prepared to deliver at least four different direct emails providing information about your product or service. Each of the four being at least a little bit different in content and layout.

It is not just the frequency though that makes an impression; it is more importantly the value in each repetition of communication that makes the "right" impression. Always be sure your different marketing emails are "client centered" and are

interesting,
helpful,
include appealing relevant images, and
have the courtesy to allow for the receiver to opt out of receiving any future emails.
include promotion, but limit promotion to 30% of content

All important elements which must contain anyway if you want to demonstrate that you truly care about the bride-to-be's wedding. Emails that include those four elements are rarely felt to be "spam".

What do you get if you do this? Well, more than few direct marketers convert over 10% of their direct email prospects to sales.

The best parts of direct email marketing;
1) We can easily afford to change our message and send again in a week or two.
2) The conversion rate and ROI is very high compared to any other method of marketing.

The tip -
Be helpful. Be informative. Share your benefits. And, be willing to ask more than once.

Mastery versus Marketing - Congratulations on Your Career Change!

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:05:00 +0000

As wedding professionals we have often worked many years developing our skills, becoming masters of the art or service we offer. Then when we finally feel we are competent to provide our service for payment and proceed to open our own wedding business … we promptly change careers. We go from developing mastery of our art or service to needing to be an almost full time marketer.

When I opened my business, I thought that to grow my business was the same as growing my skills. If I upgraded my equipment, learned new skills, increased my mastery of my service then my business and income would automatically also increase. What was I thinking? I was so wrong. Looking back I now realize that the moment you open your own business you switch from pursuing mastery to pursuing marketing. This is why so many wedding related businesses struggle to survive as more than a hobby, rather than providing the comfortable income they should provide. They may have a marketing plan, but they don’t develop their marking skills.

Here is a rule of thumb, for every moment that you spend on a client task you need to spend an equal time attracting new clients. At minimum you need to spend 50% of your time with simply marketing your business. In fact you should have only two tasks, providing service to existing clients and attracting new clients. Anything else is potential clutter which needs to be examined, perhaps outsourced or even discontinued.

Most of our initial marketing plans are fairly simple and expensive. It consists mostly of advertising; putting one or more ads in wedding guides, attending a couple of bridal shows, and of course have cards and brochures printed. Fills in the squares but does not really focus on attracting clients. Fortunately you can develop marketing skills to attract clients and increase your return on marketing investment.

Here are a few specific points:

Establish your marketing budget in terms of 1) your time spent, 2) money invested and most importantly 3) your required return on investment (ROI). Your marketing efforts need to have at least a 10 to 1 ROI. Saying that you get one sale from a bridal show is good, is no longer good enough.
Look at your target market, and brand your service’s message to your target market emotional needs. Stay on message in all your communication. Both text and graphical
Learn how to convert leads to sales. Strive for a conversion ratio of ten percent. Many successful businesses have that or better.
Communicate constantly. Then repeat. Communications and marketing researchers have discovered that your message needs to be presented at least 7 times before it gains full consideration. Fortunately, certain types of direct email marketing can achieve this for an affordable cost.
Be personal. Share emotion. Use a blog to share information and about you and your services. Some wedding professionals have replaced most, or all, of their website with a blog.

So Mastery versus Marketing … which “wins”? If you are a new business and you know what you are doing, marketing is your new imperative. Targeted, budgeted, consistent, persistent marketing.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics - Average Wedding Spending

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Sat, 17 May 2008 11:14:00 +0000

If Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, walks into a crowded bar ... everyone in the bar is instantly a multimillionaire. On average, that is.

Most of us are aware of the constantly quoted and increasing average wedding cost number. I wonder how many of us really understand what the number means, I didn't. But in trying to develop a new branding strategy for our current economy I thought I should really see what the average wedding was costing. To the left is a graph projecting per wedding spending over the next few years. The graph informs us that total projected per wedding spending for 2008 is $28,704. I think this is just simple mean average of total US wedding spending divided by the approximately 2.2 million weddings projected. But does the average wedding really cost anything close to $28,700? If you mean do half the wedding cost less and half cost more? No. In fact over 80% cost less!

To the left is another graph which divides the number of weddings into four spending ranges using the same data source. You can see that 50% of the weddings cost less than half the 28K+ "average". And another 32% cost less than the average. Meaning that 4 out of 5 weddings will cost less than "average". And only 18% of the weddings will spend more than the $28,704 average.

So why is this important? Because I was trying to find a way to position a wedding professional to appeal to brides with less money to spend than the "average" while retaining a desirable high quality and high value image. What I found is that the vast majority of brides have less money to spend than the average. They are already there! No wonder today's bride seems difficult to communicate with. And when they do mention a budget they are almost timid. Much of our positioning and branding is overshooting about 80% of the market. I think we need to stop it.

Establishing an average so much higher than what the majority of brides have to spend is amplifying their fears, uncertainties and convincing them that their desires are unattainable. Are we helping to create some of the bridezillas? As an "industry" we have helped setup expectations that fewer than 20% of the brides can comfortably be part of. As wedding professionals we need knock that down. I think this issue is lowering our self esteem, and divorcing ourselves from reality and each other. Both brides and professionals. We need to show the typical bride she belongs, is valued and can expect high value, high quality service.

As a beginning, I suggest a way do this is to share with her what your typical client spends with you. Don't quote your price, quote your client's typical purchase. Don't say what you think, share what your typical client thinks. Let your new prospect see you as a place where she can feel comfortable.

Branding by Ben Mack, Free "Think Two Products Ahead" Video

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:44:00 +0000

He has a lot of fans and Ben Mack always seems to have a little different approach in making the marketing practice of the major companies approachable by very small businesses.

I recently came across this recent 79 minute video by Ben Mack on Google. It might be worth a "watch", here's the description - "Ben Mack outlines the information in his latest book, Think Two Products Ahead, onstage at Peak Potentials. His demonstration involves real world branding ideas, and his engaging stage demonstration involving sleight-of-hand and professional anecdotes make this much more than another marketing training course."

The Challenge in Marketing to Gen Y / Millenial Brides-to-be

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:06:00 +0000

I recently came across this open letter on Facebook. I think it is very instructive as to the intelligence of this generation's brides-to-be and how we need to become more authentic and helpful in marketing our services. If anyone would/want, please comment on this opinion by Ashley Keene a college senior from Cincinnati.

"My generation, the millenials, grew up with the blinking ads that claimed we were the 1,000,000th visitor and had won money. We grew up with simple, absurd games of “catch the fish!” or “punch the rabbit!” or “shave her legs!” that sent us away from the page we were viewing if clicked. We grew up viewing millions of pages of content with absurd animations attempting to draw our eyes to the ads.

These early, poorly-planned, poorly-designed marketing schemes destroyed web marketing. They established early habits in consumers that are not easily broken.

Banner ads have a reputation for being annoying, misleading, untrustworthy and ignored by almost everyone.

We will never click on an ad to interact with it because we were taught that clicking anywhere on the ad, even if it wasn't a link, would send us away from our page.

We will never believe that an offer is in any way exclusive or special.

Animations never grab our attention.

I'm just a college student, but I'm also a designer who has interned at a couple of marketing agencies. Whenever I'm confronted with creating a design for a web advertisement, I feel lost because I know there's nothing I can do to break the long-established habits of internet users. "

More on high value creative weddings

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:29:00 +0000

This recent business news item from MSNBC asks, "Economy sticking a cake fork in bridezilla?"

Well sourced, it offers anecdotal accounts that high value in weddings may become a new trend, replacing extravigance. Very much worth the few moments to read.

Much to think about as far as how to profitably position as the high value wedding professional. I wonder if addressing the newlywed's fear of debt may be the best path. More in the future. Your thoughts in comments are welcome.

(h/t Sandy)

Convert more leads to sales, manage your communication

marc@greatweddingnetwork.com (Marc Fuller) — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:12:00 +0000

In many of my conversations with wedding professionals who are seeking to increase their income I hear the comment that they have little success with leads. From any source.

It is my view that part of the reason for this is that leads and the communications directed towards those leads is not effectively managed. All sales happen from effective communication. Yet many of us are using only "sticky notes" or spreadsheets to time and follow-up with potential customers.

I have used lead tracking and contact management applications finding them invaluable but complicated. I thought that there needed to be a better solution for today. So I did a little websurfing to see what was available in lead tracking software and found an excellent new solution and it is FREE!

Simple Sales Tracking is a web-based application so you can use it from any computer connected to the internet. It is extremely simple to use and has an almost intuitive layout. You can use it to manage and plan almost all your communications and actions to close a sale. Even keep track of costs. It is always backed-up and your data is transportable.

Recently with Shane Redlick the creator of Simple Sales Tracking, we did a wedding professional focused teleseminar including live questions and answers to help people learn how to use Simple Sales Tracking in their wedding business. You can download and listen to it here. (mp3, 6.8mb)