Running a wedding business can be a lot of work at times, and you could find yourself falling behind or dropping the ball if you don’t learn to manage the day-to-day operations from the beginning.
For those that don’t know me too well – I’m a mum of five, a multi-passionate entrepreneur, wedding business coach, and specialist VA for the wedding industry.
My life would be crazy and impossible to manage if I didn’t use automation tools to schedule everything.
Some of the things I do within my business include, done for you VA services, 1-1 coaching, event planning, and content creation.
The crazy thing is though, I only work part-time hours.
On some days, I only work a couple of hours, other days I work a little bit longer, but on average – I work less than 20 hours a week.
I use scheduling and automation tools to simplify my life and business!
If you want to keep on top of your wedding business to ensure you’re continuously attracting new bridal couples, getting new appointments, and keeping them engaged – you will need to start scheduling and automating three essential parts of your business. This includes:
- Social media scheduling
- Appointment Bookings, and
- Email Marketing.
I thought this would be a great topic to feature here to help those who may be struggling to manage these things on a day-to-day basis.
There are a lot of people who start their wedding business while they are still working a normal 9-5 job, so there’s already a small amount of time allocated for client management and general business tasks as your wedding business starts to grow.
Schedule and Streamline Your Tasks
In this article, I’m going to share my favorite automation tools that I use to schedule and streamline my basic day-to-day tasks.
These automation tools include Honeybook for appointment bookings and email sequences, and Pallyy, Loomly, and Tailwind for social media scheduling.
Appointments and Scheduled Meetings
Honeybook is an amazing platform to use with your wedding business. It can be used in lots of different ways. One of the ways I use Honeybook is as an appointment setting booking tool.
It allows your potential clients to book a consultation from a link in an email or a button on your website.
When they click on the link – it will go to the Honeybook booking page where you’re prospects could choose a date and a time and also answer a couple of questions and then both of you will be notified of that meeting and they can also reschedule if they need.
I use it for my clarity calls and coaching sessions.
Visitors to my website can book their consultation with a simple click.
I will be notified via email with all the details and the meeting will go on my Google Calendar.
The client will receive an email with the link to that Zoom session.
This simple process has streamlined my booking process so there is no back and forth with emails and questions such as can you do 10 am, no can you do 11 am, etc.
There are several advanced features but just for the sake of this article, I would suggest that you use the Honeybook tool to allow your potential customers to book an in-person or online meeting with you.
This provides a great opportunity to book bridal consultations automatically (even when you’re busy with other things).
Social Media Scheduling Tools
The next automation tool that I recommend you start using in your wedding business is a social media scheduling tool.
I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about the psychology of a bridal couple by now, but if you haven’t – there’s a definite reason why you need to be posting on your social media platforms every day.
However, this is not as easy as it sounds. It’s not easy to remember to post to Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest every day.
For automating and scheduling my social media – I use three different social media tools.
I use one for my clients as the management feature is brilliant and allows me to host several customer accounts on one platform. The other two, I use on a personal level to run my own business social media accounts for Wedding Business Pro.
My Recommended Scheduling Tools
My first recommended tool is Loomly. I have been using this one for several years. It has a lot of pros and cons, but it works brilliantly if you have a lot of social media platforms to manage.
I use it for my client’s daily posts on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
The second tool is new to me but one that I’m really starting to love – Pallyy. This tool is designed for social media managers, but suitable for all business types.
I use it to schedule my posts to Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google My Business, and Linkedin at one time.
The last tool that I use for my business is Tailwind.
This is an expensive tool, but the features are brilliant if you want to combine your blog with Pinterest. I use it as a tool to create multiple pins on Pinterest that sends more traffic to my website.
Email Marketing Automation
Emails play an essential role in keeping in touch with your prospects and potential customers, but it is difficult to keep this up if you get busy with other areas of your business.
As previously mentioned, there’s specific bridal psychology that you need to understand if you want to book weddings. If you let your leads fall through the loop by forgetting to follow up – you could be missing out on a lot of business.
Why I Choose Honeybook for Email Marketing
I use email automation to ensure that I keep on top of my email marketing and follow-ups. I have tried several email autoresponders for this, but my favorite is Honeybook.
Honeybook is not an actual email responding tool like Convertkit, Mailerlite, or Mailchimp, but I have found that keeping all of my leads on one platform that I can send regular emails to is a very valuable tool.
It allows me to create impressive brochures and opt-in forms that I can place on my website to grab interested clients’ details.
I can then send automated email sequences and email broadcasts to this list as and when I need to and be confident that they are receiving each email in their inbox.
Conclusion
Every wedding business will require a lot of day-to-day management, but if you’d like to simplify everything and ensure you don’t fall short – you will want to start automating as much as you can. Especially if you’re a solopreneur.
I recommend scheduling your social media posts, automating your calendar booking system, and regulating your email campaigns with the tools mentioned in this article.
If you’d like to dive deeper into your wedding business and learn how to set your wedding business up for success – I invite you to find out more about my coaching programs and wedding-specific VA services.
Until the next time,
Take care
Nats
