A wedding business needs to follow a strategic marketing plan which includes social media marketing, SEO, email marketing, and paid ads to name a few.
Your Wedding Business Marketing Plan should include:
- Your Social Media Plan
- Your Website Plan
- Your Blogging Plan
- Your Google Ranking Plan (SEO)
- Your Email Marketing Plan
- Your Online Presence Plan
- Your WOM/Networking Plan
- Your Advertising Plan
- Your Face2Face Meetings/Events Plan
- Your Branding Plan
I know marketing can feel like a huge EXPENSIVE hole, especially if you don’t know the correct path to take, but, that is why it is crucial that you take the time to plan out a strategic marketing plan.
Your Social Media Strategy
Your Social Media Strategy needs to be realistic and on point, you don’t want to copy the same strategy that another business follows, for example, a plumber, or a dentist.
These business types get repeat customers, they can continuously market their business to their followers and be top of mind when any of their audience needs that particular service because it’s an ongoing service/requirement.
Your wedding business is different, you only have a small window of opportunity to attract, engage, and build a relationship with bridal couples because in most scenarios, once they are married, they no longer need what you are offering.
In my opinion, every wedding business should be optimizing its social media platforms for maximum exposure as consistently and efficiently as possible.
The best way to do this (without burning out) is by setting up a daily scheduling tool, that automatically posts your content for that day to multiple platforms.
Daily posts will subtly attract brides and bridal couples to your business so that when they are open and ready to look for the services that you offer, they will ‘remember’ you.
I personally recommend you concentrate on 3 platforms, including Facebook, Instagram & Pinterest.
There are other platforms to consider but for bridal attraction, these are definitely the best of the best.
Your Website Strategy
Some may say that your wedding business website is not a strategy – I don’t agree with them. Your website is the BEST strategy that you should concentrate on.
Let me explain what I mean – Your website is yours – it’s your brochure – it’s your story – it’s your voice – it’s your best opportunity and it’s your most essential wedding business marketing tool.
Your website is a tool that not only shows off your skills, products, and services but can also show off your results.
If you plan out your website strategy properly, your website will consistently bring in quality bridal leads.
This strategy is explored in-depth in the 12 Steps Program – take a look here for more info.
Your Blogging Strategy
I am using a blogging strategy right now with this very website. I know that if I just create the standard website without any ‘juice’ then I’m wasting a lot of time.
Your Blog is what gives your website the content it needs to ‘bloom’ on Google and other search engines. It also helps you to show off your expertise and knowledge to those searching for answers and solutions.
A blog needs to have a strategy, you need to post at least 30 articles on your site if you want Google to really take notice of you, but these articles need to vary in size (word count).
The first 10 blog posts need to be between 500 – 800 words, your next 10 posts need to have a word count of around 1500 and the final 10 should be around 3000.
There is a reason for this and I recommend following the guys at Income School if you want to really get into your blogging. I also dive deep into this topic in the Wedding Business Blogging Masterclass
Your Google Ranking Strategy
Do you know how many website designers set up websites for businesses but then don’t ever submit their site to be indexed?
To put that in simple terms, that means – your website is out there but nobody knows it’s there unless you send them the direct URL.
Your Google Ranking Strategy is essential for your wedding business marketing strategy and you need to focus a lot of effort on this topic.
A great website that is fully optimized together with a great blog which again is fully optimized plus a few extra steps and your wedding business will be ranking at the top of Google.
Those extra steps include making sure your website page speed is high, that you have quality and credible backlinks to your site, that you have Google Analytics set up, that you have compressed and optimized all of the images on your site and that you have submitted your site for indexing.
Your Email Marketing Strategy
Another BIG topic! This one is definitely considered to be the hardest to get right, especially if you’re the type that ‘feels’ the pain of rejection.
But if you can begin the understand that your email list is your greatest asset, then you will start to nurture and take the time necessary to use this strategy right.
You need to start with a series of steps that helps you to collect leads (name and email address).
From there, you will use an automated email sequence that you can set up on email platforms like Mailchimp, Mailer-lite, Convertkit, etc that automatically sends out an email once the prospect has entered their contact details.
If you get this right, you will notice a huge surge in the number of appointments/meetings/weddings booked.
Another quick point I would like to bring up here quickly is with regards to your email follow-ups… How many of you don’t follow up with a second or third or even fourth email?
How many of you give up if you don’t get a reply to your first email? How many of you feel rejected if you don’t receive a reply?
I want to quickly remind you – that is a very silly thing to do!
Brides and bridal couples have lives to live, they have jobs, problems, and arguments, they may travel a lot, they may be waiting to find the time to discuss their wedding together, or in most cases, they may be waiting for money to come in.
Whatever stage of the process they are at, you should never give up until you hear or see the words no in some shape or form.
This is especially true if you offer a service or product that is at the end of the list. Eg. Videography, wedding favors, etc – In this case, you really need to be patient and wait for them to be ready because right now, they are probably busy trying to find their venue, photographer, or DJ.
Your Online Presence Strategy
You’re probably wondering what I mean by ‘Online Presence Strategy’ so let me explain this one simply for you.
Your wedding business needs to be seen, it needs to be recognized, it needs to be known, it needs to be trusted and it needs to be valued.
The easiest way for you to do that is by spreading your business branding out across as many platforms as you can.
But, there’s a secret to getting this right…
You need to be selective, you need to do your research and you need to spend your marketing budget in the right places.
If you get this right, brides and bridal couples will already know who you are before they even know they need your services and they will definitely value and trust your business which means you won’t need to ‘sell’ your products or services to them.
Your Wedding Business Marketing Plan
I could go on and on to explain all of the steps that you should be following with your marketing plan, but I’ll leave the rest for another blog post…because the six steps that I have laid out above are absolutely crucial and should be worked on first.
Why don’t you get started today!
Start with your Social Media Strategy!
Good luck with setting up your own marketing plan and strategy. If you need any help – feel free to get in touch or schedule a quick 15-minute discovery call to learn more about my intensive and 6-week marketing strategy sessions.
Until the next time,
