My advice for any wedding business owner who is asking what a good marketing budget for your wedding business is this:
Spend as little as possible but in the right places!
But that’s just my opinion.
I’m sure if you search the internet for this question, there will be all kinds of opinions floating around and that’s because it will always come down to your personal choice.
No two wedding companies are the same.
Some will have lots of money floating around to spend on all kinds of things like marketing their wedding business, but others will need every penny earned from their bookings to go towards their bills.
I’m not your average wedding business marketer. I was a newly divorced single mother when I first started my wedding business so I had to learn how to market my wedding planning business with very little money.
Every cent I earned had to go towards my bills just to get by. However, I think that in the end, this approach paid off big time as I was a lot more successful than a lot of my industry friends that had a bigger budget to spend on marketing.
How to Allocate Money for Your Wedding Business Marketing Budget?
For those with limited budgets, I recommend allocating 10% of your monthly income to your marketing budget for your wedding business.
If you have a bigger budget available for marketing, I recommend allocating 10% of your monthly income to the marketing budget.
You may be wondering why I suggest only 10% of your budget should be spent on marketing your wedding business. My reason is simple.
- 10% of $1000 is $100
- 10% of $5000 is $500
- 10% of $10000 is $1000
The more you earn, the more money you will have to spend on marketing, however, in my opinion:
There are so many free or affordable ways to market your wedding business. If you learn these strategies, you’ll only ever need to spend a small portion of money on marketing.
Your Wedding Marketing Budget in Year One
When you have limited money for your marketing budget, especially if you’re just starting out, it can be really difficult to get leads and bookings for your wedding business. I recommend spending your marketing budget on an affordable wedding business marketing course.
Learning how to market your wedding business is the best thing you can do as a newbie wedding entrepreneur.
There are several online courses that you can sign up for, including this one from The Wedding Academy.
You can also check out the courses on Udemy or Skillshare.
I have a wedding business course coming out soon called The Wedding Business 24 Course. It’s a wedding business marketing course that you can complete in 24 days. Find out more about The Wedding Business 24 Course.
Wedding Marketing Budgets for Mature Wedding Companies
If your wedding company is in the mature stage of business. You may feel inclined to spend more money on marketing your wedding business.
That is perfectly fine if you know what you are doing. But if you’re just spending the money for the sake of feeling or looking busy. I suggest you take a step back and get some external advice first.
It is much wiser to spend your money on a couple of sessions with a wedding business coach or wedding business marketing specialist rather than just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks.
For instance, have you tried marketing your wedding business with Facebook ads but failed to see any return on your investment?
Have you spent money on marketing your wedding company at a wedding expo, but again, failed to see any return from your hefty investment?
Mature wedding companies that want to get to the next level in their wedding industry journey still need to market their wedding business as intentionally and aggressively as a startup company.
You can’t spend money marketing your wedding company on Facebook if you’re website is outdated. Just like, you’d be wasting your money and time at a wedding expo if you’re pricing didn’t align with your branding.
My advice: Don’t spend more than 10% on marketing your wedding business until you have all 12 steps of the wedding business marketing plan in place because you’ll be wasting your time and money!
How to Promote Your Wedding Business For Free
There are several ways to promote your wedding business for free. To start with, you could promote your wedding business on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Google Maps, Linkedin, Bing, Yahoo, and Google.
You could also start adding free blog posts to your website that get shown to your target audience when they do a Google search. You can also share your blog articles on your social media channels for free.
Another great way to promote your wedding business for free is by collaborating with other wedding vendors and venues in your area. This is a great way of building up a network with your local wedding industry and creating new connections.
Some online wedding directories feature wedding companies for free. The listing is usually a simple one, but it’s a great way to promote your wedding company without spending any money.
10 Ways to Reduce Your Wedding Business Marketing Costs
If you’re spending too much money on marketing your wedding business. I recommend stopping everything that you are currently doing to market your wedding company and starting all over again with a strategic marketing plan.
This way, you can eliminate any costly marketing expenses that don’t offer any added benefit or value to your wedding business and start spending your marketing budget in the right places.
Conclusion
So how much money will you allocate to your marketing budget for your wedding business and how much will you be spending on marketing your wedding business in the future?
Your wedding business marketing budget will always be unique and tailored to your business needs so don’t ever worry about what others in the industry are doing.
Just keep to your own wedding marketing roadmap and spend your wedding business budget on the right marketing strategies.
Until the next time,
