Ready, Set, Submit: Prepping your Wedding PR During the Busy Season

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by Meghan Ely

If there is one thing that I don’t miss about wedding planning, it would be wedding feet.

Despite my best efforts prior to the start of wedding season, you could still find me every Sunday with a set of numb feet propped up on the couch, while I bemoaned of the far less glamorous aspects to my job.

Every year, I found myself prepping more and more for the insanity that was wedding season. I completed banquet event orders further out, scoped out the latest kitten heel and confirmed as many vendor lists that I could- all in the hopes of being able to take more than just one breath between April and October.

Wedding PR is fast becoming a permanent fixture in a wedding pro’s marketing strategy and like those cute strappy sandals, it tends to be tossed to the wayside when the going gets busy. The good news? There are plenty of things you can do to prep your wedding PR strategies as you dive into the busy wedding season:

  1.  Have a clear idea of your goals- During busier times, we’re apt to just throw our wedding marketing and pr strategies against the wall to see what sticks, which is both ineffective and inefficient. Take time before things get really busy to outline your wedding pr goals- whether it be to promote yourself in other markets, or simply increase brand awareness in your own corner of the world. 
  2. Get your deadlines straight- Take some time to familiarize yourself with wedding blogs and magazines that best fit your work, as well as your goals, and research the coming editorial deadlines. Those deadlines come and go quickly, especially when you’re drowning in tulle and mason jars. 
  3. Cover your bases legally- For the most part, brides love seeing their wedding featured on a blog or in a magazine, but it’s best to take the necessary precautions for the few that don’t. Make sure the bride has signed off on use of the images in advance. The proper legal counsel should be able to advise as to the appropriate wording for one’s contract. 
  4. Collect names- A fabulous wedding normally consists of a cracker jack team of wedding professionals. Your real wedding submission should give credit to all those involved, so instead of chasing down the names after the fact, have the bride complete a list of her wedding vendors prior to the wedding day. 
  5. Get the story- A competitive real wedding submission often includes a great narrative, but you’ll soon come to find that it’s a lot more difficult to get a quick response from the bride now that she is a Mrs. When collecting the names of the wedding team, consider also sending along a few general questions about the details of the day. Not only will it provide great content for your submission, but it will also give you further insight about the Big Day.

Seeing your name “in lights” can be a tremendously rewarding moment and with the above strategies in place, your wedding PR efforts will remain intact during the busy wedding season. As for your wedding feet? Well, I can’t make any promises there.

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Meghan Ely is the owner of wedding marketing and wedding pr firm OFD Consulting. She is the exclusive wedding PR columnist to wedding marketing journal WedLock magazine and offers wedding marketing and wedding pr advice for wedding professionals on her own blog Illuminate. She loves ruffle table runners and Royal Wedding Tchotchkes.

Photo Credit Rob Garland Photographers

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Wedding PR: Making it Last

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 by Meghan Ely

6332381_Brittany_and_KevinLike many of the brides I used to work with in my previous life, I met my husband on Match.com. Unlike most brides I used to work with, I actually saw him out on a date with someone else prior to our first date. This wouldn’t have been so controversial if he hadn’t said he was at his sister’s for a BBQ (which is why he couldn’t go out that date with me.) 

So I like to hold it over his head from time to time- mainly when the trash needs taking out or for when I’m already tucked into bed under several fleece blankets but left my phone charger downstairs. 

5282037_Brittany_and_Kevin-EditI also had a pretty big wedding PR win earlier this year when Good Morning America came to my house and filmed my Royal Wedding Party. I was able to get my hands on the video shortly thereafter, and it now lives both on my blog and my site, in addition to my canned introduction for when I have a speaking engagement. Last week, I sat in on a great social media workshop and the crowd was asked for examples of when a social media strategy turned into press so I shared my story once again. Once the seminar wrapped up, I found myself among a group of wedding pros itching for the full story. 

The fact is, if something big happens, such as a wedding pr feature, you need to ask yourselves one thing – What is the best way to leverage this for my wedding company? 

So what is a wedding pro to do? Here are a few tips and tricks to get you started:

  1. Add it to your Press Page - The ultimate goal should be to drive prospects to your web site to learn more about your services, so make it a priority to add your feature to your press page. Don’t have a press page? Not a worry, just add it to your to do list once you have 3-4 strong features. 
  2. Update your Bio- Whether you have a speaker’s introduction such as myself or simply a bio on your web site, be sure to update it ASAP with a note about your recent feature. 
  3. Spread the good word with your fellow wedding pros - If you’ve come upon a great real wedding feature, be sure to share the good news with the wedding pros who helped make it happen. Not only is it a great gesture, it allows others to promote it as well. 
  4. Blog and Facebook about it - Don’t forget to add social media to the post-wedding pr to do list. If your feature was online, be sure to pull a screen shot of it and chat about it on your blog, as well as feature it on Facebook in Twitter. 

4211649_Brittany_and_Kevin-Edit

Time and time again, I remind my clients that a wedding pr feature, whether it be a guest blog or a picked up real wedding submission, only lives as long as you let it. So the question now remains- what do you plan to do about it?


Meghan_Ely_logoMeghan Ely is the owner of wedding marketing and wedding pr firm OFD Consulting. She is the exclusive wedding PR columnist to wedding marketing journal WedLock magazine and offers wedding marketing and wedding pr advice for wedding professionals on her own blog Illuminate.  She loves ruffle table runners and Royal Wedding Tchotchkes.

Photography Credit: Rob Garland Photographers

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Create a Year’s Worth of Content in Less Than 20 Minutes

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 by Debby Dowling

Writing_In_Notebook

If you’re doing any marketing online, you know the key to being successful isn’t just having a newsletter, a blog, or Facebook and Twitter accounts. While those things are all wonderful waysto promote you and your business, if you don’t have any content to add to them, they’re totally worthless.

Coming up with content is a BIG reason why many of those projects get abandoned. It literally can paralyze you to the point where you don’t do them—or any marketing—simply because you think you can’t come up with any ideas.

That’s totally not true. If you couldn’t come up with ideas, you wouldn’t be in business foryourself. I’m here to tell you that you CAN come up with all the content ideas you need for yourblog. Or Facebook, Twitter, or any other platform that you use. It’s simple. It’s easy. And best of all, you can come up with a ton of ideas in less than 20 minutes.

You just need to do this one little exercise.

Set aside 20 minutes and brainstorm every single question that people have asked about your business or your industry in general. You should be able to come up with at least 20 just off the top of your head.

If you’re having trouble, use these ideas to get you started. What types of questions do people ask about:

  • Your process and how you work;
  • Your prices;
  • What percentage of their budget they should allocate:
  • Why you do what you do;
  • What types of brides buy your services; or
  • What value does your profession bring?

These ideas alone should allow you to think of over 20 questions. And I’m sure you can come up with a bunch more!

Once you’ve exhausted that area, try to think of every single objection you’ve ever heard. That’s right. All the reasons why someone won’t hire you or thinks that your services aren’t beneficial can be wonderful ideas for creating content. Again, if you really think about it, you should have no problem coming up with at least 20 objections, if not more.

Now, you might be afraid of using objections as ideas for content. Don’t be. In fact, you need to think exactly the opposite. These are the perfect topics for content. Why? Because even if everyone isn’t giving you a specific objection, you know they’re there. So use your platform to help brides overcome objections by educating and explaining your point of view.

Keep a running list of topics and add to it when new questions or objections pop up. That wayyou’ll never run out of things to write about and easily have a whole year’s worth of ideas. Who knew coming up with content ideas would be so easy?


About Debby Dowling:

Debby_Dowling_headshot

Debby Dowling, Bridal Marketing Expert, is the owner of Effortless Bridal Marketing, which offers a wide range of “done for you” bridal marketing tools designed specifically for wedding professionals. Effortless Bridal Marketing and its flagship product, Wedding Pro Newsletter, offer the best and easiest way for wedding professionals to stay connected with current and potential brides. Debby knows that the secret to good wedding marketing is getting the message right to your brides and created her services so wedding professionals can easily and consistently market their services.

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3 Partnership Strategies to Boost Your Bridal Business

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by Alex Standiford

Networking

How working with other businesses in the bridal industry can attract more business and increase your profits.

When I go to a bridal show, I am as interested in building relationships with the other businesses as I am with brides.  This is because I understand the power of duplication. 

There are hundreds of business owners in the same industry as me, targeting the very same market, but not all of them are direct competitors.  By directly working with other companies, we open doors to all kinds of money making opportunities through the power of duplication.  

Here are just a few ways that you can work with other companies and increase profits.

1.) Refer another wedding business.

Odds are, the brides you’re speaking to have never put together a wedding, and are completely clueless about where to go for their wedding services.  You have plenty of opportunities to learn about the businesses in the area.  

Giving the bride information on businesses will help earn you credibility and trust with the bride.  If that bride was up in the air about which business she was going to use for her wedding, it will also greatly increase the odds that she will choose you.  

After mentioning a few businesses to the bride, send an email to those businesses informing them that you spoke with a bride and recommended them.  The next time they speak to a bride who is looking for a business like yours, who do you think they’re going to recommend?  

Help enough businesses by dropping their name to a bride, and you’ll be surprised at how fast the power of duplication will work in your favor. 

2.) Increasing profits through partnering.

Some businesses may offer products that can put money directly into your pocket.  A great example of that is the relationships we have at Generation-X Albums with wedding planners and other wedding businesses.  

We take photos and videos of the bride and groom and put them together as a montage played during the wedding reception.We offer this product to wedding businesses at a discounted price so they can charge the regular price and keep the difference.  We even give them marketing and tips for selling, so it’s an easy way to earn money without adding a lot of extra work.

If you can find a complementary product or service to partner with, you can both make more money.

3.) Packaging your product or service with other companies.

By creating a package with other companies and marketing it together, you can reduce the time and money invested into booking each wedding.

What if every photographer partnered up with a videographer to offer a special package when they are booked together?  Both the videographer and the photographer are marketing this package, thus duplicating the exposure to brides.  In addition, all advertising costs are split in half.  Those savings can be channeled directly into your profits or into creating a more competitive price.  

Another big advantage of working with a partner company is collaborate at the wedding better.  You know how they work, and how you can work with them, so you can work ultra-efficiently together.If you can shift from looking at other wedding businesses as competition and partner with them instead, you can pool your resources to save time, reach more brides, and make money in the process.

Alex Standiford owns Generation-X Albums, a photo video montage service that captures memories for a lifetime. Alex knows first hand the benefits of partnering with wedding businesses for mutual profit and invites you to contact him to talk about how you can work together.

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Manage Your Time and Grow Your Business with Outsourcing

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by Debby Dowling of Wedding Pro Newsletter

Sales_Outsourcing

Outsourcing can be a scary word for small business owners. It can conjure up images of losing control or paying big expensive bills that you can’t afford.

Get over it!

Outsourcing doesn’t have to mean you’re out of touch with those functions or that you’re totally inept at certain skills. It just means that you’re smart enough to realize that you don’t have enough time in the day to be all things to all people. You stick to what you’re an expert in and outsource everything else. That might mean contracting with someone for accounting, marketing, customer relations, or the day to day administration.

If you’re worried about losing control, you need to realize that just because you outsource certain functions doesn’t mean you can’t stay on top of things. In reality, the opposite is normally true. With outsourcing, there are contracts, reports, and personal contacts that can keep you informed of performance. For many, this is more effective and efficient. Outsourcing can actually give you the tools to manage productivity.

You also need to realize that if you want your company to grow, you have to be willing to let go of more and more functions. If you try to hold on, you’re only going to limit yourself and your income. You can run the risk of turning down opportunities or limiting the amount of brides you can work with because you don’t have the time or capacity to handle it all.

But before you figure out what you should outsource, you need to figure out how much you’re worth. This is probably the most important question a small business owner has to answer – how much is he/she worth? And it’s one you’ve got to know. Because if you don’t, how can you expect anyone else to?

So figure out how much you want to earn this year. Now, figure out how many hours that you’ll work this year and divide that by three. Yes, three. Because you have to factor in that you’ll only really be productive and earning money 1/3 of the time. Then divide your desired earning by the number of productive hours and voila! That’s how much your time is worth.

Let’s say you want to earn $50,000 this year and work 30 hours a week. Your formula would look like:

  • (30 hours a week x 50 weeks) = 1500 hours total hours worked
  • 1500 total hours worked/3 = 500 total billable hours
  • $50,000 goal income/500 billable hours = $100/hour

Now that you know what you’re time is worth, think about what you do, that you do well and can earn you that $100 an hour. Then get rid of everything else.

Seriously, look at all the things that you do. Make a list of them if you need. You should only keep the ones that you love, do exceptionally well and earn you money. Get rid of the rest. Seriously. Stop entering names into a database when you could hire someone for $10 an hour to do it for you. Same thing with website updates, paying invoices, or any number of things that you do that take up loads of your time, but don’t really contribute to your bottom line. The more things you can take off your plate, the more time you have to focus on doing what you love. And the more money you can earn.

In a nutshell, by trying to do everything yourself, you’re just reinventing the wheel, distracting your attention from what you’re really good at, and limiting your business growth and personal income.

About Debby Dowling

Debby_Headshot


Debby Dowling is the creator of Wedding Pro Newsletter, an automatic biweekly newsletter service for wedding planners that simplifies your marketing in less than 15 minutes a month so you reach more brides and earn more money even if you don’t know a thing about marketing. Sign up for her newsletter download her free report, “Nine Ways to Improve Your Marketing…and Make More Money in 2011” at: www.WeddingProNewsletter.com. You can follow Debby on Twitter @debbydowling.

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5 Tips For Maximizing Your Wedding PR Online

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by Meghan Ely Running_Bride

I’ll admit it- sometimes I grow weary of my beloved lap top. 

There are days that I simply don’t feel like logging into it, keeping up with it and balancing it with the rest of my day to day To Dos. Some 2004 style when a Facebook Profile was simply you’re who, what, when and where.  I was practically president of the “Too Old for Facebook” Group for which I belonged.

Life, as we know it, was far simpler.

What keeps me coming back you may ask? The endless wedding public relations opportunities to be had- from Twitter and Facebook to bona fide web sites that ask you to be an expert (thank you Al Gore!).

Below, you’ll find just a few online tips and tricks to get you started:

1. Embrace Twitter Lists

Twitter itself can be rough waters to navigate, especially if you can’t seem to get away from the fellow wedding professionals who have enough time in their back pocket to share everything from their lunch plans to their afternoon coffee flavor of choice. But the fact is, Twitter is teeming with wedding journalists- from regional and boutique bloggers to editors of national publications.  Take the time to identify and follow the media outlets you’d like to align yourself with and place them on their own Twitter List.  That way, the next time you log in, you can avoid the convos being had about the latest Bachelor and skip to the good stuff.

2. Be a HARO guru

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is one of easiest barriers of entry into the public relations world yet it’s still often an overlooked Wedding PR strategy by professionals.  A free service, HARO sends you emails three times a day on weekdays, with various requests by journalists for—wait for it—your expertise. It’s positively brilliant.

3. Two Bright Lights

If you haven’t had the chance to join online wedding marketing and pr tool Two Bright Lights, then I encourage you to do so. In fact, go ahead and stop reading this right now and join. We’ll be waiting. You can thank me later.

4. Toot Toot

If you’ve got great news to share, then by all means, tell us on Facebook and Twitter. Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn just because you didn’t land the cover of Time Magazine. There is a fine balance however, as your Facebook Page need not be a portal for every single success- otherwise you’re apt to lose fans, and quickly.

5. Submit Press Releases

Want to find a quick and fairly painless way to boost your rankings on Google?  The next time you prepare a press release, be sure to submit them to online newswires. There are a number of free and paid options available to you- such as PRNewswire.com, Marketwire.com and PRWeb.com.

Wedding Public Relations, ultimately, does not have to be as intimidating as it sounds. Simply take a cue from the list above and before you know it- you too will be front page news.

 

 Meghan_Ely_logo

Meghan Ely is the owner of OFD Consulting, a niche wedding marketing and public relations firm that caters to the wedding industry. She is a regular contributor to wedding marketing journal WedLock Magazine, Top Wedding Sites and Virginia Bride Magazine. Ely is a frequent speaker on wedding marketing and pr and will be sharing her insight on March 30 at Illuminate: the Workshop in Virginia.

 Bride Photo Credit

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How Do I Know If My Wedding Advertising Is Working?

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by Claire Gould 

A dozen pink English roses reflected

The secret to successful wedding advertising

It’s important to work to clear objectives when advertising your wedding business. It can be very easy to place an ad in your favourite local wedding magazine and simply hope it will bring some orders in. That’s what I did when I started out – but it didn’t work too well for me.

Now I generate all the sales I need through my websites, and in quiet times I advertise online via a select few advertising channels (like Wedding Chaos) which actually work for my business.

Your wedding advertising objectives should be realistic, measurable, and flexible. It’s important to have a methodical approach to advertising. Plan carefully, monitor your advert’s performance and evaluate its success rate on a regular basis. Be prepared to make changes to your ads and you’ll know for sure what works for you, and that you’re not wasting your advertising budget on poorly performing ads.

Where to begin

While you read this article, think about your existing wedding adverts or any ads you’re considering. The process of setting objectives is easy to work with and will pay for itself.

Start with the basics: what are you advertising for?

Ultimately it should be to generate a profit from your wedding business. Your advert is a tool to help you achieve this.

Any wedding business advertising has to fit within your means. A small jewelry business will have a small advertising budget – that’s fine! In the case of my calligraphy business I know if I spend too much on advertising I’ll be turning orders away because there’s only one me, with one right arm and the ability to use one pen at a time. Setting objectives is important no matter how large or small your wedding business.

Objectives for internet advertising

The only place I advertise right now is online. It’s what I’m good at, it’s what I know and understand and most importantly it’s what I’ve tested and proved. I ran a series of ads over the summer on Wedding Chaos, testing an ad for a new product on a targeted page.  (See the surprising results of my Wedding Chaos advertising experiment here.)

I planned and tested different advertising placements, creative and formats on the same page and measured these against objectives – it was a great exercise and taught me what really works for my business – and now I’ve set real long term objectives for my advertising strategy which allow me to rein in my spend and still get the conversions I need.

Advertising a wedding business online has its own set of unique challenges. To effectively advertise online you need to advertise on a page with very relevant content.

I advertised a calligraphy product on a web page focusing on Wedding readings and poems – highly targeted and relevant to my business. Website owners design their pages to attract a certain visitor, usually through the use of keywords. Their copy is designed to inform, persuade, educate or discuss a topic.

Wedding Chaos bridal advertising results

Wedding Chaos is a favourite advertising site for me as it allows you to choose the exact page and position for your ad, from information pages on all kinds of wedding related topics.

Finding an appropriate page for your ad is crucial. Then it’s down to numbers: I work to a click through rate of anything from 1% to 0.2% (so if a page gets 1,000 daily visits an ad should get between 10 and 2 clicks).

Measurable wedding advertising objectives

It’s nice to know your advert is doing “quite well”, or that you’ve had a couple of enquiries or an order. But it’s better to know exactly how many visits you’re getting per $ spent on your ad.

Think backwards: how many orders do you need to generate? This works for small businesses who process one order at once, such as a custom jeweller or florist. Does your advert need to generate 10 bookings to fill your diary for a month? Or if you’re selling a product, perhaps you need 1,000 sales to generate your $5,000 dollar profit target?

Taking the former example you can do a quick calculation: 30 enquiries might generate those 10 orders. To get 30 enquiries from your ad you’ll need 300 clicks. At a CTR of 1% your ad will need to be seen 30,000 times. Make sure the page you’re advertising on gets that many views in the right time period for you.

Measuring your wedding advertising performance

Never place an advert and simply leave it. You might as well make a tiara and jump on it. The internet is a vast advertising space with thousands of options for advertising, so do choose carefully and measure performance. Don’t expect to get it right first time either!

How to measure your wedding ad’s success

Measure regularly and in accordance with the size of your ad and objectives. This could be weekly for a small business or hourly for a large organization. If you’re spending $$$ on an ad, measure harder! Don’t take your eyes off that ad until you know it works!

Measure everything you’ve set out in your objectives: clicks, page views, enquiries and conversions. If one goes wrong it can create a domino effect and your whole ad will fail. (If you’re getting 100s of clicks and no enquiries, review your landing page for example.)

Measure your wedding ads across a period of time. For many of us our business is seasonal, so an ad will work less well in winter than in summer. But it may be the case that your ad performs best at weekends, or on rainy days in your state! With AdWords you can even turn off an ad for a day or two if you need that flexibility.

Review your wedding advertising

Whether your advertising strategy has overperformed or not met its objectives, reviewing performance is an essential step.

Just because your wedding advert didn’t generate the sales you needed first time round, it doesn’t mean you should give up. Look carefully at what worked and what didn’t. Adjust placements, creative or landing pages and try again. Compare one ad with another and you’ll get a picture of what works best for your wedding business.

Advertising on Wedding Chaos: further information

If you’re interested in testing your own ad on Wedding Chaos I’d definitely recommend giving it a go. It’s good value for money, the website is so well targeted and gets very high traffic – and you can sign up for a month for starters then see how it goes!

You can also check up on your advert’s performance at any time: the dashboard shows the number of clicks, and cost per click, over the previous 30 days (which is key to making those choices about what is and is not working). Then if you need to, you can change or remove the advert at any time. Credits are only deducted each day the advert is active.

Good luck!

Claire Gould

Claire Gould is editor of English Wedding, the UK wedding blogs for brides and industry professionals. As an ex Marketeer and owner of several wedding websites as well as a full
 time calligraphy business, she knows how the wedding industry works and is happy to share industry secrets with the world!  Rose photo credit.

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