The Real Cost of Vampire Brides

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by Jeff Hellenbrand

Vampire

“I worked with a bride who seriously pushed me to the limit. She haggled me down to the bone before she even signed the contract. She was needy, demanding and even unreasonable. I bent over backwards for her, even though I got the chills every time her number popped up on caller ID. At her wedding, we delivered a flawless service. Unbelievably, she found a way to be disappointed. She even had the gall to ask for money back!” I hear stories like this all of the time. It’s the woeful tale of the vampire bride.

Vampire brides suck. They zap our energy, steal our time and do their best to make sure we don’t make a dime. They aren’t (usually) evil, but they can make our lives miserable. Why do we put up with bad clients? I think it’s because we feel like we have to and, unfortunately, most of us don’t realize just how much vampire brides really cost.

You don’t have to work with vampire brides.

The customer is most certainly NOT always right. Being right is overrated anyway. Most wedding vendors want to be liked (we’re people pleasers) and they want to give couples really great service. It’s good for business. But some brides simply can’t be pleased. The sooner you recognize them and ditch them, the sooner you can get back to taking better care of your favorite clients.

The REAL cost of vampire brides

Too many wedding pros think they have to put up with vampire brides because they need the money or they’re worried about getting a bad review. The reality is that a vampire bride will take up way more of your time, completely drain your energy and even make you hate your job (at least a little). As if that weren’t bad enough, she’ll often find a way to screw you out of your hard-earned money, too. Even a refund won’t stop her from writing a nasty, untrue Yelp review. Not exactly “worth it,” huh?

There is a better way.

Brides who are needy, stressful and draining don’t have to stay that way (or stay your client, for that matter). Take responsibility for your part in things, be honest, respectful and compassionate (after all, it’s her first time planning a wedding and she’s stressed out) and tell her the truth. One of my clients, a florist, simply explained to a needy bride how she was asking for too much. The bride had no idea she had crossed the line- she apologized and begged to keep working together. She turned into one of my client’s favorite brides overnight.

I see it all the time. When you stand up for yourself, without being a dick about it, you can command the respect you deserve. If you’ve got a vampire bride on your hands, set some boundaries, do your best to convert her into an awesome client and if all else fails drop her like a bad habit. You don’t have the time, energy or money to waste on the wrong clients. The next time you have an almost-impossible-to-please bride about to sign on the dotted line, I hope you consider the full cost before you seal the deal.

The icing on the cake

When I started getting “picky” about who I chose to work with, I immediately started booking more of my favorite brides. They could tell I was being genuine and that it was truly a good fit. They knew that I wasn’t the type to cozy up to just anyone who walked through the door.

jeff-hellenbrand
Jeff Hellenbrand is the founder of Cake Coaching. He’s obsessed with helping over-generous entrepreneurs explode their wedding businesses by sticking up for themselves, being more authentic and having way more fun. Register for his free, two-part teleclass, “Stop Struggling & Start Killing It, at cakecoaching.com/killit.

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7 BS Facts About Brides Everyone Thinks Are True

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I’ve been in the wedding business a while…over 12 years, in fact…and in the process I’ve crossed paths with more than a few brides.  There are a few misconceptions about them that I simply must expose.  *deep breath*  

WARNING:  Prepare yourself for a healthy dose of sarcasm.  All those lacking a sense of humor, turn back now.

1.  Brides don’t know anything about planning a wedding.

Of course, they do!  They know what their Knottie friends have told them.  They know what the media says about wedding rip offs.  They know exactly what to expect from watching wedding reality TV.

Shame on you for thinking they don’t know anything!  For shame.

2.  Every bride wants to be a princess in a fairytale on her wedding day.

Speaking as a tomboy who absolutely refused to wear a dress until the age of 10, and who only grew her hair long because she got tired of the question, “Are you a boy or a girl?” I can assure you that all brides do NOT want to be a princess.

In fact, I bet if we took a survey at least 75% of brides get nauseous at the thought of a Cinderella ball gown and a tiara.  You might remember that the next time you want to sprinkle fairy dust all over her day.

3.  The bride has been imagining her wedding since she was a little girl.

Maybe I’m handing in all my chick cards here, but that was definitely NOT the case for me.  Sure, I played house and restaurant and doctor (woah! don’t go there) like other little girls, but playing at my dream wedding was never part of the picture.

When little girls grow up and get engaged, they are just as likely to be shell shocked at the mere thought of having to plan a wedding as they are to be sticker shocked by the price tag attached to their fantasy.

4.  All brides are female.

This is definitely not true.  The groom can also be, “the bride,” and this isn’t exclusive to same sex weddings, either.

You know who I’m talking about.  He emails you 15 times a day about the most minute details of the wedding, shows up with his own wedding planning binder, and on the wedding day, he wears makeup.

Be sensitive to the fact that the bride you’re working with might not be who you think.

5.  Brides are obsessed with all the little details and hundreds of choices involved in planning the wedding.

While it may be true that many brides adore the browsing, shopping and dreaming that comes with planning a wedding, they are just as overwhelmed and stalled by CHOICE as the rest of us humans.  When it’s too difficult to decide, they opt not to decide.

How many brides have exclaimed to me six months before the wedding, “Why can’t I just show up?”

Brides love the idea of choice, but give them too many pretty things to choose between, and they will choose nothing.

6.  Brides want their wedding to be unique and different.

Ask a bride what her dream wedding will be like and 9 times out of 10 she’ll say, “Simple, elegant and unique.  Something that’s really US.”

And yet…well, you’ve been to a wedding or two.  They wear a white dress (strapless, no doubt!), walk down an aisle, share a first dance to a (corny, predictable) love song and dab cute dollops of icing on the groom’s nose.  When they want to do something “different” they imitate last year’s trend-setting weddings on Style Me Pretty.

Yep, they’re original, all right.

Every bride wants to FEEL unique and special on her wedding day, but her choices are more likely to follow the herd.

7.  All brides care about is price.

The first thing she asks, whether in an email or on the phone, “How much do you cost?”

Ah, ha!  With so many more important factors to consider, that’s what she asks.  Therefore all she must care about is price.

Not so, weedhopper.  Not so.

In surveys conducted by the Wedding Report, when asked if price was the deciding factor when hiring a wedding vendor, 80% of brides said NO.

Shock and dismay!  If price isn’t the most important, what is?

She wants to make sure she’s getting quality first.  Then price becomes a factor.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about brides?

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Why You Need To Connect With Brides via Social Media

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Handshake_GreetingMarketing has come a long ways since the advent of social media. Whereas in the past there was an invisible glass wall separating clientele from businesses, today there is major ongoing interaction directly between clients and business management.

The wedding industry has amazingly taken much longer to tap into the change which has lead to major frustration with brides. Of all businesses the wedding industry is quite literally based on a personal connection between the bride and the vendors she chooses. Thankfully in the last couple of years there has been a slow adjustment by wedding businesses to adopt the new social media marketing strategies that allow that connection.

To put things in perspective on the importance of using social media for your business to connect with potential brides Rohit Bhargava points out on his blog Influential Marketing Blog  that 50% of all Facebook users click the like button on a business page each month. People want to connect with businesses and hear from them online so don’t miss the opportunity to use this to effectively market to interested brides.

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How Do I Get Brides to Open My Email?

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MailBefore you start blasting out emails to brides…how are you going to get them opened?

You can send as many emails as you want, but if she doesn’t open them, if she deletes them, or if they end up in her spam folder they are simply a waste of time.

To figure out what might get a bride to open your email, log in to your email inbox for a moment.  How do you decide what to open and what to delete?

Chances are you look one of these three things:

  1. The Email Subject
  2. The From Address
  3. The Content Preview

The Email Subject

If the email subject line is “Buy my stuff!” “New Viagra works even better,” or “Sir: You have inherited money from Nigeria,” DELETE.On the other hand, if that subject line is interesting to you, you’ll open it.  Or at least save it for later.  And the more interesting it is the more likely you are to open it.

The most interesting email subjects have one or more of these things in common:  

  • Attracts Attention – You notice them right away because it stands out in your inbox.
  • Self-interest – It’s a topic you’re interested in or that promises a solution or benefit you want.  Or it’s literally about you or your business.
  • Curiosity – It’s mysterious or intriguing in some way.
  • Benefit Driven – The email subject promises a result you want.

The best email subjects are like headlines of an ad or magazine.  If you want some great ideas, check out the article titles on the cover of Cosmo or Reader’s Digest.

Bride Booking Email Subjects

So what’s interesting to brides?  A little imagination and you can start coming up with ideas.  But here are two proven things you can put into your email subject line that are guaranteed to get her attention.

  1. Her Name.  They say our name is our favorite word.  If you put her name in your subject line, she’ll almost always open it.
  2. Her Wedding Date.  Just about the only phrase a bride loves right now more than her name…even more than her fiance’s name…is her wedding date.  She won’t be able to resist clicking your email open if your subject line includes her special date.

Our friend Neal Howard from Atlanta’s Best DJ likes to use this gem of a subject line that includes both her name and wedding date: “Jennifer, What will October 18th, 2011 be like?”

Here’s the subject of an email I got a few weeks ago that made me laugh, aroused my curiosity and made me open the email.  “Steph, I think we were separated at birth!”

WARNING:  Be cautious if you use discount offers or coupons in your subject line.  They often work well, but you may be attracting low budget clients and setting up an expectation of low value.  Proceed with caution.

The From Address

When you scan your email inbox, you probably check out the name or email address of the person who sent each email to you.  If you recognize them, you’ll probably open it.  

But what’s if the email is from ACME, Inc?  DELETE.  

Email addresses that use a real person’s name instead of a business are much more likely to be opened.

Send an email from jane@yourweddingbusiness.com rather than info@yourweddingbusiness.com.  It’s much more personal and inviting, and much more likely to get opened.

Whatever email client you use to send your emails, whether it’s Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo, configure your email so that it uses your first name.  Most of these email clients let you choose whatever you like, so make sure the email from name they see is your personal name rather than just your business.

The Email Preview

Many email clients allow you to read the first sentence of an email before you open it.  Gmail shows much of the first sentence, so make sure your opening is as enticing as your email subject.

To do this, use the bride’s name again and write to her like you are a friend.  DON’T congratulate her on the wedding and mention that you met her at a bridal show.  It only makes her anticipate a sales pitch…especially a week after she attended a show when her inbox is crammed with identical emails.

You might write something so that her email preview looks like this:

“Sarah, When I planned my wedding, my mother gave me one piece of advice I’ll never forget…”

Get her attention and arouse her curiosity with that first sentence so that she wants to read further.  

These are some great strategies for getting those emails opened.  Use your imagination and test out different ideas to see what gets the best response.  You’ll come up with some of your best strategies this way.

How do you get a bride to open your email?

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What Should I Do With That Bridal Show Lead List?

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You’ve got that bridal show lead list in your hot little hands, but before you start blasting out emails, take a gander at the CAN-SPAM Act. These guidelines dictate what you can and cannot do with email addresses if you are using them for commercial purposes….which you are.

Mailing

What You Can’t Do and Must Do with the Bridal Show Email List

  • YOU CAN’T Use a deceptive subject for your email. If your purpose is commercial, you have to make it clear.
  • YOU CAN’T Use a fake name or business in your “from” address.
  • YOU MUST Identify your message as an ad and include your mailing address.
  • YOU MUST Make clear how the recipient can opt-out of receiving emails from you and remove them from your email list promptly when requested.

Unless the brides have specifically requested email information from you, it’s very likely that you will be reported as spam. If this happens, you can be fined $16,000 per violation. More likely than that, if your email receives even a few spam complaints, your IP address can be blacklisted, which means your emails will end up in brides’ spam folders permanently.

My recommendation: don’t email brides unless they give you their email address separately at your booth. Don’t subscribe them to a list unless they agree to be signed up.

I know, I know, you pay for those leads! But if it’s unsolicited and it ticks the bride off, is that really going to get you more business?

What to Do With Those Leads Instead

1) Send a direct mail piece.

A postcard can be a powerful marketing tool if you design it correctly. Include an attention-grabbing headline, an image that reminds them of your bridal show booth, and make sure you include a “call to action” giving them a reason to contact you.

An example of that call to action: “Call today for your FREE [insert cool service here]!” or “Visit our website to get your FREE copy of [insert cool free report]!”

Want the bride to actually read your mailer? According to Tom Quiner of Breakthrough Marketing, the most effective direct mail piece is a hand-written envelope containing a letter, a brochure and a reply card.The same principles apply: use an attention-grabbing headline, a compelling benefit-driven offer and a call to action. Don’t just sell yourself; provide valuable free information that makes them want to get more, and tell them exactly what to do to get it.

2) Send your very best leads a “lumpy mailer.”

Christine Boulton of Think Like a Bride recommends that you cherry pick your lead list down to the very best locations and affluent zip codes, and send those premium leads a more expensive direct mail piece in a real “lumpy” envelope they’re guaranteed to open. 

Very few of your competitors will be sending a direct mail piece, let alone one that stands out. Check out this blog post for 30 brilliant direct mail pieces.

3) Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up

Don’t just rely on one meeting at the show to book the wedding. It typically takes 3-7 exposures before the customer is ready to buy.

In your direct mail pieces, encourage the bride to opt-in to your email list. Get her to happily give you her email address and permission to follow up by offering a compelling “Bride Bribe” in the form of a free report with information she really wants.

Follow up by email (without violating anti-spam laws) and different forms of direct mail.

I’m not a huge fan of “cold calling” because it’s usually unwelcome, ineffective because few brides even answer the phone anymore, and downright unpleasant to do.

The best follow up is personalized with the couple’s name, date and location, but 90% pre-done so that it requires little of your time and energy. Email and direct mail services like Aweber  and Sendpepper (which offers direct mail services, too) make this personalization easy.

What’s the most effective method you’ve found for bridal show follow up?

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How Effective Are QR Codes?

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QR_CodesIf you haven’t heard about QR codes, you have probably seen them around. They are gaining popularity, and are no longer being used just to track vehicle parts. So what are these codes for? They are used to store information such as a url, contact information, hidden text, or basically any type of encoded information that you don’t want everyone to see without being serious about following through on their interest.

At this point however their effectiveness is limited to about a quarter of the population in the USA as they are only usable by people who have QR code readers, which tends to only be people with SmartPhones. That said, according to John Paul Titlow’s article, those who have access to the technology often use it. They are gaining popularity and are showing up everywhere, so if you want to reach tech savvy brides you may just want to think about using one on your website or on a mailing as a marketing strategy tied to a promotion or contest.

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Tips to Avoid “Bridal Bailout”

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hourglass

Brides often “bailout” of reading a website within 5 seconds if it doesn’t grab her attention in that amount of time. It’s not hard to make sure you are grabbing her attention as long as you are using the top tips to website home page design.

According to Chris Jaeger’s great blog “Marketing to Brides Online” you need to make sure you site can load in under 5 seconds. This means keeping it simple. Don’t overload your home page with pictures. Not only will it slow down the site, but it will also make it hard to read the page. While you’re at it, make sure that the main points are highlighted with bullets or bold print. Grab your potential brides attention with a simple and clean wedding business website and she will actually pay attention and remember your site.

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Top Wedding Vendor Questions

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These are the most Frequently Asked Questions of wedding vendors and blog posts that offer tips and strategies to answer them.

We’ll be adding to this list as we go, so if you have a question you’d like us to answer, please leave a comment and we’ll get to it as soon as we can. Thanks!

  1. How Do I Deal with Price Shoppers?


  2. How Do I Educate Customers About My Value?


  3. How Can I Convince Brides About My Value Immediately?


  4. How Do I Get More Leads for my Wedding Business?


  5. What is the Best Way to Beat the Competition?


  6. How Do I Find Time To Do Everything For My Wedding Business?


  7. How Do I Get Everything Done for My Wedding Business?


  8. How Can I Get Leads When I’m New to the Wedding Business?


  9. What Should I Do With That Bridal Show Lead List?


  10. How Do I Get Brides To Open My Email?


  11. What is the Best Way to Get My Name Out at a Reasonable Cost?


  12. How Much Should I Charge?


  13. How Can I Attract High End Brides?


  14. What Should I Name My Wedding Business?

 

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Why You Want a Facebook Presence

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Modern_Bride

A lot of businesses are still wondering why on earth they would want to have a profile or fan page on Facebook. In fact a huge number DON’T have any type of Facebook presence at all. So why would a wedding business want to have a fan page on Facebook? What is the draw that makes it worth your time?

Well, let’s look at some statistics from a research video put together by Alex Trimpe. 1 in 13 people on the planet are on Facebook, and 71.2% of them are based in the United States. That means that at least 1/10 of your bride leads are on Facebook, and probably quite a few more. Also 48% of 18-34 year olds check Facebook right when they wake up. That means brides who are on Facebook probably are checking their news feed first thing in the morning.

How does this impact you? Well basically it means that if you have a Facebook fan page and update your status  at least once a day you are getting a ton of free advertising to brides who are looking for vendors and services.

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Twitter Do’s and Don’ts When Your Followers are Brides

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Twitter_on_Phone

Having a Twitter account is a great way to keep up with your network, as well as build a solid list of leads. The short amount of space allowed keeps everything feeling personal, and promotes a feeling of relationship between those Tweeting.

As cool as all that is, there are lines that you shouldn’t cross when Tweeting and you have brides following you. Don’t be unprofessional, or let out your frustration about a wedding you are currently doing. The easiest way to remind yourself to keep if professional is to simply have a separate Twitter account for your wedding business and your personal network.

So, what do you need to make sure you are Tweeting? Basically you want to tweet out information that your network will find helpful like links to your blog, advice and vendors that you love. Sharon Hill: “The Wedding Planner Mentor” shares more awesome do’s and don’ts for Twitter on her blog, so make sure to check it out!

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