3 Free Marketing Tricks to Create a Flood of Wedding Leads

When you’re a small wedding business, you can’t afford to waste a penny on expensive bridal advertising and marketing that doesn’t work.

We started with no connections in the wedding industry, no experience, no leads…and not much more than pocket lint to spend on promotion. Still, we managed to build our wedding business up to 6 figures within four years.

How do we do it?

Our secret: free and cheap marketing strategies that really work to book more weddings.

Let’s focus on some of those free tricks for now, since they’re much more fun. 🙂

#1 – Vendor Romance

Surveys of engaged couples show that their #1 stop when hiring vendors is word of mouth recommendations.

That’s why networking and referral relationships are the best way to get referrals FAST.

If you want to kick start a stream of referrals, you need to romance the wedding businesses who can give them to you.

Here’s how:

1) Identify 5 wedding businesses who are working with the ideal clients you’d like to attract.

2) Chat ‘em up and listen for ways to help. In particular, listen carefully for their challenges and opportunities.

3) Share your resources, information and connect them to people who can solve their problems and take those opportunities to the next level.

4) Do everything you can to make them look good. Blog about them, share their stuff on social media, refer them.

5) Follow up monthly and build the relationship. Use strategies like the Unforgettable Postcard strategy to earn referrals we share in Video 2.

Remember: you have TWO sets of customers: the couple and the vendors you work with. Satisfy them both!

#2 – Money Making Blog Strategy

Blogging is a free and effective way to attract laser targeted leads to your wedding business website…but only when your efforts are firmly fixed on money making.

Here’s how to pull this off:

1) Identify the keyword phrases real couples use when planning a wedding in your area.

Examples: Hudson Valley wedding, Chicago wedding venue, Essex photographer

2) Now brainstorm a list of titles you can blog about containing these phrases. Make your titles compelling and sexy!

Examples: The 5 Best Intimate Hudson Valley Wedding Locations, 3 Little Known Chicago Wedding Venues, The Secret to Gorgeous Photos From an Essex Photographer

(Yes, you have my permission to rip off these titles and modify or use them as inspiration for your blog. Please!)

3) Choose your favorite title and write (or hire someone to write) a 400 word article containing those local keyword phrases in a natural way.

4) Publish your blog post and add at least one image. Be sure to include any relevant local keyword phrases in the name of your image file, title, description and tags. Link to any other wedding businesses you mention.

5) Share your blog post on social media, being sure to email and @ tag the other businesses you’ve mentioned.

6) Publish 2-3 blog posts every week consistently.

If you do this, you’re creating content your local brides will love. It positions you as an expert, attracts targeted leads and pre-sells them, and doubles as the perfect way to network and plug other businesses from the comfort of your own home.

It’s a lead magnet, and it’s FREE.

#3 – List your business on every free website you possibly can.

Don’t discount the value of free listings for your wedding business just because they’re free!

The benefits of free listings:

You can often get Page 1 visibility immediately.
When brides and grooms see you “everywhere” it enhances your reputation, making them more likely to contact you.
Brides actively search reviews before contacting their vendors; any free listing with positive reviews is GOLD.
The more ways couples can find you, the more brand exposure and website traffic you get.
Uh, they’re free marketing! Set them up once and they work for you forever.

Take a little time to set up your free listings, or hire someone to do it for you. It’s a free marketing must for your wedding business.

HOT TIP: Enter your name and email to download the free list of 64 Places to Marketing Your Wedding Business For FREE here, for a limited time.