4 Common Wedding Pro Website Fails

One hot summer day when I was a little girl, I decided to sell lemonade. I’d seen my friend, Sally, selling out the week before and I wanted to make some money.

My little brother and I mixed up a pitcher of Lipton lemonade, then spent hours coloring signs with wobbly letters: “Lemonade 50 cents!”

We proudly set up our lemonade stand in the front yard and waited. And waited.

No one came! Of course, Grandma sampled our goods, but where were the rest of our customers?

Our lemonade was just as delicious as Sally’s. We agreed that our sign was even better. What were we doing wrong?

No one bought our lemonade because no one saw our lemonade stand.

Sally’s house was on Main Street with constant pedestrians walking by on the sidewalk. My grandmother’s house was on a quiet back street with no foot traffic.

I’m reminded of this story whenever I hear wedding pros complaining about their websites, “I’m just not getting any leads!”

It doesn’t matter how good your product or service is; you have to get these critical details right or your business will fail, just like our lemonade stand.

Why Your Website Fails

1. FEW OR NO VISITORS – Even the most beautiful website won’t bring leads to your business if no one finds it.

Most wedding pros create a website and then forget about attracting traffic. That beautiful website ends up nothing more than an expensive brochure because only people who already know about you can find it.

There are lots of ways to get website visitors, including:

Blogging.

Guest blogging.

Advertising – bridal shows, print ads, banner ads, directories, etc.

Social media – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.

If you have a website that gets very few visitors, it’s broken.

2. THE WRONG VISITORS – If the visitors landing on your website aren’t a good match for what you do, you won’t get any leads.

One of our Book More Brides DJ clients was getting hundreds of website visits from an ad he’d placed on a particular wedding website, but no one was contacting him.

The problem was that his wedding business was a local service, and the visitors from his ad were from all over the US. No wonder they weren’t calling!

It’s not just enough to get website visitors; you want to attract targeted brides and grooms who are in the market for what you do.

3. NO WAY TO CAPTURE LEADS – Your website needs to get those visitors to take action and become real leads you can contact.

Think about how many website visitors you get each day.

Now think about how many LEADS you get from your website each day.

What happened to all those other website visitors?

Without a strong call to action on your website telling those visitors exactly what to do, you are missing out on leads and losing money.

Our friend, website and SEO expert Chris Jaeger, tells us that the typical breakdown of website visitors goes like this:

50% of the website visitors are NOT your leads. These visits are from competitors, your staff or miscellaneous people who aren’t in the market for what you offer.

Out of the remaining 50%, only some of them are a good match for your services, and very few are ready to buy today.

If even 1-3% of your website visitors contact you, you’re doing okay.

How to capture more leads from your website:

Add a strong, prominent call to action to EVERY page of your website telling the visitor exactly what to do and WHY to do it.

Include an offer for a free giveaway report using an email lead capture form so that you can follow up with leads who aren’t ready to book right away.

Lost website visitors are the biggest money leak for most wedding vendors.

4. POOR OR NON-EXISTENT FOLLOW UP – Your follow up needs to be fast and effective, turning those leads into booked weddings.

Lead response studies show that it typically takes 5-12 contacts with a prospect before they buy and that the very best time to respond is within 5 minutes.

Most wedding professionals are not following up enough! And when they do follow up, they send a boring, ineffective email…that doesn’t get a response or results.

Did you know that different types of leads require different follow up strategies? If your communication with every lead is the same, you’re losing business.

How to improve your follow up to book more weddings: