Lately I’ve heard a lot of pessimism in the wedding industry, a lot of hand wringing about shrinking wedding budgets, the DIY trend, unfair expectations set up by the bridal media.  Yadda, yadda, blah, blah. I get it.  It’s tough out there.  According to the Wedding Report, average US wedding expenses dropped 32% from 2007 to 2009.  That truly sucks.

Do you ask before you pitch? Do you have an arrangement with your clients and potential clients that allows you to market to them? No? Maybe its time you did. Steph and I spoke at a wedding business marketing conference recently and I asked our audience who has a lead capture on their website. A few hands were raised, less

Whats the best way to define permission marketing? Lets look at the opposite first, spam! We all pretty much hate it, we all have to deal with it.  It jams up your in box, often is infected with all kinds of nasty bugs.  You didn’t ask for it, it wasn’t invited in to your life. Permission marketing changes this equation. 

The best way to beat your wedding business is to eliminate them. No, I’m not talking about “rubbing them out” Soprano’s style.  (Though that would certainly do the trick, it wouldn’t do wonders for your reputation.)  The kind of “elimination” I’m talking about is to simply not compete with them. The competition is only a threat when they either a)

I’m a huge fan of free advertising.  Press releases are a powerful “free” way to get PR. Admittedly, I have not taken advantage of this medium anywhere near the level I should. Time for a public declaration. “In 2011, I will take full advantage of the power of press releases!” Care to join me? Press Release Power

There are some interesting new numbers out.  Its important to consider these stats when it comes to your overall marketing plan for this year. Social media advertising will increase by 55% this year.  This is equal to 11% of all online advertising.  Do you see a trend here? Will you be part of the wave in 2011? Photo Credit

More Leads = More Weddings One of the biggest challenges we face as wedding professionals is getting more leads.  When you attract more phone calls and email inquiries from brides, you have the chance to book more weddings.  It’s a pretty simple equation, really. Let’s say that right now you get 10 leads per week and you meet with 5

There are all kinds of business awards given out each year.  Some for outstanding performance, design achievement, great acts of humanitarians healing the world..and then there is Mark Zuckerberg. Esquire magazine named him one of the 10 worst-dressed guys of 2010 in their “2010 Celebrity Style Hall of Shame” list. I guess if I was a  twenty something billionaire I

“Greed is good”.  Iconic words spoken by the famous fictional character, Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. At first blush, these words come across pretty hard core, like a smack in the head. I ran across a blog post by Daniel Hoang where he points out that Gekko actually isn’t  really saying greed is good.  There is actually a

What makes you an entrepreneur while your best friend is an employee?  Are you really that different?  Some of us have definite differences for risk tolerances.  Its just to scary to go out on your own.  Personally, I worked a lot of years for “the man” and know for myself, that something was always missing till I struck out on