How to Get Leads For Your Wedding Business For $100 or Less

One of trickiest parts of getting more leads for your wedding business is that many marketing strategies cost money. When you’re just starting out…or when you don’t have many leads to begin with…you don’t have the money to invest.

It’s Mother Marketing’s cruelest catch 22.

But there IS a solution: bang for the buck, Bootstrapper Marketing Strategies that really work to get wedding leads on a budget.

On a recent webinar with my honey, Handsome Jeffrey, and Christine Dyer, social media expert of BridalTweet.com, we challenged ourselves to answer this question:

If you only had $100 to get leads for your wedding business, what would you do?

I was pleasantly pleased (with the same sort of pure pleasure I get from the a nice alliterative phrase, heh) to see that we came up with three different and equally valuable strategies to market your wedding business on a shoestring.

$100 Strategy #1 – The Facebook Lead Funnel

Christine Dyer is a social media expert and founder of BridalTweet.com. She decided to use her hypothetical $100 to attract brides and get leads with Facebook.

1. Create some type of cool, free giveaway offer you can use to entice brides. This could be an informational “free tips” PDF report or video, gift certificate, coupon or other sort of free offer.

Cost = Free

2. Use Pagemodo to add a custom tab to your Facebook business page containing your offer and a form brides can fill out to get your free giveaway and join your email tips list. Now brides enter their name and email to get your freebie and you have permission to follow up with them.

Cost = Free to $6 per month

3. Create a Facebook ad campaign targeted at engaged females in your local area. Drive those local brides to your custom tab with your ads and start collecting leads.

Cost = $100 or less

$100 Strategy #2 – The Money Making Bloggin’ Machine

I’m a writer and a prolific blogger as well as a wedding business coach, so writing articles and creating content is a natural for me. I decided to use my hypothetical hundred to get leads with blogging.

1. Create a free WordPress.com blog. Include prominent contact information and a call to action!

Cost = Free

2. Visit high-end local wedding venues where you want to work. Take photos of the venues and conduct wedding expert interviews.

Cost = $20 in gas

3. Write Money Making Blog Posts including local keyword phrases, photos, quotes and information gleaned from the interviews. Link to the venues and businesses mentioned.

Cost = Free

4. Send a thank you email containing a link to your blog posts to each wedding business you’ve interviewed and linked to. Encourage them to share, like and comment on your post.

Cost = Free

5. Share your blog post on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, etc.

Cost = Free

6. Buy a few thoughtful thank you gifts for interview subjects to reinforce the relationship.

Cost = $10 to $80 or less

$100 Strategy #3 – Mr. Popular

Jeff Padovani is a wedding marketing strategist and power networker. His strength is in person networking, so he decided to use his $100 being a social butterfly. (After I convinced him NOT to spend it on beer and pizza.)

1. Order some postcards with your smiling face on one side and a blank space on the back from Vistaprint.com.

Cost = $25

2. Identify the top 5 wedding businesses (venues, photographers, entertainers, etc.) who work with your target couples.

Cost = Free

3. Invite those wedding pros out and buy them coffee. Ask them for advice, listen and find a way to help them in return to build and nurture a trusting friendship and relationship.

Cost = $70 or less

4. Mail each pro a postcard with a thoughtful note of thanks and a personal comment (see the Unforgettable Postcard Strategy) and continue to follow up periodically.

Cost = $10 postage

Your Own $100 Strategy

The secret to bang for the buck marketing that works isn’t rocket science. Hey, we’ve just proven that even Jeff can do it! 🙂

Here are the secret elements:

Go with your strengths. Choose a marketing strategy you have the time, talent and inclination to do.
Think smart and DIY where it makes sense. Networking, blogging and social media tend to the be the most effective DIY marketing for wedding pros when done strategically.
Above all, be consistent. None of these marketing efforts are instantaneous; commit to using the strategy for at least 40 days and measure your results.