How to Make Your Brides and Grooms an Offer They Can’t Refuse

Wouldn’t you love to know that brides and grooms were going to be crazy for your product, service or package…before you went to all the trouble of making it?

Here’s the tale of woe for most wedding professionals: they have a really good idea (at least, they’re pretty sure it’s a really good idea) and they’re so excited that they get to work.  They spend hours, days, maybe even weeks perfecting the Shiny New Offer.  Then, with bated breath, they unveil their newest creation and…

Nothing.  Crickets.

No one buys it.  No sales.  Brides and grooms don’t even notice.

What’s going on here?

The Awful Odds of Success 

Well, whenever we do something new there’s a less than 50% chance that it’s going to work.  In fact, the success rate for brand new ideas is down right pathetic.  It’s said that Thomas Edison made 1,000 attempts at creating the light bulb and failed 999 of those times.

Your odds of successfully launching a brand new idea are likely 1 out of 1,000.

I’m not digging those odds!  Fortunately, there’s something we can do about it.

Clay Collins of The Marketing Show calls this, “The Interactive Offer.”

Put Your Brides & Grooms to Work 

Instead of hatching a new idea and running off to perfect it in a vacuum, without knowing whether it will succeed or fail, get your clients to co-create the new offer with you.  It’s the perfect way to test your idea before investing your precious time and money.

You have a conversation with your clients in order to find out what they want and need so that you can create exactly what they’re looking for.  You’ll uncover what that looks like and the words they use to describe it, so that essentially, they tell you exactly what to create.

Here’s how it works:

1.  Contact your clients and explain that you’re thinking of creating a new offer, and you’d love to have their help and feedback because you only want to do it if people are interested.

2.  Invite your clients to join a special email list for this purpose.

3.  Survey your clients to find out a) their biggest challenge or frustration b) what product/service they would love for you to create c) what is their ideal outcome.

4.  Go over the survey results and feed it back to them.

5.  Create an offer that gives your clients exactly what they want, and give it to your “test group” for free or at a discounted price in thanks for their help.

A Wedding Business Example

It’s easier to understand how this works for a wedding business if we use an example.  Let’s say Sallie the wedding planner wants to offer a new package combining engagement party, bachelorette, bachelor and wedding planning.  It’s going to be quite the investment of time and money to put together the necessary partnerships and resources, so she decides to use the Interactive Offer method.

First, Sallie contacts her clients and potential clients with her story.  She explains that she has this really exciting idea, but she doesn’t want to spend the time on it if no one is interested.  Would they be willing to help?

In exchange for their feedback, Sallie promises to give them free planning tips along the way.  She gets her brides to email answers to her questions, and finds out that while most of her clients aren’t interested in bachelorette party planning, they love the idea of having someone manage entertainment and activities for their out of town guests.

Sallie uses her clients’ feedback to create a new package that includes entertainment and concierge services for out of town guests.  She offers her “test group” a free local entertainment guide she’s put together for wedding parties, and her brides are so excited about the new offer that 5 of add it to their services.

When you recruit your clients as your co-creators, it has many benefits.

•  It creates excitement and evidence of your value in the form of “social proof” by the comments and feedback generated.

• It gives you the exact language you need to use to powerfully communicate your offer.

• It provides proof that your idea is worthwhile.

• It gets your clients so engaged that when the offer is ready, they’re pre-sold.

• It saves you time and money because you won’t be chasing bad ideas.

I’ve been burned by “brilliant ideas” enough times that I’ve learned to enlist my clients as co-creators.  This way, we both win.

What do you think about co-creating with your clients?

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