Marketing Strategy and Tactics for Wedding Professionals

Dealing with the Economic Slowdown (and Other Problems That Can't Be Fixed)

2008-05-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting blog post today at MarketingProfs entitled "How to Manage Problems You Can't Fix." It immediately brought to mind the state of our market here in Sacramento, where the real-estate-driven economic slowdown has dramatically reduced the financial resources available for weddings. We can't change the realities of the market: fewer weddings are being planned with the "full boat" of services, and the brides that are booking are behaving much more conservatively. So, the question is, what is the best way to respond?

Paul Williams, author of the MarketingProfs piece, offers two possibilities for managing the situation: either find a way to live with the situation as it (now) is, or find a way to invert it, so that what appears to be a negative is actually a positive.

How might that play out for wedding businesses?

The "live with it" or "acceptance" approach might involve the following:

acknowledging that you will have fewer weddings in the next year or two -- and that your marketing investments may need to increase just to minimize the decline
using the time freed up from working weddings to build new capabilities that you can use to improve your competitiveness in attracting wedding business -- whether on the product/service side, or in your marketing
developing a non-wedding side of your business to diversify your revenue opportunities

The "invert it" approach might involve the following:

changing your own pricing model, packages or menu of services so that you're more appealing to today's budget-conscious bride.
choosing quality over quantity, i.e., target only the brides who are shopping on the high end, and aiming to do fewer weddings but with higher revenue per booking

There are no doubt other ways to take either approach -- the key idea, I think, is that either perspective is an opportunity for creativity. How will you respond?

Check out the original post here.

A Sound Bite About Blogging

2008-04-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

At the VerticalResponse conference last week, I saw an excellent presentation by their marketing director on using social media to promote a small business.

She came up with a simple way to decide if a blog is likely to be successful: it must consistently offer readers something to learn, gain or enjoy. Otherwise, your blog could be perceived as just pure marketing -- and you'll likely turn people off.

Learn, gain or enjoy: a quick, straightforward way to determine if the blog you're planning for brides will actually get their attention.

Should Your Business Have a Blog?

2008-03-25T12:06:00.000-07:00

Wedding vendors often tell me that they have been advised by "a marketing expert" to set up a blog (or a MySpace page, or a FaceBook entry, or some other technology du jour). They're intrigued and excited by the idea of "free marketing," but also nervous: they don't know how they will fit managing a blog into their already overpacked agenda, and aren't completely convinced that doing so is a good use of their time. I think they're wise to be cautious!

For a minority of wedding vendors, adding a blog can be a useful, cost-effective marketing tool. For many others, though, adding a blog may be a misuse of precious time and energy.

How do you decide whether you're in the first group? Here are some things I believe you should consider before diving in:

1) Do you have the needed skills?

Remember that anything you do online that is connected to your business represents your business. If you enjoy writing and editing -- and are good at it -- a blog might be a good investment of your time. However, if you don't have the skills to create a high-quality blog that represents your business as professionally as any other marketing materials you'd provide to prospects, you probably shouldn't attempt it.

2) Do you have something of value to say?

Today's internet users perceive blogs as a primary source of entertainment and information, and that affects their expectations about what a blog should be -- and should not be. People expect more from a blog than just a marketing message about your company. A marketing pitch masquerading as useful information or entertainment probably won't fool enough people to help your business, and could even alienate the very people you're hoping to attract.

Assuming you do have expert insights and tips that would be valued by potential readers, you should also consider whether you want to share them. Producing a blog that has enough information value to make it worth reading might mean giving away expertise you should be saving for in-person discussions with prospects and clients.

3) Do you have the time and energy and quantity of information to keep the blog updated?

A defining characteristic of blogs is that they have a perceived shelf life, because entries are posted with a date. Can you post quality information frequently enough to keep your blog fresh?

This is more important than you might think. Information that is very old is taken less seriously, as is a blog that is updated only rarely. A visitor to your blog might even think your company is out of business if your last blog entry is very dated.

4) Can you benefit from an ongoing relationship with customers?

One of the best things about blogging is that it allows you to interact repeatedly over time with your customers and prospects, who can subscribe to blogs via RSS feeds and email updates. This is why a current, well-written blog can work marketing magic for companies like gourmet food and wine merchants, toy vendors, technology companies, high fashion retailers, booksellers, etc. Customers in these categories can be motivated to try something new in response to good information about the things they like to buy.

For wedding vendors, though, most purchases are one-shot deals. That means that the investment you make in attracting a readership can't ever pay off more than once. (Once a bride has booked her DJ or bought her wedding gown, she's unlikely to value information on those services ever again -- or at least not very soon.) And that may mean that return on investment of time and knowledge to create a blog may not justify the cost.

One notable exception to this is wedding photography. With most married couples planning to have children, photographers who offer family portraits, maternity, seniors, etc. have an incentive to create a recurring relationship with their wedding prospects and customers. (But, of course, a blog is not the only way to do so! Depending on your skills, interests and resources, other approaches like direct mail and email might make more sense.)

5) Do you have the knowledge and resources to develop traffic for a blog?

While creating and maintaining a blog is a fair bit of work, it's just part of the process. Once you've got a blog, you've got to make sure it's seen.

Ensuring your blog is accessed by the prospects you're hoping to reach is no simple task. It requires optimizing your blog's content for search engines, submitting your blog's address to relevant directories, accumulating links -- all the same things that it takes to drive traffic to any web site. Ultimately, you might find you can't reach a significant number of your prospects with your blog without paying to advertise it on Google and elsewhere -- undermining the idea of "free" marketing. And, even if you don't buy advertising for your blog, you will still need to invest significant time and energy into optimizing it (and may find you need to hire expert help for that).

Perhaps most important, if you try to develop traffic for your blog without outside help or advertising, you will likely need to be very, very patient: purely organic web traffic is very difficult to attract. It can take as long as six months to a year to get indexed and ranked by the major search engines, and your pages will likely move to the top of search results very slowly (if at all). If you choose to do a blog, it may ultimately become a cost-effective marketing tool for your business -- but, it's important to remember that it may take quite some time to see results.

6) Is your main web site as good as it needs to be?

First things first. The end result of any successful marketing you do -- print ads, internet ads, direct mail, or a blog -- is to drive more traffic to your web site. If your web site is not up to snuff, there's not much point in investing time and resources generating more interest in it.

One possible exception: if you don't yet have a web site, blogging software can be a way to help you get started with a web presence. Still, question 1 still applies: if you can't create something yourself that represents your business in its best possible light, put the resources you have into professional help instead.

The Resolution Riddle

2007-11-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

When production time rolls around for our publication, we once again have the unhappy task of explaining to a number of disappointed advertisers that the images that appear on their web site are not suitable for printing in their ads. Why? Because web images are usually only 72dpi, while for printing we must have 300dpi.

This distinction is a source of enormous confusion, mainly because it's counterintuitive to believe that an image that looks absolutely fine on your monitor will look terrible when printed. How can this be?

I've never really been able to offer a clear or simple explanation for this, so I've looked for some help on the web. Here are some helpful articles I've found:

From Printing for Less (a great resource for quality, reliable postcard and brochure printing, btw!):

printingforless.com/resolution.html

From another printer -- Marsid-M&M:

mmprint.com/highres_photos.cfm

From a forum -- a greaat post explaining DPI, PPI and why those pix that look great on your computer monitor look so bad when you print them:

twopeasinabucket.kaboose.com

Can anything be done if your favorite images are only available on your web site? Probably not. The best advice I can offer is to obtain high resolution images from the photographer as well as web-ready when you prepare your web site. That way, you'll have the images you love available to use in all your marketing (and you already know how helpful it is to repeat your images and messages for memorability -- 7-10x!).

Research Shows Direct Mail On The Rise!

2007-07-29T15:58:00.001-07:00

If you've been here before, then you know that one of my favorite topics is direct mail -- more specifically, how direct mail can benefit wedding vendors and be more effective than direct email. My observation about direct mail has been that, since it has fallen out of favor with so many wedding vendors, there is less clutter in a bride's physical mailbox than her electronic one.

Well, now there's even more reason to reconsider direct mail: research shows that women prefer it to email. A new study shows that 85% of women will read marketing materials received via postal mail -- while only about half will look at email marketing. What's more, response rates to direct mail that includes a special offer are actually climbing aggressively -- currently 63%, versus just 54% in 2005.

For more information on the research, visit this link:

Study: More Women Read Snail Mail Than Email Direct Mail/

Media Competition: Good for Wedding Vendors? Maybe, maybe not.

2007-06-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

If you took Econ 101 in college, you understand the notion that competition usually benefits consumers through more choice and lower prices. So, it stands to reason that an influx of new shows, magazines, web sites and other media into a local market would be a great boon to the wedding vendors who purchase advertising. Right? Many wedding vendors seem to think so. Unfortunately, the answer's not that simple.

Media differs in a very significant way from the typical "guns and butter" type commodities used to illustrate competition benefitting consumers. Unlike typical goods and services vendors, media providers must simultaneously serve two sets of customers.

Advertisers tend to forget that they are not a media company's only customers -- nor even its primary customers. But, a show, magazine or web site's first task is to attract, serve and engage brides. Only by successfully serving these customers does it have a product -- i.e., an audience -- to sell to advertisers.

When the number of wedding media products increases, competition soars for the scarcest, most valuable resource in the market: the bride's time. Regardless of how many shows, magazines and sites are available to her, a bride only has so many hours of free time to use them.

For example, here in Sacramento, the number of bridal shows has increased from about five major shows per year to nearly three times that many. The number of brides who can attend these shows, however, has probably not changed at all -- let alone increased by three times! And, it's certainly not the case that a bride who might have attended one or two shows is going to invest the time to attend 12 or more instead. Nobody has that kind of extra time -- and most certainly not a busy bride.

Even though the highest quality shows will invest more to try to maintain their attendance, there is only so much that they can control. Ultimately, the math is simple: a huge increase in the number of shows means that average attendance of all shows will be lower.

A similar analysis applies to publications and web sites. With more information sources vying for a bride's fixed free time for reading them, that means that each one, on average, gets less attention. Even the highest quality publications are impacted, because the 15 minutes a bride spends looking at an inferior magazine before discarding it is 15 fewer minutes she has available for reading other wedding publications.

The bottom line? Unfortunately, torrid media competition means that wedding vendors will need to spend more on advertising to maintain their presence amid the increased clutter and confusion -- not less.

Ad agencies refer to the impact of increased media chasing the same audience as "diminishing share of voice." Each new wedding media product becomes another voice that's claiming a portion of the total attention a bride can give to wedding planning -- which is fixed. When the number of voices speaking to each bride increases, you will need to speak more loudly and more frequently -- i.e., advertise in more places -- just to maintain the amount of influence you currently have. If you're not present at the moment she's consuming that media -- and your competition is -- then you've lost share of voice to your competitor. In other words, keep your advertising the same when there are more information sources influencing the bride, and you've just lost ground.

Can anything stem the tide? Of course, one positive outcome of competition is that existing publications and shows will do their best to differentiate themselves from the competition. Differentiation is the best way media properties can hold onto their audiences in the face of more competition for the bride's wedding planning research time. Look for media companies that find ways to stand out versus other media -- and have proven they can execute.

What else should wedding vendors do? Aside from understanding that even the best media providers will be severely challenged to maintain their same results when faced with a doubling or tripling of competition, I recommend that wedding advertisers do the following:

(1) Decide with your head, not with your heart.

Small business owners share many things, not the least of which are hopes and dreams for their businesses that often materialize much more slowly than planned (if at all). Marketing expenses that grow unexpectedly don't usually fit with most wedding vendors' expectations for how their businesses will progress. Yet, it's crucial for any business to evolve with what is actually happening in the market -- not with what you hoped or assumed would happen. (This concept is artfully explained in the book Who Moved My Cheese? -- a great read for any small business owner.)

When you're tempted to believe that new publications and shows produced on the cheap will deliver the same results at lower cost, ask yourself if their logic holds up when you think it through. Most important, remember that if the results you're counting on from this year's ad budget don't materialize, your business will suffer for years to come.

Don't let newbies with big promises persuade you to indulge in "magical thinking." At the same time, recognize that you will need to budget for additional marketing expenditures as media proliferate in your area. The key will be to invest in as many quality, value-driven options as possible.

Which brings me to point two ...

(2) Evaluate new wedding media claims with very careful scrutiny.

In Sacramento, we have new publications promising to distribute 50-100% more copies than existing magazines -- with absolutely no factual information to back them up! (These claims seem all the more absurd when you consider that their entrance to the market will make it harder for all to maintain current distribution numbers-- let alone double them.) Instead of accepting these numbers, question them.

Similarly, question show providers that promise they'll deliver as many brides as existing shows while charging less for booth space. How will they be able to match the advertising that current shows are doing if they're charging you much less -- let alone do the additional advertising that increased market competition will necessitate?

Companies making these kinds of claims are either lying outright, or they're simply badly managed. Either way, you lose when you invest your money with them. It doesn't matter, by the way, whether they're experienced in providing media in another context -- the wedding market differs in many ways. If a media company in another market arrogantly assumes they will be able to do everything siginficantly better or more cheaply than the existing players, they've probably got some big lessons coming -- lessons that you shouldn't have to finance.

Which brings me to point three ...

(3) Support the media companies whose products already deliver value to you.

In any media market, rapid influxes of new competitors to the market often lead to mass exits that are just as hasty a few years later -- with plenty of wreckage in their wake. The primary victims are usually advertisers who counted on these reckless, price-bombing new entrants. When the companies' inability to make a profit charging below-market advertising/exhibit fees finally catches up with them, they often leave advertisers in the lurch -- sometimes not even producing the media that was promised.

Just as important, though, is the impact on existing, healthier players. When forced by "kamikaze" competitors to invest more and drop their own prices, established players find their own profits eroding. (Consider the impact of price bombing on the airline industry over the last twenty years or so -- bankruptcies galore! While consumers have sometimes benefitted from lower prices, service has suffered dramatically, safety has become a concern, and many once-healthy companies have been forced to merge or go under.)

When profits deteriorate for established media providers -- companies the market depends upon for reliable, effective promotion -- the better managed companies may choose to exit the market. It simply won't make sense for them to continue to invest in a market in which profits have been squeezed by irrational, short-sighted price competition and questionable competitive tactics. They'll move on ... taking a valuable resource that you need to promote your business with them. Consider the long term when deciding where to put your marketing dollars -- and place your bets on the partners most likely to be around to help your business grow over the next five, ten or 15 years.

New Magazines and Shows ... They Come, They Go (Part 1)

2007-05-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

From time to time in the wedding market, new publications and shows are announced by enthusiastic promoters -- usually coming in bunches, often promising audience numbers and results far exceeding what the existing field offers. Often the pricing also seems too good to be true. As a vendor trying to maximize your marketing budget, should you consider some of these "sweet deals"?

Given that I produce a wedding publication, I'm always concerned when there's a flood of great-sounding new publications into the market. Not, mainly, for fear of competition – healthy new competitors elevate the market. I always advise wedding vendors to invest in as much quality advertising as they can -- because it all will perform better when the messages are reinforced. On the flipside, though, unhealthy competitors do great damage to the market. What concerns me about new publications and shows is that they so often fail -- taking wedding vendors' precious marketing dollars with them.

The biggest problem is that new publications and shows are often undercapitalized – that is, they don’t have the money required to produce their magazine or show during the lean years before profitability. Inexperienced founders often don’t understand the cost structure of producing media, and don't even realize there will be lean years (!) – but, in magazine publishing, the standard estimate is five years to profitability, and shows generally take at least three years to break even. That means that founders must have enough cash on hand to fund the production and distribution/marketing of their book/show and pay their staff and their own personal expenses for at least the first three years.

What happens when newbie founders realize – in midstream – that their initial revenues won’t fund all the costs of delivering what they’ve promised? In the best case, important corners are cut. Print quantities are reduced. Paper quality is downgraded. Magazines arrive late. Distribution contracts are cancelled. Shows aren’t advertised. In the worst case, publications and shows never even materialize – and the money received from wedding vendors has already been spent.

(That is, in fact, exactly what happened in the Sacramento market just a year or two ago – when two new publishers made big promises, then disappeared – as show producer Sue Gallardo points out in her analysis -- click to read it. )

Even experienced publishers tend to misunderstand the wedding market. In fact, part of what attracts experienced media vendors to the market is the false idea that it's "easy." It’s often considered “incremental business” for a publisher whose main emphasis lies elsewhere – and, sometimes it’s meant to shore up profits that are faltering in the main business. That can mean impatience when profits don’t materialize immediately, and overpromising based on assumed synergies with the main business that don’t actually exist. The challenges of reaching brides and serving the needs of wedding vendors differ in subtle but important ways from other markets – even experienced publishers with existing products that appear strong can end up on a fairly steep learning curve. If they’re not satisfied with the pace of their progress towards profitability, these publishers can end up leaving wedding vendors in the lurch, too.

What does that mean for wedding vendors considering advertising in these new properties? If you’re thinking about taking advantage of one of these new properties, at least do your research. Even the sweetest deal means transferring your hard-earned dollars to the pocket of the new publisher or show promoter – so minimize your risk of losing those dollars. Ask the right questions – including the ones Sue Gallardo recommends in her write-up.

To my mind, though, the first question to ask is whether taking a chance on a new media property is right for you. My feeling is that the risk has more upside for some vendors than for others – and, conversely, the downside risk will be more painful in some cases as well. Evaluating whether trying out a new media option in its first edition is a good idea for your particular business will be the subject of my next post.

Smart Tips for Flyer Design

2007-04-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

Found this great link with tips about flyer design -- with a solid example.

Create a Smart Flyer

Sharpen Your Skills ... By The Sea!

2007-04-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

The upcoming AFWPI conference is a great opportunity to get lots of great business tips and ideas from peers in the wedding industry, as well as marketing professionals. This year it's in beautiful Ventura, CA, so you can enjoy some beach-side relaxation while expanding your skills toolkit.

Speakers include web marketing consultants, executives from The Knot and Brides magazine, wedding industry innovators, and yours truly (I'll be presenting "9 Ways to Optimize Your Marketing for Results.").

For more information, visit the AFWPI web site.

Technorati Claim Post

2007-03-31T11:41:00.000-07:00

Technorati Profile

"Price Shoppers": Worth Pursuing, or Waste of Time?

2007-03-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

I have a confession: I’m always a little concerned when a wedding vendor tells me – usually with great conviction – that he or she “doesn’t waste time with price shoppers.” (By “price shoppers,” the vendor means brides or grooms who begin a conversation by asking the price of the vendor’s service.)

Make no mistake, unless you are competing primarily on price, I don’t think you should invest a lot of time in trying to sell people who are looking only for the cheapest option. But, the question is, does the mere fact that a bride asked about your pricing confirm she’s primarily concerned with price? I don’t think so!

Shopping for a wedding is a new experience for most of your brides and grooms. Most of them have no idea how much it will cost to get what they want – or even, in many cases, what they should want. Many brides and grooms may start with price, therefore, simply because they don’t know what else they should be asking.

Consider the last time you made a major purchase that required a lot of learning on your part – say, a car, a computer, a piece of expensive sporting equipment. Did you end up spending more than you thought you would, once you found out the options you should be considering, and why they would be important to your overall enjoyment of and satisfaction with the product?

This process of learning what things cost – and expanding the budget to accommodate what you learn you want – happens for brides and grooms, too. Especially for services that may be completely foreign to or misunderstood by people who’ve never purchased them before – e.g., DJ services, photography, videography, custom gown design, etc. The vendor who takes the time to explain the benefits of going with a more experienced pro (or the risks of the reverse!) has a better shot of both creating an educated customer who is willing to pay more AND closing an attractive piece of business.

Reconsider Direct Mail ... Again!

2007-03-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

Exactly a year ago, I posted an article urging wedding professionals to reconsider direct mail. Why? Because it's gotten much less expensive (think 1,000 postcards for under $100 -- a typical online deal!).

What's more, since most wedding professionals no longer invest in direct mail, your mailing will be much more visible than the mailings you might have sent to brides five or ten years ago.

Best of all, if you're advertising in print or participating in bridal shows, you probably get access to mailing lists for free. This represents a huge savings versus other business categories -- more typically, advertisers usually have to pay to rent lists.

Bottom line: remember that it takes 10 or more impressions of your company and your message to trigger recognition of your company in a bride's mind. Postal mailing can be a economical way to build that extra awareness you need, and prompt a bride's call.

Check out this interesting article, in which a professional marketing consultant describes the return her technology client received on investing in postal mailing --it was still a bargain for her client, even though they had to purchase use of the list. Especially noteworthy: it offered a significantly better return than "free" email!

Don't Rule Out Postal Mail -- by Shelli Strand, Strand Marketing

Redesigning your web site? Good for you! Changing the web address? Bad idea!

2006-11-14T07:15:00.000-08:00

With the web now so crucial to marketing a wedding business, many wedding professionals are investing in regular major updates and even complete redesigns of their web sites every couple of years. Since having a current, well-functioning, and professionally designed site is essential to maximizing the revenue potential of your wedding business -- and essential to the performance of all your other marketing efforts -- I couldn't be more supportive.

Unfortunately, though, many companies are simultaneously undermining these web redesign investments by launching new sites on new URLs instead of simply changing their existing site.

For example, a reception location called "The Tranquility Garden" might have an existing site at www.thetranquilitygarden.com and create a new one at www.tranquilitygarden.com or wwww.thetranquilitygarden.net, instead of simply changing the site that appears at that address they already have.

Why is this such a bad idea? Four big reasons:

(1) Getting indexed by search engines takes time. If your existing site has been online for a year or more, you've likely already indexed in Google, Yahoo!, etc. -- meaning that you can be found when someone searches for your company by name. The process of indexing can take six months to a year, sometimes even more -- so, if you launch your redesigned site at a new web address, your new site might not be found by brides for a year or more.

(2) Search engines penalize similar sites. If your new site contains similar verbiage to your old site and a similar name, the search engines may view it as a "duplicate" and penalize both of your sites in the rankings. Why? Because some "black hat" web companies developed a tactic of creating multiple similar sites and linking them together as a way to try to goose their web result rankings. Consequently, search engines now penalize any sites that seem very similar -- potentially even removed from search indexes altogether! (And remember, it doesn't matter if the images are different -- search engines can't "see" the pictures, they evaluate your site by the text.) Worse, this risk increases if you link your old site to your new in an effort to redirect people to the new site.

(3) Existing links lose their value. If you're a qualified wedding professional that other pros like to work with, chances are you've accumulated referral links from other companies. If you change your web site address, these links from other vendors won't direct brides to your current site. Same is true for associations that offer you a link as part of membership. Sure, you can contact these companies and ask them to change the link -- but, it can take months to contact everyone, and you have no control over whether the links ever get updated. And that means lost web site visits from brides who could have become clients.

(4) Print, bridal show, and other offline marketing efforts have distributed your old web address. If you've published print ads, attended a recent bridal show, or offered your cards or brochures to brides (via your own contacts with them or through other vendors' referrals), your "old" web address is in circulation. What's more, because brides typically hang on to wedding planning materials for a year or more -- and then often pass them on to other brides -- your old URL will be promoted almost indefinitely. Because investing in print advertising, bridal shows, and marketing collateral is so costly, this is probably the most expensive consequence of opting for a new web address instead of simply updating your existing site.

Are you changing your web address because you're afraid you'll lose the information contained in your old design? Not to worry -- you can do this even if you launch your new site on your current address. A web site is really just a collection of files -- each page is just a document, really. The files from your old site can be backed up, or downloaded to your own computer, so that you can get information from them whenever you like (or even revert to the old site if you want).

Or, are you concerned because you don't have access to the server your site is hosted on? This is sometimes an issue when you work with a new designer, but the hosting company should be able to help you out if you provide proper identification of your identity and ownership of the company. Alternatively, you can work with the registrar you used to register your domain originally to point your web address to the location of your new site -- so that brides automatically arrive at your new web site.

Click Fraud and Your Online Marketing Investments

2006-11-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

Many wedding vendors are focusing more and more of their marketing dollars on online advertising; however, thanks in large part to click fraud, that advertising is likely much costlier than it appears.

Click fraud refers to clicks that are purposefully generated by people who aren't valid prospects -- most likely competitors. Competitors click on your links for reasons that can be very sinister (to run up your click bill, or use up your click budget) or somewhat less so (wanting to check out your site and not considering that you're paying for click that got them there).

Some experts estimate that as many as 50% of paid clicks could be fraudulent -- meaning that half the clicks you pay for are useless to you. Add to this repeat visits from the same user, accidental clicks by people unsure what they're looking for, and curious browsers, and it's likely that only 25-35% of the clicks you've paid for are actual shoppers for your service. And that means that the actual cost per valid click you're paying could be 3-4 times the CPC you've contracted.

This article from today's New York Times provides an interesting look at how some of the biggest advertisers in the world are coping with this problem (as well as how it is impacting Google, Yahoo! and others who sell cost-per-click advertising as their main revenue source).

I also discussed this issue in my recent white paper on the risks of "online only" marketing programs for wedding professionals.

One Decision I'll Never Regret

2006-11-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

About three years ago, a trusted colleague told me about a business solution that had been invaluable to his business. This product allowed his company to obtain premium services at a fraction of their normal cost. The affordable price allowed my colleague to use critical services he otherwise would have foregone -- at great cost to his business.

It took me another year to finally listen. I finally purchased this excellent business solution 20 months ago -- and I only wish I'd done it sooner! Now for an incredibly affordable monthly fee (just $40 in my case), I have access to a service that has helped me collect thousands of dollars of bad debt, evaluate and improve my contracts to better ensure compliance, understand complicated employee tax issues (without finding/hiring a separate tax lawyer), and even evaluate an office lease I was considering signing. And, these services that I used are just a subset of what is available to me for the single monthly fee.

This wonderful business service? Pre-Paid Legal Services. It gives me ready access to qualified attorneys I could never justify paying as a regular client. It protects my business against legal issues I might never have foreseen. It has helped me recover lost revenues that by themselves have repaid my fees 10 times over.

I've been so incredibly pleased with this service -- in fact, I feel lucky to have access to it! -- that I absolutely recommend Pre-Paid Legal Services for every professional in the wedding industry. Here are some of the specific reasons why:

Contracts. Every wedding professional uses them -- but how many get them regularly evaluated by a contract lawyer? (Are you sure your contracts are legally binding under current law?)

Changing laws. Laws change. If you're unaware, your operations may not be compliant with the latest legislation. (Are you unknowingly risking a law suit that could crush your business?)

Trademark issues. Unscrupulous wedding vendors often copy successful vendors' trademarked logos, names, taglines. (Can you afford the thousands of dollars it could cost to hire a trademark attorney to defend your marks?)

Litigious brides. Sadly, we live in lawsuit-happy society. The wedding industry is no exception. In fact, the huge expenses associated with a wedding (and the temptation for many to overspend the budget) may make a frivolous lawsuit even more tempting. (If an unthinkable, frivolous lawsuit happens, will you be forced to settle -- paying out of your pocket -- because you couldn't afford to fight?)

Depending on the size of your business, your needs may be covered by a Pre-Paid Legal Plan that costs as little as $40/month. If you already consult a lawyer once a year, you may be paying more than that in legal fees -- and, undoubtedly, avoiding using lawyers when you know you should, just to save money. Don't you owe it to your business (and yourself!) to check Pre-Paid Legal Services out?

For more information, visit my Pre-Paid Legal site at:

prepaidlegal.com/hub/laurie70

Shameless Plug

2006-10-30T16:10:00.000-08:00

Once a year, we offer vendors in the wedding industry in Northern California something incredibly valuable for very little money: a premium listing in our book and a link from our web site for as little as $149 for an entire year.

Why do we offer such broad exposure for so little money? (In case you didn't know, our print editions reach over 20,000 each, and our web site gets 800-1,000 visits every day!)

The answer is two-fold. First, because the brides who use our books rely on them to track down URLs (web site addresses) and phone numbers, even for vendors they've already heard of. By keeping the price low, we can attract as many vendors as possible to include their web sites -- thereby making the books (and our web site) as useful as possible. And, a book that is used more by brides is a more effective advertising medium.

Second, by offering an option that reaches huge numbers of brides for less than $13/month, we can support the industry that supports us. We know that many wedding vendors are just starting their businesses, and may have little budget for advertising. By helping these vendors grow with an affordable, entry-level option, we're helping to build a healthy industry -- and give a little something back to the industry that supports us.

If you're a wedding vendor in Northern California -- or, if you market your business nationwide via the web -- be sure to check out our listing options. You won't be sorry you did!

www.weddingyellow.com/submitlisting.html

Font rescue!

2006-10-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Around this time of year, lots of people I know (e.g., my clients) are frantically trying to figure out exactly what font it was they used in their marketing materials, so they can update and resize them while maintaining the branding elements they're already using.

If you are one of them, I have good news for you! Two online tools make the task much easier.

Identifont (www.identifont.com) is a system that asks you questions about your font to narrow down the choices. Simple to use and very accurate!

If you have a sample of your font in a small jpeg file, What the Font? (www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/) is even easier to use. Just upload the file, identify the letters in it, and What the Font? does the rest. (Plus, you can easily buy and/or download the font right from myfonts.com once you've found it.)

When "Nothing Works Anymore" (Part 2 of 5)

2006-10-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I outlined four questions to ask when the same marketing programs and investment level no longer produce the same -- or the needed -- business results. These are:

(1) Are there more companies competing in your category?
(2) Are there fewer brides in your market?
(3) Have you adjusted your tracking for the impact of the web?
(4) Could your marketing materials, advertising or media mix use a revamp?

Today let's look at (2) -- are there fewer brides in your market?

I'm surprised by how infrequently wedding vendors consider the possibility that their market is shrinking (or growing) when evaluating the effectiveness of their marketing.

Wedding industry participants (not just vendors -- us media types, too!) live by many assumptions about brides that may or may not actually be true.

For example, we assume that brides shop primarily from January to April, typically book a year out, spend a predictable percentage of their budget on each wedding service, and, most relevant to this discussion, we assume that there are more or less the same number of them each year.

Here's the rub, though: I've been publishing in this market for five years, and in each of those years, there's been a collective reaction of "what a weird year!" when the behavior of brides fails to match the expected pattern. Is it time to consider that the accepted assumptions about the market might not always be correct?

I submit that many market forces impact the actual size of the wedding market each year. Some of these include:

Birth Rates -- birth rates declined dramatically in the 70s and 80s. This means there are fewer women in their 20s and 30s now than there were in last decade. So, the broadest demographic measure of the pool of potential brides suggests that all vendors are competing for fewer customers.
Economic Outlook -- even if the number of weddings stays the same, an economic downturn -- or even fears about one -- can reduce the total number of customers available to you? How? When brides tighten their belts and reduce their wedding budgets, some professional services are eliminated altogether. Today's brides also rely heavily on credit, including home equity credit, to finance their weddings -- and higher interest rates and lower housing values are putting a squeeze on that source of funds.
Regional Climate -- local trends and economic factors play an even bigger role. Consider the Sacramento market where we're based. Over the last ten years, a huge influx of population to our region has masked the demographic trend to fewer weddings. But, as that population boom has slowed, so naturally will the number of brides decline as well.
Wedding Style Trends -- changes in wedding preferences among brides can effectively expand or shrink the market. For example, it's estimated that there are now four or five times as many destination weddings each year than there were in the 90s -- and that as much as a third of all weddings now are planned as destination events. Even if the same number of weddings occur, this greatly reduces the total bridal market in non-destination regions.
Other External Factors -- one example: as the Iraq war began, a surge in weddings occurred, as couples pushed up weddings that were planned for a year or more later. These weddings were in effect "borrowed" from today's market -- weddings that would have occurred in 2005, 2006, 2007 instead took place in 2002 and 2003.

Why is it so important to understand if the market in your area is shrinking or growing? Because you can't evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing without understanding the influence of market size. When the market is growing, your marketing efforts may seem more effective than they really are -- because increased demand for wedding services helps all vendors ("a rising tide lifts all boats"). Similarly, on the downside, when it seems that your marketing "stops working," it may be that your marketing is just as effective as before, but there are fewer brides to respond to it -- which means you need to increase your promotion to compensate.

Next post: is your tracking on track?

When "Nothing Works Anymore" (Part 1 of 5)

2006-08-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine (a bridal show producer) recently noted that some longstanding clients feel that "nothing works anymore" with respect to their marketing efforts. They're frustrated because they're making the same investments as before, but no longer seeing the same results.

If you've always marketed your business vigorously (through bridal shows, wedding publications, wedding web sites, etc), what does it mean when marketing that once performed well no longer seems to work?

Four questions can help you determine what's happening:

(1) Are there more companies competing in your category?
(2) Are there fewer brides in your market?
(3) Have you adjusted your tracking for the impact of the web?
(4) Could your marketing materials, advertising or media mix use a revamp?

External factors like (1) and (2) can render the marketing you’re doing insufficient to achieve the results you want – even if it was previously sufficient.

Consider (1). If more competitors have entered your market, then the same level of marketing investment won't get the same attention. A rough analogy: it's like you’ve been speaking to be heard clearly above five people's voices, but now you need to be heard above 10. If you want to be heard above a larger group, you will have to shout louder. In marketing terms, that means doing more to achieve the same level of communication.

Professional marketers have a name to define and measure the “shout percentage” of your marketing. It’s called share of voice – that is, the proportion of all the messages received by your target audience that come from your marketing.

If the number of competitors marketing to your customer increases, and you maintain the same level of media investment, then your share of voice declines – even though you’re continuing to invest.

It's frustrating to have to invest more to accomplish the same goal. But, if you're facing more competition for the same number of potential customers, you may not have a choice.

How do you know if you're facing increased competition? It's not always obvious when changes happen in your market, because they may happen gradually. Wedding vendors also typically enter and exit the market all the time, masking the net trend. And, in some categories (e.g., photographers, event planners), companies often shift their mix of wedding and non-wedding business throughout their lifespan.

If your region has experienced economic growth, though, that could easily attract more vendors to your category – whether to join what they perceive as a better wedding market, or for other reasons (housing opportunities, job change for a spouse, e.g.). If these newcomers are experienced wedding professionals, they'll likely hit the ground running with marketing programs, plus a budget tailored to make headway in a new place – which means they'll be very effective at stealing some of your time at the marketing microphone.

On the flip side, an economic downturn can also attract new – and hyper-competitive – vendors to the "recession proof" wedding industry. (Who hasn't seen price-bombing newcomers advertising on craigslist.org?) As many regions in the US seem poised for an economic slowdown, competition for brides from hyper-aggressive newbies is likely to heat up.

Have you noticed more vendors in your category in your local wedding publications and bridal shows? (The representatives and owners of these businesses can also be a great source of information.) What about your local networking groups?

It’s useful to keep tabs on your competitive environment as part of your normal business practices. This way, you can tweak your marketing before it becomes less effective – rather than incurring the cost of waiting and reacting once your business has slowed. (As a wedding professional, you’re marketing to customers who’ll book as much as a year or more out, so the consequences of waiting and reacting can be very costly.)

One way to research this over time is to track the number of companies you find doing a web search on your category+market -- a useful habit to acquire to get a sense of changes in your market over time. (Plus, you can check your own rankings for important key words at the same time!)

Next post: could your market be shrinking?

A Clever Tip to Acquire Referrals from Your Brides and Grooms

2006-07-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

I ran across this fabulous tip from Duct Tape Marketing -- a way to turn your customer testimonials into referrals.

Basically, the idea is to take a great testimonial quote from a client, and make it the content of a postcard. (Put the quote itself on the graphics side of the postcard -- with an appropriate image, or just eye-catching color that is consistent with your branding.) Then on the text side of the card, print a simple special offer -- something free with an order, or some sort of discount.

Then send each of your recent brides 10-15 of these postcards with a letter inviting them to send these on to their friends -- some of whom, as you know, will have a wedding in their near future! Of course, pre-stamp the cards, so all that your bride has to do is fill in the address.

Your bride gets the pleasure of offering her friends a special deal on a service that she herself found valuable. (You could even create space on the text side of the card so that the referring bride can fill in her own name, and phrase the text so that they discount is "courtesy of her referral.") And you, of course, get the benefit of a her help in getting your name into the hands of well-qualfied prospects.

Read more here:

The Small Business Reverse Testimonial Referral Tactic

Marketing Day

2006-06-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

Those of you that have seen my presentation "9 Ways to Optimize Your Marketing for Results" already know that I advocate setting aside a single day each year and dedicating it completely to reviewing the past year's results and establishing the next year's plan.

Gwen Moran, author of a useful article I just found on Enterpreneur.com, has come up with a helpful blueprint for how to use that "marketing day." (Well, maybe her plan requires more like a day and a half, since she doesn't appear to have allowed time for sleeping!)

Here's a link to her helpful article:

23 Hours to a Great Marketing Plan

Excellent insights into marketing mistakes

2006-06-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

I found this great article on common marketing mistakes via Marketing Profs (www.marketingprofs.com). I enjoy reading (and recommend) Marketing Profs as a great site for 30,000-foot marketing strategy insights, but sometimes find it too superficial when it comes to the kind of tactical issues and day-to-day marketing challenges facing smaller companies. But this article from a consultant specializing in smaller companies is down-to-earth, clear and helpful.

Check it out on the author's site -- his company is called Emerge Marketing. Here's the link:

5 Most Common Marketing Mistakes

Adapting Your Marketing Planning to a Changing Market

2006-05-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

A media colleague and I recently discussed a seemingly contradictory observation about our local wedding market: So far this year, we're seeing more activity by brides than ever, yet a number of wedding vendors report that their bookings are down. For example, in our case, more copies of our book were distributed during the first three months of this year than in any of the last three, our web traffic is up (as well as clicks through to vendors), and we've also received many more online inquiries. Yet, even with so much planning apparently going on, many vendors are reporting that they're having a "slow year."

Sound counter-intuitive? Maybe not.

Our local market of Greater Sacramento has been one of the fastest growing regions in the US for years -- with that growth exploding over the last five years or so. For a long time, this growth dramatically increased the size of the wedding market, to the benefit of local wedding professionals. During this period, many wedding vendors found they could grow their businesses substantially without changing their marketing at all.

However, the prosperity of this growing region has not gone unnoticed. Instead, it has attracted vendors from the nearby Bay Area and elsewhere to relocate, or to expand their businesses to include the Sacramento market. And that means that even though the number of brides has increased, the number of vendors looking to serve them has also increased -- and, probably at a faster rate.

If you're a wedding vendor in a market that is changing, it's critical to adapt your marketing planning to changing conditions -- even if those changes are not problematic in the short term. If you're in a growing region and currently enjoying increased business that seems to be coming "naturally," rather than being complacent, plan for what will come next. Because whenever there is an opportunity to easily increase business through market growth, that growth is going to attract new competitors.

Use the opportunity that market growth -- and "easier" new business growth -- provides to invest in marketing for the future. The surest way to protect your future business is to invest more in marketing when it seems like you least need to. Make hay -- and buy more seeds -- while the sun shines. Because expanding your footprint when it's easier will ensure more awareness among brides and fellow vendors, and more referrals in the future -- referrals that can provide a much-needed cushion during a future period of fiercer competition.

They saw your web site ... but, how did the REALLY find you?

2006-04-08T20:26:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the biggest advertising mistake I see wedding professionals make is overestimating the amount of "free" traffic their web sites receive. Each year, I hear from at least one panicked wedding vendor facing a dramatic drop in business because he assumed no longer needed to advertise -- because he thought he was "getting all his business from his web site."

It is true that the majority of brides will look at your web site to decide whether or not to contact you. And many will then say "I saw your web site" when they do. And that's where the confusion begins -- because what you don't know is, how did they find your site in the first place?

Odds are, much more of your web traffic is coming from offline (and/or paid) sources than you think. For example, if you are advertising in print, brides responding to your print ad will likely visit your web site, and, if they eventually call you, they will likely say "I saw your site." They may even forget that it was a magazine ad that prompted them to look at your site in the first place! Similarly, if you handed out brochures or business cards at a show, interested brides will visit your web site to see more of your work.

We all know that brides aren't terribly concerned with the accuracy of your tracking. They want to get done with your questions (and on to theirs) as quickly as possible. Faced with brides' poor memories and lack of interest in your tracking, is it possible to get a handle on where the business is really coming from?

Fortunately, there is a very useful source of objective data that can help you: your web server traffic logs, which track all the visitors to your site and the pages they access. To understand what's bringing brides to your site, your first step should be to analyze these logs.

Sound intimidating? It can be at first. But, the good news is, most web hosting services offer free analysis tools -- and it's usually very easy to get started using them.

And, even if your host doesn't offer a traffic analyzer, there are good, cheap (even free) software programs available that you can download to your computer and use to analyze your logs. (One good one is Web Log Expert Lite -- it's free at weblogexpert.com.) To use it, you'll just need to be able to download your monthly log files from your web site (or have your host email them to you). Then follow the instructions on the analysis program.

Once you're able to analyze your log files, what should you be looking for? Here are some helpful statistics to start with:

To understand how much of your web traffic comes from your offline marketing, review the "no refer" visits. This statistic shows how many visitors typed your web address directly into a browser -- rather than linking from a search engine or other site. Visitors who typed your web address in directly had to have been exposed to it from an offline source -- your print advertising, brochures, business cards, etc.
Check the number of referrals from web sites on which you advertise -- e.g., links you receive as part of print advertising contracts. This traffic can be significant, and should be factored into your analysis of these advertising programs.
Check -- and monitor -- your average page views per visit. Are people coming and looking at one or two pages and leaving? Or, are they poking around all the sections of your site, and seeing most of what you have to offer online? If visitors are leaving without exploring much of your site, odds are you are losing them. You need to improve your web site to grow your business. (Another useful check: how many times was your "Contact" page viewed? Only people interested in getting in touch with you will load that page.)

Wedding Marketing Strategy: Ads That Get Response

2006-03-14T09:15:00.000-08:00

What's the number one thing the wedding professionals I work with want (and will always want) from their advertising? More response!

Wedding advertising is a bit different than typical print advertising. While much of the advertising you see in national magazines aims to build awareness or establish or reinforce a brand, wedding advertising almost always aims to prompt an action (i.e., encourage a bride to call or visit your web site). Consequently, when creating advertising for your wedding business, it's useful to look closely at what works in direct response media (e.g., direct mail and direct email) for guidance.

(Of course, you can also apply these principles to any direct mail, e.g., postcards and mail-out brochures, that is part of your marketing to brides.)

To learn more about what works in direct response from a professional direct response expert, check out the following excellent article from Marketing Profs (a site by marketing professionals and marketing professors -- all about marketing, only about marketing).

Four Ways to Raise Direct Mail Response Rates

A preview of what you'll learn in the article: four effective ways to prompt response include making a special offer (give them a reason to respond); spotlighting a benefit instead of highlighting features (e.g., "look like a movie star on your wedding day," not "professional makeup services"); ask and answer a question of interest to the audience ("think you can't afford a custom-made gown?"); and use humor.

For the full scoop on how each works -- and those dreaded mistakes you want to avoid! -- be sure to read the full article.