It’s a Slam Dunk – the power of wedding show lead follow up

This is a continuation of my earlier post in that it is a note from the same person, regarding her website traffic improvement and upcoming appointments by following up on the contacts from the wedding show.
“I know you love this stuff for your blog, so I thought I would update you.
After sending a follow-up email [...]

When upscale brides downshift

It is time to shift your positioning.
There are probably some lessons here for wedding professionals as we go into the booking season.
Regardless of client base, many of us have already noticed that for 2009 it seems that ostentatious luxury is “out” and here are a couple of articles with some measurements.
First from Conde Nast [...]

What is a top search result showing worth to your business

What is it worth to your company to show up in the top search results for your type of services or products? Shouldn’t that be the primary goal of your website? Shouldn’t your website market you, rather than you having to market your website?
Many of us make decisions about our website without first [...]

How to get 300+ inquiries, you’ll make so much more money

David Jay’s Open Source Photo (OSP) forum has quickly become a favorite. It has a great easy attitude and a tremendous amount of helpful information is exchanged.
Outstanding is a list put together and recently shared in the OSP forum by Matt McGraw, of Matt McGraw Photography which he directly titled “How to get 300+ [...]

Flash based websites: "the accessibility and searchability of a brick"

In the quest to find methods to help improve marketing results for wedding professionals I often look at website options/techniques. Previously I have discussed the impressive advantages of using a rich featured blog engine as the basis for your website, but ignored the almost crippling impact Flash based websites can have on your Internet [...]

A new wedding zietgeist

This is going to be one of those lazy blog posts where I suggest you go read someone else’s blog, but it is Sunday afternoon and Rebecca Grinnals at Weddex blog has a great post about what I think will become the new wedding zietgeist, or cultural climate, which values meaning above luxury.
Her prime basis [...]

Teleseminar recording with exceptional wedding/bridal marketer Lori Osterberg

A lot of people have asked when this recording would be available and I just finished the editing and upload. I think it was the best, most valuable teleseminar for wedding/bridal marketers yet!
This last Wednesday evening was our regular monthly Great Wedding Network wedding/bridal marketing teleseminar.
Guest expert Lori Osterberg CEO of Vision of [...]

A new marketing agency devoted to only wedding and bridal businesses

Colleague and friend Christine Boulton, well known wedding/bridal business consultant and writer extraordinaire, has new marketing agency for wedding and bridal businesses!The Agency at Think Like A Bride provides a full range of high value/low cost marketing services to wedding and bridal businesses all dedicated to increasing profits.
Visit her new website and learn what [...]

The secret life of a blog based website

A blog based website is not a “normal” website. Like Clark Kent it may look normal, but it has some special powers.
Recently I wrote that it was my opinion that for marketing purposes a blog based site made the best wedding professional website. It stimulated some questions that asked to me explain more [...]

Today’s brides-to-be want your email

If you still think that email doesn’t work, please read this very recent article from eMarketer. It is an excellent summary of recent consumer direct marketing channel preference.
Some important information from the article:

“Asked to judge the acceptability of various channels for marketing purposes on a scale of 1 to 5, respondents gave direct mail [...]

The Power of APPLICATIONS! Easy, Low-cost, Results – Expand Your Brand plus Direct Market in Facebook & MySpace

Many people have well justified reservations regarding the return on investment in marketing on social networks such as MySpace and Facebook. While brands are easily extensible into the social networking environment through profile creation, addition of friends, group presence and advertising, actually making sales is difficult.
Advertising on social network has had infrequent success. [...]

A potential price increase is more powerful than a discount. A lesson from "Sway"

“Sway” the new book by brothers Ori and Rom Brafman (one a psychologist, the other an entrepreneur) has many powerful lessons for marketers. The most useful for us wedding professionals maybe the emotional motivation of “loss aversion” Here is a partial excerpt from their book:
… economists wouldn’t expect people to be more sensitive [...]

Indeed – Email Marketing Still Works!

For another insight into the value and power of well managed direct email marketing read this recent eMarketer article.
A few important grafs -

Half of US adult e-mail users surveyed in April 2008 for Merkle’s “View from the Inbox” study, conducted with Harris Interactive, said they had made an online purchase in the previous year [...]

Comparing three web marketing options on your profits

As a wedding professional you have three major channels for business development and marketing on the web, in addition to your website.
They are

Paid Search like Google Adwords,
Display Ads/Banners on placed on wedding directory websites or other sites either directly or with a service like AdSense
Direct Email.

All three are used to inform people of [...]

Mastery versus Marketing – Congratulations on Your Career Change!

As wedding professionals we have often worked many years developing our skills, becoming masters of the art or service we offer. Then when we finally feel we are competent to provide our service for payment and proceed to open our own wedding business … we promptly change careers. We go from developing mastery [...]