Hi friends!
Happy October, it’s officially spooky season! Which is my favorite – noting that I have a black cat and my birthday is October 7th. Therefore, love of this season is inevitable. Speaking of spooky season, pumpkins and all things Halloween and crunchy leaves, today we’re talking about wedding marketing!
Another one of my fortes as I work as a marketing coordinator as my 9-5 job and also minored in advertising (not the same, but quite similar.) So, how do wedding marketing and autumn time correlate? Can you imagine all of the companies that start speaking to you before fall even begins?
Wedding Marketing
The Halloween commercials, sweater ads, and not to mention the endless Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) talk…in August. In order to effectively market to their target clients, these companies are constantly performing market research. They need to know where their client frequents online, when they are scrolling through those platforms, and how to talk to them. Marketing is important for effectively reaching your desired audience and talking to them appropriately to ultimately achieve your business goals and make money.
This is done through analyzing data and applying this data to where you place content and advertising! So yes, Starbucks knows that me – a 26-year-old female, living in Virginia, who has been the proud holder of a Starbucks Gold card since 2013 – is a frequent scroller of Instagram and Pinterest and is going to want a PSL before the first crispy red leaf hits the ground. So, to solidify my purchase, Starbucks is going to feed me PSL photos on Pinterest, ads on Instagram and reminders in my email. What can I say? They’ve got me pegged!
How can I promote my wedding planning business?
The same should go for each wedding planner business out there. You already know your target customer by now and if you don’t, no worries! Valerie’s How to Launch Your Wedding Planner Biz Masterclass goes into great detail about dialing in on who they are with helpful worksheets and content. Once you know your target client, you start to analyze your client traffic. Where are they coming from? Are you paying enough attention to these platforms? The masterclass highly suggests Google Analytics for this purpose and so do I! It’s also very fun to see where your traffic comes from geographically and from which online platforms like Pinterest ads or WeddingWire, allowing you to spend your marketing budget wisely. Social media plays a huge role in organic and paid traffic.
Getting your social medial goals in order
Valerie also includes resources to help you create actionable social media and wedding marketing goals and craft effective content to achieve them. Marketing always needs an end goal – that’s the point. Do you want to collect emails for your email list? Do you want to book 3 weddings in the next 2 months? Do you just want them to get to your website to inform them of your services? These are things to think about when creating your marketing strategy!
What are styled shoots?
Another huge, and quite fun, way to market your business is through styled shoots! This is something I am so incredibly stoked to do! There can be a few different goals behind a styled shoot including submitting to a publication, getting on-brand photos for your website and social media, and building your portfolio to show to potential clients. All of these are perfect reasons to coordinate a shoot. Another is to network with vendors, a very large added bonus and also helpful for organic marketing. Nothing says trustworthy more than a recommendation from another wedding pro in my opinion!
The Masterclass goes into detail about the steps leading up to the styled shoot, some before you even reach out to vendors. These include creating a mood board and styled shoot design. This will help vendors visualize how they can contribute to the shoot. I would also suggest being open to vendor input. They are also wedding pro’s and we’re a creative bunch! Speaking from graphic design experience, bouncing ideas off of other creatives is always beneficial, if you don’t go with their idea it may spark another and better idea of your own!
Who pays for a styled shoot?
Another detail Valerie dives into is the cost of a styled shoot! This one had me worried and wondering before I went through this portion of the course, a pain point if you will. How would I afford to pay all of these vendors?! Valerie suggests at minimum helping contribute to the cost of flowers as they make or break the shoot. Otherwise, each vendor is benefitting from the shoot and they are usually happy to volunteer their time! Well that was easy!
How do you arrange a styled shoot?
Another worry or pain point I had was how to organize everything efficiently and gather all the resources needed. I know the goal of how I’d like the final product to look but I wasn’t sure how to find vendors, how to approach the vendors, and finally, how to make everything go smoothly on the day of. The Masterclass includes a Styled Shoot Worksheet and an entire Styled Shoot Workbook that is beyond helpful! Both help you envision your shoot and get your thoughts organized and down on paper. The workbook walks you through each step of coordination from pre-planning and design to finding your team, organizing the day of activities and what to do after the shoot. Valerie hits on every point I was concerned with – cost, timeline for creation, vendor expectations and contracts, and each of the vendors’ roles.
Last words on Wedding Marketing
Having read through this portion of the course, especially the Styled Shoot Workbook makes me so very excited to organize and plan my own shoot! Now to just go on and choose one of the MANY ideas I have. Time to start scrolling Pinterest and putting pen to paper!
What is your biggest concern when it comes to marketing or hosting a styled shoot? Let us know below in the comments!
I hope you learned a lot from my blogs over the past few months and are excited to enroll in the How to Launch Your Wedding Planner Biz Masterclass! If you’re ready to give it a go, please feel free to use my affiliate link here!
Best,
Sam
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Hi, I’m is Sam! I’m 26-years-old and I live in Northern Virginia with my fiance Matt and our (pretty fat) black cat Storm. I have decided to take the leap and set out to become a wedding planner! If this is you too, follow me and my experience has I go through the Launch Your Wedding Planner Biz Masterclass.
