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Maintaining Your Marketing Activities During Wedding Season
39 Plays4 months ago
Introduction:
- Introduction to the episode with a welcome back to returning listeners.
- Overview of the episode's focus on maintaining effective marketing strategies during the busy wedding season.
- A personal anecdote about the importance of having up-to-date information accessible to potential clients and referral sources encountered during events.
1. Automate Your Social Media
- Discussion on leveraging technology to keep a consistent social media presence without extensive daily management.
- Plan Ahead: Advice on using social media management tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule posts in advance.
- Curate Content: Tips on creating a balanced mix of content, including real weddings, planning tips, and personal stories.
- Engage Smartly: Strategies for setting aside specific times for audience engagement to maintain connections without getting overwhelmed.
2. Leverage Email Marketing
- Insights into using email marketing to keep the brand visible and engaging without constant effort.
- Automated Campaigns: Setting up drip campaigns for efficient lead nurturing.
- Newsletters: Planning and scheduling newsletters to share trends, behind-the-scenes content, and recent weddings.
- Seasonal Offers: Utilizing email to send special offers or reminders to book services during slower periods.
3. Maintain a Blog
- The role of a blog as a marketing tool and a platform to showcase expertise.
- Batch Content Creation: Allocating specific days for writing multiple blog posts to keep the blog active throughout the season.
- Guest Posts: Collaborating with vendors or other professionals to diversify content and share the workload.
- Repurpose Content: Turning successful events into case studies or stories to provide authentic and engaging content.
4. Optimize Your Website
- Strategies for ensuring the website is optimized to attract and convert clients effectively.
- SEO Best Practices: Regular updates and SEO optimization to boost search engine rankings.
- Clear Navigation: Creating a user-friendly website with clear calls to action.
- Mobile Optimization: Ensuring the website is accessible and functional on mobile devices.
5. Network and Collaborate
- The importance of networking even during the busy season as a crucial marketing strategy.
- Leverage Events: Using events as opportunities to network with vendors and potential clients.
- Online Networking: Engaging in online forums and groups to build reputation and relationships.
- Referral Programs: Encouraging client referrals through incentives.
6. Monitor and Adapt Your Strategy
- The necessity of monitoring marketing efforts and adapting strategies based on performance.
- Analytics: Using tools to track campaign performance.
Feedback: Seeking and using client feedback to refine marketing approaches.
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Transcript
Introduction to Wedding Planning Business
00:00:02
Speaker
Are you a wedding planner just starting your business or have you been in the industry for just a few years? Do you want to build a profitable and enjoyable planning business that you're excited about every day? If the answer is yes, then you're in the right place. Welcome to the business of wedding planning podcast. I'm your host, Amber Peterson. I was a wedding planner for 10 years, a marketing strategist for service-based businesses, and now the owner of Planner's Lounge. I know what it's like to work so hard as a planner but not see the growth and profit you dream of.
Challenges and Solutions for Burnout
00:00:37
Speaker
I also know that while you can be the most talented planner in your market, if you don't have the business foundation, it will be hard to continue growing.
00:00:45
Speaker
I have seen so many talented planners burn out because they become frustrated with things unrelated to wedding planning, like finances, marketing, team growth, and operations. This is where the Business of Wedding Planning podcast and Planners Lounge come in. Our mission is to help you learn what it takes to build the business of your dreams with simple digital product solutions, educational content, and the support of our free community, the Very Important Planners Lounge, or VIP Lounge for short. I understand what it's like to work in this unique industry while having a lot on your plate. During my time as a planner, I had three daughters, bought and moved to two new homes, and launched two other businesses. I am excited to combine my education, industry experience, and passion to help you reach your business goals.
Maintaining Marketing During Busy Seasons
00:01:37
Speaker
Hi friends, welcome back to the Business of Wedding Planning podcast. Today we're going to talk about how to maintain your marketing activities during your busy wedding season. This time of year, were I'm talking during the summer, um is a pretty typical busy time for a lot of planners, no matter where you are in the world. And if this isn't your busy time, then I know that there's a point in your year that your focus is solely on executing for your clients and marketing can often go to the back burner.
00:02:11
Speaker
Today we're going to do a real quick episode with some tips about how to maintain your marketing strategy even when you're super busy with all of your clients. You might think that during your busy season, your focus should be 100% on taking care of the events that you've been hired to do, which is correct, right? like That's what we're here to do is make those beautiful weddings become a reality. but During your busy season, you are also in front of a ton of potential clients and potential referrals or refer referral partners. One of my best weddings when I was a planner
00:02:57
Speaker
was for a lovely couple who had just an amazing group of friends and family. You know those weddings where just everyone is so nice and you just can't believe that this couple has just friend and family member that are lovelier than the last. Well, from that one wedding, I booked eight different weddings in the next three years because I was, A, and showcasing what a good planner I was. They were seeing me in action. And afterwards, they were going to my social media platforms. They visited my website to see what I wrote about the couple and their wedding. And they either
00:03:42
Speaker
booked me to plan their wedding, the couples that I booked from that one event, or they told other people, I was at this wedding and the planner was fantastic. If you think about every wedding you're at as almost a audition, if you will, for future couples or people who will tell other people about your business, then that is why having a presence on social media, on your website during your busy season can be so important.
00:04:15
Speaker
So what can you do to make maintaining your marketing strategy a lot more easy and a lot more doable, to be honest?
Automation in Marketing
00:04:23
Speaker
First thing, automate your social media. There are so many different platforms where you can pre-schedule all of your social media posts so that even if you do not touch your Instagram, Facebook, X, Pinterest, whatever you're using, Everything can be automated, so every day there's activity on your profiles. To automate social media, what you want to do is plan ahead before your rush begins, spend some time planning out your content calendar. You can use tools like Hootsuite, Loomly,
00:05:00
Speaker
any there's so Like I said, there are so many. ah Tailwind, which if you're on Pinterest, that's kind of like the Pinterest ah scheduler, but it also now schedules to Instagram and Facebook. So that is handy. So you've planned ahead. Next, you want to curate content. So you want your feed to be a mix of real weddings that you've orchestrated, planning tips, personal stories from weddings that are happening that give your audience a peek behind the scenes.
00:05:32
Speaker
And finally, you want to engage smartly. Dedicate a small window each day or each week, specifically for engaging with your audience. This helps maintain crucial connections without overwhelming your schedule. And if you have an assistant or ah someone, a VA, someone that can do this for you, that's great. Another thing you can task your assistant to do is actually at your events, have them take some video or B roll so that you have a little bit of in the moment content that you can share. The next tip is to leverage your email marketing.
00:06:09
Speaker
Email marketing is one of my favorite types of content marketing, and it is a great way to keep your brand in front of people without the need for constant attention. attention So the first thing you can do is automate campaigns. This could be, ah you can set up drip campaigns to nurture any leads that come in automatically. So for example, if someone fills out an inquiry on your website, you can send them a welcome email with some downloads or your brochure or your service packages. followed by an invitation to schedule a consultation. So that way, if you're having a crazy week and you are getting inquiries but you just don't have time to get to them, they're getting something. Because we all know that when people are researching wedding vendors,
00:06:56
Speaker
If they don't hear back from you, they're going to find someone else. So you want to get something to them. If you have an email list, you can have a newsletter that goes out at a regular cadence. So you can prepare and schedule all your newsletter newsletters to go out in advance um and share things like trends, behind the scenes glimpses, recent weddings. And this just keeps your list engaged and keeps you top of mind as they're moving through their decision making process. And as a side note for an email list, this is another area that I know some players, some wedding industry people just don't use email marketing because there's a like, oh, we have clients that are kind of a one and done type thing. But remember that even people who sign up to your list that you might never work with as a couple, they
00:07:46
Speaker
will know other people. And if you're showing up in their inbox on a regular cadence, then at some point they're going to know someone that's looking for a wedding planner and you'll be top of mind. I think an email list is super important to any wedding planner marketing strategy.
Content Creation and SEO Strategy
00:08:03
Speaker
The next thing that I want you to try and do is to maintain your blog. Your blog is not just a marketing tool, it's a platform to showcase your expertise. To make sure that you stay on top of this during the busy season, batch your content creation, dedicate one or two days a month to write multiple blog posts, and then you can schedule them to go live throughout the season, which ensures that your blog remains active.
00:08:28
Speaker
You can solicit guest posts, so collaborate with vendors you like, other wedding professionals to have them create something for your blog. It just it diversifies your content and it reduces your workload. And as a bonus, they get to appear to your audience as well. And then finally, repurpose content. I am such a fan of repurposing. So if you had an amazing wedding, turn it into a case study or use it as an inspirational story or social proof of what you do for your clients. And then that blog post can turn into multiple social media posts that send people back to read it. All sorts of things can be done from one blog post. Don't think that for every platform you're on, you're on you have to create something original.
00:09:17
Speaker
every single day. You can take a type of content for one thing, repurpose it into another. The next thing you want to do is optimize your website. This means that your website is attracting and converting clients, especially when you are not able to interact personally as much as you like because you're busy doing actual weddings. So what this means is that you need to follow as SEO best practice practices. Keep your website fresh with regular content updates and optimize your content to improve your search engine ranking. If you are not sure how to even start that, we have a ah quick 10 tip product in the planners launch shop about super easy ah SEO tricks that you can um implement very quickly that are going to get you results.
00:10:11
Speaker
You want to make sure your website has clear navigation. When someone lands ah on your site, it needs to be user-friendly and very straightforward. You never want a website reader to have to hunt for something. There should be a very clear path that sends them a long, where you want them to end up, which hopefully is at a consultation. So make sure that if they land on your site, it's easy to find the navigation, it's easy to see next steps, just because if people feel frustrated on a website, they're gone and they're not coming back.
00:10:46
Speaker
And finally, make sure your website is optimized for mobile. Since the majority of users are likely accessing your site from mobile devices, you want to make sure that your website is seamless when they look at it. Look at it on their phone or their tablet or whatever. You have, I'm sure, looked at a site that's not optimized for mobile and it looks kind of wonky on your phone. You can't find the navigation bar. And what do you do? You leave. Make sure that your site is optimized for mobile.
Networking and Post-Season Assessment
00:11:18
Speaker
My next tip for the busy season is to make sure that you're networking and collaborating where you can. We're at these events with a whole team of other wedding professionals and this is a great networking opportunity. you I am sure that you have planned weddings where It's been the dream team of vendors and I know for me my thought was how can I work with these people again? This was so great. There's also been those weddings where I have worked with vendors that I'm like never again. Like this is not anything I want to repeat at a wedding.
00:11:51
Speaker
you are not only showcasing what you do to the guests, the family, you are showcasing it to other vendors and they are getting even more of a behind the scenes look because you've been working with them as the planner for the entire process, for the weeks leading up, depending on what service they have hired, the couples hired you for. These vendors are really getting a taste of how you work. After the wedding, you want to continue that networking with making sure that you are tagging them. If you share anything from the wedding, you want to tag the other vendors, you want to kind of spread the love with your social following to make sure that if you're highlighting something from the wedding that you're giving credit where credit is due. This goes a long way. And then
00:12:42
Speaker
If it was an amazing experience working with a vendor, go leave them a review about that. You don't have to be a couple or ah someone that's hired them to leave them an amazing review. You can go and say, this photographer is just so professional. I had an amazing experience with our shared client. You know, whatever you want to say, those reviews are gold and it's so kind when you receive one from another vendor. And the last thing with any marketing activities, you want to keep an eye on how your strategies are performing. I know that probably you do not have time to sit down with your Google Analytics and your meta analytics and all of that during your busy season. But at the end, take a look back and see how effective it was. See what your traffic was.
00:13:30
Speaker
With your Google Analytics, you can see how many people came to your website from different platforms based on what you shared. And you can see how many people opted into your newsletter or booked a consultation. It's always important to see how effective a marketing activity was so that you can determine if it's worth continuing. By implementing these strategies, you can make sure that your wedding planning business remains vibrant and visible even during your busiest times. Remember that the key to marketing during the busy season is all about preparation and being adaptable. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you come back next week and I hope you're having an amazing wedding season.