Waiting until engagement season to start investing in your wedding business is like shopping for Christmas the day before. It’s rushed, it’s compromised and you are getting what’s left instead of what you need.
I stress having your wedding business' online presence ready to go by engagement season so that YOU can spend the season doing what you do best – catering to your couples.
While engagement season may vary for some (for example, invitation designers or photo-booths company may be booked at a later stage of an engagement) it is still important to have your best foot forward during this window.
And not all of it requires an outside expert or investment.
Here is what I want to talk about and have you consider about your businesses online presence before engagement season:
1. Your website. This is the most important because your website is where all of your clients are lead to go – or at least in a traditional sales funnel should be. The support I offer clients on social media is all designed to bring a couple to the website to inquire. If you invest in services like The Knot or WeddingWire, legitimate leads often go beyond the platform and to your website. Other investments like SEO, Google Ranking and keywords are also designed to bring people to your website. So, what does this mean?
This means that you can invest in all the right things – social media, SEO, digital listings – but if your website is dated, jumbled, unprofessional or hard to follow – then none of those investments can overcome that.
In episode 32 of the I Do Wedding Marketing podcast I sat with a web designer for wedding professionals, Ariel Theiken of I Do Design Studio and she shared the features your website NEEDS to have. So listen to that episode to get more details, but it’s important that your website has a legitimate domain, is easy to follow and is UPDATED! I do see MANY, outdated websites from established wedding professionals. You may not get to see through your data how many are NOT booking because of your website. You may not be looking at your data at all. Explore it! Meeting with a web designer will help you identify if people are leaving the site quickly, filling out your contact form, and they will be able to create a website that converts to those contact forms.
2. Additional Listings. Do you have additional listings for your website? Local advertisers, The Knot, WeddingWire? I like to take the time before wedding season to make sure all of these sites are current in terms of your verbiage, photos and links. I see constantly people who are on The Knot, and their Instagram links don’t even work. The modern couples KNOWS that in addition to your reviews, they can get an idea of your business through social. Make sure all of those links are working!!!
3. Social Media. Audit what is already there. On episode 4 and 5 of the podcast I break down how I audit my social media profiles so I won’t reshare it here. Additionally, if you are looking for a professional eye to audit your profile, I do take consultation calls where I can prepare an audit for you, so check that out on my website.
4. Content - Before engagement season is the time where I contact all the vendors a client has worked with that I have on record to ask for photos. Some wedding photographers through open communication will send me wedding albums whenever they shoot at a venue, and some prefer to do it in one shot like this. This could also mean taking your own photos or investing in purchasing images to use for your social media going forward.
5. Content also means captioning. Having my brand identity is huge, and I did talk about this before on an episode of the I Do Wedding Marketing podcast. I use the website first to host my long-form content in the form of the website pages and blogs. From there, I use that content in other social media platforms throughout the year. Check out episode 14 for a deeper dive on this.
6. Scheduling. What can you schedule ahead of time? E-mail blasts, social media content, blogs. Prepare now to post later – or even schedule it out. Now is ALSO the time to consider if you’d like to work with an expert like myself to start your social media. It is best to get started at least 3 months before you want to see results – that is the time it takes to get the organic groove going.
All of this was presented in Episode 61 of the I Do Wedding Marketing podcast, which you can listen to here.
Don't forget! The Engaged to Engagement Workshop is Live September 14th. Purchase tickets now while available!
What would you like to hear on the next episode of the I Do Wedding Marketing podcast? Let me know!