As a new year approaches for your wedding business, we often reflect on new goals! This is particularly true for wedding professionals, as the new year and holiday season is also engagement season!
To avoid overwhelm during this busy time of year, I am going to give you a concise list of 3-things you can do to get your wedding business ready for 2023! You can also listen to the audio version of this blog on the I Do Wedding Marketing Podcast or the video version on our YouTube channel.
1. Review your lead sources. If you haven’t already, I’d love for you to do a year-end analysis of where your leads came from, and the percentage that booked. That second part is just as important, because that is relevant information to your sales process.
Now, depending on what systems, CRMs or lead generators you have in place, getting this data could be easy or it could be challenging. Back in the day, I used to have to TALLY PAPER INQUIRY FORMS. And not because it was decades ago, because it wasn’t. The system being used for this particular location was just outdated. But that doesn’t mean you should skip this process. Taking the time on this will help you to brainstorm better systems for the future.
For others, you may already have this data input into Honeybook, a digital spreadsheet or it can be pulled from your website data.
What’s important to look at is which leads are coming from your paid sources – like the knot, local ads, digital ads you ran, etc. Then review which are coming organically, maybe from referrals, organic social media marketing or even Google.
Now, I want you to pair that data with the booking rate. If your number 1 lead source was a paid listing site, did any of those leads BOOK?
I encourage you to ask this because this is how you can determine your 2023 advertising budget. If you spend $8,000 a year on a digital listing site and 30 inquire but 0 book, you’re not making a return on investment. It could be that they are not attracting the RIGHT leads for you.
Now let’s say you spend $13,000 a year on Social Media Marketing and you get 20 leads and 9 book. This indicates that you are getting more targeted leads and thus a better return on investment.
So even though you got more LEADS through one source, you got more BOOKINGS from another. And the bookings are where you want to focus your investments for 2023.
2. Check up on your website! Have you added new testimonials? Do any of your
promotions or packages include the year and will now be out of date? Are you offering anything new? Are all of your links correct and working? Maybe it’s time to add a blog post? These are just a few things to consider on your website day. If you don’t know what to look for, I recommend researching wedding website expert Brian Lawrence at Brian Lawrence Weddings. He offers 2-hour consulting calls for $500, and you’ll be able to get the straightforward information on what you can do to improve your website for 2023.
3. Identify your goals. I don’t know about you, but I do really well with a specific target. Rather than just setting the goal of “book speaking engagements for 2023” I have a set goal of how MANY I want to book for 2023. I decided on six and I already have two lined-up. Knowing I have that specific goal of four more to go is helping me focus on the end result.
For vendors who book mostly year of – photo-booth companies, favors, etc. I want you to focus mostly on 2023. For vendors who book far out, I want you to focus on 2023 and definitely 2024. How many weddings do you want to book for 2023? Are you there yet? How many left to go? Keep a record of it and track your progress! Do the same for 2024, and when you’re ready 2025.
Keep your target clear and in focus, and adjust it when you make progress. I love to even reward myself – even better if you have a team to reward – when you hit mile markers. Perhaps after you book your first 10 weddings the office gets to order breakfast in, or another fun incentive.
I promised I wouldn’t overwhelm you with a list of things to do, so that’s where we’re going to keep it! Those three things! There are also three ways you can work with me right now – one is with an Instagram Audit, where I will give you tangible steps to generate more traction from your Instagram profile.
The next step up would be for a full-on social media strategy call, where I give you the complete road map to how I would market your business, and what tools I’d use. And of course, the final way to work together is with full service social media management. You can review all of these options over on the packages section of the I Do Wedding Marketing website.
Thank you for being here guys – your time is valuable and I appreciate you spending it with me!