Imagine you find yourself on the airstrip of a private runway. You urgently need to fly home and an aeroplane is almost ready for take-off. It’s a small jet and the unkempt pilot and co-pilot seem quite unsure about the instruments, regularly referring to flight manuals for instructions. The cockpit looks shabby and in need of mechanical attention, some of the dials show small but noticeable cracks unnerving you.

20 minutes prior to take-off, the captain eventually ignites the engine and an irregular clanking noise amplifies your concern.

You have the opportunity to disembark or fly.

Will you “sit back and enjoy the flight,” or heard for the nearest exit? Based on your first impressions, probably the latter.

A tale of 2 planes

Imagine instead you find yourself onboard a private jet, where after being checked in by the smartly uniformed flight attendants, you notice the soft leather flatbed seats. The door to the cockpit is ajar and the crisply dressed...

During my early teens I had no idea the American entrepreneur Victor Kiam would influence my marketing strategy decades later.

I was in the sitting room watching our 14” black and white TV, when an advert came on and there was Victor Kiam confidently guaranteeing “The Remington will shave you as close as a blade, or your money back!” He exclaimed.

I had not even hit puberty, yet the power of his confidence held my attention, I can only imagine the effect his promise had on his hairy target audience! His differences made Remington stand out against the competition, memorable to a pre-puberty schoolboy and contributed to the massive success of his company.

Money Back Guarantee Sends Massage of Confidence to Brides

Some time in the small hours of 2012 I was restless and could not sleep, and still lying in bed with the bedside light on, I flashed back to Victor Kiam’s TV advert, and in that moment decided to differentiate my wedding business. I...

Prospects expect you to say you are the best because they know you want their business so your affirmations of awesomeness will always fall on partially sceptical ears... at least initially.

It is much more powerful to have hoards of past clients rave about you because they have no vested interest in their testimonials declaring your brilliance and therein lies the power of a testimonial. The more prospects discover your wedding business being positively talked about by large numbers of brides, grooms, guests and wedding suppliers both on and offline, the better. So do everything you can to ignite this fire and keep it raging because social proof has the power to move the needle of your business.

Reading moving testimonials by others who have used your services can ease prospects another notch further down your sales funnel. It is for this reason whenever I present to couples at meetings, the penultimate slide before price revealation is...

Scarcity Is Good For Your Wedding Business. Things of limited supply are highly valued which is why for example when gold, diamonds, friendship or love are found, they are treasured, secured and protected.

If you are small enough to offer a signature wedding experience that can only be served to one couple per wedding day, let brides know they have a ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY to have you as part of their wedding. Turn limited availability into exclusivity. If you have done a good enough job with the other 6 influencers I've shared over the passed few weeks, and you've got your couple to fall in love with you, scarcity will speed up their decision making process to buy because they won’t want to lose you to another couple.

Architect a restricted window to hire - because if brides and grooms think you will be available in a month or longer, they will procrastinate over their decision to buy. Thats just the way...

The reason price shoppers are attracted to you is because YOU ARE ‘INADVERTENTLY’ APPEALING TO THEM.

The marketing message, on your website and other communications is ‘ACCIDENTALLY’ saying “PRICE SHOPPER, TALK TO ME”.

The good news is, if you have a problem fixing your current marketing message, you are absolutely in the right place, because I can definitely help you.

If we are to begin with the end in mind there is no better starting place than this quote from Albert Einstein:

“We cannot solve our problems with the SAME thinking we used when we created them.”

So what THINKING did you use when you began to inadvertently appeal to price shoppers?

At startup, you may have begun with a low budget because you had no, or only a few bookings in your calendar; and low cash flow may have restricted you into producing a website that was either:

• Homemade
• Built by a designer who does not understand the wedding market
• Lacks the...

So why do brides ask for price too early?
There are a lot frustrations going on inside a brides head when planning a wedding for the very 1st time.

A bride has to source and then make enquiries to around 20 separate suppliers to create her idea of the perfect wedding and she is doing it all, more often than not, with very little professional wedding planning experience.

And when you factor in the average bride will reach out to a minimum of 3 suppliers in each category, that’s at least 60 initial enquiries (generating at least 60 responses) to simply get her wedding in motion - it’s no wonder brides suffer from overwhelm. And this is why quite often a bride will use price to pre-select suppliers to cut down her workload and stress in the early stages.
 
But this approach can be flawed.

SEEK 1st TO UNDERSTAND BEFORE BEING UNDERSTOOD

Her budget for your services at best is often a made up figure gathered from her life experience so far, combined with the advice she has...

Do you have a wedding marketing question you'd love answered? I often get asked similar questions in different ways. I'll share the most popular here. Check back for updates periodically:

Hi Terry, I currently average 45 plus weddings per year, though its a lot, I contribute it to my pricing being competitive for the quality I provide. My sales last year was upward of $180k.

The biggest frustration in this business right now specially in my city (Florida) is the weekend warriors. Digital has made it easier for someone to pickup a camera , shoot a ton of photos, edit and filter the heck out of the photos and they are getting paid even more than what I charge. As a full time photographer for over 20 years with a brick and mortar location in a well established wedding area, I see more and more go to the coffee shop photographers, taking a bite of our business here for the true professionals.

Churches here have also put stronger restrictions on shooting as these not...

Have you ever sat down in front of your computer, sent an email to prospects and heard crickets?

This use to happen to me as well until I incorporated The 4 Essential Keys into my email marketing and in so doing, I increased my response rate by 60%.

Messages I use to write had a disappointing reply rate, because of the poor copy writing skills I applied; I call those my ‘Emails to DEBRA.’

The super-responsive emails I write today are a massive contrast, and more often than not go onto build a two way relationship that moves prospects further down my sales funnel; and I call these my ‘Emails to BECI.’ 

DEBRA and BECI are of course both acronyms…

Deletable Subject Headlines

DEBRA's inbox fills up on average at a rate of 125 messages a day, so she’s trained herself to evaluate the appeal of incoming mail based on the subject headline FAST. Within just 3 seconds DEBRA will decide if your message is worthy of an...

1. Apply the 10 minute funnel

Condense your pitch and responses from your prospects to around 10 minutes. Why? Think of your wedding fair as a conveyor belt of potential new business; every minute you spend engaged in conversation with a bride, is a minute saying goodbye to the other brides walking past your stand, because as they walk on by, they do so having been denied the opportunity of learning about how your unique wedding experience can improve their day.

So what should you aim to achieve in around 10 minutes for maximum bookings from your fair?

2. Draw brides in

It starts with a pattern interrupting banner, video or display to compel brides to stop by and want to know more. Your draw is effectively your headline and is the most important attribute of your stand, so carefully plan the mind trigger you’ll use to attract brides in. What attention grabber can you create to demand a bride to think “Wow! I’ve got to stop by here”. Focus solely on the unique...