There are a lot of frustrations going on inside a couples head when planning their wedding.

Typically, they have to source around 20 suppliers for their wedding, often with minimal professional wedding planning experience.

And when you factor in couples will probably choose from a minimum of 3 suppliers in each category, that's at least 60 initial enquiries (generating at least 60 responses) to simply get their wedding in motion. It's no wonder couples use pricing for whittling down the fatigue of sourcing wedding suppliers.

Recall some of the language couples have used on you in the past, for example: "Can you give me an idea of your price first as I don't want to waste your time?" What they really mean is they don't want to waste THEIR time if you fall outside their initial budget.

But this approach is flawed, especially if you are justifiably more expensive.

Seek first to understand, before being understood - Stephen Covey

A couples initial budget for your services is often...

In last weeks post, I promised to share the Price Deflector template that my students and I use to deflect the price question when asked too soon by engaged couples.

I created the template (initially for myself) because I found whenever I quoted before explaining my value, typically just 2/10 couples booked. The eight that did not said the cost of my service was above their budget. But whenever I met to explain my value first, 8/10 booked saying I was exactly what they were looking for.

Because price-shoppers are not my target audience, I am prepared to let them go early by using the Price deflector as a filter.

If your prices are much higher than average, and you prefer to meet before quoting, download and customise the Price Deflector from this link because it's an elegant way to get couples back into your marketing funnel. This paves the way to for you to price reveal AFTER you've expressed the emotional benefits loaded in your offer, which benefits you, and not...

DOWNLOAD YOUR 24 POINT CHECKLIST TODAY!

At the beginning of each year, I set one big goal. In 2011 it was to improve the appeal of my website so brides and grooms would:

1) Hang around longer, and

2) Click my call to action to enquire.

The big question back then was "How could I do that?"

It took years of trial and error, but I never gave up, and today I've honed it down to a 24 Point Landing Page Checklist that gets me booked at national and destination weddings, and I want to share it with you.

If your website is not drawing in as many couples as you'd like it to, and your 2020 goal is to boost enquiries from your website, download your free 24 Point Landing Page Checklist today. You'll discover what copy and imagery to change, so your site speaks directly to the wants, needs and desires of the brides and grooms you want to book.

The 24 Point Landing Page Checklist will make your shop window 'stickier', and reduce the number of couples who...

 

 

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

1. Your relationships with your partner (if...

When it comes to marketing, there are more than 100 strategies to choose from, just ask Google, they'll fill your screen in seconds. But when I surveyed the wedding industry, the 9 strategies listed below emerged as popular favourites over and over again.

How many are you using? 

All work, but some deliver better quality bookings than others, but before you discover which ones do, let's first split the 9 strategies into two categories:

Dragging Buckets Vs Installing Pipelines.

When you go hunting for brides and grooms - you Drag Buckets.

When you get hunted by brides and grooms, you've installed Pipelines.

Pipelines are marketing gold -They sit at the top of your Marketing Pyramid, are word of mouth, or system-generated enquiries arriving on autopilot while you do other things.

Buckets -Sit in the base of your Marketing Pyramid, are hustled enquiries, created by you, producing one-hit wonders, often at a cost.

Breaking it down

Here are the 6 differentiators...

Think of your ad as a 3-sectioned funnel:

1. The purpose of the headline is to compel your bride and groom to read the main copy.
2. The purpose of the main copy is to compel your couple to click your CTA (call to action).
3. The purpose of the CTA is to move your couple onto your preferred next step.

Your headline
Begin with a benefit-driven headline that goes straight to the heart of your bride and grooms desire to gain or avoid something, but it can also do both! Let's use the headline in this post as an example:

"How to write compelling ads for success in 2020."

Well, this is definitely loaded with benefits. The "How to" offers the benefit of education and transformation… being able to "write compelling ads" is benefit-driven because it's precisely what you, the wedding pro wants to achieve. It works, which is why you've read this far :-)

This headline is all about 'gain', but you can easily extend it to appeal to people who are motivated by the need to avoid an...

(Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 24 seconds.)

An effective influencer governing the buying decisions of your most valued couples is to offer a money-back guarantee (MBG).



But of all I teach, this bold influencer meets with the most resistance. And I totally get it. I know your concerns (if you have any) because there once was a time when I resisted offering a money-back guarantee as well.

Actually, that's an understatement.

When I first contemplated the idea, I clenched my buttocks so tight, had I been sitting on a lump of coal it would have compressed into a diamond! But joking aside, the reason I objected was because it is an ADVANCED INFLUENCER that's NOT right for everybody and I was not ready for it at the time.

You see, I did not realise that offering a MBG required a very high level of business confidence through an ability to over-deliver on a couple's expectations. Furthermore, I had two massive fears for not offering a MBG:

Fear #1 "What if my couple just made...

I've been paying close attention to the language better-paying couples use to describe the suppliers they love for more than half a decade.

"We changed the date of our wedding to have them."

"They were exactly what we are looking for."

"S/he was the only one we looked at."

When you create a signature wedding experience that gets couples fizzing with excitement the moment they discover it, price is no longer the #1 buying trigger, emotion is.

Has that ever happened to you, where you got so emotionally attached to something you just had to have it; even though a cheaper option was available? You bought it because the emotional pull outweighed its cost.

Better-paying brides and grooms behave in the same way.

When you can clearly articulate the professionalism, excitement and reliability your business delivers, you'll heighten the emotional connection couples feel for you, reaching the tipping point where you're no longer expensive; you're essential to the success...

Mental toughness is required

This post is more intense than the lighter ones I've shared in previous weeks, so you may want to study it, then have a break for 20 minutes or so, then come back and go over it again.

The infographic shows the price curve many wedding professionals travel along (self-included), from start-up (being underpaid) to maturity (getting paid what you are worth).

The Red Xs mark the price points where sufficient bookings are made at the asking price.

Breakdown

Point A - Typically at start-up, suppliers operate along the lower Price-Driven Mindset Curve. An eagerness to get booked results in suppliers accepting low to medium paying weddings. Suppliers set costs at this level, for one of three reasons:

1) The desire to be priced competitively so as not to be ruled out by the price-sensitive couples they inadvertently attract.

2) The fear that brides and grooms will view the supplier as too expensive if they charged their worth.

3) A lack of...

Two weeks ago, I promised to reveal the winning formula for a wedding website that converts, here it is:

If your site tries to appeal to all, instead of to your ideal couple, you will inadvertently attract price shoppers and repel the higher paying couples you want to book, locking you in an awful 'Catch 22' cycle. To break-out, there is no better starting place than this quote:

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

Let's Begin With Design

Let us say you deliver a 5/5 service, but your poorly designed website wrongly implies its only 3/5. The ambiguity in your message will result in your target audience side-stepping you because of a failure to resonate with their needs, however price shoppers may get in touch because your 'look and feel' may appeal to them.

Your Website Will Underperform If:

1. Your landing page headline does not match the message to the ideal couple you ...