Episode 1: A look at digital marketing for wedding vendors.

0:00 Introduction and Overview by Curtis Wallis
1:13 Digital Marketing in the Wedding Industry
5:15 Changes and Competition in the Wedding Industry
9:11 Marketing Strategies for Wedding Businesses
16:22 The Importance of Marketing Help and Online Reviews
21:25 Marketing Concepts, Search Intent, and PPC
24:13 Targeting Engaged Couples and Brand Exposure
25:16 Skill Audits and Buyer Personas
26:30 Client Decision-Making and Closing Remarks

 

Additional Show Notes

Transcript:

Curtis Wallis: This is the I do and the sitters. I’m your host Curtis Wallis. Where we help you market and grow your wedding business? Let’s get started.

Curtis Wallis: Hi, everyone. I’m Curtis Wallis and welcome to the I do insiders. Our very first podcast episode. So episode 1, I would call it. Thank you for watching, and I hope to get you a lot more information as we go along.

Curtis Wallis: So I wanted to kinda give you an overview, real quickly. If you really wanna know podcast about. I do have a little trailer episode that explains a little bit, but, basically, for today, what we’re looking at is how to market your wedding business. As I said before, I’m Curtis Wallis. I’ve been a professional photographer for 30 years, and I’m also a marketing professional.

Curtis Wallis: I have mixed in the industry for years. I’ve got clients that are wedding vendors as well as I’m one myself, so I’ve gone through where you guys are right now. My idea for doing this podcast basically was to be able to help, different wedding vendors. I dabbled a little bit in trying to figure out, hey. Should I just do photographers, videographers, one little niche or could I come up with information that would help all wedding vendors?

Curtis Wallis: Now, guys, I don’t wanna just sit here and spew out you know, my information. What I’m looking to do is find professionals that are part of the wedding business and listen to what they’re doing as well as some that are marketing professionals and talk to them about how to really take marketing and that approach into your wedding business. Everyone’s gonna be a little different. We’ve got we’re gonna hopefully have some DJ photographers, wedding venues. They’re all different, you know, they fall differently on the whole of who gets hired first.

Curtis Wallis: So sometimes that comes into play. Sometimes there’s a budget. There’s so many factors that goes into each one of yours that I don’t wanna make broad statements, but at the same time, I wanna try to give you some basic information. And as we grow through the podcast, I’m always gonna rewind a little bit, relearn see how things change and kinda say, hey. What are we doing here?

Curtis Wallis: And how does that apply to you? And just go back, learn some of the basics. We’ll learn together I’ll try to find the latest information as well as some of the professionals. So what are we gonna talk about today? Basically for today, and I’m gonna bring up my notes here, guys.

Curtis Wallis: So I love having different notes, and so I can kinda see so you’ll see me glancing down just to kinda keep myself organized here. What we’re gonna talk about is digital marketing or marketing. What is that? And how you should take that as an approach for your business. In general, you’ll hear a couple concepts being bounced around digital marketing, online marketing, maybe traditional marketing.

Curtis Wallis: Wedding vendors fall a little bit into both. K? What is digital marketing? Digital marketing is also called online marketing. It refers to all the efforts that you put to market your business that is digital.

Curtis Wallis: That’s online. Things like websites, blogging, social media, pay per click advertising. We’ll go over that later. SEO, you know, optimizing website to be able to be found on Google, as well as maybe interacting with some of these. We’ve we are all part of different websites now, the not wetting wire.

Curtis Wallis: Different ones like that that basically are digitally marking our We might pay for those. Those do kind of fall into your paid media. That’s digital, but we all know that there are other things that wedding venues do participate in, word-of-mouth. That is marketing. You know, you get a referral from one bride that takes you to the next bride or next couple or, maybe a venue recommends you.

Curtis Wallis: That’s a great thing too. So word-of-mouth is is huge in the wedding business. Bridal shows? Not digital. You meet people.

Curtis Wallis: They walk through. I’m sure there’s many out there that are listings in some magazine or you have been reached out. Hey. Is that worth it for me? Another avenues partnerships.

Curtis Wallis: I seem to find that a lot of you got your caterers, you got your DJs that developed these relationship with different venues. They just say, hey. I just catered a a handful of venues around town, and they give me enough business. Good to go. Okay?

Curtis Wallis: So all those are marketing efforts. That you’re gonna do. It’s we’re gonna take a look at marketing as a whole, the concept of marketing your wedding business and what you have to do. That’s really what we’re looking at. So if you start researching and say, hey.

Curtis Wallis: Online marketing, digital marketing, marketing, what do I really need? You have to understand as a business owner, and you are a business owner. I don’t care if you’re one photographer, one DJ, one Flores that you just you’re just getting started out or you know, you’ve been around several years, and you’re still just a one person or you’re a venue that maybe has five locations. It’s all the same. And as a business owner, you absolutely need to know what all this is and have an understanding of it.

Curtis Wallis: So what’s different in the wedding industry now? It’s, as I’ve been, like I said earlier, guys, 30 years gonna see a lot of that. That is Ziva in the background. We’re big into the fostered dogs. And so sorry.

Curtis Wallis: You’re gonna see them come and go and back and forth. So it’s just part of me doing, my podcast. Got here, guys. Some fun of it. So what’s different in the wedding wedding industry now?

Curtis Wallis: I think one of the biggest factors that we’re looking are 2. I’m gonna say 2 biggest factors is first, let’s look at the SEO results. SEO. If you don’t know a search engine optimization, that’s being found on the internet Googling it Let me find a wedding vendor, vendor, a wedding floor, as a wedding photographer, and let’s Google it, see who ranks first, rank first, you get all the traffic. I can’t say that it’s not wrong.

Curtis Wallis: That’s how it works. Top 3. As soon as it falls off the top 3, it drastically goes down. But I will tell you I have a client that they ranked if we looked at just what if you googled their term, and they were ranked number 2. 2.

Curtis Wallis: Great. But they did not fall between map listings sponsorship. Now you’ve got Google ai so many factors. They were down in what we’ll call the position, 8 to 10, kind of what we used to call page 2. So here they are as they’ve been ranking for years.

Curtis Wallis: Now all of a sudden, boom, it’s different. Now you got Google’s AI informational search. The intent of what Google’s showing has just changed. So that has hurt a not only wedding industry. A lot of small businesses that relied on that went Oh, no.

Curtis Wallis: What’s happened to my business? Why am I not getting calls? Why am I not getting leads? And you start going and you look at your organic traffic, organic traffic is traffic that you get from people searching you, it’s gone. It’s down nothing, or down way less than what you thought.

Curtis Wallis: It’s because Google has switched around your search or whatever has led to you maybe searching your search engine, your rankings have done well. Now all of a sudden, you’re not doing well. One of the bad things is relying on your search engine results for years. And then all of a sudden, you can’t get it back. So that has drastically changed many small businesses, not just wedding professionals, many other small businesses, local services, that sort of thing.

Curtis Wallis: The other thing we’re looking at is the amount of competition. As a photographer, I trust me. I know there’s a lot amount of competition out there. It seems like everyone you talk to a couple Well, yeah. So and so was gonna do the wedding.

Curtis Wallis: A friend of a friend. My sister does this. My brother does this. I know a friend’s who brother is trying to get into this. Wedding other wedding vendors, there’s not any difference.

Curtis Wallis: The amount of competition, I’m in Columbus, Ohio. I can tell you the amount of wedding venues that have exploded since coming out of COVID, I bet you it’s tripled. I used to be that I knew every wedding venue in town. Yesterday or the day before had a meeting at a nice lunch, and they brought up another one, and I went, I’ve never heard of that. Absolutely never heard of that.

Curtis Wallis: So it makes it quite interesting as you get more competition The good news is is there really is plenty of weddings out there. There are plenty of brides and grooms and couples looking for venues, looking for DJ stuff like that, that you just have to kinda see what’s the numbers you need and how to be found and and kinda just Now this is what our goal here is, guys, is to really get ahead of the competition look at all areas of your marketing and give you a longevity in the wedding industry. K. The best way of really looking at that is a holistic. I’m gonna back up one of my slides here and a holistic approach to marketing.

Curtis Wallis: What does that mean? It means looking at your wedding business and not just diving into one area and say, oh, man. I’m gonna make sure I’m right. Oh, I’m gonna make sure I’m all over social media. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work anymore.

Curtis Wallis: It really does mean you’ve gotta do a lot of things. Now here’s here’s you’ve all, you know, seen the little things like, hey. Little programs. How do I get better in social media as a photographer as a wedding DJ? How do I market my business?

Curtis Wallis: And I’ll talk about that a little bit later, but I wanna kinda give you an idea of a statement I just said. It said you need to do a holistic approach. To marketing, and that’s a little bit of everything. Now what does that mean? It means what you have to do is you have to do more than your competition.

Curtis Wallis: It also means if somebody says, oh, man, I just started doing social media. I started all over Instagram. I’m doing this. I’m doing that. Or TikTok, whatever your age group and demographic is.

Curtis Wallis: Said, I just did I do that all the time, and that’s all I do to market myself. So there are lots of competitors out there. Now when I say a holistic approach to marketing, honestly, you have to look at what your competitor’s doing, who’s being found not only what they’re doing, but what can you do more than them? So when somebody says, hey. Social media work for me, I got tons of business.

Curtis Wallis: It might mean that a lot of your competition just doesn’t have a lot of Google reviews. And so all you needed to be able to get ahead would stay on social media. There are some cities that that is not enough. You have to look at how many Google reviews you have, how many backlinks you have to your profile or how many times you’ve been published, how what’s your blogging what’s your pay per click, you know, campaigns you’re working on right now. How much engagement are you getting on social media and just not being on social media?

Curtis Wallis: It’s about outworking your competition, taking a look at what your competition is doing, and then giving yourself the game plan of here’s what I need. As a marketing campaign as a whole and my approach and be ready to change that next year. I’ll say it again. Be ready to change that next year. That’s the bad part of marketing.

Curtis Wallis: We could have TikTok and say, great. Next year, TikTok can be gone. Just the way it is. What’s the latest big thing on social media? What’s more expensive now?

Curtis Wallis: Google Google was king on searching and optimization and getting ranked. Nope. Now they want you to pay for it. You gotta pay. Well, I’ll tell you what, Google pay per click advertising is really expensive.

Curtis Wallis: And, again, you might be competing with big studios in your town. You might not have a competition that you can spend 50 dollars a month, $5 a day, $50 a day. It’s about what’s in your area. So everyone’s gonna be a little different. So I want you to be able to understand what is involved in marketing your business and then say, how do I get that done?

Curtis Wallis: So we’re gonna back up, and I want you to think about one thing, and that is your wedding couple. K. There are some things that we’re not gonna dive into today, but you have to understand what your buyer does. And this is whole thing in marketing about it’s anywhere though putting the 5 and 6 phases of the buyer’s journey. And the first thing that looks into as a need recognition, and that is, oh, I’m having a wedding.

Curtis Wallis: I’m getting married. I need to find this. Hey. That’s us. Raise your hand.

Curtis Wallis: That’s us. We want the you come to us, have a couple say, hey. Yes. I offer that service. Next is your information search.

Curtis Wallis: Basically, they’re searching on the internet, trying to find, hey, us, looking around saying what they can they find. And, remember, they might be looking at a venue looking at a date, but they’re also seeing photographers. They’re seeing florists. They’re seeing, caters. They’re seeing DJs.

Curtis Wallis: They’re seeing all this kind of efficiency, all this kind of stuff. But they’re searching information. Part phase 3 or part 3, and the buyer’s journey is alternative evaluation. What does that mean? That means, oh, okay.

Curtis Wallis: I like this person, but for this company, what else is out there? Let me find what else is available so I can start shopping costs. Well, maybe there’s a little bit more effective. Maybe I can that fits a budget better. Oh, I like that package.

Curtis Wallis: So that informational search is really has a lot of alternatives going around. It also goes back to when you’re talking about phase 2 and information search they’re looking up information about you, your company. Where are they looking? Social media? Google reviews.

Curtis Wallis: They’re going out on the forums. Hey. Who did you use for a wedding DJ? We’ve all seen those Facebook meta groups. That basically there’s groups of, I’m looking for this.

Curtis Wallis: I’m looking for this. Everyone’s intent is a little different, but they’re re searching you. There’s a stat I heard the other day that 58% of buyers and this is general buyers, not wedding industry. I’m trying to get as much wedding industry, and that will come in in later episodes, but just so you know, it’s, like, 58% go back and research a company. So If you look around at companies that relied on just SEO efforts and never did social media, guess what?

Curtis Wallis: 58% of the your buyers could be gone because if you don’t have a social media presence and active social media presence, you’re they’re just gonna pass you by. So we’re really looking. And then phase 4 is basically purchase decision, and 5 is completing the the purchase 6 is a a post purchase reviewing the process. Those are your after wedding things. But the first 3 to 4 is what I want you to really focus on right now.

Curtis Wallis: And that’s somebody develops the need. They got engaged. Now they’re searching for information. They’re finding alternatives. The idea is your marketing is gonna catch those people those couples and bring them into your process that you need to have that process.

Curtis Wallis: So what do we do with new couples? Are they getting the information? Can I respond back to them? Are they filling out their form? Are they not filling out the form?

Curtis Wallis: Did they come from social media? Did they come from paper click? Did they come from the venue referring you over? Knowing where those areas are and where they are in the buyer’s journey is exactly how you respond, and you kinda keep your whole efforts going. Okay?

Curtis Wallis: So I I actually typed right here. It says, wow. That’s a lot. It is a lot, guys. And that’s why I’m really encouraging you guys to understand this a little bit, but realizing it’s okay to ask for help.

Curtis Wallis: It’s okay to learn what you can do yourself and I’ll and what you need to go. Hey. I get a company to help me? Okay. Things you need to look at to market, you know, how what I’m looking at is how can you market your wedding business successfully?

Curtis Wallis: You’ve learned all this stuff. You’re looking at, oh, here’s the buyer. What do I need to do? So how can you market your wedding business successfully? First things, it’s your competition.

Curtis Wallis: Look what you have to do, what your competition is possibly doing. It doesn’t mean it works for you, but knowing what they’re doing so you can work the competition, seeing what people are looking at in your area. And again, I have right down here, What works for one does not always work for another. What works in one area of the country may not work in another, and it’s not so that it may not work. It just may not be needed as well as I’ll tell you.

Curtis Wallis: There’s lots of programs and stuff you can go out there and buy. I did it too, guys. I went and said, hey. How do I learn to be better on social media in the wedding industry? I got some nice cookie cutter type places.

Curtis Wallis: Great. Great. Knowledge, everything. I will tell you what they taught did not even fit my style, did not work for me and personally, did not work for my style and my personality at all. And I’m like, I can’t do that.

Curtis Wallis: That’s gonna be presenting somebody. I’m not. So you need to see what works for your business, k, and outwork that competition. So I said it a little bit. So why I really think you should get help marketing your wedding business?

Curtis Wallis: The reason is it’s a lot of work for one person to do. I want you to stop thinking like a small business. Want you to think like a big business owner, even if you’re one photographer, says, hey. I’ve just that’s all I wanna do is wedding photography. So can market my business or I don’t have an ad age ad agency.

Curtis Wallis: I don’t have this. It’s okay. Again, it’s what the competition is doing and what works for you, but with traditional marketing and digital marketing changing the past couple of years with that search engine optimization and everything you need to do, you really should look at Is there companies that can help me? And I’m not talking about big budget companies, maybe some small companies. I’ll give you a great example, online reviews, for getting Google reviews is a great way of marketing your business, showing couples that you get reviews.

Curtis Wallis: We all know if you’re a member of the knot, and WeddingWire, you see those reviews. You love those. Your reviews are you a long term 5 star not person? Are you in the hall of fame? Can you present that?

Curtis Wallis: Great. But there’s also Google searches. There are third party companies out there that will help you get reviews. And I’m not talking about buying reviews. I’m talking about working with your customers and saying, hey.

Curtis Wallis: Following up, sending them a text, saying, I know you just worked with someone. So over the weekend, congratulations. Would you take a minute to review the business and leave a review on meta? Leave a review on whatever social media platform you’re on, and then Google. So it’s a great way of farming out third party.

Curtis Wallis: Bricing. I’ve done a bunch of research on this the last couple of months, guys. You could pay $99 a month. You can pay $500 a month. There’s a wide range of it and what you need.

Curtis Wallis: For me, I’ll tell you this is a minute. What weddings there are some people that will do a wedding every weekend. That was not me. It’s still not me. I prefer to do a little bit longer weddings, take my time on the weddings, not do a bunch.

Curtis Wallis: So I don’t have 50 wedding clients a year that I’m gonna sit here and try to get all this market from. I have to be very specific and very personable with my review process. So it’s a little different. Somebody else that’s doing a lot more. Yeah.

Curtis Wallis: You may. A third party might be great for you to bring in like that to say, hey. If I give you an email and phone number, can you reach out to my couples? And it’s all software AI driven at this point, guys. And get reviews going so I can slowly build my Google reviews going up my Facebook.

Curtis Wallis: Unfortunately, a lot of them don’t necessarily go to the knot, totally different story on the knot, but you can provide links and say, here’s something for them to go. So you can build that into. You have to also look at your skill set. Some people are better on social media than others. K.

Curtis Wallis: Maybe you want to do social media a lot more and farm out this direction. Maybe you love blogging. On your website and putting those things up. But, man, I don’t know anything about SEO. So you gotta hire a company to say, can you optimize my website and promote it every month.

Curtis Wallis: That’s a huge difference. We’ll talk about later. So you guys start looking at all the areas that you really need and say, what can I do for a skill set? What can I afford to farm out and what you just don’t have the skill set to do? And and take advantage of.

Curtis Wallis: Alright? But affordability for you, and that’s why I say, you know, stop thinking like a small business. If you want that business, grow, it will cost you some money to market. You can even, I’ll tell you what, guys, there are plenty of, business professionals out there sort of like myself that is willing to go. I’ll sit down and talk to you for a little bit.

Curtis Wallis: Let’s map this out, and then you could start seeing and going, okay. What might be affordable? Give you some suggestions. That direction. So sometimes that’s just a little approach going, okay.

Curtis Wallis: I can do this, but encourage you. It’s okay to ask for help. On third party places to help you market and grow that business. Right? Other things as far as in marketing, there’s just some overall key concepts as you’re building your business and you’re learning about marketing your wedding business, you have to know, like, hey.

Curtis Wallis: How can I market my wedding business? What do I need to know and what some concepts that maybe some people are going to come back at me with? Maybe it’s just some terminology, things like funnel. What is a funnel? Very simple concept.

Curtis Wallis: The funnel is remember all those brides, grooms, couples running around and and just searching That’s the top of the funnel. Think of it like a funnel. All those people, the idea is they may see you on the website, but they didn’t fill out your form. But we need to get them to fill out the form. So then we get them in that buyer’s journey and get their information and when are they ready to buy do we reach out to them?

Curtis Wallis: Cause the end result or the bottom of the funnel is them booking you, but it doesn’t just start from them booking you. It starts for them, believe it or not. And this is where people kinda forget to understand they’re out there researching. You may be the 1st place that they looked at. You may be the 1st vendor.

Curtis Wallis: Great. But you may be the 2nd or third too, because the first person maybe didn’t get back to him in time. Maybe they were already booked. So it’s in that journey of being able to say what are the couples doing, where are they? Can I get their information?

Curtis Wallis: Did they just visit my website? And now I need to target them with an app. So the funnel is just getting that buyer and pushing them right through your process of getting them to book. Other things you’re looking at is you’ll hear it kinda go around as PPC. It’s pay per click.

Curtis Wallis: Or paid advertising. If you’re a member of the not a wedding wire, that is paid advertising. You pay for that So they’ll promote you, pay per click on Google and meta and TikTok and all the social media platforms do it. Just basically means you’re putting an ad up And every time somebody clicks, you pay for it. It’s an open blank check.

Curtis Wallis: Yep. You’re you might be diving into different concepts. A good example is Google tends to be people typing in wedding venue in your local city and state, or what’s the best wedding venue? And then if your information doesn’t come up or it does come up, you’re looking at the search results at the very top is the ad that says Whatever your business name is, the best wedding venue in town, click here. And they click on it and they go to your website or a landing page, preferably, landing page.

Curtis Wallis: This is that basic information that you get a couple to fill out that form. We’ve all seen it. You take the information and you get back to them as soon as you can. That’s how pay per click works. Google is that search intent.

Curtis Wallis: Meta is a little bit more of showing, let’s say, somebody that changed their profile, say, recently engaged. Now your ad starts showing. It’s great for little areas. If you’re just in a little suburb, small little town, you can make sure your ads are popping up in the right people. K?

Curtis Wallis: Another concept is you’re gonna hear, and the numbers are all over the place, is how many times your brand has to be in front of a couple? Anywhere from 7 to 20 one times for them to actually start responding to you. That means a little bit of ad. That means you popping up on search results. That means maybe word-of-mouth maybe being they saw your your photographer, your photo up at a wedding venue.

Curtis Wallis: All those things that you can do to get that 7 to 21 times out of the way. So that way when maybe they see you on a search result and go, wait, I remember that person, and it starts clicking their head going, oh, it’s a better brand going there. K? And again, I said earlier, what’s your skill set? Take a look, real deep dive, do a a little internal audit and say, what can you do well?

Curtis Wallis: What do you need help for? What do I need help learning, sort of thing? Okay, guys. That’s just a general overview of what this podcast is or what marketing is about. What I wanna tell you is what’s coming in the podcast.

Curtis Wallis: I’m hoping our next go around, I wanna talk about buyer persona. Buyer persona is basically, do you have a true outline and description of who your ideal couple is? What’s your market because as your marketing things, you need to know where they are. And I wanna walk through exactly creating that buyer persona and how to do that. Other things might be, I definitely have some marketing professionals on the plate kind of saying, hey.

Curtis Wallis: Come in here who specialize in weddings who can say, here’s where we’re going. Here’s the best thing that I would tell business to do. I’ve also got some friends that are in the wedding or in the photography industry to give maybe it’s a little deep dive they’ve been a professional portrait person for so many years. Some things of developing an editorial style, some different trendy things that are in the industry, as well as goals down the road. My biggest goal is to actually on this podcast is to have real life brides and grooms, couples, that after the wedding will tell us, why did you ghost that person?

Curtis Wallis: Why did you choose this fender of another? Let’s get a little informational pamphlet. Go. Let’s ask questions. So I’m starting to develop and work on some different forms as far as building those questions.

Curtis Wallis: And that way, we know we can ask afterwards. Wonder why they picked that person over this person and getting I’m working on getting all those questions together. So I I’m really looking forward to getting that down in the future. So that’s what’s coming next in the podcast. Be sure that you subscribe to the podcast, whatever, they’re on Apple, Spotify, whatever platform you use, make sure you subscribe.

Curtis Wallis: If you love the concepts of what we’re doing here, be sure to leave a a little review. That’d be great. Also, don’t forget to I’ve got some links below, anywhere from my websites that we’re working on building and creating this great platform to you to, personal wedding site. You know, I’ll always push. It’s okay.

Curtis Wallis: So hopefully some great things in the future and looking forward to even building podcasts and helping you grow your wedding business. Thank you for listening to the I do insiders where we support share and succeed and help you in your wedding business. If you liked podcasts and would love to hear some more episodes, please leave us a short review on your favorite platforms described to our podcast. So your latest episodes end up in your inbox.