I’m honored to introduce Heidi Thompson, founder of Evolve Your Wedding Business and a marketing maven for wedding pros as the guest blog this week! Heidi excels in teaching wedding entrepreneurs ins and outs of the wedding marketing business. Between her busy schedule of managing a business and a blog, she was kind enough to share the inside scoop on preventing website mistakes wedding professionals are prone to make.
Without further ado, here’s Heidi~
6 Big Website Mistakes That Most Wedding Professionals Make
You’ve got a bad case of “Me, Me” Syndrome
Does your website read like this? “I studied for years, and I won this award and I shoot weddings in this particular style”? If your website contains lots of personal pronouns like us, me, we, I and our then your business has “Me, Me” Syndrome but there is hope.
Your content needs to pass the “What does that mean to me?” test. When you write, put yourself in your customer’s position and question every sentence with “What does that mean to me?”. Wh
at matters to you may not matter to them because they want to know what is in this for them. Make use of “you” and tell your audience what they will get from working with you. Speak to them, not at them.
You’re using industry jargon
Most of your customers have never planned a wedding before and using industry jargon can confuse and intimidate them. Words like “reportage” and “contemporary” mean nothing to your customers. Your marketing materials should be in your customer’s language, not the language you speak with other wedding professionals.
You’re only talking about the bride
Wedding professionals have a bad habit of overusing the word “bride” but it takes two to tango. Of course there are some things that only brides will be shopping for, but other than gender-specific items like apparel, be sure to appeal to both of the decision makers. “The biggest mistake in losing the sale is focusing just on bride. 65% of grooms are involved & decisions have equal weight.” –Splendid Insights
You’re not asking visitors to do anything
When someone reads your blog posts, website content or marketing materials, do they know what you want them to do next? This might seem silly but it is statistically proven that using calls to action (CTAs) increases the likelihood of a visitor taking a specific action.
Calls to action are simply words that are used to get your prospect to take a specific action like “click here” or “sign up”. Take a look at every page on your own website and think about what action you want the reader to take after they read it.
You’re not demonstrating that you know what you’re doing
Putting together a simple website is no longer enough for people to see you as being credible and reliable because anyone can do that. You can demonstrate credibility through blogging on your own site, and you could start guest blogging and link to those articles/promote them on your social media. You could add more compelling testimonials to your site by adding a photo or video to accompany them. If you are a photographer, add a photo of the person who gave you the testimonial. You could also add a photo of yourself on your about page and give more insight into who you really are.
You’re trying to get married before the first date
Most websites in our industry describe products and services and then ask the visitor to get in touch with them. The problem with this is that it is moving much too fast for the sort of purchases that we are asking people to make.
When a bride or groom lands on your website, they are more than likely in research mode and are gathering information. They need to get to know you and learn how this whole wedding thing works before they make a purchase.
Lead nurturing is the process of educating your prospects and it can be much easier than it sounds. Many businesses offer a free offer in exchange for the prospect’s email address and then communicate with them by email. The emails that you might get from Amazon are a great example of lead nurturing emails. They serve to take you a step closer to a purchase, remind you to visit their website again or attempt to make an additional purchase.
There is more to this than I can cover in a single blog post but I will be showing wedding pros how to get more leads and book more weddings in my upcoming course. Click here to get access to a free webinar about this and to be notified when the course opens for enrollment.
About The Author:
Heidi Thompson is the founder of Evolve Your Wedding Business and a marketing maven for wedding pros who want to kick ass in business and get out of the dreaded feast or famine cycle of doom. She teaches these awesome entrepreneurial ladies and gents how to do amazing marketing on a tiny budget and create a consistent flow of leads because in business, it doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do if no one knows about it.
Click here to get Heidi’s free ebook “How To Book More Weddings & Make More Money With Wedding Fairs.”
Meghan Ely is the owner of wedding marketing and wedding pr firm OFD Consulting. She is the exclusive wedding pr columnist to wedding marketing journal WedLock magazine and is a highly sought after speaker in the wedding industry. She loves ruffle table runners and Royal Wedding Tchotchkes. To learn how OFD Consulting can assist you with your wedding marketing and wedding pr, please contact us today.
