Just over a year ago, I posted the item, A Ruthless discussion of the term “Budget Bride” and wedding decision making.

It was edgy by design (so what else is new) and generated a lot of comments.

Sunday night, I was burning the midnight oil and before turning off the lights, I thought I’d check my blog statistics. There was a huge spike in activity. It came from a message board on Wedding Wire. In doing research, one bride found my post, and shared it with other brides (and grooms).

It is worth rereading my original post, and then reading the comments on Wedding Wire from brides.

Interested in your feedback!

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Men and their tools. In our minds, we form an image of a man at Sears, drooling over the latest drill or gadget. Kind of funny… Somewhat sweeping, in its generalization.

One can have the latest tool for home improvement, but if you don’t know how to use it, the effort will be a failure.

The same is true in the wedding industry. The tools are wedding marketing media: magazine ads, social media, bridal shows, websites, postcards, and much more.

When a business has a marketing failure, it MUST have been the medium: the magazine, the wedding show, a lack of traffic to the website, or whatever the medium in question.

My response to this:

“Laying the blame on the wedding marketing medium is usually off-point. Far more often than not, the culprit is failure to have a well-crafted message.”

Business people are easily drawn to the new shiny object. The new bridal show in town, the new publication, the latest social media tool.

That’s all very nice. There is always something new to carry your message.

But in the end, if you don’t know how to swing a hammer, it doesn’t matter how shiny and new the hammer is. Why not take a lesson or two on using the hammer. In the case of wedding marketing, develop better ads, really prepare for a bridal show, keep your website current, have a Facebook strategy, and don’t let your blog get lost in the weeds.

Come to Wedding MBA and learn more about swinging wedding marketing hammer.

September 21-23, Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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Magazines on iPad

Last week I spent a full day presenting to Nashville-area wedding businesses on various elements of wedding marketing. My fellow presenter was Sonny Ganguly from Wedding Wire.

I had last talked to Sonny when we were both attending the BSPI (Bridal Show Producers International) conference, here, in Las Vegas. That was late April, and Sonny already had his Apple iPad in hand.

Even as the Apple aficionado that I am, I had elected to wait before buying my first iPad, preferring to see which model and capacity would suit me.

So, it was with great curiosity that I asked Sonny, “After a couple of months, how are you using your iPad, and how has it affected the way you use other computers, desktop or laptop?”

He gleefully explained how using email and surfing the web were dramatically superior to a desktop or laptop computer. But his bigger excitement was two-fold: how he sees the iPad as a reading device for books, magazines, and documents… and, how he is comfortable leaving the laptop at the office, coming home with only the iPad.

Sonny further described that for many or most business trips, the iPad would be sufficient for his needs.

Apple has sold 3 million iPads in the first 80 days of availability. That’s a nice statistic, but I’m far more interested in talking to Sonny and other peers, to understand how each person is using theirs. This is a complex device, and has features that will appeal to, or have specific use, differently, for different people.

I would anticipate that as more magazines and books develop enhanced content and features for the iPad the rapid evolution via this new medium will pick up speed. The Apple iPad is more than just another shiny new object. It looks to be a quantum leap forward, and will be curious to see how all this will apply to wedding marketing.

Still curious? See this video from the folks at Wired Magazine, and see what they have cooking on the Apple iPad.

Oh… and when you’re done watching the video. If you’re an iPad owner, please share YOUR experience with other readers.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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About now, you might think I have some sort of grudge against Bella Pictures. You’d be wrong. I’m just incredulous at the marketing techniques it employs to sell its services to brides.

For those getting up to speed, Bella Pictures is a nationwide photography booking agency that employs local photographers on a job-by-job basis. The company first contracts with the bride, and then creates a match with a photographer. The results are all-over-the-board, judging by a huge sample of online reviews.

A while back, Bella Pictures created a second company, Studio Blue, using, essentially, the same business model, but positioning it as a lower price service for a more budget-conscioous bride.

The image shown, upper right, appears on the welcome screen of the Bella Pictures website. That, in itself, seems pretty odd. It’s hard to understand why a photography company would want to send you away from its site, to another photography site, even if they are under the same ownership.

The banner touts Wedding Photography for Under $1000. The banner link takes you to the Studio Blue welcome screen. All well and good, so far. Studio Blue presents a nicely designed site, with portfolio and sleek system to check availability and book services.

Here’s the rub: If you enter your date and location, or just proceed to the packages and pricing screen, there is something missing….. Photography at under $1000.

Photography coverage begins at $1240 (6 hours). Recommended coverage being 8 hours, plus an album, priced at $2340, inclusive.

Excuse me, but what part of Wedding Photography at under $1000 have I missed.

Opinion: The banner information is so obviously misleading that further comment won’t add much. I just continue to be dumbfounded how one company can be brazenly manipulative. This type of wedding marketing strategy does a disservice to brides, and to the wedding industry, generally.

If you think I’ve overlooked anything, please feel free to jump in, and comment with your thoughts.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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If you haven’t heard, yet, there is an easy way to the top of the search engines. Buy your way there on Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Spend your way to search engine success!!

For some business categories, such as Wedding Chapels in Las Vegas, it may be necessary to buy a high position in search engines through Google AdWords or the like. For most, though, it’s a sign of lack of knowledge or laziness.

Most businesses should not have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars, monthly, to get into the Top 10, 20 or 30 search results for a given service, in a local market area.

There are two overarching strategies to achieving high search engine ranking.

• Optimize your website
• Integrate a blog within it

Beyond that, it’s perfunctory stuff.

• Create a file structure naming convention that mirrors keywords
• Properly name and tag photos and images. Don’t name them photo1… photo2.
• Same thing with page titles. Welcome to your business name doesn’t add any link juice. Las Vegas Wedding Chapel is informational and connects with keywords.
• Write your copy so that it’s keyword friendly and crisp to read.
• Build your blog and post regularly, following the same guidelines as above.

It is generally not necessary to employ tricks to reach search engine success. Gaming the system only works until a search engine changes the system. Then, you get banished from the kingdom.

Today, if you sought expertise for wedding marketing on the three major search engines, you would find tens of millions of results. And THIS site would be #1 in all three search engines.

No tricks, no pay-per-clicks. Just good old-fashioned organics.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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Earlier this week, I brought Wedding University to Greater Cleveland (Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown). The sponsoring organization was Today’s Bride, a 21-year old company providing a total package of wedding marketing opportunities, including website, bridal shows, and publications.

At one level or another, all businesses want new prospects to become customers and existing customers to invest more in a product or service. The day before the all-day seminars, a skeptical local business questioned the intent of the host in a public Facebook post: paraphrasing “Isn’t this just going to be Today’s Bride trying to sell us more advertising.”

The ever-so-vigilant, Anna Herman (Something New Entertainment) chimed in to praise this blog, and my approach to educating wedding industry businesses.

Anna Herman got it. And, happily, so did my hosts, from Today’s Bride.

The goal of seminars, such as these, is to provide information and coaching to help local area businesses be more effective marketers. Simply put, driving traffic to a website is really effective only if the client website is up-to-date, optimized, and easily navigable. Offering thorough circulation of a magazine is more helpful to businesses that have well-designed, intelligent ads. And attracting thousands of brides to wedding shows does the most good for companies that have planned for the show, create a glorious presence at the show, interact well with prospects, and follow up after the show.

The Today’s Bride staff performed the following functions:

• Organize
• Promote
• Host
• Introduce Speaker
• Mingle
• Provide Hospitality
• Register Attendees
• Show Appreciation

The things they did NOT do, were:

• Self-promote
• Sell

The results become quite clear. Some 70+ attendees absorbed a myriad of information, at a modest expense, in a compressed time frame. Different people learned different things, depending on their own knowledge base.

They never felt as though they were being sold to… because they weren’t.

This mindset should apply to all wedding businesses in working with clients and referral source. The process of educating a client, directly or indirectly, about your area of service, will always make them a better client and improve the relationship.

What are you doing, one-to-one, or for a group, to enlighten, inform, educate or motivate your audience?

If you’re not consciously doing that, periodically, maybe it’s time you should.

Thank you to the entire crew at Today’s Bride – Jim, Denise, Jennifer, Rachel, Sabrina for being great hosts, both to me, and to their clients and future clients.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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As of late yesterday, almost 60 wedding professionals from Greater Cleveland (including Akron, Youngstown, and beyond) had chosen to invest one business day and a few dollars in Wedding University, a 4-seminar presentation by THE Wedding Marketing Authority, Andy Ebon.

Today’s Bride, a full service wedding marketing company (bridal show, magazine, and website) is hosting the wedding marketing seminars.

The all-day seminar series will cover a variety of topics designed for wedding industry businesses, including: Website Usability, Effective Bridal Show Promotion, Print Ads That Sell, and Building A Focused Social Media Plan. The day will be capped of with a catch-all, question and answer session.

This is an 11th hour call to spread the word to any wedding industry peers you have in the Greater Cleveland market.

Today’s Bride is a member of BSPI (Bridal Show Producers International).

Andy travels North America and beyond, presenting single seminars, half-day and full-day sessions, as well as speaking at national and international industry conferences. To inquire about bringing The Wedding Marketing Authority to your market, please feel free to inquire via this site or call 702-227-9926.

Cleveland Rocks!!

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Today’s Bride, a full service wedding marketing company (bridal show, magazine, and website) is hosting Andy Ebon, The Wedding Marketing Authority, for a full day of wedding marketing seminars, Tuesday, April 20th.

The all-day seminar series, dubbed Wedding University, will cover  a variety of topics designed for wedding industry businesses, including: Website Usability, Effective Bridal Show Promotion, Print Ads That Sell, and Building A Focused Social Media Plan. The day will be capped of with a catch-all, question and answer session.

Please spread the word to any wedding industry peers you have in the Greater Cleveland market.

Today’s Bride is a member of BSPI (Bridal Show Producers International).

Andy travels North America and beyond, presenting single seminars, half-day and full-day sessions, as well as speaking at national and international industry conferences. To inquire about bringing The Wedding Marketing Authority to your market, please feel free to inquire via this site or call 702-227-9926.

Cleveland Rocks!!

Joe Fabitz
Contributing Writer
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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Chatterberries exhibit at CaterSource

Still in its infancy, one of the first exhibitors I came upon, on the CaterSource tradeshow floor is Chatterberries.

Based in Manhattan, the Chatterberries website sports local directories throughout the entire United States. There is a 2010 Directory special for just $45/month, including your corporate logo, company name, contact information, website link and email link.

It asks vendors to Engage With Affluent And Sophisticated Brides.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Recently, I ran smack dab into something that absolutely baffles me: Denial. I would be foolish to believe that none of us, myself included, don’t carry some measure of self-delusion. However, when confronted with reality, particularly in the form of common sense, it never ceases to amaze me when people take the outlook, “Don’t bother me with the facts.”

In honor of today’s post, I am reintroducing my mascot, Mr. Buckethead (pictured right) and the accompanying catch phrase, “Don’t be a buckethead!”

In July 2007, I posted an item, titled Website Music: Addition By Subtraction. Its essence is this: A large percentage of brides (50%, give or take) use the internet, at work, to do research. When a website autoplays music or audio, they are GONE!

I had made this assertion over a decade ago, and was happily backed up by Alan Berg (The Knot), who shared web analytics that clearly demonstrated peak times of usage by brides.

The other day, in answering a friend’s query on a message board about quantifying sales efforts, I gave what must have been an annoying response. It mentioned several things:

• Lose the autoplay video on your website.
• Make your contact form easier to find (as in, on every page)
• Ask for marketing feedback on your contact form (i.e. How did you find this site/company?).
• I made reference to Google Analytics, and the bounce rate.

My post received a scathing response from the owner, which included rejoinders, such as:

• What proof do I have about the negative value of music on a website?
• My contact form is easy enough to find.
• I get a lot of compliments on my website. I see may websites that are junk. I comfortable with mine.

My friend, who provides a first rate service, is clearly in denial at many levels, as it relates to marketing. I share the outlook with you, because, perhaps, you can take something from it. I doubt he will.

• I don’t offer proof for common sense. There are enough industry experts, other than myself, that point out the obvious negative impact of auto-loading music. When in doubt, offer music or video, on-demand.
• An online inquiry form, just like a toll free number, should be visible (visible link/button) on every screen in the website, preferable, in the main menu or separately, in the header area of every screen. It should not be placed (only) in a drop down menu. One cannot predict when a prospect will decide to inquire. If it’s ‘after business hours’ they are most likely to use an online form. Do not make this a treasure hunt.
• Everyone will give you compliments on your website. Particularly your friends (business and personal). All websites, mine included, need continual improvement. Some need major improvement. If you want real constructive criticism, please hire me to critique your site. I charge for it, and I won’t sugarcoat it for you.

Now, the irony is that I received an email about the Bounce Rate. What that shows is that while it is important to get statistics through Google Analytics, it’s even more important to understand what they mean. It also shows that despite the scathing response I received, my friend realizes that despite my ticking him off, I do have at least some answers.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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