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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Andy Ebon, The Wedding Marketing Authority, has agreed to become a regular contributor to the new wedding marketing publication, Wedlock.

Plans for Andy, include writing bi-monthly columns, and periodic website evaluations, in collaboration with SEO expert, Jason Hennessey.

The publication is giving Andy largely free reign to write edgy and distinct, wedding marketing advice, as a complement to what appears in this blog.

Subscriptions to the publication will also include access to webinars and other resources. It is expected that Andy will be a source for webinar content, as well.

In addition to Wedlock, Andy is a frequent writer for Mobile Beat Magazine.

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Never one to duck a tough question, Andy Ebon used a verbal flamethrower in labeling ad-supported banquet publications as fatally flawed. A medium he described as “perfectly legal, but fraught with conflicts of interest and ultimately bad for the venue, the vendor, and the client.”

The question was posed as “What do you think about ‘pay to play’?” After decoding, the question was clarified as: “What do you think about vendors advertising within banquet publications, tied to individual venues?”

Background: If you are not familiar with this particular style of marketing, it works something like this. A printer/publisher approaches a venue (hotel, country club, etc.,) with the following proposition.

“We will publish a full-color brochure presenting your banquet services that will cost your venue nothing. It will be paid for by advertising of vendors. All you need to is provide us your preferred vendor list and content for the brochure. We will do the rest. It will save you a bundle.”

The ‘deal‘ is rarely, if ever, made at the Director of Catering level. The proposition is made to the Food and Beverage Manager or General Manager, in most cases. Free banquet publication. Just insert a price list. What could possibly be bad about this? Plenty!!

The Call to You: “Hi, I’m Jim Bob, working with Katy Caterer at the XYZ Country Club, how are you doing today?”

And with that, the misrepresentations and half-truths begin. Jim Bob is working WITH, not FOR, the XYZ Country Club. The rep is working for Blue Rhino Publishing (a fictitious name), not for the venue.

Want a clear answer as to who, exactly, they work for? Ask who (what company) signs their paycheck?

The Pitch, in short:

Katy really values your work for her clients at the club, and asked me to reach out to preferred vendors, such as you, to support her new in-house banquet publication. Only select vendors have been invited to advertise. It will be given to all wedding prospects, free of charge, to help promote your work at the venue. Here are the advertising choices…… Can Katy count on your participation?

Here are just some of the conflicting issues:

• What is implied, but usually goes unsaid is: “If you don’t advertise in the publication, you will be dropped from the preferred vendor list. Going forward, the publication will become ‘the preferred vendor list.”
• If the publisher does not fill the brochure with vendors from the preferred list, they often search out advertisers who may not have a relationship with property. Odd for the caterer when they receive the banquet publication, showing ads from unfamiliar vendors. A vendor crap-shoot for the prospective client.
• If venue management changes, it is not uncommon to change marketing direction and throw the banquet publications AND YOUR MARKETING MONEY in the trash.
• If you choose not to advertise in the publication, but have a great relationship with Katy Caterer, she may tell you, “Don’t worry, I’ll continue to refer you.” While this may appear fine for you, it shows a clear ethical flaw. The venue is taking paid ads with the offer of some exclusivity, but has little problem compromising that premise. This is commonly referred to as: Situational Ethics.
• If an advertiser does some stinko work (a technical term) for a venue client, their ad remains in the brochure, until the distribution is exhausted. Venues have been known to draw an X through vendors they no longer recommend. Tacky? Of course, whether these vendors earned their black mark or not, they shouldn’t expect a partial refund for their ad.

Your opinion matters. Speak Up!

Now it’s time for your opinion:

• What have your experience been with this medium? Good, bad or indifferent.
• There are surely other weaknesses in this type of program. What has been missed in this post?
• As a vendor or venue, what is your recommendation, based on  your direct experiences and those you have observed.

There is an old adage that applies best to this kind of marketing, for all parties concerned.

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!”

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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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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Social Media

During the next 10 days, Andy Ebon, The Wedding Marketing Authority, will be making meeting presentations and doing seminars in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, hosted by local chapters of NACE (National Association of Catering Executives).

• Tuesday, March 16th: Chapter Meeting, dinner and presentation titled, Electrifying Your Marketing Edge
• Wednesday, March 17th: Building A Focused Social Media Strategy (a 3-hour seminar)
• Details: Silicon Valley NACE

The following week, I head to Los Angeles NACE.

• Tuesday, March 23rd (afternoon): Building A Focused Social Media Strategy (a 3-hour seminar)
• Tuesday, March 23rd (evening): Chapter Meeting, Dinner and Presentation: HEADLINES: Print Ads That Work
• Details: Los Angeles NACE

If you are in the area, consider attending. If you know someone in the area, who might benefit, please pass the word.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Perfect Wedding Guide party

It may have come as a surprise to some members of the Las Vegas wedding community that the Perfect Wedding Guide has been in the market for about two decades.

When I moved to town, in 2003, a local franchisee had been forced to sell his area ownership. Since then, the Las Vegas Perfect Wedding Guide had wobbled rather unsteadily.

Last summer, national management of the Perfect Wedding Guide took over management of the Las Vegas market, clearly declaring that they were going to solidify and refresh the brand. This Thursday, the day after the conclusion of CaterSource, Perfect Wedding Guide – Las Vegas held a Re-Launch Party for advertisers, prospects, and other wedding industry leaders.

PWG Hosts: Karli Markowitz, Tammy Elliot, and Brandi Zrallack

The event was held at Tao, in the Venetian Hotel. Over 150 local wedding professionals turned out to enjoy the hors d’oeurves, cocktails, and assuring, positive words of Karli Markowitz, Brandi Zrallack and Tammy Elliot of the Perfect Wedding Guide.

In challenging economic times, when local businesses invest marketing dollars, it’s important to know that you have support from the local sales representative, all the way to the company president. Every attendee left, feeling assured that a marketing investment in Perfect Wedding Guide, Las Vegas, was money well spent.

What have you done, lately, to reassure your customers?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Publications are coming to iPad

Apple’s iPad is due for release in late March. As one might expect, there has been a steady stream of news regarding iPad versions of books and magazines, by various publishers .

Conde Nast announced the first magazines for which it will create iPad versions: Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour.

GQ will have a tablet version of its April issue ready. Vanity Fair and Wired will follow with their June issues, and The New Yorker and Glamour will have iPad issues in the summer.

My marketing curiosity asks…

Which wedding magazines will jump on board with iPad editions.

Which will publish, first?

The Knot, Get Married, Brides, Martha Stewart Weddings…??? The list goes on…. I can hear the promo now.

The UPSCALE brides is reading OUR Magazine on her iPad.

I have no inside information on this. Just professional curiosity.

How about you? Are you curious?

Here’s a demo of Wired magazine on the iPad. THAT might fuel your curiosity.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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On Thursday, I gave a seminar on effective print advertising at the Mobile Beat Las Vegas conference. In preparation for the seminar, I spent a significant amount of time thumbing through wedding publications from across the land.

When you flip through thirty or forty wedding magazines (local and national), patterns emerge…. good and bad. Mostly bad. Really bad.

Cliches in copywriting are one of those annoying patterns. Use of words, such as perfect or unique are a sign of pure creative laziness. Use of cliches tells the bride that you don’t have an original thought in your head… and probably in your business.

The cliche of the day is Specializing – Typical usage: “We specialize in weddings.”

HELLO! McFly!! If your ad is in a wedding publication. It is redundant to say “We specialize in weddings.”

There are two other ways I observed a poor use of specialize.

1. Referencing other types of events in a wedding ad. DO NOT cite the other types of events you do (Bar Mitzvahs, Reunions, Company Parties, Irish Wakes, etx.,) in a wedding publication ad. The ad is being read by brides who are interesting in one type of event: Weddngs! Their wedding, specifically. Don’t take up space with irrelevant copy.
2. Innocuous used of specialize, such as: We Specialize In Excellence – That is a line that could be used by ANY wedding business and means NOTHING!

Click on image to see a larger view

One of the best headlines I’ve read, recently, was from a florist: Breen’s. The ad shows a beautiful bouquet with the headline, overlaying the base of the flowers: The only thing that will be more beautiful is you…

Now that headline speaks to the bride, individually. It’s flattering and poignant.

The problem with wedding ads is not the publications, it’s the quality of the ads; particularly the copywriting.

Print advertising for weddings is NOT dead. But copywriting seems to be on life support.

Make sure you breathe some life into your wedding ads.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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There will not be an InStyle Weddings Magazine in 2010. Its final edition is slated for December 25, 2009.

InStyle Weddings is the third wedding magazine to close during the past few weeks. Elegant Bride and Modern Bride, both Conde Nast publications, ending last month.

These closing of these three publications is, in contrast, to the recent launch of Get Married Magazine.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Wedding Industry Analysis and Opinion

In the wake of yesterday’s stunning announcement by Conde Nast, closing down both Elegant Bride and Modern Bride magazines, I thought it wise to step back and analyze the prospects of wedding industry print media and how the local wedding business is affected.

Consolidation

Yesterday’s news was as much (or perhaps more) a consolidation, than a simple pair of closures. Conde Nast explained its intent to increase the publication frequency of Brides Magazine. That decision will absorb some of the content that otherwise would have appeared in Elegant Bride and Modern Bride.

Rack Space vs. Redundancy

Part of marketing cereal, soda, magazines or any retail product in a grocery store is roadblocking competition by offering multiple choices from one company. However, for Conde Nast, having three separate wedding publications seem to have reached the point of diminishing return. Its move to consolidate doesn’t necessarily represent a sudden, massive realignment in the weddings industry. Rather, a logical, reasonable move for greater efficiency.

Conglomeration

It is fact that virtually all wedding publications also have websites. Many local publications also produce bridal shows. Those that don’t produce shows often are sponsors of bridal shows.

Small Business Relevancy

Is this news about national publications important to the local business? Not so much.

Small business owners are notorious for being easily distracted and failure to have a cohesive marketing plan.

What is the purpose of wedding publications for the advertiser?

Despite the fact that it is a web-centric world, to be sure, brides still read wedding publications, in all shapes and sizes. Free publications, fee-based and subscription publications; local, regional, and national publications. As such, the primary purpose of advertising in print is to drive traffic to one’s website.

Small business often misconstrue the failure of their print ads, blaming it on the publication, specifically, or more generally, on the demise of print. Nonense!

Most Wedding Print Ads Stink

My criticism of wedding print ads comes from reading many publications, in many markets. The ads are often pretty, but they still are ineffective. In my view, I set the stink-factor for local print ads at 75% or more.

Some of the major reasons for poor ROI on print ads are:

• Failure to use a compelling headline (the name of your business is not a headline).
• Cluttering an ad with too much information – The purpose of the ad is to make the phone ring or drive people to a website. One doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t) attempt to include any feature or benefit within an ad.
• Using cheesy illustrations or second rate photographs rather than professional images.
• Using images of the business owner rather than the happy bride in the wrong situations (there are exceptions, here).
• Failure to update/improve one’s ad on a regular basis.
• Failure to track the inbound source of leads, thoroughly (or at all).

The list is actually much longer; however, I think the point is clear. Any wedding publication is a messenger. It is responsible for delivering your ad to brides, in the context of wedding editorial (articles and pointers), packaged in a pleasing, easy-to-read package.

Do not confuse the effectiveness of a second-rate ad and poor lead tracking with the strength or weakness of a specific publication or the decline and fall of the entire wedding print segment.

Here’s your assignment

Without asking you to have a written marketing plan, today (I’ll do that closer to year-end), I urge you to do one thing. Hire a professional copywriter… to refashion your print ads and update your website copy, from top to bottom.

Often, a publisher will accept the task of producing your ad. They often do a fine job of creating excellent finished artwork for a lousy ad because you supply them poor copywriting and concept.

Typically, websites are populated copy that was originally conceived for brochures. That may have been fine, ten years ago. Not today. Surfing brides scan copy. Crisp sentences, paragraph breaks and bullet points are key. The purpose of the website, as it relates to prospect, is to stimulate a phone call or an online inquiry.

The unlimited capacity of websites can seduce one into overstocking it with extraneous content. It becomes like a cluttered closet. Websites can be so overstuffed that the viewer can’t find the important content among the outdated junk.

Seeing The Future

Publishers cannot be solely in print media. To have a present and a future, they must deliver content and advertising in multiple media. Get Married Media is probably the best example of a growing, multi-media company, targeting the wedding industry. They are about enter Season Three of their Television show, they have a national website, with local advertising opportunities, and they are launching their new magazine, this month.

Get Married’s use of Microsoft Tag Technology, beginning with their Premier Issue (October 2009), offer brides the opportunity to transition from the print page to a website/video. This connection between print and web make their magazine stand out by innovation. This technology will spread quickly; however, right now, Get Married Magazine is the first to apply Microsoft Tags in the wedding category.

In Conclusion

Focus on improving your ad, not on the market dynamics, locally or nationally. Business categories tend to expand and contract through natural market conditions. Two publications in your market may be fine. Three may be too many.

Newcomers make big promises. Let other advertisers take those risks. Give the edge to established, ethical, trust worthy publishers (bridal show producers, websites, etc.,) and work on improving your ad content.

THAT is my recommended assignment.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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