Pretty much every wedding business owner gets to the point where they want to book more clients. And whether it’s because you are just starting out and need to book your first wedding or you’re a few years in and want to start growing your business, feeling like your calendar isn’t booked out enough is a normal feeling (we promise you are not alone!). But booking more clients doesn’t just start happening—you have to increase the number of inquiries you’re getting first. Today, then, we wanted to share some of our best marketing tips to help you feel confident you know how to get more leads. Read on and get ready to take some notes!
Pay attention to the top of your marketing funnel
When you want to know how to get more leads, you have to first understand your marketing funnel. Because filling your funnel is, in fact, what you need to do before you can get more clients. So, in case you aren’t familiar with a basic marketing funnel, let’s chat through each of the stages.
Awareness
The awareness stage is where you make people aware of your brand and what you offer (i.e. discover you). This stage sits at the top (the widest part) of your marketing funnel and is where people enter it. In terms of what you might be doing to market your wedding business in this stage, this is where things like advertising, social media, SEO, and blogging sit because they help you get found on the internet.
Interest
Once people are aware that you exist, the goal is for them to become interested in your services and offerings. This is where putting your best work out there becomes really important—because people often become interested when something catches their eye.
Evaluation
Then, when someone is interested, it’s the goal for them to evaluate and research you further. In this stage of the marketing funnel, your client reviews and website become really important tools.
Decision
Lastly, once someone is evaluating you, it’s the goal for them to make a decision to move forward with working with you (a.k.a. submit an inquiry!).
As you might have picked up, the effort you put into marketing your business should work to get someone into your marketing funnel as well as work them through it. And while the decision phase is often the point where you are having consultations with potential clients and selling them on your expertise and services, the key to getting more leads is to pay attention to the awareness and interest stages.
Marketing Tips for wedding pros
Now that we’ve covered your marketing funnel and why it’s important to getting more leads for your wedding business, we wanted to dive into our marketing tips! Each of the things you see below are options for you—meaning you do not need to do them all! Rather, we suggest you think about your ideal clients, where they are most likely to be as well as how much time and money you realistically have to spend on marketing. Once you’ve thought about it, you can put together a winning marketing strategy.
1. Build and nurture your network
Networking and referrals are the best way to get more leads for many wedding pros, and that is why networking is so important. Even if you consider yourself to be shy, we encourage you to push yourself in the name of building your network and creating real relationships with the people who might refer you business.
2. Use your client reviews
Don’t let all of those 5-star client reviews you have just live on The Knot or your Google Business page! Make sure you are highlighting your best ones on your website, in your wedding galleries (yup—these don’t have to be just photos!), and in your social media content.
3. Stay top of mind with past clients
Just like professional referrals are a great way to get more leads, so are your past clients. The key here is to stay top of mind with them so they remember to pass your name along. You can send cards during the holidays and anniversary gifts if you have the budget, but you can also just be sure to tag them when you share their wedding images on social media.
4. Consider advertising
Advertising is one of the most misunderstood and under-utilized ways you can market your wedding business. And while it’s a topic that deserves its own blog post (we’ll add it to our list) just know that having a listing on The Knot, WeddingWire, or advertising on Google or social media are all very viable tactics.
5. Be consistent on social media
We have a love-hate relationship with social media just like you but it is an important part of most wedding pros’ marketing strategy. Because it’s free. Because it’s easy to use. Because your ideal clients are likely on it. Just know that you need to show up consistently—and that you shouldn’t put all your marketing eggs into this one basket.
Work on SEO and blogging
If advertising is the most misunderstood and under-utilized marketing tactic, then blogging and SEO come in at a close second. Probably because many wedding pros think it’s too hard or complicated to do themselves. Well, we’re here to tell you it’s not and that it is 100% your time and effort to figure it out.
Use Pinterest
When it comes to ways you can put your services in front of couples who are actively looking for wedding inspiration, Pinterest is where it’s at. Because Pinterest is a search engine—not just a place to find pretty pictures.
Each of these marketing tactics is good for you to consider, but it bears worth repeating, you do not have to do all of these things all of the time! Pick the ones you think are most likely to help you get more leads (and more clients in the long run) and incorporate them into your marketing strategy.
Thinking you need to step up your social media game a bit? Here are great tips to help you boost your Instagram engagement strategy.
