The Ultimate Guide to Wedding Vendor Marketing

A wedding is perhaps the biggest event in a person’s life. As such, it is not a surprise that couples want their wedding to be as perfect as possible. Many factors go into making a wedding perfect – the wedding vendors, timely delivery of products, and quality service just to name a few. The couples have to choose from a wide range of products/services. There are a number of factors on the basis of which couples make their choices. 

These are some of the items or vendors that couples commonly book for their big event:

• Photographers 
• Caterers
• Event planners
• Wedding venue providers or rentals
• Dress designers 
• Flowers and décor
• DJ
• Officiant

The wedding industry is booming nowadays. With tons of event planners and thousands of products and services, making your wedding brand stand out is not easy. However, we are here to help you with just that! 

In this article, you will find everything related to wedding vendor marketing. From attracting potential customers to increasing your brand’s visibility – we have got it all covered. These wedding vendor marketing tips will help you take your business to the next level. So, what are you waiting for? Read these tips and get started!

Captivate Your Audience with a Perfectly Designed Website

The first step – and the most crucial one – is giving your customers a peek of what they are in for. This means designing your website to showcase the aesthetics and unique selling points of your products or the business at large. Follow these tips to make your website appealing to the customers and watch your business thrive.

1. You can add high-quality pictures of your products. This will give your customers a chance to delve into the details and make better buying decisions. 
2. There are some couples who go all out on their wedding. However, a majority likes to stay within a budget and spend their savings elsewhere. As such, it is important to offer your customers special packages and deals. You can do this most efficiently by promoting these deals on the homepage of your website. 
3. Wedding planning can get hectic. You can make it easy for your customers by providing them with an easy-to-navigate website. Organizing your website into appropriate sub-sections will give your customers a user-friendly experience on your website. You can have separate categories for brides and grooms or out-door and in-door if you are a venue provider. Choose the categories that best match your business type and you will have customers coming to your website for its ease of use. 
4. You can display your products in a nicely-arranged gallery. Here also you can use categories for a better customer experience. Moreover, you can add links to the pictures that will take the customer to the original location of the particular product on your website. Remember, you have to make the customer happy because a happy customer is the best investment!
5. Another minute detail you can add is to customize the website according to the seasons. Change the theme and showcase wedding products that match the on-going season. Go for a summery vibe when the sun is out or display leaves all around for the vibrant fall season. The possibilities are endless. This will keep your potential – or otherwise – customers coming back to see the latest style. 
6. This tip is one of the basics of web design: use colours that complement each other. The go-to colours for a website that showcases colours in their products already are neutrals and pastels. Grey, beige, black, and white are a few at the top of the list. 
7. Here comes the most important part to retain your customer – a location map. Yes, even if most of your business is online, you need to provide your customers with the location of your actual store. Why? Because couples need to try and assess the product for quality, fit, colour saturation in real, and much more. For such a big event like a wedding, you have to give them this!

Make sure to receive customer information like email addresses by letting them sign up on your website. Now, your website is all set to appeal to visitors.

SEO Is Your Best Friend

The wedding planning industry is growing in current times. If you are starting out in this industry as a newbie or even if you are an old hand, your products and services are bound to get lost in the sea of information and options. That is why you need to make your website, blog, or any social media platforms optimized for search engines. 

1. The first step in building your online presence is to have superb content. The content you provide to the customers is what makes or breaks the deal. If the visitors check out your website or blog and they like the content, congratulations you might have a new customer! But if they do not like the content and perceive it as click-bait – which happens when people do not find the content they expected – then, you have lost a potential customer. As such, make sure that the content on your website/blog is creative, innovative, and provides value to the customer.
2. Let’s say that you have convinced people to visit your website – nothing wrong in being a little optimistic, right? Now here is the tough part: you have to hold their attention. It is easy for them to close the tab in a click if they can’t easily navigate through your website. To keep them invested in your website for a longer period, make sure to add some landing pages. 

These landing pages will serve as a drawer or a folder for each of the services and products that your business offers. Also, make sure to add a call to action on each page. The call-to-action button encourages people to buy or look at your product – depends on what you are calling them to do. In some cases, it acts as a reminder for people to perform the action if they forget to do so and that is totally understandable. With tons of exciting information to absorb, the entire decision-making process can take a toll on anyone. Make sure to do your part in making the process easier for the customer.

3. Add lots of visuals. Couples have to go through a never-ending list of duties for the wedding. Be it reading contracts, reviews, budgets, and whatnot. It makes sense if they are too tired to read the content even for the products and services. This is where infographics and other visual aids come to the rescue. Infographics are easy to read and absorb and can be easily shared as well. This helps in the SEO part of the marketing by increasing your site’s authority.
4. You can also add some useful templates for the couples. Put up helpful checklists on your website or answer FAQs to help clear any confusion that your customers may have. Doing this will also give a boost to your ranking in the search engines.

Use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

You can use PPC or pay-per-click advertising in combination with SEO or use only PPC. Whichever way you choose to go, here are some tips to make the most out of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Through this method, you can place an ad on other websites and pay the website owner a small amount each time a visitor clicks on that ad. In addition to SEO – where you are at the mercy of keywords and search engines – this is a resourceful tool to get the word out for your website. 

You can also place ads on social media websites like Facebook and Instagram. In this digital age where almost everyone uses Facebook, it should be on your priority list of marketing your wedding business. Facebook ads show up in the newsfeed so visibility is not an issue. The only thing you have to care about is making the ad click-worthy. Entice them with your on-going discount packages. Display your breath-taking products for an amazing wedding. Promote the unique points for the services that you offer. You can do anything – the stage is all yours! 

If you want to generate leads, you can opt for conversions or lead ads. In case more engagement is what you are looking for, then go for an engagement objective. However, in the end, it all boils down to your copy. What you write on the ad matters the most. If you want more customers on board, then make sure you give them an exciting reason. 

The best part about these ads is that they are affordable. You will not go broke while promoting your business. Moreover, you can also see the insights of the ads that you place on Facebook. This tells you how many people did the ad reach, the number of people that clicked on it, and much more. Using this information, you can plan your next ads accordingly.

Engage with Your Customers on Social Media

Social media is a handy tool that every marketer has in their marketing toolbox. It helps in creating brand awareness – the most important factor in any brand’s success and recognition. There are, of course, several other methods to increase awareness for your brand. However, social media takes the lead because of its popularity with almost all age groups. Here are some ways you can use social media to increase brand awareness and gain more customers:

1. Make sure that you consistently post on your social media. This does not mean that you bombard people with content every now and then. Rather, schedule a time for your posts to go out. This way people will be expecting your content which may lead to increased engagement on the posts. 
2. Treat your social media as a digital portfolio. Showcase your best work/product/services in aesthetic pictures. If you are a photographer or a videographer then that is the only way for people to see what you offer. Use this to your full advantage. If you are a venue and event space vendor, then take photos of your space from nice angles. This lets your (potential) customers imagine themselves at the venue and gives them a full picture of what to expect from the wedding location. If you offer wedding products like dresses, flowers and décor, invites, and the like, then showcase your products with stunning pictures. You can post some close-up shots as well to give your customers peace of mind. 
3. Hashtag, hashtag, hashtag! Do not forget to use hashtags in your posts. They increase the visibility of your posts and in turn your brand. You can either add hashtags in your caption or in the comment section. If you use the right hashtags, then your post will pop up whenever someone searches for the same. This helps you reach people who are looking for wedding planners and vendors. It can also lead you to people who are going to attend some wedding which is a great way to generate leads for your wedding business.
4. Provide commendable customer service. When you engage with your audience on social media posts, it gives customers a chance to form a more personalized connection with the brand. Customer engagement is an amazing way to retain previous customers and attract new ones. You can also increase engagement by hosting contests. 
5. Apart from company-generated content, you can also increase your brand awareness through user-generated content (UGC). Sometimes your brand gets more visibility from potential customers through user-generated content rather than your brand’s posts. When people see your brand’s name in other user’s posts, that too with a positive note, it builds the credibility of your brand. As such, user-generated content (UGC) is a great tool for word of mouth.
6. Another benefit of social media for wedding vendors is the analysis option. You can analyze your marketing strategies and create new or altered ones based on these insights. There are some social media management tools as well which help you in scheduling your posts, gaining insights into your content, and much more. Additionally, you can measure your brand’s visibility by tracking your mentions. 

All in all, social media is a haven for wedding vendor marketing. 

Email Marketing 

Do not miss out on any opportunity to reach out to your clients. Email is a great way to get in touch with your customers. You can let them know about the exciting offers and new products/services. Divide the customer list according to their wedding month. This will make it easier for you to target timely offers and promotions when the couple needs it the most. They will be likely to use the offer as the wedding month gets nearer. 

You need to keep one thing in mind: keep the customer interested or lose them. Your clients can easily unsubscribe from your emails with just one click. Make sure that you do not let it come to this. Keep them engaged with fun, interesting and relevant material. 

Get Customers to Buy From Your Wedding Business

Getting customers to visit your website is hard but getting them to purchase your product is even harder. You can convince them to buy wedding items from your business by following these tips.

• Let your customers know the time it will take to ship the product. Most couples worry about the product not reaching them on time. Take this worry away by clearly mentioning the shipping time.
• Give your customers a clearly written return policy. This way if they are unsure about the size or fit, they will still consider buying the product. The return policy will give them the peace of mind that they can exchange or get a refund if clothes do not fit. 

Stay In Touch with Your Clients

Every business wants repeat customers. However, as a wedding vendor, you will hope that your customers only require your services once. That being said, it does not make your old customers any less helpful. They can come in handy by giving you leads and referrals. Maybe the next time their friend or family member is getting married, they will send the couple to your wedding business. They can also be a great source of generating leads through their wedding photos. So, here are some ways you can stay in touch with your previous customers.

• Give the couple a personalized gift like a mug or a t-shirt. Make sure that you print your logos on the gift.
• Send them a postcard with a personalized message or some pictures from their wedding. It will be a nice surprise if you send it on their wedding anniversary. 

Don’t forget, the most important referral is the one that comes naturally. Do make sure that you do your job well and make their day amazing and memorable. Let your work speak for you!