What’s Actually Working In Wedding Advertising To Book More Clients With Mark Chapman

What’s Actually Working In Wedding Advertising To Book More Clients With Mark Chapman

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
Want to advertise your wedding business without feeling like you’re just throwing money into a black hole. We’re getting into exactly what works for wedding vendor advertising in this episode.

0:00:13 – Intro
In a world where wedding professionals are struggling to market and grow their businesses, one podcast brings together top experts and actionable strategies to help you build the wedding business of your dreams. This is the Evolve your Wedding Business podcast. Here is your host, Heidi Thompson.

0:00:50 – Heidi Thompson
Hey there, welcome to the podcast. I am your host, Heidi Thompson, and I am here helping wedding professionals make their marketing easier, book more weddings with the clients they love and build a business that gives them freedom and flexibility. And if you have ever been frustrated with advertising because it hasn’t turned into bookings for you, you are so not alone. So many wedding pros see the opportunity and they test the waters with Google, meta or TikTok ads and they wind up feeling like they’re just throwing money into a black hole. But the truth is ads aren’t the problem, bad strategy is. That’s why, in this episode, I’m joined by ad expert Mark Chapman to break down what is actually working in wedding vendor advertising right now, from new targeting options to big platform changes, to the surprising power of short form video. Mark shares exactly what is getting results for his clients in the wedding industry and what is just wasting your budget.

So if you have been wondering whether to invest in ads or how to make the most of your ad spend, this episode is going to give you clarity, real examples and plenty of actionable tips that you can use. So let’s get to the interview with Mark Chapman Today. I’m joined by previous guest, mark Chapman, who is just up to his eyeballs in all things advertising for wedding professionals, whether it’s Facebook ads, instagram ads, google ads, tiktok ads. This is what he eats, sleeps and breathes, and I was really excited when he told me there are a lot of new things happening with advertising and we want to bring you up to speed so you can take advantage of some of these opportunities. So, mark, thank you for joining me.

0:02:55 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, thank you so much for having me and just giving me a chance to update folks on what’s happening in advertising. As you said, it is my passion, I’m fascinated by it and there’s so much happening right now, heidi, I can’t wait to talk about it. So tell me, it is my passion, I’m fascinated by it, and there’s so much happening right now, heidi, I can’t wait to talk about it.

0:03:07 – Heidi Thompson
So tell me what are some of the biggest things that you’re seeing with your clients?

0:03:12 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, okay. So one one big thing. I’m going to preface what I’m going to say with that Google is still by far like the search engine where people go and are looking for vendors, that are looking for venues and bridal like people. That is still the big beast in the room. But someone recently said, oh, let me tick tock that. And I was like oh, and I knew immediately what she meant. She was going to go to tick tock to find out how it works or an answer to her question. And I was like oh dang. And the person who said this was obviously like someone who’s in the age range of many of our ideal couples and it really turned on a light bulb in my brain.

0:03:46 – Heidi Thompson
I was like oh, people are going to tick tock for answers in the search, which is definitely not how most of us think of it being used right.

0:03:56 – Mark Chapman
But if we think about it and what she said, short form video is super educational and helpful and when I got, I was like was like oh, I’m going to tick talk some things too. I was like, oh, this is actually in a lot of ways like more helpful than searching elsewhere, because if it’s a good short form video, I just learned what I needed to learn in like 15 to 30 seconds and with like visuals and audio and not just like a text ad.

0:04:25 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and much more condensed than maybe something on YouTube.

0:04:29 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, youtube is great. Right, but YouTube can be really long.

0:04:34 – Heidi Thompson
That’s so interesting. I wouldn’t have thought. I mean, it’s probably the fact that I’m on elder millennial, but I wouldn’t have thought to do that.

0:04:44 – Mark Chapman
It might be the reason why that’s okay. That’s okay, this is a safe place for us old people. No, yeah, it was really cool to hear that and then, coincidentally, a couple of weeks ago, TikTok actually just released a new type of ad called search ads, because I think that they caught on to it and they jumped to it really quickly and so they’re like okay, you know what we’re gonna. We’re gonna show ads and people search on TikTok, and it’s it’s still not well defined in terms of like how and when the ad show or like the metrics behind it. However, it is live now and I’m really excited about all the testing we’re doing to find out what that turns into for our members.

0:05:28 – Heidi Thompson
So does it work in a similar way of like Google search where, like, the search results are going to have to do with the keyword that was searched?

0:05:37 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, it’s all about the words that are searched, because, like, obviously all the ad platforms have like search bars in the search results page, though on TikTok is just videos, so I think there’s some work to be done in terms of clarifying which video is the best to answer the question or meet the search, but just the fact that it is there now tells me, wow, there’s some really cool and big things that are going to be in the pipeline for advertising on TikTok.

0:06:04 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’m curious what sorts of things, what sorts of results are you seeing from advertising on TikTok with your clients? Because I think it’s still very much an area that a lot of people haven’t gotten into in advertising.

0:06:21 – Mark Chapman
Even if they’re advertising maybe on Instagram and Google and and facebook, a lot of people have not dipped their toes into tiktok and you know it’s a function of the fact that we’re I think a lot of us are just so tired from keeping up to speed with instagram and other platforms where it’s like I mean, I can’t tell you how many if I had a dollar for every time someone says like, like, I just don’t have time to learn another thing. So what we’re seeing when people do embrace TikTok as an ad platform is better results in terms of the clients that come to our clients. After they run an ad. They come with more knowledge and more ready to buy. One example I’m going to use a bridal store as an example.

In Florida. They run an ad and it’s actually just an informational ad about like hey, this is what you should do to prepare for your bridal appointment. It’s not like you should book an appointment. These are our appointment types and all that. It’s literally just this company and they’re saying hey, we want to be helpful to you. We know that you’re a bride in our area and you probably have never shopped for a wedding dress before. So here are five things to do before you come to the appointment, and what we were finding, or what we are finding, and the reason it’s proving that it’s working is that brides do come in with those five things. They’re like oh, I saw your TikTok and I brought these five things or whatever it was. And you know it’s very difficult to like track an appointment conversion from TikTok because brides aren’t necessarily like going to TikTok to book appointments. That aren’t the way they are on Google. However, the little bit of money that’s spent each day turns into a better qualified lead or better qualified appointment, and that has been fascinating.

0:08:00 – Heidi Thompson
That’s really interesting and that they’re specifically referencing that. They saw that that’s really interesting and that they’re specifically referencing that. They saw that and so they come in more prepared because of that, which you know it’s going to make them easier, better to work with.

0:08:12 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, or maybe filter out people that aren’t a good fit, because if something on that list is like something a bride is just not willing to do, then that’s okay. You just created less crappy appointments for yourself.

0:08:27 – Heidi Thompson
That’s so interesting. What other changes are you seeing? Because I feel like the whole advertising landscape is just like in such upheaval with so many changes, and I mean you’re just in the middle of all of it. So I don’t know how you keep up with all this. But Right, I know.

0:08:47 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, so that’s a big one for TikTok for sure. And so the other two platforms that we work in a lot are meta ads and Google ads, and I’d say, you know, one of the biggest changes we’re seeing in meta ads is just that the system is like forcing AI onto advertisers. And one thing that we just have been discovering is there’s this new setting called flexible media, and it’s like buried in the ad campaign build out. It’s like when you’re adding images and videos to the ad that you’re creating, there’s this little toggle and it’s on by default and says flexible media is on and like that’s all it says. And it’s like what is flexible media?

And it turns out that this setting that Meta is releasing to all advertisers without really their permission is giving the system the opportunity to change the images or reorder the images or crop the video or put text in different places, and it’s taking the control away from the advertiser with the purpose of saying, oh, we’re going to get you more results or whatever you want if you just leave flexible media on. And the problem with this is it’s a really great thing for huge businesses with big budgets, because then you actually find the algorithm finds its way and does what it’s supposed to do, but with most businesses in the wedding industry, the budget’s so small. Like you, you actually don’t give the system enough data to make flexible media work for you and just screws things up. So that’s one huge thing that we’re finding in meta um that we’re like turning off like crazy and it’s, it’s popping up everywhere, um and and there’s a lot of AI happening, ai being forced on, uh, google advertisers as well, um, and that’s a whole conversation too.

0:10:30 – Heidi Thompson
But like, basically, the platforms are really forcing ai onto businesses, but it’s not always the best thing for small businesses that’s a really good distinction, because who these tools are built for and who uses them, or who you know certain settings are a fit for, may not be everyone. It may be people in a specific situation, like you said, with a really large budget, or you know, various other situations. I’m curious what you’re seeing in terms of targeting, because I’ve definitely heard a lot lately about meta wanting to take more of the driver’s seat with letting the algorithm find the right people, and I tested some of this myself with know, some to people on my email list, some to lookalikes of that, some to kind of a wide open, and I was genuinely surprised how well the wide open group did.

0:11:38 – Mark Chapman
What was your budget per day? If you don’t mind me asking.

0:11:42 – Heidi Thompson
Oh, I think across all of them. I was doing about four or 500 a day.

0:11:49 – Mark Chapman
Okay, exactly.

0:11:51 – Heidi Thompson
Because it was a truncated period. I’m not. I wasn’t running these ads constantly. I wanted to get results in like a three week period.

0:12:00 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, and thank you for divulging that. Yeah, you’re so right, it’s like larger budget.

You give the algorithm more room to play with, and but so many advertisers are still maybe in the five, ten dollar, twenty dollar a day budget, which is not a bad thing because that’s a lot of money for a small business to spend and we’re finding is like many times the smaller budget, you just don’t have enough, enough data for that wide, open audience to do its thing. Sometimes you do, I’ll be honest, it’s like 50, 50 in our world. What we’re finding is sometimes in some geographic markets in the United States it works and some others the exact same thing doesn’t, and so we watch really closely, like we always test it, and we watch really closely and like turn that, test it. And we watch really closely and like turn that off if it’s not the right fit and if it’s not working. But I do think over time that it will get better. It’s just not there for everyone everywhere, especially with smaller budgets.

0:12:56 – Heidi Thompson
That’s a really good thing to keep in mind. Are you seeing, you know, budget ranges where that starts to make sense, versus staying strictly with a very particular set of targeting?

0:13:08 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, I mean, I think, just the gut feeling I apologize, I don’t have the data in front of me but like, really, like $25 a day and up is a place where you have enough activity with your ad campaign for metas, like broader targeting algorithm to to reach people and to get information and find the people who are going to take the action you want them to take do you guys ever front load the budget just out of curiosity, to kind of try to get that information and then pull back into a daily budget that the client’s more comfortable with?

We don’t. That’s not a bad idea for testing. I haven’t ever had anyone agree to that.

0:13:54 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I can see why Can we spend $1,000?

0:13:56 – Mark Chapman
tomorrow.

0:13:58 – Heidi Thompson
We don’t know what’s going to happen to it.

0:14:00 – Mark Chapman
Exactly, Exactly. You know as much as I want that to be the reality. It just isn’t, and that’s fair. You know, we’ve worked so hard for our money.

0:14:08 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, Okay, so that’s really good to keep in mind. With meta, what about with Google? What are you seeing there?

0:14:16 – Mark Chapman
So Google, there’s two types of campaigns that are working really well and there’s one type of campaign that’s actually starting to work better, which I always used to say turn it off, don’t use it. The two main campaigns in Google just for everyone’s context, if you’re listening and you’re not a Google ads advertiser or you’re getting into it there’s called search campaigns is one and that’s where you have keywords and people type keywords. People type their search term into the Google search and your text ad shows up like wedding venue in Toledo, ohio, and then your ad shows up there you go. It’s like not very sexy, just text. Sometimes it includes phone number address or a couple of images or things like that, but that’s a search campaign. It’s like the foundational Google ads campaign.

The one that we’ve been testing and learning a lot about and actually having some success with is called performance max and a performance max campaign. You put a whole bunch of stuff into it and it shows your ads on the search when people put keywords in, but it also shows your ads in people’s Gmail inboxes. It shows your ads on YouTube across what’s called the display network, which is sort of like when you see interruptive ads on different websites, and this type of campaign isn’t for everyone yet, but it is showing some promise and the cool thing about it is when you have more budget a little bit higher of a budget as well and you give the system more information, allow the ads to be shown everywhere. It tries to find those people who are actually a good fit for your audience and make sure that the people see you in multiple places multiple times for your budget, and that’s been really cool to observe.

0:15:48 – Heidi Thompson
That’s really interesting, and it’s interesting too to see how AI is changing things, how these platforms are implementing that and allowing that to learn, to make suggestions, to make changes.

0:16:05 – Mark Chapman
I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of that yourself one of the one of the things I hate about ai and these platforms is it’s like ad copy suggestions, oh yeah, like I can hear it like it’s just like it’s just not what it should be yet and maybe it will be down the road, but I think that’s. My one little word of warning is like ai is becoming amazing and doing incredible things for people, but not quite yet with when it comes to promoting what makes your business totally unique in the marketplace and what is it your unique selling proposition that you need to communicate in your ad copy, because it just kind of pukes out a bunch of crap and um, better than nothing.

So if you don’t know what to write, go for it. But if you do have, maybe if someone’s gone through one of your programs or like learn from you, like what makes their business and you’re working on a marketing plan with you, if you know what that is like, take control of that messaging and don’t let AI write the ad copy for you.

0:17:00 – Heidi Thompson
Speaking of how has what your advertising changed? Because you mentioned that educational content on that TikTok ad and you were just mentioning, you know, making it really clear how you stand out. I think a lot of people think of running an ad is like I’m just going to put something kind of basic about my business, but what sorts of content are you guys using and seeing success with?

0:17:25 – Mark Chapman
You have to focus on what makes your business totally unique. On TikTok, fair point, the educational stuff is really really important, because no one’s like seeking you out on TikTok necessarily like they are on Google. So educate behind the scenes. Show people how it’s done all day long with short form video on TikTok and in Instagram reels too. But when it comes to Google search campaigns or performance max campaigns or even Instagram and Facebook ad campaigns um, that are not short form video. The ad must be super clear as to what a couple can get from you that they cannot get anywhere else. Otherwise, you’re in a sea of sameness. If your ad is like a pretty picture and it says have the wedding of your dreams, that couple has seen that same message a thousand times and it’s absolutely like trite to them. So focusing on what makes your business unique is the competitive advantage with advertising to make sure that your ad does its job.

0:18:26 – Heidi Thompson
How not to ask you to write copy on the fly. But how are you guys communicating that Cause? I could see someone hearing that and being like okay, but like what does that look like?

0:18:37 – Mark Chapman
oh okay, let’s write some ad copy on the fly um give me a business, give me a business in the wedding industry uh a venue okay, um, toledo’s only all-inclusive female-owned wedding venue. I know that doesn’t sound like super sexy and exciting. However, there’s two points there. The all-inclusive it’s in Toledo, it’s female-owned and there’s going to be a very specific audience that resonates with that. It’s like, oh, I need the all-inclusive and I am all for supporting a female-owned business, and that may not be the best example, but it’s what came to mind first.

0:19:20 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, so you’re trying to directly call out your onlyness in basically a single headline.

0:19:29 – Mark Chapman
Yep.

0:19:31 – Heidi Thompson
Because they don’t see the full ad copy unless they click to reveal it.

0:19:35 – Mark Chapman
That’s right. Ooh, here’s another one. There’s actually a venue in St Louis that we work with that they, their whole thing, is that they’re the best venue for foodies. So all of their ad copy and their headlines is like this is the venue for you if you are a foodie, and we will make your food dreams come true Because they’re a little bit pricier. You are a foodie and we will make your food dreams come true because they’re a little bit pricier and their catering department is like super as important as the venue space itself. So making sure that people who see the ads know this is for them and it works so well because people like you. If you’re not interested in the food for your wedding or that’s not a priority for you, I’m not going to spend my time researching this venue. Awesome, check that off. I don’t need to know about it, but if it is, I’m in.

0:20:15 – Heidi Thompson
Show me, show me what you can do yeah, it’s the immediate ability to stand out and grab someone with something that they are actually interested in, as opposed to, like you were saying, that sea of sameness that we see happen so often, where it’s just like everybody’s using the same language. It’s not really clear how you’re different from anybody else and I mean, I would say that’s already bad enough if you’re just using organic marketing, but if you’re putting money behind it, now you’re paying to blend in.

0:20:52 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, and this is where I think a lot of folks do put some money behind it and they blend in and they just haven’t thought about it from the outside because a lot of us are too close to our own business to see it.

Right and that’s why, like, working with someone like yourself and identifying the USP, identifying what makes you different, is so freaking powerful. So, like, do that first before you start spending your money on ads, cause a lot of folks you know this is where it began. My thought was, like, a lot of people do spend some money on ads. It doesn’t work and they think it’s ads that don’t work, when really it was not to be like mean, but it was like that’s your fault. Like you didn’t do, you didn’t think about it from the bride’s perspective and the couple’s perspective.

0:21:33 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, it was the message. It was the wrong message and it didn’t stand out enough to people to get them to do something. Are you seeing people have to lean more and more into that? Because I definitely remember a time where it was enough to just advertise that you’re a photographer, that you have a bridal shop.

0:21:58 – Mark Chapman
Yes, when I started my career in advertising in 2010, before some people listening to this were probably born simply being present was enough and it was fascinating and that’s actually part of my story. That changed my life as our photography studio was running ads. Changed my life because people found us all of a sudden where I was trying so hard to get people to find us in other ways. But you know now, I mean, everyone has like boosted a post, Everyone spent some money on advertising or outsourcing to a local company or whatever. There’s so many people who are spending money on ads, so it is very much a sea of sameness if you do not differentiate yourself.

0:22:35 – Heidi Thompson
Who would you say is a good fit right now to be advertising that you maybe would have said something differently a year or five years ago?

0:22:49 – Mark Chapman
Ask that again, like who could benefit from advertising right now? That might not in the past.

0:22:54 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, or basically, what do you need to have in place? How do you know you’re ready?

0:23:03 – Mark Chapman
You’re ready, if you know what makes your business different and you can communicate that in one sentence, and you can also communicate that in a short form video. If you don’t have that, don’t create an ad campaign just yet. Work on that.

That makes a lot of sense Also on the other flip side of it, like, okay, if you have that and you can create a great ad campaign, if your website isn’t ready to convert, you also don’t want to run ads, and quick, high level what does that even mean?

Is my website ready to convert? Couples today don’t want to fill out a form with 20 different form fields and give you their home address before they know anything about you. Like, advertising reaches a cold audience. Right, You’re reaching people who don’t know, like and trust you so you can create a great ad campaign and they click on it. But if they go to your website and they can’t just reach out and ask a question like, maybe text you, maybe a chat on your website to just ask a simple question, start a conversation with you, then I would say don’t advertise. If you’re only going to force people to fill out a long form and you don’t have any way to get in touch quickly or communicate in a really more conversational, personal way, then your advertising won’t work because people aren’t ready to convert like that advertising won’t work because people aren’t ready to convert like that.

0:24:20 – Heidi Thompson
That’s really interesting. I’ve definitely seen some shifts around, I guess, the way people are communicating, the way people are inquiring, the way people are researching and gathering information as part of their whole vendor finding process, and it’s been really interesting to see you share a lot of data around this Ever since you’ve started doing that. I’ve definitely encouraged my clients. We need to shorten this contact form and please check your contact form on mobile. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen one.

But you can’t fill out a certain field, or you can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen one, but you can’t like fill out a certain field, or you can’t click the button and it’s like, oh my God, this has cost you so many leads.

0:24:59 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, oh my God, we could have a whole three hour conversation about mobile websites versus desktop.

0:25:07 – Heidi Thompson
What sorts of information? Because I’m sure you probably have to push some of your clients to be like we need to shorten this contact page if you want to get inquiries from these ads. What are you cutting it down to? What information are they gathering as part of that first step?

0:25:22 – Mark Chapman
Name, of course, email address. We have started making phone numbers not required but we put in a little box for phone number hey, put your phone number in if you prefer texting. And what that does is it actually is a cue that if they put their phone number in because it’s not a required form field and they saw that message, it’s like oh well, then you, as the recipient of that lead, know that their preferred method of communication is texting. So like win-win, um, uh. And depending on the different type of business, I’ll go with venues. For a second, like preferred wedding day is obviously pretty important because that is a deal breaker, yes or no if the date’s available. And then we’ve also gone against our rule of taking form fields away and added one in that we’ve been testing for a while which is showing really great results.

It’s like we’re asking who are you in the planning process or where are you in the planning process? So it’s like a dropdown and it has a couple options. One says I’m not engaged yet. The second is I’m helping. I’m helping someone else plan their wedding or find a venue, um. The third is I’m just looking at different venues and seeing what options are there. And the fourth is I’m ready to book a tour because this particular venue is at the top of my list. And we tested this, like I did an AB test, and found that adding this particular form field did not reduce the rate conversion rate on the page or on the form but it did give the venue, the recipient of the lead, a lot more information to customize their response. So if, like, they’re saying I’m not engaged yet and you have an automated email that says congratulations on your engagement, like you’ve already like misspoken, so that has been a really powerful form field that we actually got from Ian at Venue Help Desk. He had that idea. That is great.

It was so cool, yeah, so pretty much that’s it. You know, and I know that that doesn’t work for everyone, because you want quality leads and you want to know everything before you meet them. But realistically, like, especially if they’re looking for like okay, if you’re looking for venues like at top of the funnel, they haven’t filled out 500 forms yet. But if you’re like further on down the line, like dj, photo booth, other businesses, like if you put in the shoes of that couple, they filled out like 30 forms already and they just don’t want to do it again.

0:27:46 – Heidi Thompson
It’s. That’s a really good point. Some really interesting information about people talking on Reddit about how they feel like they need to kind of sell themselves to the potential vendor, like tell me your love story, tell me, like all these things. And it’s like A this is the 50th form I’ve filled out. B why do I feel like I’m pitching you when I’m trying to hire you? So I think it’s definitely been a shift from these longer information gathering contact forms and I think we can kind of see it just in tech in general, like the steps and anything we use are broken down so much so you only really see that one thing you need to do. Like think about, even when you order an Uber, you only see where you put in, where you’re going.

Then you see the price, then you order, then you see how long it’s going to be, then you see who’s picking you up. If it gave you all of that information up front, they would probably have more people quitting in the process, and I think our brains have just become accustomed to this bite-size information kind of thing. Breadcrumbing is the name that I love.

0:29:11 – Mark Chapman
Like you, just leave a little trail of breadcrumbs. Don’t make it. Don’t throw the whole loaf on the ground.

0:29:19 – Heidi Thompson
And two, it gives you something to talk about in your follow-ups. It gives you something to talk about in your consultation, like being able to ask some of these questions that you may have previously asked on your contact form. But you don’t really need that information up front. It allows you to create a much more conversational process, which I’ve definitely seen working better, because it is that breadcrumbing, it’s that, little by little, we’re having this conversation.

0:29:49 – Mark Chapman
I’m asking you a question, you’re answering it and we’re getting there piece by piece, as opposed to just info dumping a reverse tactic for this, where I’ll use price transparency for an example, which I’m a huge fan of on websites, where, like, if you have your price on your websites in a very clear place and it doesn’t have to, it could be like um hey, a couple spends, on average, this amount of money with us. Like, let’s customize a package for you. Um, if they see it a couple of times before they fill out that short form, that’s shortened and you’re not asking them about their budget, like, you still are pre-qualifying them because you know that they know your pricing or something about your pricing, so it’s not a bad fit. You don’t have to, like, force them to put their budget into your form in an uncomfortable way.

0:30:46 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah, I think we really need to think about the whole process as, being broken down into so many more smaller steps which I get, it can kind of feel overwhelming, but it also makes each step of it less overwhelming yep, and it’s all about that couple and the overwhelm of planning a wedding, something they’ve never done before.

0:31:10 – Mark Chapman
I mean, we could go on for hours about this, but like it’s really stressful. And if you make it more stressful for them, like on for hours about this but like it’s really stressful and if you make it more stressful for them, like you’re going to convert less but you make it easier for them and you just like love them and care on them and talk to care for them and talk to them like they’re human Sweet.

0:31:26 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah, you’re absolutely right. Tell us a little bit about, maybe, some of your clients and what they have seen success with, whether it is the targeting that they’re using or the kind of content that they’re using in their ads, or maybe even where they’re taking people when they click through to the ads. I would love to hear some examples of what’s working for different businesses.

0:31:53 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, you know there was way back in the like. When I first started doing this, we had built landing pages that weren’t like the main website. For every single person I worked with, his landing pages are more concise, but then there was a trend of like going back to homepages and we’re sort of coming back into a more concise landing page experience. That works really well when you’re advertising, where someone clicks on your ad and they visit a specific page that maybe has a specific offer or answers a specific question that they searched on Google. Or in a venue case like has the big picture details for the venue, like pictures of the architecture, pricing, bullet point list of like what makes that venue unique and different, and size, capacity and stuff like that. Just making it so. To summarize that I apologize, I could go on forever. To summarize, it is like making the post click experience very clear, whatever your business is, and not asking people to hunt and peck around your website and find all the information by visiting 10 different pages. So that is something that’s like trending back again.

0:32:59 – Heidi Thompson
Oh, interesting, because I know that kind of disappeared for a little while. That’s interesting that it’s coming back. What sorts of information are you pulling together on those pages?

0:33:15 – Mark Chapman
Other on those pages, um, images and video for sure, right, I mean, it’s such a creative industry and everything that we do is visual in some way. So if you have great short form videos on that page, if you have a small gallery of like five to 10 images of your space, physical space, if that’s what you are offering, um, really succinct bullet point list of like maybe five things that set your business apart and sort of, uh, go deeper into your unique selling proposition. So you have your like unique selling proposition at the top of the page, like Toledo’s only all inclusive female owned um wedding venue. Then, like, go deeper into that with a couple of bullets, like, talk about the all inclusive packages, a little bit talk about the ownership. Um, then you have, for, what’s really important for us is some sort of idea of pricing, and this is very different and I know it’s a little bit controversial in the wedding industry, but different businesses have different takes on how they want to do it. But some sort of way for that person who visits the landing page to know, like, is this anywhere in my price range?

Testimonials are really important and, on that note, not just like writing long testimonials out on the page, but like short, like one or two sentence testimonials and then showing visually where that testimonial came from. If it’s a Google review, you could put the Google reviews logo underneath it so that people can like go verify it if they wanted to just build a better sense of trust. And then the last thing is the who behind the business. In today’s world, there’s a lot going on in politics and culture and people want to buy from people. People want to buy from people that they know and that they like and they relate to. So pictures of the owner, pictures of the team, whether people in this business that look like me, is really important as well. So I think those things cover really the most important components of a page.

0:35:06 – Heidi Thompson
That’s really interesting, and I’m glad that you pointed out the who, because that is so easy to overlook when you’re the one running the business.

0:35:13 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, or you don’t like the picture.

Or you’re like I don’t want to do a short form video because I’m not that person, like that’s okay, but that short form video your picture is who they’re buying from and it’s especially important for anyone. But, like, venues and bridal stores are basically products, but anyone who’s not any of those things, you’re a human and if they’re going to invite you to their wedding or have you there on the most important day of their life, they better darn well know who you are or they’re not going to convert.

0:35:42 – Heidi Thompson
That’s a really good point. They’re going to be spending all day with a lot of their vendors.

0:35:47 – Mark Chapman
They’re going to trust you.

0:35:50 – Heidi Thompson
And that trust piece is so important. I’m glad you called out testimonials. I think that’s something a lot of people forget to include when it’s not on like a homepage or a testimonials page.

0:36:02 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, we love, love, love, love when we get to share with folks. To weave testimonials throughout every page of your website. Keep them short. Show where they came from. Don’t like have a testimonials page where, like, someone has to click over to it and like do you think they’re going to actually read the 10th testimonial on your page? Absolutely not. So sprinkle that social proof throughout every page of the website, especially if you’re advertising and paying money to reach a cold audience. They need that social proof repeated.

0:36:31 – Heidi Thompson
On that kind of new version of a landing page? Do they have a way to access the rest of the website, or are you keeping them really just on that page?

0:36:41 – Mark Chapman
You know it’s such a great question that may change in the future. We just last week heard about a release from Google that says Google doesn’t necessarily want pages where people can’t go anywhere else, and so this typical strategy recommendation is like keep them on the page. If the page doesn’t do the job, to woo them like change the page and make the page better right but, um, I think that that got taken a little bit too far.

You’ve probably we’ve probably all clicked on these like sales pages where it’s like no information in a form to fill out and you’re like that was not what I asked for.

So you know, I apologize how I don’t have like a hard answer for you, but I know that that’s sort of shifting and the experience of people to be able to click away if they want to is there.

I can share one real world example of like landing pages that we use for mostly venues and some other businesses where we give the person who lands on the page the opportunity to fill out a form if they want to like request information about a particular date.

We also give them the opportunity to click to text the business If they have a question. They don’t want to fill out the form yet, but they want to ask a question and then we also give the opportunity to book a tour. So they click and it goes to like a tool like Calendly where they can like directly book a tour from the page, and what we found after adding all those different options is that a lot of people don’t even want to book a tour yet, but, like having the option to book a tour or text, the business created this subconscious sense of trust that like, oh you know, if I fill out this form, I know that I can get in touch with the business in a different way if I need to and I’m not being spammed. And so just having multiple options to convert increased conversions with that subconscious sense of trust to convert increased conversions with that subconscious sense of trust.

0:38:22 – Heidi Thompson
That is really interesting.

But it makes sense because it kind of gives you a preview of what the experience is going to be like. The fact that you can book something online. Oh my God. Not being able to do that is the bane of my existence. I will forever procrastinate things that I cannot book online. You don’t want to call, no, don’t make me call. But seeing that you can do that, seeing that you can text, even if maybe that’s not what you want to do right now, seeing that that’s how this business interacts with its customers, that’s how they do business, I get that that would be reassuring.

0:39:00 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, it’s all subconscious trust. The person visiting the page would never communicate to you and say, oh, just because I could text you.

0:39:11 – Heidi Thompson
I felt better about it.

0:39:11 – Mark Chapman
It doesn’t even cross their mind.

0:39:13 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah. I’m sure they don’t even realize that that’s adding trust and making them, you know, actually fill out the form. Are most of your clients sending people is like the ultimate goal to get to an inquiry form, or are there different goals that you have people moving toward?

0:39:34 – Mark Chapman
Definitely different goals. Like we measure we can set up tracking. We measure when people click to text, we measure when people book a tour, measure when people fill out the inquiry form. Some we do a lot of like event ad campaigns, like do they RSVP for a trunk show or RSVP for an open house of some sort? So it’s really fun to be able to look at all the conversions and see that many people, so many people, want to convert in different ways, and that’s many people. So many people want to convert in different ways and that’s okay. And so the ultimate goal from ad campaigns isn’t necessarily to get people to fill out a form on your website. Maybe that’s too much, too soon. Maybe there’s something else they want to come to, like an open house or a trunk show or an educational event, whatever that is, and that’s more where they’re at in their journey and that’s okay.

0:40:24 – Heidi Thompson
It’s always so interesting to see how we used to have like this idea that people would follow a set journey, and I don’t think now I don’t think that was ever really true, but we definitely have this idea that, okay, they see this, and then they see this, and then they do this, and now it’s much more flexible, but it meets the needs of the people seeing it and that’s really the most important thing.

0:40:45 – Mark Chapman
And you know, back to that form field that we were like testing about who are you or where are you in the planning journey. Like a lot of people fill out the form like I’m helping someone plan, I’m not, I’m not even the bride or the couple, and like man, that just is super eyeopening for me to realize. Like man, it is not one size fits all right, Not at all, cause there’s so many people, especially in today’s weddings, like so many parents, who are involved in their children’s weddings more so than ever and bringing those to life. That’s okay. We just have to adapt our paths.

0:41:17 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and it’s great to see that your clients are having such success with this, because it can feel scary because things are constantly changing, but the fact that you are seeing success with doing things this way gives us a path to follow, gives us opportunities to test out different you know different types of ads.

0:41:41 – Mark Chapman
Never, ever, be afraid of testing, Because I think one thing we can all agree on is that the wedding industry is always changing, and those who are open to change sooner win more.

0:41:55 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah, very well said, and we always see. You know, the weird thing about our industry is it’s so generational. So if you can cater to the needs or the preferred method of communication or whatever it is for that newer generation, earlier you’re going to scoop up way more of those leads. I’m sure you get a lot of people using that text option too, right.

0:42:23 – Mark Chapman
Yep, it’s pretty amazing.

0:42:26 – Heidi Thompson
And is that just to ask? You know, maybe a couple of clarifying questions about if it’s a good fit.

0:42:33 – Mark Chapman
You know, I’ll be honest, a lot of it is like pricing questions. Okay, but if we’ve been in the wedding industry long enough, we know that that’s just how it’s going to be. So, uh, pricing questions, questions about dates, um, in the world of bridal, like, there’s all sorts of like size questions and designer questions that come through. Um, yeah, it it varies, but it it comes down to like those foundational things.

0:43:00 – Heidi Thompson
First, yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I can see how someone would feel a lot better proceeding once they have answered something like that, whether it’s around price or do you carry these certain designers or they’re qualifying themselves essentially.

0:43:19 – Mark Chapman
They are, that’s a great way, that’s great Think about it. They’re like they’re qualifying themselves essentially. They are, that’s a great way, that’s great way to think about it. They’re like.

0:43:25 – Heidi Thompson
They’re like hey, pre-qualify me, answer my question and then I’m sure you see plenty of inquiries come through from people who had previously had text conversations.

0:43:36 – Mark Chapman
That’s exactly it, Right, Okay. And then sometimes, like if you’re good at texting, you can say hey, excellent, I’m so glad that you’re so excited about this. Blah, blah, blah. Here’s a link to our booking form so let’s set a time to meet, and you can do it easily by selecting a time here on Calendly or in Acuity or whatever system you use for booking. You can send them the link through text message and they may not even have gotten to your like contact form on your website before that, but you led them to that yeah, it’s a side door, it’s another way into, and that’s what we need, right, like we can’t try to.

0:44:13 – Heidi Thompson
I’m all for processes, but we can’t try to shoehorn humans yeah that customer behavior. You know people are gonna people and they’re gonna come to you in weird ways and we just have to have good systems for dealing with that it’s so true so is there anything else you’ve seen shifting in the advertising space?

0:44:37 – Mark Chapman
You know one thing that I’ve been talking a lot with folks about. The last thing I think is like the meta ads is really, really busy right now. I think that you know I’m on Instagram and Instagram thinks I’m like a 32 year old woman that’s ready to get married and like the ads. The ads are relentless, the, the suggested things are relentless, and you know and I’m not saying that Instagram ads don’t work, because they really do but I do think it’s more important than ever to like, diversify and reach people in multiple places and consider Google ads, consider TikTok ads If you’re only relying on meta ads or Instagram ads like it’s really crowded there and I would say, think about reaching people in other ways too, because that can be a real game changer for you.

0:45:24 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and just in case someone doesn’t know the difference of, like, user intent between meta and TikTok and Google, could you just explain that a little bit?

0:45:36 – Mark Chapman
Yes, google super user intent to find answers to questions, to find a business that they want to work with. Like there has never been more searches for wedding businesses than right now. Like wedding photographer in Toledo, ohio wedding venue, and you get the idea Like people are searching on Google and they want to find your business. So for us, that’s like step number one Google ads, always before we set up meta ads or Tik TOK ads, because if they’re searching, they want to find you, just hands down. And people are searching a little bit on Instagram, of course, to a little bit of a different way. They’re almost like Pinterest searching on Instagram. They’re not so much in that moment of like I’m about to make a phone call or reach out to a business, right away they’re scoping you out. Um and wait, oh, the.

The difference is in TikTok is actually more of an entertainment platform than a social platform.

One of the before I forget this, one of the really cool differences about TikTok ads versus meta ads is that TikTok said hey, you don’t have to post every day, you don’t have to have a social account. You can sign up and pay us your money and we’ll say we’ll put your ads out there. Like, don’t worry about it, because I think a lot of people are a little bit overwhelmed by having another social account and TikTok said don’t worry about it. And so it’s really cool because it is so much more about like entertainment than it is social. So many people just watch videos and they don’t post anything. So those three platforms Google, meta and TikTok are just wildly different from one another and they wildly different from one another and they’re not the same and your dollars don’t do the same thing and that’s okay yeah, and it’s catching people at different points in time and, by the way, what tiktok just did, there is a perfect opportunity of that side door, of letting customers in in a different way.

0:47:11 – Heidi Thompson
It really is because, well, you don’t, quite frankly, want to get super active on tiktok. I know I don’t it takes time yeah yeah and a lot of us are like no, I don’t want one more thing. And if you can just run the ads and have that be enough, great, you can show up on that platform, you can get leads from that platform without having to do the organic stuff, which is huge and they’re leads that have such a deeper sense of trust and knowledge about who you are.

0:47:39 – Mark Chapman
Because if you do a great educational video, show them behind the scenes, tell them about something that went wrong and how you solved it. Wow, you can’t do that in an Instagram, in a pretty Instagram picture.

0:47:51 – Heidi Thompson
I love that. Yeah, that’s great for trust building. Yep, awesome. Well, mark, thank you. It’s always so fascinating to me how these things change, how fast they change. Um, where can people go if they want to work with you, if they want to learn more from you? What’s the best way to connect?

0:48:12 – Mark Chapman
At theidosociety.com is our website as well as any of the platforms like instagram, tiktok. I love TikTok myself. I’m working on short form videos, so you can find me on TikTok at theidosociety.com. So yeah, my doors are open everywhere.

0:48:31 – Heidi Thompson
Fantastic. Well, I will link to all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming back on and sharing with us what’s working now.

0:48:37 – Mark Chapman
Such a pleasure. Thank you, Heidi.

0:48:40 – Heidi Thompson
I don’t know about you, but I took a bunch of notes during that because there were a lot of things that surprised me, one being how people are using TikTok for search, which makes sense I just never really thought about it as well as the need to focus on what makes you unique and I have definitely seen this with my own clients. This is more important now than ever. It’s why I run my Standout and Get Booked Challenge. It’s why I talk all the time on this podcast and elsewhere about making sure that you are making yourself the go-to person for your ideal client, because they need to see in a few seconds that you are the absolute perfect fit for them.

I will link to Mark’s previous podcast episode that he did with us and that challenge over in the show notes, which you can find at evolveyourweddingbusinesscom, slash 308. I’m curious and super nosy, so send me a DM on Instagram at Evolve your Wedding Business. Let me know. Have you ever run ads on Facebook, instagram, google, meta? Is this something that you’re considering doing and, if so, definitely check out Mark’s previous episode. It was really, really helpful and we dug into you know, knowing how to really know, like when you’re ready, when it makes the most sense what to expect all of those different things. So I’ll be sure to link to that one in the show notes, but I would love to hear from you in the DMs and I will be back in your earbuds again very soon. Thank you for taking the time to tune in.

About Mark Chapman

Mark is the wedding industry’s leading expert on paid advertising. His team at The I Do Society helps wedding businesses use Google Ads, Meta Ads and TikTok Ads to reach and convert their ideal couples. In his early 20s while hustling and working hard to grow his family’s wedding business he learned how to use ads to get more couples in the door. Very soon after, he began helping his friends in our industry with advertising too. He turned this new skill into a system so he could help many more people. Today, thousands of businesses of all types in the wedding industry have been helped by Mark’s expertise in advertising.

Website: theidosociety.com
Instagram: @theidosociety

Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective
Get More Leads With Wedding Venue & Wedding Vendor Advertising With Mark Chapman
Episode 239: Where Should I Advertise My Wedding Business?
The Knot & WeddingWire: Are They Worth It For Wedding Vendors?
The Stand Out & Get Booked Challenge
Download my Testimonials That Sell Templates

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