Advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire: The Hidden Costs No One Talks About

In this episode we’ll cover:

• Why so many wedding pros feel stuck paying for advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire even when it is not bringing the right clients
• The hidden costs of directory advertising that go beyond the monthly fee
• How these platforms can actually waste more of your time than you realize
• The key difference between getting leads and getting the right leads
• Smarter alternatives that put you in control of your marketing and bookings

Advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire: The Hidden Costs No One Talks About

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
Should you advertise on The Knot and WeddingWire? Let’s talk about it.

0:00:06 – 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.

0:00:44 – Heidi Thompson
Hey there, my friend, welcome to the podcast. I am your host, Heidi Thompson, and for the last 13 years I’ve been helping wedding pros of all different kinds book more weddings, make their marketing easier and help them build a business that actually gives them the freedom that they wanted when they started this business. And one of the questions I have heard consistently over the last 13 years is should I be advertising on The Knot? Should I be advertising on WeddingWire? Should I be on Zola? Should I be on insert any of these third party platforms? And I recently got an email from a planner who said you know, I’m thinking about canceling The Knot because all I get are low quality leads, meaning they inquire, nothing’s happening. I’ve adjusted my follow up nothing’s happening like, tried to troubleshoot nothing’s happening, and instead I want to put that money into the Wedding Business Collective so I can take control of my marketing. And that really struck me, because this is the exact crossroads that so many wedding pros are at right now. Do you continue paying for advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire and hope that something sticks, or do your own marketing and build a system that works for you and finally book the clients that you want? And that’s what we’re going to dig into today, because for a long time it has been the default right to advertise on The Knot and WeddingWire.

But here’s the thing about advertising on platforms like The Knot and WeddingWire you don’t own anything there. You’re paying a monthly or a yearly fee. Maybe for some people that’s, you know, a couple hundred dollars a month. I know people that pay well over a thousand dollars a month. It really depends on your category and your location, and most of their contracts lock you in for 12 months at a time, in for 12 months at a time. That’s renting, that’s like leasing a storefront. You only have visibility as long as you’re paying rent, and the second you stop doing that poof, it all just disappears. And what are you getting for all of that money?

Now, for most wedding pros I talk to the leads that come in aren’t the best fit. Maybe they’re unqualified, maybe they’re price shopping, maybe they ghost. In a lot of cases there are couples that are looking for services that this vendor doesn’t even offer. So you really need to look for yourself at what are you getting out of it. For some people it can be worth it Absolutely, and I’ll talk more about that. But on top of all that, it’s almost impossible to stand out when you’re advertising on sites like The Knot and WeddingWire because, by design, you are listed right next to dozens, maybe hundreds, of other vendors in your area direct competition and you blend in and couples who are already overwhelmed.

Default to choosing based on price. This is something I talk about all the time. When we don’t have anything else to compare, we based on price. This is something I talk about all the time. When we don’t have anything else to compare, we compare on price. Now here’s the kicker. When I have surveyed and talked to wedding pros about this, I found pretty consistently that about 80% of them said advertising on these directories was not worth it for them. Only 20 percent said that it worked for them and some in that 20 percent it worked very well for. But that means that four out of five wedding pros that are advertising on these platforms are paying hundreds, even thousands of dollars for leads that go nowhere. So, yeah, you’re renting visibility, but the question is are you getting anything reliable in return for that rent? And for most wedding pros the answer is no. And for most wedding pros the answer is no, and part of that is because things have changed. You know The Knot and WeddingWire doesn’t work like it used to. So let’s zoom out and talk about what’s really going on in the market right now, because this isn’t just specifically about The Knot and WeddingWire themselves. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

During our recent Book More Wedding Summit, I hosted a panel with members of the Wedding Business Collective. I hosted panels with speakers. I did Q&As with attendees. I did Q&As with attendees and what came up time and time again is inquiries are slower. People are taking more time to reach out and make decisions. We’re seeing couples are taking like 30 to 40% longer to make decisions and ghosting is higher than it’s ever been. I also talked about what I call a trust recession. You’ve probably heard me, probably heard other people talk about this. I had Adriana McDermott on the podcast and we talked about it. Great episode, by the way. You should definitely listen to it if you haven’t already.

Couples are more skeptical and we just need to accept that. They take longer to feel confident in who they hire. They’re overwhelmed by their choices and the generic marketing that has worked for a really long time in the wedding industry just does not break through anymore. Now the problem, specifically as this applies to The Knot and WeddingWire is they have not adapted to any of these changes. These platforms still reduce you to you know, a profile picture, some portfolio images, a short blurb, a list of packages, etc. And it really makes you look like everyone else. And when we’re seeing an environment where couples are already overwhelmed, they are just defaulting to sorting by price. So, instead of helping you book faster, what we’re seeing is that advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire is actually feeding into the very problems that you’re already experiencing, like ghosting, price shopping, wrong fit inquiries, slower timelines. That’s why, for most pros, these platforms aren’t working anymore. They’re built on an old way of booking and today’s couples are making decisions in completely different ways.

So if advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire keeps you stuck, what does it actually look like to own your marketing instead of renting this space? Owning your marketing means that you’re in charge. You’re not waiting around, hoping the not wedding wire, some other third party platform will send something your way. You are intentionally building a system that consistently brings in the kind of clients you want, and it keeps working for you year after year. Here’s what that looks like in practice or hundreds, your website and your messaging position you as the obvious choice the hell yes. Choice for the right couples.

Instead of chasing random inquiries, you’re having conversations with people who already feel connected to you and they’re excited about you and working with you specifically. Not just another photographer, another caterer, another DJ you specifically. And instead of sinking money into these advertising contracts, you’re investing in skills and assets that keep paying you back long after you create them. That’s the thing that really stood out to me when that planner said you know, I’m thinking about canceling The Knot and WeddingWire and it’s actually cheaper for me to join the Wedding Business Collective and build these skills so I can do this myself, so I can build this machine that I own and when I need leads, when I need bookings, I can pull the levers and be in control and not in this passive position. That’s a pretty awesome position to be in, and the best part about it is it gets easier over time, because once you’ve built a system, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every month. So the same strategies that brought you your last five clients will most likely bring you your next five.

Every blog post, every referral relationship, every piece of clear messaging that positions you as the go-to for your ideal clients continues to work for you in the background. So, instead of marketing feeling like this endless treadmill where you’re always stressed and you’re always hustling for the next inquiry, it starts to feel lighter. You know exactly what works because you’re doing it, you know how to repeat it and make it easier and you stop wasting time on the things that don’t work for you. Owning your marketing is empowering because it gives you confidence, it gives you freedom, it gives you control over your business and over time, it actually makes everything easier, not harder. And here’s the real payoff when you own your marketing, you’re not just booking more weddings, you’re booking the right weddings, the people you really want to be working with. For this planner, it was full service planning. Clients design forward couples that really value what she has to offer. That’s when marketing actually feels fun again, because you’re finally attracting the people that you set out to serve in the first place, and somehow that gets lost. So let me ground all this in some real examples because I want it to be really clear.

I had Catherine Hunter, an officiant on the podcast. I’ll be sure to link to her episode in the show notes. It is a great interview. She was spending thousands every year on advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire and I know this because she’s in the wedding business collective and she came and told me how frustrated she was by this because she wasn’t getting out of it what she was putting into it. The leads were not a good fit for her she was spending once. She actually started tracking the amount of time she was spending following up with these leads that were never going to go anywhere. It was crazy what it took her you know hourly rate down to. So Catherine made the decision to stop renting her marketing. She canceled her listings, she built her own marketing system and she started attracting clients who were excited about her and the way she works. And she talks about exactly how she did that in that episode. The system works so well. I invited her to come teach it inside the Wedding Business Collective. She taught a workshop for other members about exactly what she did, because it’s something anybody listening can take and utilize. That’s what happens when you own your marketing. You’re not handing off that responsibility to someone else and then getting upset when it falls through. You’re not only booking better clients, you’re building something that’s repeatable, something that you can even teach and share with others, right?

Let me give you two other stories to show both sides of this coin. One is a band leader, a member of the Wedding Business Collective, and we have talked in depth about this. That’s paying over $1,000 a month to be on The Knot and WeddingWire. So it’s about $12,000 a year and he has been moving toward canceling. I’m not 100% sure if he’s pulled the plug yet, but we’ve had, like I said, multiple conversations about this. But for him the math just wasn’t math anymore. He knew that that money could be spent elsewhere on his own systems, bringing in his own leads that were a better fit.

But on the flip side there’s a DJ, also a member of the Wedding Business Collective, who absolutely crushes it on WeddingWire. He gets a ton of his bookings there every single year and for him it makes sense to keep paying. He falls into that 20% of wedding pros who actually see a return on these platforms, and that’s the nuance that I want you to hear and it’s why I can’t just answer the question. I wish I could, but I can’t just answer the question should I advertise on The Knot? Should I advertise on WeddingWire? It works for some people, it doesn’t work for others. It’s about an 80-20 split. And it’s not that advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire never works. It can, and it does for a small slice of wedding pros, but for most it’s a drain on your money, your time and your energy. And when you compare that to what happens when you build your own system, like Catherine did, it’s clear which path is more sustainable long term.

So how does this transition work? Now? I don’t want you to just like cut and run, especially if that is not your personality type. That is not your risk profile. I know for a lot of people, even if you’re frustrated with the results you’ve gotten from advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire, the idea of canceling can feel very scary because you’re cutting off that lead pipeline. Even if the leads are terrible, it can still feel like you know you’re cutting off a lifeline. So I want you to know you’ve got two options here.

Option one is to wean off gradually. So if you’re still getting some bookings from your directory listing whether it’s on Zola, The Knot, WeddingWire, wherever even if they aren’t perfect, fit clients, you don’t have to pull the plug right away. Instead, if that’s you, I recommend you give yourself a three-month window. Keep that listing live but at the same time, start building your own system and that means focusing on referrals, polishing up your messaging, putting some time into SEO all of these things we cover in the Wedding Business Collective and by the end of that three months, you’ll have a better idea of what’s working for you outside of these directories and if your marketing plan is bringing in inquiries, it’s going to feel a lot easier for you to let that listing go. It’s kind of like gliding instead of just a sharp drop off.

Option two is to go cold turkey. That’s ultimately what this planner that emailed me decided Because, like many people, she was paying every month and wasn’t seeing a return at all like zero. So there’s really no harm. If anything, the leads she was getting are draining her time and energy, so in that case it’s okay to cut it off completely. Take that money, whether it’s $150 or $1,000 a month and reallocate it right away. Put it into something you can control. That might be changes on your website, that might be improving your SEO. That might be education that you need. That might be getting help with these different things like building vendor relationships or joining a program like the Wedding Business Collective that walks you through creating a marketing plan that’s going to work for your specific business.

Because, much like how I can’t tell people whether they should or shouldn’t advertise on The Knot and WeddingWire, you know there’s no one size fits all answer to that question. There’s no one size fits all answer to any platform. That’s the trouble with marketing. It is all based on who you are trying to reach, what they need to hear from you in order to trust you and see you as the obvious choice, even if you’re more expensive, and make them want to book. And that is different for everybody. We have so many different types of businesses in the Wedding Business Collective and every single one of them have a different marketing plan. I would say the one thing that is probably in common across all of them is referrals, so relationships with past clients, vendors, venues, those sorts of things that I can say, yeah, probably every wedding business needs. But when it comes to everything else whether it’s, you know, Instagram or Pinterest or YouTube, like it really depends, and that’s what we get into in the Wedding Business Collective is okay for your specific business and you as the CEO, with your specific ideal client and the things they need to hear from you in order to buy. Where does it make sense for us to market? We’re not just grasping randomly at straws. We’re following the data. Especially if you have things that are already working in your business, we look at okay, how can we get more out of them to make them work even better for you and quit the things that aren’t working.

So I have heard from many people stories about trying to cancel the non-WeddingWire. That are horror stories and I get it and you’re probably. You probably have to go in with a fight. You know, I just had a member of the Wedding Business Collective managed to get out of their contract and was sharing. You know how they did that, but it took some fighting. Quite frankly, I’ve heard stories of aggressive renewal calls, warnings about losing visibility, losing your reviews.

First of all, you should absolutely have a backup of your reviews. Don’t rely on a third party to have all of your reviews. Don’t even rely on Google, have an actual backup. Even if it’s copying and pasting them into a document, that’s fine, but those are too important to you know just be able to get lost on someone else’s platform. So they’re probably going to tell you this stuff and you should be prepared. So they’re probably going to tell you this stuff, and you should be prepared, but you need to go into this knowing that you’re making the right decision for your business, and that may be different than the decision for someone else’s business, and that’s okay.

Here’s the truth. I want you to keep in mind, though if those leads are not, you are not losing anything by stepping away. You are just cutting the dead weight, and that is always a good thing. So, whether you take a gradual approach or you go cold turkey, the point is the same. You’re moving away from renting leads that you can’t control toward owning a marketing system that is yours to keep and that works for you year after year, and when you make that shift, you’ll feel a huge difference. The stress of waiting on your inbox will lift, because you’ll know where your next clients are coming from and exactly what steps you need to take to get them. That is the kind of confidence, clarity and control that makes running a business feel so much easier. So here’s the last thing I want to leave you with.

Advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire is not a marketing plan. Sometimes I ask people you know what’s your marketing plan, how are you marketing? And they say, I’m advertising on The Knot and WeddingWire. That is a single platform. That is not a marketing plan. It does not give you a free pass to not market your business, because you will always have to market your business. It’s your business. I said this in my summit talk and I’ll say it here again you cannot abdicate responsibility for your marketing. A listing on a directory is not a marketing plan. It is one tiny tactic that might maybe bring in some leads. But if you are relying on it as your entire marketing strategy, that, my friend, is dangerous, because you need to be able to book a wedding when you need to, not just when one randomly falls into your lap. That means having systems and strategies in place that you control. So when you decide it’s time to fill a date, you know exactly what levers to pull.

Advertising on The Knot, WeddingWire, Gigsalad any of these platforms does not give you this kind of control. It leaves you waiting, hoping, crossing your fingers and refreshing your inbox. Owning your marketing means that you’re in the driver’s seat, and that’s the position I really want to see every wedding pro take, because you can generate leads on demand instead of just depending on luck and the payoff. When you do that, it just makes you so much more resilient and in control. You don’t have to worry about slumps or wonder where your next inquiry will come from. You know exactly how to get it will come from. You know exactly how to get it, and that’s the kind of confidence that changes everything about how you run your business. That’s how you become the CEO of your business.

So if you are ready to stop renting leads and start owning your marketing, I would love to help you do that inside the Wedding Business Collective. It’s where we build your marketing plan step-by-step, so you can attract and book your ideal clients without being dependent on directories and just hoping they give you something. So head over to evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/control to take control of your marketing. I cannot wait to help you do this, and all of the links for this, of course, will be in the show notes at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/329. Thanks so much for taking the time to tune in and I’ll speak to you soon.

Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective – join for just $1
How She Fired WeddingWire & The Knot And Built Her Own Lead-Generating Machine With Katherine Hunter
The Knot & WeddingWire: Are They Worth It For Wedding Vendors?

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