Get More Leads With Wedding Venue & Wedding Vendor Advertising With Mark Chapman

When you need more leads and booking for your wedding business you may wonder if advertising makes sense for you. But where should you advertise?

Most wedding pros immediately think of WeddingWire and The Knot but those aren’t your only options (and they may not be the best ones for your business. When you advertise on Google, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, you can meet your ideal clients where they are and generate leads with more specific targeting than you can on WeddingWire & The Knot.

Just like marketing, the world of advertising is always changing and I’ve invited an advertising expert to share what’s working with advertising now. We also discuss why some wedding pros are seeing amazing results while others are struggling so you can make sure your advertising works well for you and you get a solid return on your investment.

In this episode we’ll cover:

• What’s happening right now with ads
• Why some are seeing success with ads and others aren’t
• Who should and shouldn’t run ads
• How people who find you via ads are different from referrals
• The importance of standing out from your competition
• How venue advertising differs from other wedding pros
• What bridal stores should advertise
• How to advertise your service-based wedding business
• The real job of advertising
• A change you need to make to your inquiry and contact forms
• How to make accepting text messages sustainable
• Why you need to take control of your follow up
• How including text follow up has helped Mark’s clients
• Why advertising across multiple platforms works better than just one platform
• What to include in your ad
• How to have realistic expectations of advertising and understand its role in your wedding business

Get More Leads With Wedding Venue & Wedding Vendor Advertising With Mark Chapman

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
This is the Evolve your Wedding Business Podcast, episode number 278. Get more leads with wedding venue and wedding vendor advertising.

0:00:11 – 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

0:00:47 – Heidi Thompson
Hello there, my friend. Welcome to the podcast. I am your host, Heidi Thompson, and I help wedding professionals of all different kinds book more of the weddings they really want to be working on, as well as build a business that gives them the freedom and the flexibility that they want.

And a common question that I get asked is where should I advertise? Should I advertise? How should I advertise? And I think a lot of times in our industry, a lot of people default to advertising in places like the Knot and WeddingWire, but there is so much more available to you and so much more potential return on investment available to you, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today about advertising, about, you know, advertising on Google, advertising on Instagram, on Facebook and even on TikTok, because we can go directly to where our people are and generate our own leads. We don’t have to rely, if we don’t want to, on these companies like the Knot and WeddingWire to do that for us.

Now, I really wanted to cover this because my friend, Mark Chapman, who I interviewed for this and you’ll hear from in just a moment, he has definitely noticed some shifts in things when it comes to what’s working with advertising and why it’s working for some people and why it’s not working for others, and who should and shouldn’t be running ads. So I wanted to bring him in as the expert to share what he has found with you and he has been, you know, running ads for wedding professionals and educating people in tons of different speaking engagements when it comes to all sorts of different types of advertising for years now. But what we’re seeing now in advertising is very much what we’re seeing now in marketing, and it’s the importance of standing out. That is a really key component to what you’re going to hear Mark say about. You know, making sure that you’re doing advertising the right way, making sure that it’s going to work for you.

Because there are ways to do this that work, and there are ways to do this that flop. But standing out is such a crucial piece of this. When you are listening to this if you are listening live, like the week it comes out I am running a free challenge, all about standing out and getting booked, that I would love to invite you to. You can grab your free ticket and catch up on anything that you may have missed on this five-day challenge over at www.evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/challenge. That is the common thread.

I’m seeing through pretty much every problem wedding professionals are facing right now, whether it’s my ads aren’t working anymore, or the referrals that would normally book me no questions asked aren’t booking me, or I’m not getting enough leads, or I’m not getting enough quality leads, or I’m getting ghosted. I could sit here for like five minutes and go on and on and on about all of the different ways. Not standing out hurts your business.

The good news is it’s this one thing that you need to change, that you need to improve, and it has this ripple effect throughout your entire business. So it will help all of those areas that I’ve mentioned, and more so if you’re thinking about starting to run Google ads, meta ads on Instagram and Facebook, TikTok ads, or maybe you’re already running them and you want to get better results. This challenge is going to help you really hone in on how you’re different and how to communicate that clearly within five seconds or less.

So, like I said, you can grab the free ticket to that at www.evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/challenge that is running the week of May 20th, and if you’re listening to this, the day it comes out will be right smack dab in the middle of that. So you still have time to catch up and join us. And with that, let’s get into this interview with Mark all about advertising, what’s working, what’s not working and how you should approach advertising for your own wedding business.

Today, I’m joined by Mark Chapman, who began his journey as a wedding professional back in 2006. Nowadays, he is helping all sorts of different wedding professionals build ad campaigns and generate leads with his agency, the I Do Society, and Mark is here today to talk to us about advertising, what we should expect and how his clients are able to generate leads through Google, meta and TikTok ads, which I feel like nobody is talking about.

So, mark, I’m very excited to have you here.

0:06:19 – Mark Chapman
Thank you. 2006 sounds like forever ago. Is there anyone listening who was born in 2006? Maybe I’m not that old, I swear I’m still here. Same here we were. We were what Born in 2009. That’s right. Yeah, and we love TikTok and we live on the internet. Live on the internet.

0:06:54 – Heidi Thompson
Well, Mark, you have been working with lots of different wedding pros over the past decade or so on advertising and I feel like you know things ebb and flow, things change with advertising and I want to get into like what’s happening now with ads. Like what’s happening now with ads. But I guess we should address first if someone is thinking oh I’ll, I’m going to run ads and that’s going to be the thing that brings me leads.

0:07:24 – Mark Chapman
What do you want to tell that person? I want to tell them that the people who learn about you and visit your website from your ad campaigns are not the same as warm, happy referrals that get sent to you from someone who already knows, likes, and trusts you.

0:07:34 – Heidi Thompson
Oh, that’s a really good point that I think most people don’t consider.

0:07:38 – Mark Chapman
It is the most frustrating thing for people who don’t consider it, and they basically people who have run ads in the past and it didn’t work for them. They thought that advertising was going. They’re going to put their ads out there. People are going to be like oh, I love your business, I want to work with you, I’m so excited. But the truth is is that advertising reaches a cold audience. They’re not the same as those warm referrals, and warm referrals are incredible, except them all day long. Of course, that’s how you build your business. But if you want to grow your business faster and scale it faster and really reach couples at scale, like in mass, advertising is an incredible way to do it. But you have to approach it understanding that those people have no context of who you are and they don’t like you, and to get them to that point of a warm referral takes more work.

0:08:26 – Heidi Thompson
Okay, so let’s talk about that. What is the process that you have to take your clients through in order to ensure that the people who actually see that ad are going to take the desired action, as opposed to just like, see it and move on because it’s yet another company they don’t know anything about?

0:08:46 – Mark Chapman
There’s two main components to that success with advertising. The first is making sure that they see you in multiple places, multiple times and in multiple formats, and what I mean by that is couples are, let’s say, brides. Let’s use brides as a point of reference. Obviously, not everyone is a bride, but we’re going to use that as our operating word. Brides are on Instagram, they’re on TikTok, they’re Googling, they’re on WeddingWire and the Knot and they need to be reminded that your business exists many times in their journey of deciding who they’re going to contact to have at their wedding. And they also need to see videos. They need to see images.

Right, the wedding industry is so visual. If they don’t see your face as a wedding pro or see your work as a florist, they’re obviously not going to contact you, because they need to be convinced that what you do is incredible and amazing. So they need to see you in multiple places, multiple times, and multiple formats means images and video is really important nowadays, like images and video is really important nowadays. And the second component to that, beyond being seen in multiple places, multiple times, multiple formats, is that they need to understand what makes you completely different from your competitors. If you are saying oh, you’re going to have a wonderful experience working with me. That’s literally the exact same thing that everyone else is saying. You need to be niche focused and they need to understand what makes you completely unique so that they want your services and not someone else’s.

0:10:10 – Heidi Thompson
I’m assuming you’ve seen a lot of people falter here and just think that their standard messaging of you know what we see on every venue website or every planner website is going to be enough.

0:10:25 – Mark Chapman
Correct and it usually focuses because most of our businesses are service-based. It usually focuses on hey, I have an experience that you’re like. My service experience is something that you’re going to love, and where that falls flat in advertising is literally everyone saying it. And also, like, consumers expect that that should be like an expected thing. So, okay, cool. So everyone’s service experience is great, but what makes you different?

0:10:54 – Heidi Thompson
how do you help people? I know we just talked about this in your membership, but how do you like start to pull that out of the people that you work with? Because I’m sure you probably have people that come to you and they don’t see it for themselves because they’re too close?

0:11:12 – Mark Chapman
for sure. We’re always too close to our own business to really see it for what it is, and that is like not anyone’s fault. It just it just is the way that it is. Um, I’ll kind of break it down in different categories maybe, like like venues, bridal stores and then wedding pros, which I would consider sort of the three main categories.

When it comes to wedding advertising. Venues are a product and so obviously, if you have a venue, it is, it’s the photos and the video tour of your venue, so that people in an advertising experience can see and feel what your venue is like without having to book a tour just yet. So they get excited to book a tour just yet. So they get excited to book a tour. So it’s a, it’s a product, right, and your images and videos are very important. And the same goes for bridal.

Um, your bridal inventory is really what is going to make a difference for a bride deciding if she wants to book an appointment there, and also your dress price range, because those are products as well. But I think where it differentiates and most difficult is with wedding pros, like DJs and photographers and florists and things like that, because you are a service-based business and you don’t have a product that is exclusive, and so there is where it’s a little bit harder and you have to do more work and really lay into what makes you different as a person, so that people like to connect with you or want to connect with you, and maybe your level of experience at certain venues around the area, so people trust that you know all about where they’re getting married, for example.

0:12:38 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I like the way you break that up. That advertising a venue is different. Advertising a bridal store is different and, like you said, they’re much more product-focused, even though I’m sure a lot of venues think of it as more of a service-based sort of thing. But then when you get into photographers, planners, officiants, I think that’s where you can slip on the copy of really starting to focus on, like, like this great experience you’re going to have, instead of being, like you know, we’re the go to person for this particular type of client, which is what I’m all about and harp on over and over again for years and years and years. But it does make a substantial difference in your ability to stand out and I think, like you said, when you’re dealing with a cold audience, that’s even more important.

0:13:34 – Mark Chapman
It’s the deal breaker hands down Otherwise you’re going to spend all this money and people are going to be like she’s the same as everyone else.

0:13:43 – Heidi Thompson
So I think a lot of people probably, like you said, you know get excited. They’re going to advertise. People are going to be like, oh, this business is great, this is who I want to work with, and then they are going to book them. What is the more realistic journey of what actually happens?

0:14:02 – Mark Chapman
If that couple or that bride sees you in multiple places, multiple times and in multiple formats and she understands what makes you very unique and different, the next step that she is willing to take is to either visit your website and shoot you a text message and ask you a question Do you have my date available? What’s your price range, all that or possibly fill out the contact form on your website to book a meeting. That, literally, is the job of advertising. It isn’t any further than that. You cannot expect advertising to get you people to call and be like I’m ready to sign up, here’s my credit card. The job of advertising is to reach your ideal couple at scale and you can target by demographics and we can get all into that later. But reach those ideal couples, get them to your website and step into your quote-unquote funnel. I’m using air quotes here because it’s like a marketing word, right, but it’s basically like a contact you to ask a question or get in touch I like that.

0:14:58 – Heidi Thompson
I think people think advertising is this magic thing that’s going to solve all of their problems, possibly because it costs money, but really it’s kind of like a delivery service of the right leads, but then it’s up to the rest of the steps in your funnel to take over and turn them into a client. So for people that you’re seeing advertising not work, for what’s happening there, what’s breaking down?

0:15:36 – Mark Chapman
They are trying to be too broad in who they’re targeting and they’re thinking like, oh, every young woman between the age of 21 to 39, within a 50 mile radius of my business is going to want to work with me, which isn’t true.

We need to identify and I’m sorry it’s kind of overused, but like your ideal client you know and actually, Heidi, you do so much great work with this with folks in your world about, like, identifying who is it that you actually do want to work with in your world, about identifying who is it that you actually do want to work with and when you have identified that couple you can use their demographic information and enter that into the ad platform to say, hey, I want to reach couples between the age of 26 to 32 who have this income level, who are interested in dogs, who also really appreciate the outdoors.

So you really start to target the right people and you’re not asking everyone to be a good fit for your business. So that’s the first place where people often get it wrong and to their credit and this is kind of a fault of the advertising platforms, a lot of the ad platforms when you’re creating a campaign on your own, they give you these recommendations and you’re like, oh well, meta is telling me to do this, so I’m going to do it. But what isn’t understood is that the Meta doesn’t know your business, it doesn’t know your audience. They’re just trying to collect advertising dollars. So really taking control of your ad campaign and who you’re targeting is the first place that you need to get right, and many people get that wrong. And the second one is their lead follow-up.

Actually, a lot of businesses these days are not interested in letting people text them to ask them a simple question. They’re asking people who visit their website to fill out this form with 15 different form fields, and advertising is incredibly mobile and people visit websites from ads on their mobile device and when they see a form that has 15 form fields and ask them for their venue, their love story, their ideal wedding day, all this like it’s literally so prohibitive. Because I look at forms, you know when I can visit a website like how long is this? And I decided to fill it out or not fill it out, and the thing you need to do there is allow yourself to be texted, because people want to talk via text and ask short questions or have a short contact how many questions do you see on average on contact form, because I know I’ve seen ones that are massive how many do I see or how many do I recommend?

Let’s answer both. Um, you know, honestly, we see forms with like 10 to 15 form fields and it’s like it we get. The business owners we work with are oftentimes look well, I need to know this information, and if they’re not willing to fill it out, they’re not serious about working with me, which is so untrue. It’s just that they don’t know you yet, they don’t trust you, they don’t like you yet, because they don’t have any context of you and you’re asking them for all this information and you can’t have a conversation with them and you’re blocking people who could be genuinely fantastic clients to work with you. And what we really recommend.

I’ll share a strategy that we’ve put into place over the last several years which works incredibly well Ask them for their name and then leave the rest of the form fields optional and say ask them for their email and or their phone number and say, if you want to be texted, drop your phone number in. You would be so surprised how many people willingly put their phone number in and say, sure, text me. So name and then optional form fields of email address, phone number and if there’s anything like really important, for example, if you’re a venue and you really do need to know the date to see if you have it available. It’s okay to ask a couple more questions like that, but no more than four or five max form fields.

0:19:18 – Heidi Thompson
I would think, too, you’re making sure you’re testing this on different phones, because that’s absolutely something I’ve seen looking at wedding pros websites is it may look great and make sense and be well laid out on, you know, a laptop, on a tablet, but then it gets on a phone and, like you’re physically unable to fill out a certain field that’s required. So yeah. I’m over.

0:19:42 – Mark Chapman
Yep, or something that we see often too is that, like on the desktop version of your contact page, you have all this beautiful text. It’s like hey telling about your business and when, when that text section is viewed on a mobile device, it’s actually like they have to scroll like five times to get down to the form field because the text got placed over the contact form. So if you have text on your contact page, that’s all well and good, but don’t put it above the form. Don’t make people work to get to that form. If they’ve clicked that button and they’ve decided to contact you, just give them the form. Let them fill it out.

0:20:18 – Heidi Thompson
I feel like that’s the bottom line I’ve learned over the years in marketing, in sales, in everything it’s like don’t make people work.

0:20:25 – Mark Chapman
Don’t make them work. They’re going to leave.

0:20:29 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, so you said, a lot of people you talk to are resistant to texting and I I get that to an extent because it can feel like an encroachment on you know their kind of overall work-life balance. They’re having texts come in all the time. It feels disorganized. How do you address that fear with people so that they’re more willing to take this approach?

0:20:58 – Mark Chapman
It’s so valid and I really am glad you asked that question, because I am not someone who thinks that you should be working 24-7. I think you should have great work boundaries. Texting doesn’t necessarily mean something that goes directly to your phone, to you all day, every day. There are tools like Google Voice, where you can turn your hours on and off. You can set your alerts, so whatever times or whatever types of alerts you want them to be, you can actually and I do this in my business because I think texting is really important for us and our members too I have Google Voice on my desktop, so when I working, I’m available via text message, but it’s on my desktop, and when I am done for the day, I’m okay that those texts are going to come through.

I’m going to reply to them in the morning the next day. So it’s about managing the texts and there’s so many tools not just Google Voice, but so many tools where you can do that and then keep that door open for communicating with people in a way that fits them best keep that door open for communicating with people in a way that fits them best.

0:22:04 – Heidi Thompson
So if someone contacts one of your clients after hours via text, are you encouraging them to respond at all during that time? Does Google Voice allow you to have like kind of an autoresponder letting them know you’re out of office?

0:22:14 – Mark Chapman
Oh, you know, I don’t know that Google Voice does. That’s a great question. I think that to respond as quickly as possible is great, because that is sort of the rule of thumb right.

With building a business and getting more customers. Building a business and getting more customers. And if you’re a bigger business that may have, like, multiple team members. Maybe you take shifts or you take, you know, you divide up and conquer using Google voice or some other tool. If it’s just you, then make peace with either being available via text message in the evenings or make peace with setting that boundary and living your life. And if that person if you don’t respond to that person immediately and it’s the next morning and that’s too slow for them then make peace with the fact that you have other things in your life and be glad for the other things in your life. I guess.

0:23:06 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, that’s a good point and I think a lot of times what we see is because for years you know it’s been talked about that responding to someone as quickly as possible is, you know what’s going to get you the booking, and yeah, that is true in some cases. So I think people have gotten into this like anxiety and fear of not responding right away. But I think so much of it is. It’s more about managing yourself than managing them, because, just because and I’m guilty of this I’ll be sitting on my couch at 11 PM and send someone an email and I don’t expect a response. That’s just the time that worked for me to sit down and send that email. You know, and I think sometimes we think things that are expected are like instant availability and communication 24-7, when that may not be what’s going through people’s heads. It may just be like oh, I just found you, so I wanted to send this message Obviously, get back to me whenever.

0:24:20 – Mark Chapman
Isn’t that so true? Because if we think about when people are planning their weddings they have jobs, they have family, they’ve got things going on. They’re not necessarily like, oh, she texted me back first, here’s the winner, here’s what I’m having at my wedding. That isn’t the way it works. I agree completely. And if we put the pieces together of this like we talked about see you in multiple places multiple times and they also know exactly what makes you different and unique If that person who contacted you is really convinced that you’re a really great potential person to serve them at their wedding on their special day, I don’t think that waiting a couple hours or till the next morning is going to be a deal breaker in real life if they actually really like you.

0:25:11 – Heidi Thompson
And that’s the key, like you, and that’s the key is that is it a numbers game and they’re just blasting anybody in at everybody, which I feel like we see more on platforms like the knot and wedding wire, where it’s like, hey, do you want to contact literally everybody? Like, click here yep as opposed to hey.

No, I’m really interested in working with you. I’d’d like to learn more. I want to know if you have my date available. I think you know we talked about expectations around ads. I think expectation keeping the realistic expectation of your lead in mind is really helpful in realizing that they probably aren’t expecting you to get back at that time. And if you get back the next day, I really don’t think that’s a deal breaker, especially if you’ve done that really important job of making yourself stand out. I feel like that is the that’s kind of the tipping point of a lot of this.

0:26:09 – Mark Chapman
And there could be an opportunity for you to personalize that response the next day and be like hey, I saw you reached out last night. I’m so excited to get to know you. I was doing blah blah blah with my dog, or I was blah blah blah last night. So you’re personalizing and telling them a little bit about you and your life so that they’re like, oh well, she didn’t respond because she has a four-year-old and that’s super cute, or I don’t know. Know, you know what I mean.

0:26:34 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, like I was, I saw your text come in and I was catching up on succession and then that gives you like a connection point with someone exactly, yeah I like that. So for your people that do decide okay, I want to make myself more available. Not even make myself more available, just accept text messages. What kind of a change do you see in their results with ads?

0:27:02 – Mark Chapman
Oh, it’s so cool because I would say we’ll use the marketing word conversions when someone clicks an ad and takes an action to step into your funnel or contacts. You. Allowing text message has resulted in so many more conversions. And, granted, they are not form fills of 15 where you know everything about the person, but the conversations are started, and that has been a game changer for so many businesses that have opened the doors to this. To start those conversations, and what we know about couples today who are getting married is they want to work with people that they like, that are similar to them, that they have similar values to, that they enjoy being around. I mean, this isn’t new, but I think it’s like extra apparent today that there are more options in the wedding industry and people want to find the right person for them, and so the whole deal of opening the door to text messaging allows for more conversations to happen and more conversational style of relationships, which has ultimately resulted in, like, more business growth.

0:28:08 – Heidi Thompson
That makes a lot of sense because it is, you know, very much a person to person business. It’s a highly personal thing that you’re doing, working on someone’s wedding.

0:28:20 – Mark Chapman
So personal, so personal all day long yeah.

0:28:25 – Heidi Thompson
I know you said you have had people say like okay, ads seem different. Now this isn’t working like it used to. Do you find more of that happening on the ad platform side or the follow-up side Like? What is the cause of that?

0:28:44 – Mark Chapman
Oh my gosh. Great question. I think it’s both. The ad platform side doesn’t work the same, because we are living in a time when all of the advertising platforms want to gather up a ton of data and use AI to serve your ads and therefore, because they encourage you to have these huge audiences and huge geographic areas that really aren’t right for you. People are falling into that trap and not realizing they need to take control, and so therefore it’s not working as well on that side.

A great example of that is boosting a post or using the promote button on Instagram. So like it’s this little button, super easy to throw $10 at it, and then, like Instagram, makes a whole bunch of choices for you, but it results in nothing because you didn’t actually make all the choices you needed to make in that ad campaign and set it up from scratch yourself. So people are really jaded because of that. They spent money and it didn’t do anything for them. But the lead follow-up side to Heidi is really, really, really important, and there are a lot of people who have been in the industry for a long time who just don’t want to text message or don’t really understand how to communicate with younger people in a way that they want to so like. It’s kind of a double whammy. I wish there was one more than the other that I could speak to, but it’s just both. It’s like the wrong people and the wrong type of communication.

0:30:05 – Heidi Thompson
Do you find that the lead follow-up? Obviously texting and making yourself more available is a part of that, but is the length of follow-up needed changing?

0:30:16 – Mark Chapman
Absolutely Couples younger folks today. A lot of them don’t even read their emails first of all. But if they do read their emails, if your email is more than like one or two paragraphs, they’re like okay, I’m going back to TikTok. It’s so important to keep things short and sweet and simple.

0:30:37 – Heidi Thompson
That’s a really good point, and I think sometimes we can info dump on people. I want to give you everything you could possibly need in order to make a good decision which comes from a good place, but it’s just too much.

0:30:52 – Mark Chapman
Yep, if they’ve requested a meeting with you and you have like a follow-up email to that meeting, like don’t give everything away in the email. Tell them what’s going to happen at the meeting and how excited you are to meet them. But like, if you give, if you have this like 10 page email response that gives all the information, and like why are they even going to come to the meeting and you don’t get a get a chance to do the sale and win them over?

0:31:23 – Heidi Thompson
That’s a good point. Yeah, I think it is one of those well-meaning problems that happens and sometimes when you’re just on the receiving end of it and I’m sure we all have been in different industries and things we’ve requested and it’s like holy shit. That’s a lot of information and I’m definitely not going to read through all of it.

0:31:38 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, I’m drowning in this, and all I asked was do you have my date available?

0:31:42 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and they’re contacting like multiple people, multiple businesses asking this question and they’re getting back, like you know, war and peace on your process. Yeah, I love that. I think that really simplifies a lot of lead follow-up. I think, just making sure we’re answering people’s questions and then I think it’s absolutely helpful to you know, try to carry on the conversation. Ending in a question is always good practice is helpful, but it doesn’t have to be this huge, huge document. I think that can be kind of a relief.

0:32:22 – Mark Chapman
Our little marketing word that we use is breadcrumbing. Right? You’ve heard the Hansel and Gretel story. You respond to answer their questions, ask them another question and also tell them what’s next in their journey of getting to know you and working with you and give them a reason to take that next step. You know if we’re talking about someone who is like thinking about booking a meeting, and you’re texting them and you can share all the benefits of that meeting with them and how that meeting is going to help make their life better. Right, frame your communication to them at every breadcrumb, every step of the journey and how this next step is going to make their life better, make their life easier, save them money something like that. Right, give them a reason to take that next step and tell them how to take that next step.

0:33:08 – Heidi Thompson
I love that it’s so clear when you really get to focusing on that like, okay, this is what I want them to do, this is how I get them to do it. And yeah, it takes some attention to detail, absolutely, because I think editing things down to that more specific kind of communication is a little bit more difficult than just barfing everything out.

0:33:32 – Mark Chapman
You don’t want your life story. Right.

0:33:35 – Heidi Thompson
But it works so much better.

0:33:37 – Mark Chapman
Yeah.

0:33:39 – Heidi Thompson
I’m curious what you’re seeing across the different ad platforms. So we have Meta, which is Facebook and Instagram. We have Google, which I feel like gets forgotten about a lot, and then we have TikTok, which I feel like isn’t even on the radar of most people. I’m sure like you could talk for hours on these, but I’m curious what you’re seeing and are you like, are your clients working with you across different platforms? Are you finding that you know one or two are working better than others for certain types of things?

0:34:16 – Mark Chapman
There was a point in the past where we would work with folks who just wanted to work to do ads on one platform, because couples had a shorter journey to conversion. What we have experienced now back to the place where we started, about couples needing to see you in multiple places, multiple times, in multiple formats is that advertising doesn’t work unless they see you multiple times. So we always recommend that if you’re serious about advertising and you want to use advertising to grow your business real quick recommendation don’t do it just on one platform and expect it to work, because it doesn’t. They need to see you again and again and again. So what we have set up in terms of our system of working with folks is it always starts with Google ads, because when couples are searching on Google for wedding planner Chicago, wedding venue Ohio you know what I mean they’re actively looking for an answer to their question or a solution to their problem. They’re looking for you and we know that if they’re looking for you, they’re going to convert at some point.

So we always start with Google Ads because of that search intent is what we call it. And then we always make sure that there’s a second platform, whether it’s Meta or TikTok, ideally all three. It gets super expensive but it’s amazing and it works well. But Google Ads plus meta or Google Ads plus TikTok, ensures that they see you in multiple places, multiple times, in multiple formats. Meta ads includes Instagram, which, of course, is very visual, but Instagram can often be very pretty and not real, and we are seeing a huge shift in results from TikTok because TikTok is very gritty, it’s very organic, it’s like behind the scenes videos or how it’s done, or before and after, and TikTok short form videos that have that like emotion and music and that raw realness is working so well to help those people who don’t know you start to like you and want to actually fill out your contact form or text you.

0:36:20 – Heidi Thompson
That’s really interesting and I think a lot of people would assume that you would want to choose one and you would want to choose one where you think your people are. But, like you said, different function, different use. Google is more about search intent. And then the social platforms are more about them being able to get to know you.

0:36:47 – Mark Chapman
And to see you.

0:36:49 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I think most people probably aren’t thinking about using these in conjunction with each other. I think most people would probably think like, about using these in conjunction with each other. I think most people would probably think like, well, that’s just going to be more expensive, not realizing that, yeah, but you’re going to get so much more out of it. So it’s way, way, way, way more worth the you know return on investment that you get from those.

0:37:13 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, because couples, no one’s going to see your ad and click on it and fill out your contact form in a perfectly one internet session. It just doesn’t work that way. They’re shopping. They may see your ad and visit your website and then hit your about page and then hit your pricing page and then leave, and then maybe they see you again somewhere else, like, oh yeah, I remember this. I really, really liked that wedding planner who was focused on South Asian weddings in Chicago, you know, like, oh, I remember her. And then they click on your ad a second time and they’re like oh yeah, I really like this. I meant to fill out the contact form. It was late at night last time. So here I’m back again, I’m seeing the about, I’m remembering and I fill out the contact form from that second visit. We see so many what I’m calling multi-session conversions now because of that strategy and because that’s just how people shop now on the internet.

0:38:05 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I think historically you know, it would be seen as a failure of the ad to convert, if you know it didn’t get people to do what you wanted it to do. But, like you said, so much of that has changed and so much of it has changed with, like, the majority of traffic being on mobile.

0:38:25 – Mark Chapman
Yep, it is not how people shop anymore. No one’s going to click your ad and convert immediately. That expectation is not okay, unless you’re selling a $5 product on TikTok or Instagram and there’s no skin in the game. Sure, people will click on the ad and buy it because there’s absolutely nothing to lose with $5. But when you’re planning a wedding, that’s just not how it works. These are huge decisions, very personal decisions, very financial decisions. So do not expect your ad campaign to be seen by a bride once or twice on one single platform and then she all of a sudden knows, likes and trusts you enough to write you a $5,000 check it doesn’t work, no, no.

0:39:03 – Heidi Thompson
And when you put it that way, it’s like, yeah, obviously, why would that work?

0:39:06 – Mark Chapman
Mm-hmm.

0:39:08 – Heidi Thompson
It’s funny I think about even just the way I interact with ads for things that are much lower costs, like e-commerce. Nine times out of 10 I find something I like, I open it up in a browser tab and then I come back to it at some point, maybe like months down the line, or I get another ad for it and I’m like, oh yeah, I did want to check that thing out.

0:39:36 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, there was in the history of the internet with me. There was one thing that I bought on my first, like one session and it was like a specific cat litter scoop that scooped the stuff into the bag for you. And it was a very specific product that cost like $15 and solved a very specific problem for me, because I hate doing that and it’s the only time I ever bought something without actually looking further into it, because it was very clear what that was and there was no decision to be made. I was like, even if this doesn’t arrive, like okay, it’s $15. It’s probably going to arrive, but I’m not going to cry if it doesn’t.

0:40:14 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, it is what it is. It’s very simple, as opposed to planning a wedding which is anything but.

0:40:21 – Mark Chapman
Complete opposite.

0:40:24 – Heidi Thompson
I think that’s refreshing because I think people put a lot of expectations on ads to do that impossible thing of on ads to do that impossible thing of. Well, it got in front of this person and they didn’t click, or they went to my website and then they left. I guess this just doesn’t work.

0:40:43 – Mark Chapman
That is literally what I hear all day long when I talk with new folks, and it’s a perception that’s based on what the past was, but the reality of what isn’t today.

0:40:53 – Heidi Thompson
So what should people expect when they start running ads? Maybe they start working with you. They have things going on more than one platform. What is the realistic expectation?

0:41:17 – Mark Chapman
those results and you’ll see an increase in people coming to your website and converting and getting in touch with you.

Absolutely, but the expectation of knowing their exact journey, of how that happened, is unfortunately not possible, and I’m going to go with a negative answer to this just because I think we’re having such a good, real conversation that people need to understand and know.

There was a time, five or six years ago, when internet privacy rules were not as strict and you could track people and you could track what they did and where they did it, and privacy didn’t exist like it does today. So we could attribute X number of leads to exact paths and attribute X number of leads to the money that you spent. But because people have more strict privacy settings for example, if you own an iPhone and you download a new app and it says do you want to ask the app not to track you, of course everyone says yes. So therefore, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are not trackable. You cannot put a dollar amount to the leads you’re getting from the ad campaigns and that, for a lot of experienced business owners and a lot of people like myself, is very frustrating because you want to know what’s my return on investment, but because of internet privacy, which is a really, really good thing, that isn’t possible. So you should expect to understand that if you are reaching brides in multiple places, multiple times, multiple formats sorry for repeating that again. Hopefully that’s the one thing people take away um is that you will get results, but your ability to understand that perfect journey doesn’t exist, because that’s not how people shop that is frustrating it

0:42:51 – Heidi Thompson
is I know because you want to know, like you want to know okay, this thing worked what worked, so I can continue to do it. But we can’t have both can we heidi like we can’t have.

0:43:03 – Mark Chapman
We can’t have internet privacy and and know everything everyone’s doing so I want privacy for me, but I want to exactly on my website.

0:43:15 – Heidi Thompson
Is that so much to ask, hypocrite? So how do you then track results?

0:43:26 – Mark Chapman
yeah, we get a lot into looking at like, um, let’s say this, like we identify what our, what our members goal is for the next three months ahead how many appointments do you want to book?

And we work toward that goal and we sort of work backwards. We do a lot of tracking, of course, and looking at the data in the ad campaigns. But we look at things like click-through rate to identify if ad A or ad B was more enticing to people, because more people clicked on ad B versus ad A. So we know that we’re using the ad platforms for what they’re for and what their job is and not expecting the results that we won’t be able to see from them. So you know, we’re talking a lot about like, hey, what are our big picture goals and numbers of appointments for things like that? And we’re checking in on that and we’re saying, okay, you know, last quarter we spent X amount of dollars on advertising and your overall appointments were this If we bump it up for the next two or three months, this is what we should expect to see happen. And if we check in three months later, did that happen? Did that not happen? And we can sort of work backwards and like determine why.

0:44:35 – Heidi Thompson
Okay, okay, and I know a lot of times you have talked about like advertising and offer. Does that help kind of segment who these people are that are coming through, kind of the ad funnel as opposed to organic?

0:44:51 – Mark Chapman
I’m so glad you asked that question because really, like fresh hot off the press, we have learned in AB testing that offers are not working as well as they used to, even like two or three years ago. Yeah, In the past it was like, oh, if you provide an offer in the ad campaign like let’s use an example, like get a thousand dollars off your venue booking, that that was something which would motivate people to take action because they wanted that offer and you could track it a lot easier because maybe there was like a landing page or a little page about that offer on your website that people filled out the form on that page instead of something else. But what we’re learning is that Gen Z and younger millennials really are. They don’t want to be sold to and it appears that promoting offers is no longer doing what it used to do.

0:45:41 – Heidi Thompson
That’s really interesting. Do you guys have any data on like promoting something that’s maybe a step further away from the inquiry, like promoting a lead magnet or something like that?

0:45:56 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, that doesn’t. It doesn’t work in an advertising sense, like let’s unpack lead magnet. Like maybe a bridal store is like fill out our questionnaire to find out your bridal style to help you in your journey, and something about it is salesy to people and it isn’t working in an advertising environment. And that tool may work really well with a warm referral, where someone already knows you and they’re like oh, and you can send that tool to them and actually help them in their journey. But a cold traffic visitor that doesn’t know you is very unlikely to take the time to fill something out in order to get something like that in return, because in their mind they’re like well, this is not really what I want right now. I’m just looking at what my options are and I can get the information from Google if I really want it.

0:46:50 – Heidi Thompson
That’s so interesting to hear. So what are you guys pivoting to actually make your focus of your ads if you’re no longer doing offers, if we’re not doing anything? Lead magnet related.

0:47:05 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, and it’s like such a huge pivot right From the last few years.

Yeah, it took me forever to accept that in my heart, because I was really really good at campaigns with offers. What we’re really leaning into is what makes you totally unique. Uh, I’ll share a couple like a couple examples. Um, there’s a wedding planner that we’re starting to work with who focuses on south asian weddings and and instead of just being like hey, I’m a wedding planner, she’s like no, I am the wedding planner for south asian weddings in my area and really leaning into like that being her area of expertise and sharing her story about growing up in a multicultural household where one of her parents was South Asian, one of them wasn’t, and so leaning even more into that is like hey, I am amazing at doing weddings where there are multicultural weddings, where you’re blending your traditions and things like that. So I’m not just a wedding planner, this is my area of expertise and that’s working really well.

Another example is there’s a woman named Jen and she has a business called Weirdo Weddings and she’s like a self-proclaimed weirdo I’m using air quotes again and she has pink hair and she’s a really delightful person and she realized and she just like accepted who she is and she decided to make that her brand and she has grown her business so well with connecting with other couples who are like, hey, I’m a quote unquote weirdo too, and leaning into who she is is like the riches are in the niches and it’s so wonderful to see that happen that makes me so happy to hear A because it proves me right and B because no one can take that from you.

0:48:46 – Heidi Thompson
You know it’s how you are uniquely different, it’s who you position yourself as, and are you seeing this like across the board, in Google ads and Instagram, facebook, like TikTok, and video and image and text? Is that what? You’re seeing across the board working.

0:49:06 – Mark Chapman
Yep, you lean into with your ad copy and your images and your videos. You lean into what makes you different and unique. It’s a lot easier for venues and bridal stores. I’ll be honest and kind of going back to the beginning where we started to, about talking about wedding pros. It’s harder, lot easier for venues and bridal stores. I’ll be honest and kind of going back to the beginning where we started too, about talking about wedding pros. It’s harder for wedding pros because you think like oh, I want, I could serve anyone, I could do a great job on a just a regular wedding that’s not multicultural. But if you really want to lay into it and grow your business and be awesome and be known, that, you’ve got to lay into that niche.

0:49:36 – Heidi Thompson
That is so interesting that that is really happening and I get it. I get it when I think about it. It was funny. I was talking to my husband the other day, who works in my business, and I was talking about like Gen Z related stuff and he was like I love how we always talk about people like in these generational groups as if they are aliens like they’re gonna be so different, like just wildly different human beings, and really what I see in gen z is a ramping up of like what we saw with millennials.

It’s just the same you know, you want to know someone on a personal level, the style of communication is different. It’s kind of just following that same trajectory.

0:50:32 – Mark Chapman
I love that you described the view of it Like we view other people as aliens, like isn’t that so strangely true that I didn’t even think about it that way? But it’s like, oh, they’re different than me how do they? Think, how do they act? But actually they’re not different from you. They kind of are you, it’s just maybe they talk differently yeah, their slang is different than yours.

0:50:55 – Heidi Thompson
But yeah, other than that, like I mean, it is just an acceleration of the same thing we’ve seen. I remember when we first started talking about millennials in the business, so much of that was they want to work with someone who they feel like they could be friends with. They don’t want to work with like a stiff corporate type feeling. Want to work with like a stiff corporate type feeling. I feel like it’s the same sort of thing in what we’re advertising and how we’re connecting with people in the communication. It’s just that it has accelerated in that direction.

0:51:30 – Mark Chapman
It’s so true.

0:51:31 – Heidi Thompson
It’s so true I mean basing things on text messages. I don’t think you could have said you know years ago that that would be what we need to be doing. It would have been like I remember there was a time in the industry it was like stop accepting text messages. Yeah, Set your boundaries which boundaries are for you, not for other people. So you get to decide when you reply to that.

0:51:57 – Mark Chapman
Not for other people, so you get to decide when you reply to that. Yeah, it’s so true, oh my gosh. Yeah, it’s like people are the same. Communication is changing but, you know, being authentic and being you is the key to just being human and being relatable to whoever, whoever, no matter what their generation or their label.

0:52:15 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah, and it’s interesting. I feel like you know the way you were talking about lead follow-up in much more conversational terms. That feels so much simpler.

0:52:30 – Mark Chapman
Oh my God, isn’t it. You’re so right, cause you don’t have to write like a seven, seven layer dip email that that’s got seven different email follow-up scripts and things like that. Actually, I shouldn’t put those. Those aren’t bad things, because there is a place for those for sure, but I don’t know. You’re right, it’s simpler Just be a person, be a human and be inquisitive and curious.

0:52:54 – Heidi Thompson
Which I get feels uncomfortable because it’s new, but it’s uncomfortable for all of us.

0:52:59 – Mark Chapman
Yeah, you know that brings up something Heidi, real quick I need to mention is like we are not good at listening. We want to tell everyone everything about our business when really these relationships, especially cold traffic from advertising, they kind of just want to be listened to and I think that, like I know it’s a very high level statement that is applicable in many different areas of your business. But like we’re not good at listening and we need to be better at listening.

0:53:27 – Heidi Thompson
That is such an interesting point and I feel like so much of our follow-up strategy up until this point has been very focused on like blasting people with the right information that we feel like they need, instead of listening, like you said, and being able to really lean in and see oh okay, so it sounds like you’re really after this. Yeah, now I can tell you how we’re really good at this specific thing that you actually care about, and then that just seals the deal.

0:54:04 – Mark Chapman
That is 100% it, right there, that’s exactly it.

0:54:08 – Heidi Thompson
People will tell you what to focus on.

0:54:12 – Mark Chapman
They will tell you. They want to tell you they’re they got engaged, they’re excited. They want to tell you they got engaged, they’re excited.

0:54:18 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, Are you seeing?

0:54:38 – Mark Chapman
I mean I know there’s a lot of shifts and changes that are always happening, but are there any other changes either in the advertising space and what people need to be advertising in lead follow up that you want the listener to know about? I would say, don’t be afraid of TikTok and lean into that.

It is for some businesses who have been around for a while it’s frustrating to think about learning a new platform or a new thing, because there was Facebook and then there was Instagram and there’s Pinterest, and I just don’t have enough gosh darn freaking time to like figure another thing out, and I resonate with that a hundred percent. There’s a million things to do for our businesses, but I can’t deny and I have to share, like what we’re seeing happen with TikTok and a couple layers.

First, that TikTok and the format of short form video that is organic in nature and very gritty and not pretty and not overly produced like Instagram, is winning people’s hearts. And a simple recipe for a great TikTok video that can be used in an ad is before and after. What did the venue look like when it was empty versus a beautiful wedding set up with flowers, chairs, tables, all that sort of stuff, versus a beautiful wedding set up with flowers, chairs, tables, all that sort of stuff? What did the bride look like in her street clothes versus after you did her hair and makeup, or after she’s with the dress on?

Before and after videos are incredibly powerful for TikTok, for communicating what you can do for someone. And the second reason I want to really emphasize this is sort of our, our, our final discussion point is that the um, the cost of Tik TOK ads is fractions of what it is on Instagram. Everyone’s on Instagram, everyone’s paying for Instagram ads and right now everyone’s afraid of Tik TOK. So we’re seeing cost per clicks around like 40 to 60 cents on Tik TOK to get someone to your website, versus like a dollar 50 to $2 on Instagram, and it’s like more bang for your buck, more emotion, more knowledge of who you are and what you can do, and it’s just incredible.

0:56:25 – Heidi Thompson
That’s so exciting, because I feel like Instagram is such a packed place to know that there is a place that is being underutilized, that has lower costs, that is working for your clients, like that’s exciting. That can be like the motivation you need to actually figure this out, and I think the the grittiness, the realness of it, of allowing yourself to be less polished it just makes it easier.

0:56:56 – Mark Chapman
I a hundred% agree and I really hope folks you know are able to you know, work past that like another, another platform. Yeah.

0:57:05 – Heidi Thompson
And set aside some time. We’ve seen so many coming.

0:57:08 – Mark Chapman
We have. We have, the feelings are valid. Yep.

0:57:15 – Heidi Thompson
Well, Mark, this has been fascinating to hear kind of what’s working right now for people in terms of advertising. If someone wants to get in contact with you, if someone wants to work with you and your agency, what is the best place for them to go?

0:57:31 – Mark Chapman
They can reach out at www.theidosociety.com and there’s information about our team, how we work and how we talk about strategy as well as advertising. And the call to action on our website is pretty simple. It’s just booking a meeting with me to discuss, like, what advertising looks like for your business. So they can visit theidosociety.com If you’re interested in advertising and having someone help you with it, you can click that button and we’ll talk and it’s a no pressure meeting, just like you know. Get to know your business, see if you’re ready for it, discuss, like, pricing options for like how much to spend on advertising and all the details to help you have a plan.

0:58:06 – Heidi Thompson
Fantastic. Thank you so much. This has been great.

0:58:09 – Mark Chapman
Thanks, Heidi, it’s awesome.

0:58:10 – Heidi Thompson
I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you learned some things and I know, as I was chatting with Mark, things. And I know, as I was chatting with Mark, I was scribbling all sorts of notes. I have two full pages of notes for this episode and I’m going to have everything for you over in the show notes, which you can find at www.evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/278. That will have links to everything we talked about as well as how you can further work with Mark, get in touch with him, ask him any questions that you have. He’s fantastic and I love his work. He just makes this so much easier for wedding professionals.

It’s difficult to do all of this advertising yourself, as well as the other million and a half things’s difficult to do all of this advertising yourself, as well as the other million and a half things you have to do. So we’ll have that all over in the show notes.

I’ll also include a link to that challenge I mentioned up top. Again, that is happening all week this week, may 20th through the 24th. So if you are listening to this during that period, rather head over to ewww.evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/challenge, grab your free spot.

You will be able to catch up if you have missed anything. And thank you so much for taking the time to tune in today. I would love to hear from you If you’ve enjoyed this episode, if you’ve learned something, head over to Instagram. Shoot me a DM. Let me know what you have learned. I am @evolveyourweddingbusiness over there and I will speak to you again very soon.

About Mark Chapman

Mark is the wedding industry’s leading expert on advertising. His team at The I Do Society helps wedding pros reach and convert the right couples – at scale – using Google Ads, Meta Ads and TikTok Ads.

While hustling and working hard to grow his family’s wedding business in his early 20s, he discovered advertising. Over time he learned how to use ads to reach and convert the right couples. He turned this new skill into a system so he could help his friends in the industry succeed with ads too.

Today, thousands of businesses in the wedding industry have been helped by Mark’s expertise in advertising.

Website: www.theidosociety.com
Instagram: @theidosociety

 

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Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective
The Stand Out & Get Booked Challenge – get your free ticket!
Google Voice
Episode 208: Generating Leads For Your Wedding Business From Google & Facebook Ads with Mark Chapman
The Simple Way To Use TikTok To Book More Weddings with Meagan Culkin
What’s The Point Of Having An Ideal Client?

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