Website Mistakes That Cost You Bookings: Expert Advice from Designer & Bride Emily Foster

Ever wondered why your wedding business isn’t converting inquiries into bookings? Or website visitors into inquiries?

We’re breaking down some crucial insights with the help of Emily Foster, a seasoned brand and website designer who recently planned her own wedding and noticed a LOT of common problems vendors are making that cost them bookings.

Because Emily approached researching vendors with her experience as a website/brand designer and a bride, she shares practical strategies for enhancing client experiences with better branding and web design so you don’t scare off couples before they even inquire.

Making some simple changes to ensure you aren’t making these common mistakes is going to get you more bookings because it’ll make it easier to hire and work with you. Those changes can be enough to easily scoop up the bookings your competitors miss out on.

In this episode we’ll cover:

• Things Emily encountered when shopping for wedding vendors that made things overcomplicated
• Why it’s crucial to be transparent about pricing
• Why you should make your availability readily available
• The importance of making it easy for people to hire you
• Why a lack of consistency can scare couples away
• Why you need to make your inquiry process clear
• How to set clear expectations for your inquiry process
• Ways to provide availability and pricing information that make you easier to book
• How booking vendors reminded Emily of her car-buying experience
• Why you need to be really clear on your ideal client
• How to best curate your portfolio
• Different ways to think about wedding budgets
• The website issues that turn couples off
• How inconsistent marketing can be a red flag for couples
• Ways to show your personality and build trust

Website Mistakes That Cost You Bookings: Expert Advice from Designer & Bride Emily Foster

Hello there, my friend, Welcome to the podcast. I am your host, Heidi Thompson, and I am all about helping wedding professionals just like you book more of those clients that you absolutely love to work with and build a business that gives you freedom and flexibility. And today I have an interview with Emily Foster that I think you’re going to love because it provides a really interesting and much needed perspective shift.

Now Emily is a website and brand designer and expert in so many different areas here so she can give you know so much advice about your brand, about your website. But I think what makes her recent experience really compelling is she just went through the process of finding and booking all of her own vendors for her own wedding. So she has the experience of what it’s like for a bride to be navigating all of these different wedding vendor websites and she saw a lot of problems, a lot of issues, and she shares the things that cost those vendors her booking. We go through all of this in detail.

I’m going to have the links to everything we talk about in this episode over at www.evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/281. And let’s get into the interview with Emily!

Today. I’m joined by Emily Foster, who is the owner of Emily Foster Creative, which is a brand and website design studio based in Portland, and she works with creatives and wedding pros all over the place, helping them stand out with personalized and tailored branding and web design. And I’m really excited about this because we’re not just talking, you know, brand design, web design. Emily also just got married about a year ago and got to go through the industry as a bride and as a web and brand designer and got to see all the things people were doing right and all the things that people were doing wrong. So we are going to take a look at that through that lens of what is that like for a bride that, you know, just so happens to be a designer. So, Emily, thank you so much for joining me.

0:03:29 – Emily Foster
Hi, yeah, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

0:03:33 – Heidi Thompson
So by the time you got engaged, you had been designing for like, oh, quite a while, like six, seven years. At that point, what initial thoughts did you have, having worked with a lot of wedding professionals, about what your experience on the couple side of things was going to be?

0:03:57 – Emily Foster
Yeah. So it actually kind of coincided where I have. I had been a designer at that point about like six or seven years, but right when I got engaged I was still in an agency job and then it kind of we were engaged for a couple years and I’ve been in business for just over two years now. So I was kind of working with wedding pros near the beginning of my engagement and then really like increased working with wedding pros by the time we got married and it was kind of because I was engaged and noticing like all of these areas where wedding vendors could benefit from having someone like me come in who already knew branding and website design and was also getting like the client side experience of what it was like to plan a wedding and seeing also other people’s experiences.

So I was one of those brides where I was planning most of the wedding on my own. We did have a day of coordinator, but I didn’t have necessarily like a full service planner doing it for me and I didn’t have like my parents making decisions. But at the same time I had friends who were planning their wedding simultaneously who maybe did have their planner handling more or their parents were making more of the vendor booking decisions. So it was interesting to see how we all made our decisions and then also what turned us off from vendor sites, from literally giving vendors business and giving another vendor our business, and so that was actually a big inspiration for why I’m niched in the wedding industry.

Now I’ve been working solely pretty much solely with wedding pros. I do work with a lot of other creative businesses too, but my main niche has been wedding pros and photographers for about a year and a half now, and it really happened because I was engaged too.

0:05:44 – Heidi Thompson
That’s really interesting, first of all, the way it came about, but also that you went through the process. You went through the process as a designer and you went through the process in some ways like as part of a group, so you were discussing, I’m sure, different things that you were seeing.

0:06:01 – Emily Foster
Yeah, I think because I got married in 2022 and definitely was part of that big 2022 wedding rush where it seems like there were some close friends and like family friends and things like that getting married, but then also, just I had some acquaintances and even some of my vendors were getting married and things like that, so it definitely felt like there were a lot of wedding conversations happening around that time.

And yeah, from a designer standpoint, it was interesting because even before I started my business, so I we got engaged December 2020, and then I was laid off because of COVID, which I also worked in the events industry as a designer before I was laid off, but I was laid off in April 2021. And even during that time, like being a designer in an agency and like seeing the difference between, like you know, really good websites for huge businesses, I started to kind of feel the frustration of being a bride and like not being given the best brand and customer and website experience that I could buy vendors, customer and website experience that I could buy vendors and not just frustration for like my experience, but also like for the vendors who might be struggling because they didn’t have certain things in place.

0:07:15 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, what were the things that really first became apparent to you that were lacking?

0:07:22 – Emily Foster
I think kind of the weight that brides, or like couples in general, I should say couples like the weight that they have to pull in order to get the information that they need to make decisions. Like some of it’s to be expected, I think obviously there’s a reason why it’s recommended to hire a full service planner who can handle a lot of like the booking and decision making for you. So I think a lot of that is already expected to be stressful when you’re like talking about budgets and timelines and everything that you have to consider when you’re looking at your vendors.

But it just felt like unnecessarily complicated to get the information that I needed to make like simple decisions. So information like pricing from vendors and not necessarily saying that you have to have your prices on your website. But for some people I just never got the pricing, even after inquiring or it would be unclear even after a sales call. So pricing availability, especially for those people that we were trying to book early on, like venues and our coordinator and photographers and things like that. Just trying to book early on, like venues and our coordinator and photographers and things like that, like just trying to find availability, especially in that crazy 2022 year. Sometimes it just wasn’t available on the website or as like a quick response or anything like that.

Getting in touch with people also was complicated. Sometimes it just wasn’t very simple and it kind of felt like a little extra legwork to get in touch with them. Or even the client experience of communicating with multiple people. I noticed this with, like, DJ companies, hair and makeup artists and venues specifically, where maybe the email that I was contacting would be for one person and then I would never actually speak with that person, I would just get connected with someone else, but the pass off wasn’t necessarily clear. So it was sometimes difficult to even know who I was talking to and like feel like I was getting a consistent response from people.

And then also like personality and quality of work.

One thing I think as a designer I’m especially picky about photography and videography because I also took classes like that in college and have a passion for those things, and I just noticed a lack of consistency sometimes in the work when we were looking at vendors of maybe we would look at the website and not see a consistent style or really have a feel of like what we were investing in, and sometimes I even extended to the team, like I remember looking at one photographer’s website who had like a team and when we got on a sales call they mentioned that we wouldn’t actually be booking him, like we would just probably get.

It was kind of like a lottery, like we would just get whoever he happened to assign that day. And when we were asking about a few different people, the styles were vastly different for each person, so not really having like a guarantee of what the style would look like there and then kind of just not being able to get to know vendors until we were like truly so deep into the process of already like being on a sales call. And then, of course, that kind of creates a little bit of pressure on both sides. Because now I’ve been there as a business owner where you kind of get attached to the inquiry when you’re on the business owner side, but then when you’re on the client side, it’s like you almost feel kind of bad when you have to say no to that person because you’ve already taken so much of their time. But you’ve gotten that far to maybe realize that you weren’t a good fit or that you like another option better.

0:10:54 – Heidi Thompson
I can see how all of that would be very frustrating, and I’ve definitely seen that. But from my side of things, like the business side of things, it’s interesting that you said you know things felt unnecessarily complicated and that oftentimes there wasn’t pricing or it was just unclear. As a designer, someone who works on websites for wedding pros, what do you do or what do you recommend for trying to cut down on that complication?

0:11:31 – Emily Foster
Yeah, I recommend making it very clear what your process is, and not your process when you’re working with a client, but like the process from when they’re reaching out to when they do get your pricing or when they’re ready to book. So I kind of mentioned earlier like I don’t think you necessarily need to have your pricing on your website. I kind of have a go-to rule that I usually give my clients of if you’re super busy and you don’t have the ability to take more calls in your schedule and you’re just overwhelmed and maybe you don’t have an assistant or something that can like offload some of that for you, then I would say, just put your pricing up, because if you’re super busy, then that means that you’re booked with people who are already booking your ideal prices.

So just leave it up and then you’ll just attract people who are ready and basically won’t waste your time about not being a good budget fit. But then if you maybe are newer in business or if you have some time to spare or you really don’t mind filling your schedule with sales calls, then I usually recommend potentially leaving it off. That way you can leave the door open to start getting new clients. You can also kind of especially if you’re very new, like you can have the opportunity to see what the market is looking for and like how you might be able to tailor your packages a little bit more to fit the people that you’re working with.

And then there’s kind of the in-between, so putting pricing on your website can also mean different things. It could mean having an FAQ section which I’ve done for some clients that just says a client typically spends anywhere from X amount to X amount on this type of package, to give people an idea of where you are in the market. So, for example, if you say like most clients spend four figures on their wedding planning packages, then clients who have like a $300 budget aren’t going to be wasting your time to reach out Most of the time. Obviously you can do all of this and people sometimes still just don’t read. But then you could also do a range. So having like a range of pricing of maybe it ranges from like 3,000 to 10,000 or something like that and kind of varying based on the packages and doing that. Or you can even just have a starting price.

So I like to talk with clients on the strategy call if they’re unclear about this and just get an idea for, like, what their time looks like, what their team looks like and then the quality of their services too. I do think there’s something to be said about leaving your pricing off to appear more high end. So I think sometimes it’s taking a really good strategic look at the competitors in your market and your positioning and seeing, like, what people would expect to see on your website. So I know that’s kind of a complex answer, but that’s usually what I recommend is kind of taking a look at their schedule and their desires first and then figuring out what’s going to work to attract their ideal clients, because pricing is basically a pillar of your marketing.

0:14:23 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, it absolutely is and I agree with you. It really does depend and it depends what works for you. And I’m curious, did you have any experiences where you didn’t know the pricing until you got on a call, or possibly at any point further down past an inquiry, and were just kind of smacked in the face with it because that expectation wasn’t set?

0:14:48 – Emily Foster
Yeah, I think it did happen a couple times. I would say for the most part I was able to avoid it and I think it’s partly because I was kind of aware of pricing before getting into wedding planning. Like I had already known a few wedding planners and I had even looked into like being a photographer or videographer in college. So I had already known a few wedding planners and I had even looked into being a photographer or videographer in college.

So I had a pretty good idea of what those things cost in the Portland area and then had also been in Facebook groups and things like that to see general pricing. But there definitely were a couple of times. For example, after we booked our photographer I think they reached out or I reached out to them and asked for some videographer recommendations and they gave us a few different recommendations. So we kind of had an idea, because they also kind of mentioned like oh yeah, these people will probably be in about the range of what we charge, kind of on par with that.

And one of the people like their minimum pricing was in the range. It wasn’t on their website. They didn’t have anything on their website really except for that starting price, but by the time we actually got to talking with them, everything that we would need was going to cost almost double our budget. So that was one thing that wasn’t clear. On a lot of people’s sites of like, maybe they did have a price, like, say, $2,000 for a wedding video, but what they didn’t mention is that the $2,000 was for like two hours of filming and didn’t include editing or something like that, for example. So it took a little bit more investigation.

Oh, actually, now that I’m thinking about it too, one other big time that it happened was with a wedding venue where they did have the venue booking fee on their website, but there just wasn’t any information at all about the food and beverage minimum. And so we got to the tour and beverage minimum was $13,000, no matter what you did like, no matter whether you had like 10 guests or like 300 guests, which would have been something that would have been helpful to know prior, cause that kind of made a difference based on other venues we were looking at too, where some of them would charge per person, or maybe they had like a $7,000 minimum, and then that made like a huge difference to our budget too. So that was a bummer, because we loved the venue and the people there and, like, we loved the setting too and the pricing on their website was great, but we just couldn’t afford the food and beverage minimum by the time we found that out.

0:17:18 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I think I know a lot of people in our industry like to hold things back and like spring it on people thinking like, oh, they’ll just go with it, it. I think that’s a shitty thing to do to people. I just I’m not a fan of blindsiding people and I think you have to set some sort of an expectation, like you were saying. You know you can fall into that trap too, like that videographer you said, where you set the expectation but you set it too low. I think you have to be really careful to set the expectation accurately.

This actually came up with a client of mine recently in the wedding business collective we were talking about. She had her starting at and she was getting people who were expecting that, but they were expecting more for that. So she then reworked it and I think she changed it to the language around like our typical couple spends or something like that. That was more like this is like the middle of the road, what you can expect. Can you go cheaper? Sure, but for what most people book, this is typically how much it’s going to cost, and that’s something that really helped her. And I think we overlook how important it is to set expectations because we aren’t the ones that are in contact with. You know 15 different types of vendors all at once. We forget what it’s like to try to manage that and get all the information.

0:18:59 – Emily Foster
Yeah, exactly, and I think, like forgetting people, I think couples one they just don’t have the interest in learning this. A lot I did because I’ve always been interested in the industry and now it doesn’t hurt to learn more and more about people’s pricing and things like that so that I can use it to benefit my business and my clients’ businesses and things like that. But the average couple who’s not involved in the industry at all like they’re going to do this once in their life probably, and they don’t really necessarily care to take the time to learn, like, why florals are priced the way they are or, um, how to achieve the design that they’re looking for for their reception, um, so it’s kind of like they’re a little bit impatient and they want the information just given to them. And it’s also just like lack of understanding, like there’s just a lot of lack of awareness about, like, why things are priced the way they are. And I don’t think it’s always because of disrespect on the couple’s part, like I don’t.

Sometimes couples are like, oh, why would you charge that?

And you know they don’t believe that a certain service is worth it and stuff like that, and that’s just like a different, more like mindset issue, but a lot of times there’s just a lack of awareness of like how much work or like how much inventory and things these things take basically restructuring your package to appeal to more people and I think that that’s one of the greatest things, for like the range pricing or starting at is taking a look at like what your package includes and does that actually cater to like the majority of the clients that would be inquiring with you and the majority of your ideal clients too.

So I think there’s a lot of strategy that goes, like you said, into your pricing but then also into your packages that you’re building.

So taking a look not just at the people who are booking your packages right now, but who your ideal client is and how you can kind of structure your packages to work more towards those clients.

So, for example, if you are like a photographer trying to get more into the luxury industry, you probably aren’t going to be getting a lot of inquiries for people who are just looking for like two to four hours of coverage. They’re probably going to care more so about the experience of you being there for like the majority of the day and the upfront work and kind of like hands-on experience that they’ll get leading up to the wedding and they’ll probably be looking for a photographer who can kind of keep up with the caliber of the other vendors they’re booking and maybe even do like a little bit of like timeline work and vendor communication and things like that.

So there might not be a need to have something like that lower, like one to $2,000 package that just shows the beer minimum, like it would be more intentional to show like here’s the package that basically includes everything and then maybe mentioning like there’s opportunity for add-ons or reach out for a custom quote.

0:21:55 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I really like that. I really like that way of thinking about it. And then to your point about you know, awareness. In order to get you a quote, we need this information, like submit it on this form. That is much more reasonable, I think, just psychologically, like oh okay, there’s a reason why this isn’t available to me and it’s a reason that makes sense. I can wrap my head around that.

0:22:41 – Emily Foster
Yeah, definitely. I was also going to mention, I think not to pick on venues, but we were talking about that earlier.

I feel like, especially for venues, it’s just really important to include on your website, like what the typical package includes, and it doesn’t have to be down to like the tablecloth and napkin, but mentioning like is there a food and beverage minimum, do you have fees for outside caterers and things like that?

That way people can have that information ready, because I think there’s a little bit more flexibility with vendors like florists and planners and photographers to get on a sales call, because it’s a lot more of a virtual experience, whereas I think the venue part of our booking process at least, and I think a lot of other couples wedding planning processes is like it’s so time draining to not only communicate with the venue, especially when there’s sometimes a few different stakeholders there, like there could be the venue owner and the manager and the actual person who gives tours, um, but then you also have to go drive out to the venue and spend the time there, and I think that’s where it’s hard for both sides of like, when you’re falling in love with the location, um, it just takes a little bit more out of the client, whereas with a photographer, planner and we could definitely talk about like ways to set up a flow where you don’t necessarily have to have your pricing on your website and not saying that you have to have all the pricing again for a venue on your website but there’s a little bit more flexibility to just get them on a 15-minute call when you’re one of those other types of vendors.

0:24:15 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, that’s a really good point. That is definitely a difference and a different time investment, for sure, which we absolutely have to keep in mind available. Did you notice that more in one type of vendor than the other? Like, was that really prevalent with venues or was it just kind of across the board?

0:24:46 – Emily Foster
I think it was most prevalent with venues and also makeup artists. Um, like it could have been because I waited a little longer than maybe I should have to book a makeup artist and when I say that because of the 2022 rush, it wasn’t like I waited until like three months before or later to book. I think I started looking at makeup artists about like 11 months in advance and by that point, a lot of the like I would say the first five people that I reached out to were already booked.

So, admittedly, that could have been like my fault of just like waiting too long, but then again, especially with the rush and how fast people were getting booked up, it would have been really nice if there was some availability available on those websites or if the process had been simplified. So, a pro tip instead of making me inquire and reach out and then like wait maybe potentially three to five days to hear back from you, it would be really helpful to have like a sales page or something that includes like the dates that you’re still available. Um, that way, couples can make their decision a lot faster.

So there was like a little bit of waiting and then even more procrastinating because I was like waiting on maybe my favorite makeup artists to get back to me, only to find out that they were no longer available. So then I had to kind of panic and rush to the next option. Um, so, having that available.

And then, yeah, venues was a big one, too, which we were booking that out about two years in advance almost, so it was surprising, like that some of them were already booked. Um, I know it was surprising, like that some of them were already booked. I know it was the 2022 rush, though, so I actually saw a couple of venues have calendars on their website, and I thought that was so great because I stopped myself from touring a couple of venues just because, like one that we really loved was only available on like 4th of July weekend and my birthday weekend in 2022. So we knew there was pretty much no flexibility to adjust our date expectations, so the calendar was a really great way to avoid that too. But, yeah, for the most part it was venues and makeup artists, and then I would say, like rental companies and even like bakers, we noticed that with a little bit too.

0:26:55 – Heidi Thompson
That’s interesting. That’s an interesting mix of different people and for anyone you saw that was doing it well I know you mentioned the calendar. Is there any other way of communicating that that you saw done well?

0:27:10 – Emily Foster
Yeah, and there were like so contact forms and one question I noticed on some people’s forms was we have limited availability for this year. So please reach out as soon as possible. Or like please let us know your date. So, even though they weren’t necessarily telling me an exact date, they were kind of setting client expectations at that point, and then I tended to have a lot of photographers and planners reach back out and just like in their first email they would respond like oh, by the way, we’re not available these dates that you mentioned.

Are you flexible? So that was super helpful. To like having even an automated flow with that kind of information could be really helpful. Go into like Dubsado or HoneyBook or Aisle Planner and set your autoresponder for client inquiry emails to basically have your list of availability. So even if it’s the weekend or like you’re out on a wedding or something, you can still reply with that email and people can see like oh, okay, like I inquired and they just got back to me like saying that they’re not available July 10th, for example.

0:28:18 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I can see how that would be really, really helpful, because you’re getting the information now as opposed to, like you said, sometimes in a week, and then maybe they’re not available. Maybe your second choice is now not available and now you’re in a whole other situation where you’re having to scramble.

0:28:36 – Emily Foster
Right, yeah, and I think I noticed the pain of that and, like my friends, noticed the pain of that more for like the 2021 to like 2022 years because of all of the amount of weddings that vendors are booking. But I think it’s a really helpful tip, even for the long-term. Like I think probably most of your listeners know by now to have like an auto responders, that you’re always getting back to clients immediately.

But being able to give them some of that information like even having your packages and pricing attached to the auto responder email so that people can get your pricing and your availability right away can also save you a lot of time, too, from you don’t necessarily have to manually communicate with them at that point.

0:29:16 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I think that’s really helpful to keep in mind, because we think like, oh, you need to get back to people in mind, cause we think like, oh, you need to get back to people right away. And yeah, ideally you do, but it doesn’t have to be you physically that’s getting back to them.

0:29:28 – Emily Foster
Right, yeah, and I think personally it can save you a lot of mental space too. When you are getting back to them quickly and if you have your business set up in a way where you’re just letting them know your pricing and your availability really quickly, it’s like you kind of don’t have to deal with the rejection as much, because it’s like if they inquire and they’re like, oh nope, your pricing is too high, and then just don’t respond, then you don’t have to put the energy into that relationship. And same with a date too. Like I know that general wedding planning advice in the beginning is to try to keep your date open, but in reality there’s going to be couples who, no matter what, want a certain date and they don’t want to budge on that.

Um, that was actually something random too that I noticed about the planning process is like kind of comparing it to my car buying process several years ago. But, um, when I would get in touch with a vendor and it’s like we weren’t super set on our date, um, but we had a few different options that we wanted to choose from and it was like a summer Saturday basically was the one which that we wanted, and I know that that’s a popular option, but we would talk with a couple of vendors who are like, oh, why not just do a Friday? And by that point, like our minds were already set on that type of day, so it doesn’t really make sense to be talked out of that. I totally get it. If it’s like from the planner standpoint of like a planner coordinator that we’ve already hired and they’re giving us advice.

But we heard it from a couple people, um, and it reminded me of my car buying process, because it’s like I specifically went to go buy a black Prius and then there was another one on the lot that had the same mileage and everything. But it was kind of like that old grandma gold. Hopefully I’m not offending anyone by saying that and the car salesman was like, but why don’t you just buy the gold one? And I’m like I came here to spend thousands of dollars on the one that I wanted. So I think that’s one thing too that that whole automated process can avoid, of having those kinds of conversations.

0:31:23 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, being able to really meet people where they are, give them what they need, is so important, but, like you said, so much of that can be automated and that’s such a key part of improving the overall client experience, and I think it’s something a lot of people miss out on.

0:31:44 – Emily Foster
Yeah, they really do, and I think it leads to that burnout that I know you’ve talked about too in wedding businesses, when you don’t have these things streamlined. You’re just putting more energy and work into it, but more than you need to.

0:31:59 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, exactly, and it’s like a tool could do this for you and just make your life so much easier.

0:32:05 – Emily Foster
Yeah, and I think it’ll make your future clients feel really taken care of in the process too.

0:32:12 – Heidi Thompson
Very much so. I know you mentioned a lack of consistency in their work, like in their portfolio. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

0:32:21 – Emily Foster
Yeah, so the biggest one that I mentioned is like kind of the photography studio teams where it’s not the same shooter or editor every time. That was the biggest one where, even from a non-photographer point of view maybe it’s because I’m pretty familiar with photography and design. I could tell the difference between a lot of styles.

Someone who, like totally, has never picked up a DSLR might not be able to tell that. Um, but kind of like the difference of like seeing like dark and moody and light and airy pictures on this website and then actually taking the time to get on a sales call with the photographer and finding out that we weren’t necessarily booking a certain style and we weren’t sure what we were going to get. So that was kind of the most extreme lack of consistency when, like literally, you’re basically letting your clients know like hey, you aren’t going to get a consistent product with us.

But I also noticed it with, like the experience of vendors. So I even see this now, like now that I’m post wedding but especially with wedding planning companies where it’s not really clear if they’re going to be getting like the full planner or an assistant who’s maybe on their first wedding day. So I think being just honest and upfront about what the package includes and who they’re going to be getting, that’s a good way to show consistency too. But in general, from like the work standpoint, I’m always telling clients to curate your portfolio with the work that you want to be doing more.

So you don’t necessarily need to show all the work that you’ve done in the past, but whether it’s maybe even just a couple of styled shoots and like your favorite weddings that you’ve shot so far, like even if you only have like two to five weddings to showcase, your website should really highlight the best of the best and it should have a pretty consistent style, unless you do specialize in being able to kind of cater to the couple style.

So one example of this is like florists. I’ve seen florists where they only do a certain style. So let’s say, like they only do things that are very elaborate, like colorful bouquets, and they don’t really do things like maybe something that’s minimalist or like bringing in dried flowers and kind of bohemian things and things like that. So if you have a very set style and you don’t go outside of that for clients, then you should really express that on your website like, showcase that work, maybe even communicate it through your copywriting and like say, like we specialize in this style, where for this type of person like you can get that literal on your website.

I think sometimes people are scared to call it what it is and like basically communicate what they’re looking for from their clients too. But if you put that out there, then you’re going to attract those people versus there could be florists where you really are just excited about making the client’s dream come true and it could look however it wants to look like you might be okay with just doing like one bouquet and like a boutonniere or something for an elopement, or you can make it possible to like have the most decked out wedding with like I don’t know like an 80K floral budget.

Like, if you can make anything work, then also express that on your website and then you can showcase a variety of work there. So showing some consistency in what clients can expect, both through your messaging and through the past work that you feature, is a really powerful way to attract your ideal clients.

0:35:44 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, that really plays into the branding, because you know I’m speaking to the audience, not to you. But branding, you know you have to understand who you’re trying to sell to. You have to understand the ideal client in order to create a brand that’s not going to be the cohesive thing that you want to present, to say to that ideal client like, hey, you want X, we specialize in X, this is how we work.

0:36:31 – Emily Foster
Right. I think that there’s so much power in that and I think it’s really to me it’s kind of like an advancement level of wedding vendor Like when we talk about like the things that you kind of just do when you get started in your business to market and everything, and then when you get to that advanced level of like you’re busy and booked out, like getting really clear on who your ideal client is and not being afraid to talk about them and like speak to them through your branding and website is so powerful because it really shows who you’re for and it’s a scary step.

Like there’s a lot of like mindset and like logistics work that goes into it. Even coming from my own experience as a brand and website designer, like it is super scary to niche down, but it helps you really attract the right people and have better conversations and do more fulfilling work in your business.

0:37:24 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I find it. It is super counterintuitive. It’s one of those things that it’s like I have to tell people just trust me, it will make sense once you do it and then you’ll see the results. I feel like what really happens is when you become the go-to person for someone, is you make yourself a lighthouse and you allow them to find you really easily and be attracted to you from all over the place, as opposed to just well, this is the closest photographer to me, so I guess I’ll go with them.

0:38:01 – Emily Foster
Right, yeah, I was even going to provide an example of like. I think there’s this term luxury that scares a lot of people in the industry because they’re like, oh yeah, of course, like I want to be like charging premium prices, but I don’t want to work with like luxury brides all the time which I totally get and I think people forget that. We’re in this kind of weird world now with wedding planning where people are not spending the same amount on anything as the next person next to them. So even if they have like a 60K budget and the person next to them has 60K, they’re definitely not spending the exact same amount on their photographer or planner or florist.

Those budgets look so different and I think one of my industry pet peeves is like those Pinterest budget makers to be spending like three percent on your cake and ten percent on your photographer or whatever, because you can position yourself to speak to people who are looking for like a high-end photographer that’s going to document a really quality story for them and you might attract some luxury couples, but you also might just attract people who have a lower wedding budget but they still have the budget to pay you what you’re charging.

So, for example, like photography and videography I mentioned was a big priority for us and altogether like more than 25% of our wedding budget went towards photography and videography, with like photography being about like 13%, and I think that is probably pretty different. Like, altogether, we were probably for our market spending almost like luxury prices, but we didn’t have a luxury budget overall for our wedding and there were other places where we cut so that we could prioritize those things that mattered to us.

So I think getting clear on that and like who you’re attracting doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re limiting yourself from different types of clients. I think you’ll still have people reaching out to you who are willing to spend your prices and respect what you do, but they might not necessarily always fit that ideal client that you’re building.

0:40:05 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I think we can very easily get stuck in that exact budget exercise that you were saying, like, oh, people only spend this amount on this and this amount on this, and that’s absolutely not true. People customize their budgets to fit their priorities and fit things that are really important to them, and I absolutely see that a lot more now than ever. Really, just like you know, people who really prioritize photography or people who really prioritize, like, the experience of their guests, like you spend on different things, naturally based on that, but it’s not something we really think about.

0:40:46 – Emily Foster
Right, yeah, exactly, and like I mean even the trade-off. For example, like I mentioned friends who were planning their weddings at the same time as us, and I had one friend who spent probably about that same mark like 13 to 15% of their budget on their florals and we spent like a lot less than they did altogether on that, but they also didn’t have a videographer. So it was like a trade-off of what mattered. And, yeah, I think that’s just so important to remember that you can still attract the people that you want to work with, who will pay your prices, but it might not always look exactly the way that maybe coaches or the industry, like five years ago, are telling you.

0:41:28 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, that’s a really really good point and it’s good to hear from someone who just got married what that experience was like.

0:41:36 – Emily Foster
Oh sorry, go ahead. Oh no, I was just going to say it was fun.

0:41:43 – Heidi Thompson
As a brand designer and as a web designer overall, what sorts of things did you notice in terms of the way people are presenting their brand?

0:41:56 – Emily Foster
Yeah, so I noticed a lot of lack of inconsistency, um, both in their branding, like voice across their website and their Instagram, for example. Um, so sometimes there would be a totally different experience on social media than what was happening on the website. I also noticed websites being down or like it being very confusing on where to find the website.

There’s still a lot of like early two thousands websites out there and I really doubt that most of the people listening to this are in that spot, but there’s a lot of people who kind of just like need a website or need a better website to begin with, also having up-to-date info and explaining like packages, like on the website in some form. Again, I know we talked a lot about pricing and packages earlier.

Not being able to get to know the person before reaching out to them was a really common one too, like I, one of my tips is to show your face on your website and on social media and like make it really clear who you are, especially if you’re a small team or like a one person show, but not necessarily knowing like who we are going to be getting, and I think that can really work in your favor to show your face too, like because it’s another opportunity to connect with people who are looking for someone like you and who want to get to know your story and like maybe you could even have something in your personal life in common.

Like maybe you both have kids or you both like hiking or something like that. So literally showing your face, but also like just talking about your personality on your website and giving people opportunities to connect with you as a person, along with your business.

And kind of back to the consistency. I noticed people not being consistent in their marketing. That’s a huge one, one that I’ve also taken to heart in my business, because I’ve even had clients comment on the fact that they booked me because they saw that I was more consistent on Instagram than another designer. So that’s a huge thing, like showing up regularly, and it doesn’t have to look perfect.

I’ve set this rule for myself that I’m going to do my best to post every weekday that’s not a holiday and then I schedule it out and I engage regularly. I know that’s not always as easy, especially for wedding vendors, whose job isn’t necessarily at your desk all the time but at least setting some kind of rule, like once a week or twice a week or something, where you’re posting regularly and you’re showing up and then also showing your face there. So I know that’s kind of the social media marketing realm, unless they’re like branding and website, but that does play a part in your brand overall.

0:44:31 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up because I think we, I mean we fall off, we think people don’t really notice, and it speaks to your overall consistency. And I think it’s very easy to see a dormant, you know, social media account that is supposedly like your main social media account and think, okay, like maybe this person doesn’t have the best time management skills, maybe I shouldn’t trust them.

0:45:01 – Emily Foster
Yeah, and there’s a lot of that too in the industry like, especially since COVID, where there were a lot of people starting businesses before COVID and even a lot of people starting businesses like in the middle of 2020. I’ve talked to so many people who are like, yeah, like COVID happened and I was laid off from my job, so I used that opportunity to start, like my event rentals business.

So I’ve seen so many dormant social media accounts, like from people who started their business in like 2019 or 2020, and they just fully closed, but their profile is still up. So it’s very easy for your ideal client to confuse you with one of those people. Like, if they just don’t see that you posted in the last two months, then why should they assume anything different than the fact that you’ve closed down for business and you can’t expect them to do the work, to like reach out over email or go to your website to investigate more, because they just don’t have that kind of time and they don’t really care in the long run for that too.

But, yeah, consistency and like showing your personality on social media was huge, too for our wedding vendor selection process. One example that I’ve told a couple of people now is like when we were booking our videographers.

We really just connected with our videographer on a personal level. Um, I think this was even before we had the sales call with him, um, but kind of when we were waffling and like not sure what vendor to book. We continue to see his content on Instagram, like I would show my husband and be like oh, I really like this and like just generally learning more about him as a person and why he’s passionate about his work. Um helped us to connect with him versus, like the other person who had really good work and, um, their prices were on par with the other guy that we liked. Um, there was really nothing wrong with him, but he just wasn’t showing up consistently on social media and we couldn’t really get to know him as a person.

And then also that kind of reflected in the sales call process to like the sales call experience. So it’s just a little bit different with him and not as personal as with the videographer that we ended up booking, but that experience actually led us to like paying. I want to say it was two or $300 more to work with the one that we did work with.

So even showing up consistently and showing your personality on social media. That actually plays a big factor into making more money in your business. Like not just attracting the clients and the right clients, but attracting the people who will be willing to pay more money for you over a competitor just because they like you as a person.

0:47:27 – Heidi Thompson
Isn’t that so funny, like? I feel like that’s one of those things that we’ve heard in market research about millennials, about Gen Z, and I still I guess it’s because we have to be with ourselves all day but we still think like nobody cares. Nobody cares, right? But people do care and they want to like and get to know and connect with the people that they hire.

0:47:51 – Emily Foster
Yeah, I think too, especially for their wedding day, like there’s for most of the vendors, there’s a lot of time being spent leading up to that with these people, especially like planners and photographers and florists, where you kind of have to like each other to a certain extent, and ideally millennials and like Gen Z, they want to kind of I mean, I could be just totally stereotyping and speaking for other people when it’s not true but like I feel like we want to be friends with everyone that we work with too.

You actually kind of want a relationship beyond just the working one, Like not that we’re all going to stay best friends after the wedding planning process, but you want to be able to like laugh and joke and have something in common with people along the way, especially because wedding planning is stressful and picking the right people who you have something in common with or who can make the process fun is going to make it just a lot more stress-free and less overwhelming.

0:48:48 – Heidi Thompson
And it’s so much easier to like. Just connect with your ideal client as an actual human being.

0:48:55 – Emily Foster
Yes, yeah, and it builds trust too, like one benefit like we could talk about all the benefits of booking your ideal clients, like the increased pay and like the ease of work, but like it really does make your job a lot easier because when you have like that personal connection, there’s more trust and organically, because of the trust, like they’re going to trust you and your quality of work and your decision-making a lot more easily than maybe someone who isn’t really sure about you.

I think it’s all too common to book clients who maybe don’t have complete faith in what you do or like you and your quality of work, and that’s when you end up with like micromanaging clients or clients who like try to take everything over or like don’t trust your answers on things that you know really well because you’ve done it a hundred times before. And so attracting those ideal clients and people who get along with your personality is really helpful to avoiding those bumps throughout the client process.

0:49:58 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and it buys you some wiggle room too. I mean, if I hire somebody to do something and I like them and they make a mistake and they’re like upfront and honest about it and they’re like I’m going to fix this, I am going to be way less annoyed by that than somebody I don’t like, and I’m sure we’ve all had experiences like that.

0:50:23 – Emily Foster
Yes, and especially with the stress of a wedding day, like um, there’s just so much that goes into it and, organically, people need to have a lot of trust in their vendors. So you can even prep your clients when you get along well, like just having them understand like hey, I’m here for you, like we’re a great fit, but something will go wrong on your wedding day. I think that’s such a great thing to be able to like say to your clients, um, and maybe not in that way, like I’m not a planner, to like, so maybe like don’t write that down word for word, but being able to prepare them and like understand that you know things aren’t going to be perfect, no matter what you do, and like how many factors you try to control for them.

But because they have the trust in you, they understand that you’ll be able to like make the decisions and pivot and prepare things as much as possible so that you know, even if it rains, like you still have everything under control.

0:51:18 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, Well said, Well. Speaking of ideal clients, I know you have a download for everybody listening. Tell us about that.

0:51:27 – Emily Foster
Yeah. So it’s a ideal client workbook. I call it a client archetype workbook and it basically helps you to develop a client avatar where you get really nitty gritty about who your ideal client is. And it’s a mix of asking the bigger questions of like, how much are they willing to spend to like, how are they finding you and what does their mindset look like and what kind of objections might you face from these kinds of clients. So it gets pretty strategic.

It’s actually the workbook that I use in my brand strategy calls with my clients. So that’s a piece of the strategy call that you can kind of just take for free if you want to sample what it would be like to work together on your brand strategy. But you can find that at www.emilyfostercreative.com/client-archetype.

0:52:19 – Heidi Thompson
And I will definitely put that in the show notes. And then, if someone wants to connect with you, what is the best way to?

0:52:27 – Emily Foster
do that. You can find me on um Emily Foster Creative for pretty much everything, so I’m going to sound like a broken record, but my website is emilyfostercreative.com. And then you can also find me on Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook at Emily Foster Creative.

0:52:43 – Heidi Thompson
Thank you so much, Emily. This has been great and really eye-opening to be able to look at this from multiple perspectives, so thank you so much for taking the time to be on with us today.

0:52:54 – Emily Foster
Yeah, thank you so much, Heidi. This was amazing. Thanks for taking the time, and I’m excited to hear what everyone thinks.

0:53:01 – Heidi Thompson
All right, I know we covered a lot during that. I hope this has given you some ideas about things that you can change, things you can update to make it a better experience for couples who are looking for you.

Now we talked quite a bit about the importance of being really clear about your ideal client and standing out to them. If that is something that you need help with, I would love to help you with that. That is something that I help people with inside of the Wedding Business Collective, and you can find out all about my membership, the Wedding Business Collective, over at www.evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/WBC for Wedding Business Collective.

You can join us in there and I walk you step by step through figuring out, okay, who is this person that you want to attract more of, and then how do you build a marketing plan that brings them to you and that does it easily, without adding a ton more to your plate. So if that sounds like something you need, come on over to www.evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/WBC and I hope to see you inside the Wedding Business Collective.

Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in today. If you’d like to share any takeaways, what you’ve learned, what you’re going to implement, I would love to chat with you on Instagram. Come shoot me a DM. I am @evolveyourweddingbusiness and I always love talking to podcast listeners, so don’t be shy. Again, all of the links for everything will be in the show notes over at www.evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/281. And I will speak to you again very soon!

About Emily Foster

Emily Foster is the owner of Emily Foster Creative, a brand and website design studio based in Portland, Oregon and working with creatives everywhere. She specializes in helping wedding vendors and photographers stand out with personalized, tailored branding and website design. She brings 8+ years of experience to helping business owners get clear on their brand strategy then transforming that into a brand that connects with their ideal clients.

Website: www.emilyfostercreative.com
Instagram: @emilyfostercreative
Free Download: https://www.emilyfostercreative.com/client-archetype

 

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Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective
Get Emily’s Client Archetype Workbook
How To Stand Out & Get Booked This Engagement Season
Episode 226: How to Stay Consistent With Your Social Media (Even When You’re Busy!) with Brandee Gaar

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