Your Wedding Business Marketing Plan: Book More Weddings Without the Marketing Overwhelm

In this episode we’ll cover:

• Why most wedding pros feel overwhelmed with marketing (and how to fix it)
• The biggest mistake people make when creating a wedding business marketing plan
• How to build a strategy around what actually works for you instead of copying what others are doing
• What to focus on if you want to get more leads without spending all your time on marketing
• The key steps to creating a marketing plan that helps you book more weddings consistently
• How to prioritize your marketing tasks so you’re not scrambling every week

Your Wedding Business Marketing Plan: Book More Weddings Without the Marketing Overwhelm

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
Are you tired of spending hours on social media with little to show for it and feeling completely overwhelmed by what you’re supposed to do to market your business and book more weddings? I’ve got a solution for you in this episode.

0:00:18 – Intro
In a world where wedding professionals are struggling to market and grow their businesses, one podcast brings together top experts and actionable strategies to help you build the wedding business of your dreams. This is the Evolve your Wedding Business Podcast. Here is your host, Heidi Thompson.

0:00:55 – Heidi Thompson
Hello there, welcome to the podcast. I’m your host, Heidi Thompson. I am all about helping wedding professionals of all different kinds book more weddings, make their marketing easier and less overwhelming, and build businesses that actually get them freedom and flexibility.

So many wedding pros out there feel completely overwhelmed by marketing. You know you follow all the advice, post constantly, even pay for ads or directory listings maybe on WeddingWire or the Knot yet the inquiries that come in are often low quality or they’re price shoppers. The truth is, most marketing advice out there is not designed for the wedding industry. Marketing for wedding pros requires a different approach, because couples don’t book overnight.

They take months and months to plan, compare options and make decisions based on emotions rather than just price. That means many traditional marketing strategies that work very well for other businesses are not always the best fit for wedding vendors. If you want to attract high quality leads without spending endless hours on marketing, you need a smarter marketing strategy.

In this episode, I’m going to walk you through the biggest mistakes wedding pros make, why traditional marketing advice falls short and how my create your overwhelm, squashing marketing plan framework helps you book more weddings without wasting time on tactics that just do not work. This is one of my absolute favorite things to do with wedding pros, because it dramatically changes their business and it makes marketing easy.

No more throwing spaghetti at the wall and finding that nothing really sticks. If I could wave a magic wand that gave you more bookings with clients you love without you having to work more hours and struggle with your marketing, your marketing plan would be that magic wand. But it’s better than a magic wand because it’s real and it’s doable. You just have to follow the steps.

Now, before we dive into what works, let’s look at what doesn’t. Most wedding pros fall into the same marketing traps that keep them stuck and struggling to attract their ideal clients. The first is relying too much on social media. Now, don’t get me wrong social media is helpful, but it’s not the most reliable way to bring in inquiries.

If you’re posting every day and you’re not seeing results, it may be because that’s not the best way to reach your ideal clients. I find that most wedding pros focus too much on social media and not enough on easier marketing strategies that bring in bookings faster. The second mistake is chasing leads who ghost. I have met so many wedding pros that tell me that they have spent hours and hours each week. Wedding pros that tell me that they have spent hours and hours each week responding to price shoppers who just disappear after the first email. This happens when your marketing doesn’t filter out the wrong clients before they inquire.

Our third mistake is not standing out from competitors. If your website and your social media profiles look and sound like every other wedding pro in your area, couples are not going to see a reason to choose you over someone else. Generic messaging makes you blend in instead of positioning you as the best choice, and that leaves couples with literally no other choice but to compare vendors on price.

Next up is spending money on the wrong marketing channels. I see many wedding pros invest in directories like The Knot and WeddingWire without considering if it’s a good fit for their specific ideal client or tracking their actual return on investment. The Knot and WeddingWire work wonderfully for some businesses and they completely flop for others. That’s the thing. There is no one size fits all marketing solution for your wedding business. Hate to break it to you, but if a platform is not bringing in quality leads, it’s definitely time to rethink where you’re spending your time and your money. The biggest mistake I see, though, is not having a real marketing plan. Most wedding pros take a very scattered approach to marketing, trying lots of different tactics at random.

Without a clear strategy, without a plan, you’re constantly reacting instead of following a proven path that brings in steady inquiries. Having a marketing plan designed for your unique wedding business also makes your marketing a whole lot easier, and I don’t know how well you know me I don’t know how many episodes you’ve listened to so far but I am real big on making things easier.

The wedding industry is unique. It’s a bit of a weird one. Our clients are typically planning a wedding for the first time Not all of them, but most. So they don’t have the knowledge they have about making other purchases, and that’s why marketing advice for other industries doesn’t always translate to wedding businesses. Here’s why wedding pros need a different approach. First off, weddings have a very long buying cycle, unlike other businesses where people make quick purchasing decisions, sometimes just snap decisions. Engaged couples regularly take months to book their vendors. If your marketing doesn’t account for this, you can lose potential clients who aren’t ready to book immediately but would have been ready to book later.

On Decisions in this industry well, decisions in every industry are emotional, not based on price, but it’s heightened in this industry. A couple really isn’t choosing their wedding vendor the same way they choose a new phone. They book based on trust and connection and how well they feel that you understand their vision. Your marketing has to tap into these emotions rather than just listing your services, and this is something that I talked about with Adriana McDermott. Trust is more important now than ever. Building that trust is how you get your marketing to work.

Then we have the fact that in the wedding industry, referrals and relationships matter a lot more than ads. A lot of wedding pros think they need to run ads, pay for directory listings, do all of these pay-to-play sorts of things to get leads. But referrals from vendors and past clients often bring in higher quality bookings. Building those relationships can be much more powerful than any ad campaign. If you are interested in running ads, it might be a great fit for you. I’ll be sure to link to some of our episodes on that topic in the show notes for this episode at evolveyourweddingbusinesscom/311. But referrals and relationships are so key in this industry your marketing also has to work around seasonal trends in a way that marketing in other industries doesn’t have to.

Wedding bookings tend to come in waves and if you only market when business is slow, you’re always going to be scrambling for leads. A strong marketing strategy keeps those inquiries coming in consistently, so you never have to worry about where your next booking is going to come from. So let’s talk about the smarter way to market your wedding business. The easier way and it’s a marketing plan.

But most marketing plans focus on tactics instead of strategy. That’s my problem with them and it’s why I created the Create your Overwhelm Squashing Marketing Plan framework to give wedding pros a very clear, step-by-step system for attracting and booking more of their ideal clients without wasting time on ineffective marketing clients. Without wasting time on ineffective marketing, this approach eliminates the stress and confusion of figuring out what to do next. Instead of trying everything and hoping for results, you get a structured plan designed to fit your unique business, your strengths and your ideal clients.

Here’s how it works. We start with your ideal clients. Marketing is psychology at the end of the day, and we need to understand why your best clients booked you and what mattered most to them. Instead of guessing, we interview past clients to uncover what made them choose you and what they cared about most. This allows you to create messaging and content and marketing that speaks directly to the people you want to attract. It also makes you very clearly stand out from your competition, which is more important now than ever.

99.9% of wedding professionals who come to me do not have this nailed down and it’s why their marketing doesn’t work. It’s also why they get ghosted all the time and price shopped all the time. Your marketing has to show your ideal client that you have the solution to their specific problem for them to buy from you, and most wedding pros are way too vague about this. I worked with a wedding planner who was struggling to book more of her favorite clients and after going through this process inside The Wedding Business Collective, she realized her marketing wasn’t actually speaking to what her ideal clients cared about most. She kept talking about providing a stress-free planning experience, but when she actually spoke to her best clients, they didn’t care about that.

What they really wanted was to infuse their Indian culture into their wedding in a way that felt really unique and not like the same old wedding that their sister, their brother, their cousins and their friends had. Once this planner shifted her messaging to focus on that, she started booking those clients like crazy, and it’s really no wonder she was finally speaking to the real problem they wanted solved.

Now, with this, we really want to focus on what is already working. Most wedding pros waste a lot of time chasing new marketing tactics instead of doubling down on what is already bringing you quality leads, and in this framework, we refine and strengthen the strategies that are delivering results, instead of adding more to your plate. This gives you better results without creating a whole bunch more work for you. That is not what I want to do, and we create a plan based on strategy, not trends. I see so many marketing professionals jump from one marketing trend to the next without considering if it makes sense for their specific business.

With the Create your Overwhelm Squashing Marketing Plan framework, we focus on sustainable strategies that work long term, as well as adding in the short term strategies that get you booked. Now you have to have a mix of both of those or you’re going to be really lopsided in your business. You have to build in strategies for long-term success and short-term success. The answer to your lack of bookings is almost never a new social media platform. I have never met a single person who solved this problem by starting a new social media profile somewhere, and there are so many easier ways that we can get you bookings.

So, within this framework, we set really clear goals and we track results. So, instead of really focusing on the vanity metrics that call our attention, that make us feel good, like number of followers and likes, we track the numbers that really matter. We measure inquiries, consultations and bookings so you know exactly what’s working and where to improve. This also tells you what isn’t working, so you know what to stop pouring time, money and energy into. And then we build a system so you never have to guess what to do next. With our structured 90-day plan, you always know what to focus on.

There’s no more waking up on a random Tuesday and wondering what to post or how to get more leads. None of this is about doing more. It’s about doing what actually works and what has already been proven to work, and we can do more of that with less effort, so that you can grow your wedding business without spending all your time on marketing and stressing about marketing.

The wedding pros I work with inside the Wedding Business Collective use this overwhelmed, squashing marketing plan framework to make their marketing really easy, because they know exactly who they’re trying to attract, what they care about and need to hear from your marketing, where to reach them and exactly what to do on each of those platforms. All of those decisions are made. You just have to show up and execute those decisions. So what could your business look like with the right marketing strategy? Imagine having a step-by-step marketing strategy that helps you book more ideal clients, stand out from your competition and grow your wedding business without feeling so overwhelmed.

Let me tell you a little bit about The Wedding Business Collective. Inside, you’re going to get access to a step-by-step marketing plan that is a magnet for your ideal clients who are excited to work with you and don’t question your prices. You’ll get personalized feedback on your marketing plan so you know exactly what to do and when to do it to book more weddings. You will easily shave five hours off of your work week by doing less marketing but doing it more efficiently, so you don’t feel so busy and overwhelmed all the time. You’ll get a proven formula for turning website visitors into clients. You’ll also get a complete 90 day marketing plan. You can rinse and repeat to bring your dream clients to you.

Again, we want to make this easy. That’s the goal here. You’ll get a plan to uncover those sneaky activities that are a time suck, so you can actually add white space to your calendar and you’re not constantly running around feeling like you have a million things to do. And you’ll get a path to increase your revenue while working less, with a solid sales system that you know doesn’t make you feel like a used car salesman. So are you ready to take action and book more weddings, because your marketing strategy, that step-by-step plan, awaits.

I want to invite you to come join us inside the Wedding Business Collective for just a dollar for your first 30 days, and in that time, you can create your marketing plan and start booking more of the clients you really want to work with, because your marketing will finally work. It will be designed to be the perfect magnet for them. So you can get your first 30 days for a dollar over at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/invite. And, of course, if you have any questions about the Wedding Business Collective, is it a fit for you? Does it include this? Does it include that? Definitely check out that page, but you can also send me a DM on Instagram.

I’m @evolveyourweddingbusiness over there and I’d be more than happy to tell you whether I think it’s going to be a good fit for you or not, but what I can tell you is that if you are operating your wedding business without a clear marketing plan, if you are just doing scattershot marketing, you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall. You’re probably also getting really random results, and if you want to stop doing that, this will help you do that.

This will make sure that your marketing actually attracts the right people to you and makes you stand out, and I can’t imagine a more important thing to spend your time on when it comes to growing your business. I regularly see wedding pros come in, complete their marketing plan in 30 days or less and they’re able to immediately start bringing in those people that they really want to book. And it becomes so much easier because you’re not guessing.

You’re not waking up with no clear plan on what you’re supposed to be doing to bring in your next booking. This is going to show you exactly what to do and it’s not prescriptive.

Like I’ve said, there’s no one-size-fits-all plan you can follow. That is going to get you more bookings, and if someone is telling you that there is, they’re lying. I’ve spent a lot of years in marketing and I can tell you that that’s not how it works.

Marketing is psychology. Your marketing has to speak directly to your ideal client, show them that you are the perfect fit and show them why they should book you instead of someone else, and that is exactly what we’re going to do with your marketing plan. So I hope you’ll come join us. Take it for a test drive for the first 30 days. See if it’s a good fit for you. Like I said, it’s just a dollar to join at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/invite.

If it’s not a fit for you, you can cancel within the first 30 days and no problem. That’s totally fine. If you want to stay fantastic, you don’t have to do a thing. We have members who have been with us for months. We have members that stay with us for years. Totally up to you. It is completely flexible. You can cancel whenever you like. But something that every wedding professional needs if they want reliable inquiries and bookings and to not have to chase these people that are ghosting them is a marketing plan that is actually built for their very specific business, their very specific ideal client and what they care about and your particular strengths.

So I would love to help you with that. Come over to evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/invite. We can start working together there and, like I said, if you have any questions at all, shoot me a DM on Instagram or you can email me directly, heidi@evolveyourweddingbusiness.com, and I hope to see you inside the Wedding Business Collective so we can start building this marketing plan that’s going to attract the perfect couples for you.

Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective
Wedding Planner Marketing That Works – How Katie Sautter Booked 15 Weddings in Her First Year
The Lazy Girl’s Guide To Marketing Your Wedding Business

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