Turn Your Wedding Marketing Into A Theme Park With Becca Pountney

Transcript: Turn Your Wedding Marketing Into A Theme Park With Becca Pountney

Heidi Thompson:
The marketing funnel was invented in 1904 before cars, and somehow we’re still using it. My guest today has a better idea.

Heidi Thompson:
Welcome to the podcast. I am your host, Heidi Thompson, and I’m here to help wedding pros book more weddings, make their marketing easy, and grow their business without it consuming their entire life, because you should have some freedom and flexibility in there. Today I’m joined by my friend Becca. She is a brilliant marketing marketing mind from the UK. She’s someone I’ve been meaning to get on this podcast for way too long. I can’t believe she hasn’t been a guest.

She’s been a speaker multiple times at my summits, and she has a framework that is super fun and completely reframes how you think about marketing your wedding business, and it’s called the marketing theme park. So in this interview with Becca, we get into why the traditional marketing funnel is a little bit played out and obsolete, how couples are actually moving through your marketing right now and how it differs from the way we normally think about it and what you need to do differently to meet them where they are. And she breaks it all down using the word scream. Trust me, it’ll make a lot of sense. So let’s get into it. Today I’m joined by my friend from the UK, Becca Pountney. If you don’t know her already, you absolutely should. She is a brilliant marketing mind. In our industry, and I’m really excited to have her here to talk about her framework of your marketing as a theme park. And I love this visual, all the fun, all the craziness, all the everything in between. So Becca, thanks for taking the time to join me.

Becca Pountney:
Thanks, Heidi. I’m so excited to be here finally on your podcast.

Becca Pountney:
I’m thrilled.

Heidi Thompson:
I know, it’s like I’ve just been talking to you for so long and I’m like, we should really put one of these on a podcast, shouldn’t we?

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, absolutely. And I know what we’re gonna talk about together is gonna be golden because whenever me and you get together and chat, we always have a lot in common, a lot that we share, a lot that we think, and I’m really excited the audience is gonna get to share in that with us today.

Heidi Thompson:
Yes. And I remember the first time I heard you talking about this concept of a marketing theme park. I thought it was just so brilliant because not only is it just this perfect visual, but it also really encapsulates the way people move through your marketing. It’s not this direct line, you know, as much as we like to think things move through like this straight funnel, it’s a little bit more chaotic than that. So tell me a little bit about the marketing theme park as a whole, and then we can break it down.

Becca Pountney:
Okay, absolutely. So for as long as any of us can remember, we’ve all been talking about the marketing funnel and how marketing is this straight line from A to B. And I did a little bit of research and discovered that the marketing funnel concept was first invented, or is— seems to have been invented around 1904, which— isn’t that crazy? Because why are we still teaching marketing in a way that was like over 100 years ago? And if we all thought and just for a moment about how the world was 100 years ago, more than 100 years ago. It’s so very different to how the world is today. And so it’s like, how are we even still teaching the same frameworks? Now we have social media, now we have, you know, AI, all of these crazy things. And I also heard that Google had started also talking about this and saying that we were kind of in this messy middle. But I didn’t really like the messy middle concept, so I thought, you know what, I’m going to design my own concept that encapsulates how I see the world that we’re living in for marketing, both inside outside of the wedding industry right now. And hence why I coined my phrase, the marketing theme park. I love a theme park. I love Disney. I love all things crazy theme parks. But if you go to a theme park, the moment you walk through those gates is utter chaos. Fun chaos, but absolute chaos. And I was thinking about the moment a couple gets engaged and they’re so excited about getting the ring on their finger, and the next morning they wake up and they’re like, right, we’re going to look on our phones just for a few moments and start doing a little bit of wedding planning. And And the moment they start searching anything on their phone with the word wedding, all of a sudden

Becca Pountney:
they’re bombarded with video content, with advertising, and it is so overwhelming. And it is like that moment you walk in a theme park and there’s flashing lights and there’s loud noises and there’s smells and you don’t know which route to take. And so my concept is, in 2026 and beyond, how can we say that someone is buying from us in a straight line? They’re not. It’s absolute chaos out there. It’s much more like a theme park.

Heidi Thompson:
I love that so much. And I did not realize that the concept of a marketing funnel was so old. That’s like pre-cars.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, it’s absolutely ridiculous. I mean, obviously it’s evolved and it’s changed, but if you start looking into when it first was invented or where it’s attributed to, to this guy called Frank in 1904, and then Google a picture of what things look like in 1904, it will blow your mind. Right?

Heidi Thompson:
That’s a very different world. That’s, uh, yeah, that’s not the world at all that we are living in. So you talked about, you know, the experience of like you walk in the front gates of a theme park, you’re kind of overwhelmed. There’s a lot going on. How do we need to, or how does your client need to move through this theme park and how do we need to think about how we can meet them in different places as opposed to just like, you know, they go to A, they go to B, they go to C, and then they buy.

Becca Pountney:
Okay, so I actually have broken this down so I can walk you through the whole concept if you like, Heidi, just so that it’s helpful for your listeners. So I broke it down into sections around the word scream, because that’s what I do a lot when I go to a theme park. I love it. I scream on the ride. So I was like, right, what can I break this down into that makes sense for the theme park idea? So I’ve broken it down into the word scream, but I think we have to start with the realization that our couples are in this chaos. I think often as wedding professionals We blame our couples for a lot of their marketing habits, but actually we need to take a step back and realize this is the consumer culture every single one of us is living in. And so as a business, we can’t blame our couples for, oh, why are they ghosting? Why are they not doing that? Because actually, when we realize how overwhelmed they are, then it gives us a little bit of compassion and understanding as to why they’re acting the way they are and why we as people are acting the way we are. So the first letter in my framework is S, which obviously is the start of SCREAM, and that stands 4, stand out. I think in 2026, in the marketing theme park world, we have to as a business do something to stand out. We cannot be vanilla in the way that we market ourselves. So think when you go to a theme park, there are so many choices. You maybe go to the ride that’s the tallest, maybe you go for the ride that’s the fastest, maybe you go for the one that’s the shortest queue, maybe you go for the one that’s at the back of the park, maybe you go for the one that your friend told you you should go on first. There are so many different choices, and it’s the same for your wedding couples when they’re looking for a business. They You need to find something that stands out and resonates with them. Now, not everyone is going to make the same choice, and not everyone is looking for the same thing in the theme park. But what does have to happen is you have to have something that makes you stand out from the crowd. Because if you just look like every other supplier in your niche, then how are they going to choose you over anyone else? It’s only going to come down to price. So that’s the first thing. In 2026, we need to have a reason why people should come to us. We need to know who we are and who we’re for, and we need to start shouting about it rather than blending in. Do you agree?

Heidi Thompson:
Hell yes, preach! Because I have been talking— I mean, I’ve been talking for a long time about how important standing out is. Oh my goodness, starting in 2025, I started to see this really, really strong trend between businesses that were really, really struggling and those that were doing pretty well or doing really well, and the difference more often than not is whether or not you stand out as the clear go-to, the clear option for your person and for what they want. And I look at a lot of wedding business websites. I look at a lot of wedding business marketing. I know you do too. I can’t tell the difference between ’em like half the time at least. And if I can’t tell the difference, And if I could copy and paste text from your website, put it on someone else’s website, no one would even notice. How are your couples supposed to know the difference? It’s really no wonder we’re seeing, you know, people coming down to price because if you literally can’t tell the difference between a bunch of different options, you have to find some way to make a decision between them and price becomes that default option.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, absolutely. And you’re right, and I think what happens in the industry is people start copying each other, and so then we just end up with this really bland marketing landscape, which

Becca Pountney:
is difficult for people to differentiate between. And therefore, the people that have a really strong brand message always do better. And to your point about pricing, that brings me on to my second letter of the word SCREAM, which is the C, which I say stands for customized and clear transparent pricing. So I love to hear your thoughts on this, Heidi, but I am definitely going into 2026 still shouting it from the rooftops that if you want to navigate this marketing theme park In 2026, you need to have a clear, transparent pricing strategy on your website, easy for people to find, because otherwise in their research phase, they’re just gonna phase you right out and go to someone else.

Heidi Thompson:
100%. I completely agree with you on that. And that can show up in different ways. You know, I don’t care if it’s a starting price, it’s a range, it’s an average, or it is a set price. But if we look at, like you said, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. When we come across something and it doesn’t have any sort of price, we probably just move on because we don’t wanna put the effort in, we don’t wanna put the work in. And we are in, you know, a market where we are, when I say market, I mean like marketplace, like the whole economy. We’re so used to being able to, find information so readily and easily about everything when we do our research that it’s kind of weird to not get a price. Like, I was at the airport recently and, you know, there’s all these taxis sitting there and they’re probably wondering, you know, why, why are we sitting here? And Ubers are coming and going. I know the reason why I use Uber, and it’s because I know how much it’s going to cost.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, absolutely. And we don’t like the unknown, and our couples don’t like the unknown either. So it’s really important we have that customised, transparent pricing. And interestingly, I found out something yesterday which absolutely backs this up and this message I’ve been shouting out. So on my podcast, I interviewed someone just yesterday— the episode will go out soon— who was an AI expert, and she was talking about how to get your wedding business to stand out in AI search. And we know that’s a hot topic. And you know, one of the things she said that AI is looking for clear pricing written on your website because AI loves to give people pricing tables. So if you have no pricing, you won’t show up.

Heidi Thompson:
That’s a really good point. And that’s really interesting because yeah, when I think about when I, when I have used AI tools to do research, it loves to pull in pricing tables, comparisons like this one is a higher price point, this one is a lower price point and like create comparisons between them. I do want to ask you, when you say customize and clear transparent pricing, I can see how someone might be like, wait though, if it’s customized, how am I being transparent about it and saying like, this is the price on the website?

Becca Pountney:
Okay, so what I mean by that is that you have price levels that are open to other people, to everyone in the market. Well, not everyone. Let me, let me explain that better. When you go to a theme park, there there is the ticket price to go into the theme park that everyone pays, but on top of that ticket price, there are other options for people that want to spend more money. So you can just pay the ticket price and go in the theme park, and that is your lowest possible price. You can also pay slightly more than your ticket price, or in some cases a lot more, and you can skip the queues and you can go right to the front and have a better experience. Or if you’ve got a lot more money, you can often pay for a VIP top-of-the-range experience where someone will literally walk you around the park and you get whatever you want for the day. And so when I talk about that is thinking— I think sometimes we get stuck on price because we’re worried that people are looking for cheap, and sometimes we forget to show that there are customisable options which people can pay more for. And so sometimes we need to show those things because just because we wouldn’t pay more for them doesn’t mean other people won’t. And that’s why when you go to a theme park, there will always be people that are prepared to pay more to skip the queues, and there will always be people that are more prepared to pay for that VIP option. And so when I talk about pricing, yes, we need to be transparent, but we also not need to not be afraid to showcase the levels of stuff that we can offer, not the discounts, but actually the upsells.

Heidi Thompson:
I love that because I think, you know, you have to be really careful with how you present pricing and price anchoring. There’s a whole psychology around that, but showing that it can be customized and there are these different add-ons you can do, you know, there’s different levels like you said. And I think that’s a very clear way of thinking about it that we’ve all experienced. Like, yeah, you can just get the ticket, you can get the FastPass, you can get the VIP tour— totally up to you. You’re gonna have

Heidi Thompson:
you know, great service regardless. It’s just a matter of which route you want to take. And I love that you’re really encouraging people to share this information and not just have it be something that, you know, only comes out maybe on the sales call or after the sale as, hey, you know, we could also add this on.

Becca Pountney:
Exactly. And also, if you go back to your Uber example, it’s the same on Uber. You know, once there was a time when we could go on an Uber app and we ordered the taxi from A to B, but now when you go and search for that Uber, you get presented different options, and you choose the option that’s right for you at the price point that’s right for you. So you will get the standard option, but then often you’ll get the— do you want the executive car? Do you want the electric car? Do you want to wait 5 minutes longer and pay less? There are options there, and it’s very clear for you to see, but yet you’re giving the consumer the right to choose.

Heidi Thompson:
I’m curious Do you see people getting kind of caught in the weeds of how to communicate that without overwhelming? And I know that could be a whole topic on itself, but what do you see happening there for people?

Becca Pountney:
I think often people are clear about it in their head, but then for some reason they’re not very good at putting it on the page. So if I ask someone about their pricing, often they can say, oh yeah, well then if you travel within this far, you add this, or if you want this on top, you can add this. And so they’ve got it all in their head, But there’s something in our psyche from the old way of the wedding industry going back 5, 10, 15 years where we felt like we had to gatekeep this information because it somehow made it feel more luxury. Or on the other hand, we might put people off with this information. So if anyone’s struggling with this, get it down on paper because you’ve probably got a pricing strategy in your head that you’re just afraid to share with people for whatever reason. And always start with the minimum you’re willing to leave your house for, because often people put a low price on their website And actually, if you’re never going out for that price, then it’s ridiculous to have it there in the first place and you’re doing your customers a disservice. So yeah, get it out your head, put it down on paper and plan that strategy out and be as clear as you possibly can with it.

Heidi Thompson:
I think, you know, you were mentioning AI earlier. I think this could be a really valuable use case. I brain dump on ChatGPT constantly. I just start the voice recording and just go and be like, okay, now pull something useful out of that and organize everything I just threw at you. That can be a great way to kind of get the bones of what you’re actually storing in your head, but not communicating super well.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, absolutely. Right. Should we move on to the next letter? Let’s do it. Pricing. Let’s move on to the R. The R in the word SCREAM in the marketing theme park world that we’re living in stands for recommendations. And I think this one is incredibly interesting. So Heidi, in a world which is overwhelming, which is full of social media, which is full of noise, and also with the rise of AI, us worrying about whether stuff is real or not, I think actually recommendations and the power of word-of-mouth marketing is stronger than ever. So for example, say you were coming to London next month, you could go on to TikTok and you could look up all the restaurants in London, you could do your research, you could read blog posts. But if you said, hey Becca, where’s the best place to eat in London right now for this kind of food? And I was like, you absolutely have to go to this place, is my favourite place, I love going there, you’ll regret it if you don’t try it. That’s going to stand out to you way more than every single TikTok post that you’ve ever watched in your life because you’re getting it from a trusted source. And it’s the same when it comes to wedding businesses. Yes, we can be noisy on social media if we choose to, that can work. But actually the power of the referral and other people saying how great you are is right now always going to win.

Heidi Thompson:
It makes so much sense because like when we have so much more information, it just becomes more difficult to sift through. So sometimes we just want people to tell us like, where do I go to get what I want? And there is a definite connection there between recommendations and stand out because like you just said, if someone asked you, you know, I’m coming to London, I want to find a great restaurant for this type of food or this type of setting. You have just narrowed that so that you can make that recommendation to them for a place that’s going to be perfect for them. And what I see so many wedding pros do is they don’t want to narrow that. So then if the question becomes, where do I eat in London? And then it’s like, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, exactly. There’s so many choices. And although people have this idea that being broad will get them more business, as you know It doesn’t, because if someone says to me, Becca, do you know a cake maker? Well, my brain explodes because I know so many cake makers that I couldn’t possibly decide which one to send them to. But if they narrow it down and they say, like, we’re desperate for a gluten-free cake baker

Becca Pountney:
do you know anyone who specializes in that area? Suddenly the categorizing in my head shrinks to a much smaller file, and it’s much easier for me to make that recommendation. So if you’re listening to this and you’re still of the thought that you need to be broad in your wedding business, you absolutely don’t. And if you want to be recommended, then people need to know what they’re recommending you for.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, that’s such a good point. Like, you can’t make a good recommendation if you can’t kind of compartmentalize what it is that you’re recommending. So that takes us to E.

Becca Pountney:
Okay, E stands for experience era. I know, and you know as well as I do, that we are living right now, I believe, in an experience era here in London. And I think it’s probably the same in the US as well. We are seeing all of these experiences popping up all over the place. So you can go to the Friends live experience, the Squid Game experience, the Stranger Things experience, the Traitors experience. You know, the list goes on and on and on of these experiences that you can for, for a night out in London. And that’s no accident. It’s because right now, for some reason, in this post-COVID digital world, we’re all craving hands-on experiences. And so we need to understand our customers are living in this experience era. And so when they are coming to us for their weddings, this is all part of their wedding planning experience. And we need to consider that when it comes to our marketing and also our customer service and sales too.

Heidi Thompson:
Tell me more about that. How do you see this focus on experience weaving into those different areas of the business?

Becca Pountney:
Okay, so it’s going to depend on the kind of business you have, whether you’re in person, whether you’re doing everything online, service-based. So let’s give a couple of examples. Let’s say you own a bridal boutique and someone books an appointment to come to your bridal boutique. I want you to consider the full experience they’re getting at that bridal boutique. Is it just very transactional? They come, they’re just another person in a long list of people you’re seeing, they try on a dress, they leave. Or are you really considering how you can make that an experience? Are they bringing someone with them? Are you giving them a drink on arrival? Are you playing their favourite music that you found out on a questionnaire when they booked their appointment? Have you got a photo area where they can say that they said yes to the dress? I’ve seen people with paddleboards that they can hold up and have selfies with. You know, what are you doing to make it more than just a quick sale and to turn it into their wedding dress shopping experience. Because we know that people are TikToking about this stuff. They want an experience. They don’t just want to feel like a number. Okay, let’s think of another example. I dunno, a cake maker, for example. So say you make cakes and you are gonna send a sample box to someone in the post. Well, you could just stick that in a Jiffy bag, or you could make that whole moment when they get the cake tasting box arrive on their door a full experience? What’s it packaged in? What’s it like when they open? Is there a ribbon in it? Is there a scent in there? Is it something that they could unbox live on Instagram because it’s pretty and it has your brand involved? So take whatever it is that you do, your product or service, and consider, am I just doing the basics or is this going to feel like a memorable experience? Which, guess what, leads into standing out and also leads into them giving recommendations.

Heidi Thompson:
It really is incredible how much the little things, the not costly, like, little things that you can do to enhance an experience really does stand out to a customer. I know it does to me when I’m on the receiving end.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, it absolutely does to me. I often give an example of when my first child started school, and it’s a big deal as a parent when your first child starts school. And I came out having dropped him off at the school gate and seen him in, and I was feeling a little bit emotional. And as I walked out, the parent-teacher group gave me a gift bag with a packet of tissues, a cookie, and a tea bag. Oh, and it was the most simple thing, the most unaffected, like, like it didn’t cost anything basically, but, or very little, but it meant so much to me in that moment. It hit me right where I was. It was part of the experience. And I mean, my son’s now 12 and I’m still talking about it on a podcast to you. So, you know, a tiny little moment of experience is very memorable for people.

Heidi Thompson:
That is so sweet and that’s such a good idea. And like you said, that’s a super, super low cost thing and it’s so sweet and it’s so memorable and it’s just this beautiful thing you get to do as a kindness, you know, to your clients, to your potential clients. And it just helps the entire business, which is wonderful. I love when we can do things that are like, I get to be a nice person and there are positive business results.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, exactly. And don’t think it has to cost you loads. I think that’s one of the things people start panicking, like they’ve got to do these big gestures. Sometimes it could just be a handwritten card that you send them after an appointment, or when they book. Like, think about really low-cost ways that you can give someone a better experience.

You know, if you— even if you’re exhibiting at a wedding showcase this year, are you just standing there selling to them behind the table? Or when they come and visit your booth, are you giving them a memorable experience? Because that’s going to be much more interesting for them than you just being like, hey, do you want to buy my product? So yeah, we’re living in an experience era. The age of the marketing theme park is definitely an experience era. So I just want people to consider where they can add that experience element into the customer journey.

Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I love that it doesn’t have to be something huge and it doesn’t have to be something super expensive. So that brings us to the A in SCREAM.

Becca Pountney
Okay, A is a letter that I love to hate because I think it describes the marketing theme park era very well, and it’s definitely something we’re seeing here in the wedding industry. A stands for attention economy because we’re living in an attention economy where everyone’s vying for our attention and all of our attentions are getting shorter and shorter and shorter, and it’s terrifying. So the stats for how many people are on two screens at the same time— so often I show a slide when I’m speaking about how do you think people are wedding planning this year, and then it’s basically a picture of a couple watching Netflix whilst both being on their phones. And that’s the reality. We don’t have people’s full attention. Even people watching TV are not giving the TV their full attention.

They’re scrolling on their phone, maybe they’re looking for their wedding photographer at the same time. And so we have to understand that people are not reading long paragraphs of text. People are making snap judgments about our marketing, about our messaging very fast. They want easy-to-buy customer experiences. I mean, I don’t know about you, Heidi, but now in 2026, when I’m making a payment on my phone and it involves me getting off my sofa to go and find a physical bank card, I feel cross because I’m so used to just tapping my finger twice and paying for everything on Apple Pay. That’s not a good thing, but it’s absolutely a reflection of the culture and the consumerism that we are living in right now. And that’s what our couples are used to. So we need to understand we’re living in an attention economy. Attention is short. We’ve not got long to grab people’s attention, and if we do have their attention, we need to make it super easy for them to move onto the next step of their customer journey with us.

Heidi Thompson
What does that translate to? Because there are so many different ways that you could apply that.

Becca Pountney:
I mean, it translates in all sorts of areas, but let’s for a moment think about social media. Okay, so if you are trying to attract people on social media, we know that basically the first like half second of your video, the hook on the screen, has to grab their attention. Otherwise they’re gonna scroll on past. How about on your website? If I come to your website, immediately as I land on your page, you’ve got 0.5 of a second for me to understand who you are and what you do and whether you’re right for me. So is that picture at the top of the page really clear? Is the headline really clear? Can I see very quickly if you’re the right person for me and I should give you more attention? If, for example, you’ve got an inquiry form on your website, uh, and you want people to inquire more, are you asking them 25 questions, or are you asking them the minimal viable questions that qualifies the lead?

So there’s lots of different applications, as you say, but we need to look at all of our processes through the lens of realizing that we don’t have people’s attention, and we can’t get cross with them about it because we get cross with people ghosting us, we get cross with people not reading our emails properly. But if if we’re honest, if we self-reflect for more than 5 minutes, we realize actually we’re guilty of that sometimes too. I don’t know about you, Heidi, but sometimes I realize that my friend texted me a couple of days ago and it’s gone a couple of days and I forgot to text her back. Not because I don’t like her, not because I don’t want to talk to her, but because something else stole my attention. And if I can do that to a really good friend, of course sometimes I’m going

Becca Pountney:
I would never do that to someone who’s trying to sell me something.

Heidi Thompson:
Absolutely. And we have to keep in mind, it’s not personal. It’s just the state of the world. It’s just how we exist as human beings right now.

Becca Pountney
Yeah, exactly. And I don’t love it. I’m not, I’m not saying that I love the world that we’re living in, but I think we have to be realistic.

And like I said right towards the beginning, sometimes we get cross and blame our customers and we’re like, why do they not reply to us?

Becca Pountney:
And actually, if we were to dig in and look at the emails we’re sending, look at what we’re saying to them. Sometimes our messaging is long and complicated and confusing, or we’ve sent them this massive long email, or they’ve gone on a directory and clicked on 25 different buttons and suddenly got 25 people’s brochures back. They’re overwhelmed and now they can’t possibly reply to everyone. So sometimes we need to give a bit of grace to our clients and realise it’s definitely not personal.

Heidi Thompson
And it’s such a good prompt to think about, like, how could I break this down? Into more bite-sized pieces? How could I make this an easier experience, more digestible? Like, I don’t need answers to all these 20 questions up front. I can get some of that as part of the inquiry process and just breaking it up to meet people where they are. Like, it’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is. That’s how we are.

Becca Pountney:
And I often say to people as well, like, would one of my children be able to buy from you?

Becca Pountney
Because my children can go on Amazon and buy something. They could do as soon as they’re about 7 or 8 because it’s so easy and they understand how it works. And so I always think that’s a good test. Have a look at your processes.

Becca Pountney:
You think they’re simple, but actually, could a child go on there and understand what they had to do? Because that’s the level we’re working at. We need to make sure that it’s super duper simple and it can’t be missed what you want them to do next. So using wording on your website saying very clearly what the next steps are. I love it when people put on their website like, how to work with us. Step 1, fill out this form. Step 2, we’ll contact you and have a call. Step 3, you sign the contract and we come and work at your wedding. It sounds basic, but people have never done this before. They don’t understand what the process is, and if we can be clear with them about it, it’s only going to help.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone where I’m like, oh, this is too clear. Like, we all want clarity, we all want understanding of what’s going to happen next, and it’s uncomfortable for us to not have that.

Becca Pountney:
And all of us hate that feeling when we don’t understand. If you go into a cafe and you don’t understand the ordering process, or you don’t know, can I sit down, do I stand up? It’s why often at the front of cafes they have those big signs that are like, please wait here to be seated, because no one wants to just wander in and then realize they’ve done the wrong thing. It’s an awkward feeling as a human, and we just then end up freezing and doing nothing.

And so we need to make it super, super clear for our couples so that we don’t make them feel like that.

Heidi Thompson
And then we have the final letter M.

Becca Pountney:
The final letter of the M in SCREAM in the marketing theme park stands for multiple routes. And what I mean by that is in the age of the marketing theme park, there is definitely not one clear marketing funnel route from A to B. You go into a theme park and everyone goes in a different direction and takes it in their own way. And we are 100% seeing this in the wedding industry right now. What I mean by that, Some people will come to your website, look at your website, head over to your Instagram, send you a message on Instagram. Other people will find you on TikTok, search you on Instagram, go to your website, fill in your contact form. Some people wanna send you a text, some people wanna give you a call. Some people will meet you at wedding show, then go away and stalk you over social media and then get in touch with you. There is no one clear route and everyone is doing a different thing. And as a business owner, that can feel overwhelming. But again, it’s kind of the reality we’re living in that people want to take their own path. And I think if we want to close the deals, we need to meet them where they’re at rather than trying to force them down the path that we choose.

Heidi Thompson
I feel like this is a theme through all of this, of just meeting people where they are, not being judgmental about it, just allowing, you know, the path of least resistance, allowing people to function the way they’re going to function, whether you like it or not, and just meeting them where they are to make it easy to work with you. And this multiple roots idea is Perfect. You think about anybody who navigates a theme park, anybody that goes to Disney, they have a different strategy.

Heidi Thompson
They have a different way of moving through it.

Heidi Thompson
You know what they prioritize, what they always go to, what they never go to. And it’s very much the same thing in our businesses. And I’m sure you’ve seen, I know I’ve seen way too many of these, like Instagram accounts for wedding professionals that have something on them like no DMs.

Heidi Thompson:
And it’s like, oh no, no, you’re not, you’re not meeting people where they are.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, 100%. That or an automated reply that says, hi, we don’t answer these DMs. I’m like, oh, you’ve lost me now.

Heidi Thompson:
It’s like the equivalent of walking up to a store and on, you know, the door is taped a sign that’s like, we closed early. And it’s like, oh, okay.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, exactly. And then we expect customers to fall in line with what we want. Now I understand it’s hard, we’re busy people and we want to stream online things where possible. But actually, if we want to close a sale, we need to meet people where they’re at. The worst thing you can do is if someone sends you an Instagram DM is to then reply to that message and say, hey, can you just send me a quick email about that? Because ultimately they’ve chosen to message you on that platform for a reason. And what we’re seeing a lot in the younger generation is they don’t even check their emails, barely ever. And that’s why they get lost. If someone sends you a text and you’ve put your text number out there on the internet for people to be able to text you to inquire, then you can have the conversation on text Just because you may be a millennial like me doesn’t mean you have to formally do everything on email. You can put the same text in a, in a message, send it back to them. You could even send the link to book a diary appointment on a text message. You could even FaceTime them and do the call on FaceTime if you want to be radical instead of trying to make them go on Zoom. There are so many options, but I think we need to understand people are coming at us from different routes and we need to meet them where they are coming to us if we want to close the sale.

Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and like that weaves all of this together, you know, it’s where their attention is, it improves the experience, it allows you to stand out because there are people who just will not respond if, you know, someone DMs them or texts them even though, like you said, that business has put that means of communication out there and you expect as a consumer to be able to get a response when you reach out to them and when you don’t, it’s like, well, I’m not going to continue to try to talk to this person.

Heidi Thompson
They’re clearly not interested in working with me, and you’re just going to move on.

Becca Pountney
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we all have the right to boundaries, and we can set those boundaries. So for example, here in the UK right now, we know that WhatsApp is a really huge preferred method of communication that’s coming from couples right now, because we don’t really do the SMS thing as much as you do in the States. It’s all about WhatsApp. And yet people don’t want to give out their personal number, and I completely respect that. And so I’m encouraging people, if you want to go down that route, you know, find a business number. You can set up a WhatsApp on a business number. People can text you on a business number. You can still set yourself clear boundaries. You can separate your life and your work, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the tools available to you. So I do think boundaries are important, but if we’re putting something out there, if we want to do what’s working right now and meet people where they’re at, we need to be willing to find ways to make that

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, and there are always ways. There are always ways to work around. You could set up a Google Voice number. You can set schedules around that. You can set it so it either rings or it doesn’t ring, or, you know, you are in control of that. But we need to realize that other people are in control of how they choose to reach out to us. And yeah, like you said, you get the choice. Do you wanna close the sale? Meet them where they are. Do you want to argue about the best way to communicate? You know, tell them to move the communication to another method.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah. And we know that if we put up friction, then the chance of converting that sale gets less and less and less. We see it in our own lives all of the time. Like, we go to a store and we go to try and buy an outfit and they don’t have it in our size. Well, there’s friction there and we walk away. Or we go and we want to try it on, but we can’t find where the change rooms are and we’re short of time. We leave and walk away. So as soon as we put barriers in the way for people— okay, some people may overcome those barriers because they’re really keen, but you will lose a percentage of people if you put barriers in the way.

Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I mean, people seek that out.

Heidi Thompson:
People seek out convenience. I know I chose my, like, primary care doctor because I can book with them online and I can see them through an app on my phone. I don’t have to physically go when I’m like I’m super sick and feeling awful and don’t wanna leave my house, I can just talk to them on there, and that’s so much more convenient than what I was doing before. I was like, yeah, I’m obviously gonna go to this doctor. Makes my life so much easier.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, exactly. But for someone else, their choice might be they would only wanna go to the doctor that would always see them face-to-face, right? So everyone’s gonna have different preferences, and that’s fine. So we can live in those different preferences and find the way. But yeah, absolutely. We know that couples, the data showing, They want convenience. It’s an attention economy. So let’s make it as easy as possible for them. And so the exercise I would encourage anyone who’s listening to do, based on everything we’ve talked about today, is to actually just write down, grab a piece of paper and map out the current journey that your customers have to go on and look for where these things we’ve talked about could be improved. Where are there friction? Is there a place where they have to fill out a form and then get an autores— you send them another email back and then they have to right away fill in another form or spin in a circle and jump through 3 times. Like, often we think our processes are simple, we think we’ve got all this stuff nailed, but when we actually write it down on paper step by step by step, we realize, oh, actually, why do I make them do that at that point? Could I do that earlier in the process, later in the process? Could I take that out entirely? Is it a pointless part of the buying process that I don’t need to use? And, uh, see where the friction is and see where the changes I need to make.

Heidi Thompson:
I could see a lot of value in just going through your own process as an inquiry and seeing like what Do you receive in what order?

Heidi Thompson:
And like, how quickly do you get a response back? What are the forms? Like, what are the things required? Are you reading through this email and you’re like, well, hang on, this isn’t super clear what the next step is. You can find so many opportunities to improve the experience. And like you said, remove that friction because as easy as we can make it for people in the different ways that like they think, the different ways they work through things, the easier it’s going to be to get the sale, which ultimately, that’s what we’re after.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, exactly. And every single one of us, whatever business we have, we can always make a 1% improvement. And I would encourage you to look at the world differently. This is how I live my life. Heidi, you probably do the same because we’ve got these marketer brains. But when I buy stuff or I don’t buy stuff, sometimes I reflect on the reason why I ignored that email, or the reason why that one made me purchase, or the reason why I bought that outfit from the TikTok ad.

Or why I scrolled past the other thing. Because if we understand our own consumer behavior, it helps us understand how we should be marketing our businesses to other people too.

Heidi Thompson:
Oh yeah, and there’s so many discoveries in that, and like things you wouldn’t even think matter or realize, and you’re like, huh, I just spent this much money on this thing because of this super small reason. Okay, I guess that’s important. And I think there’s so much you can take from just being a little bit more aware about what you are doing as a consumer. And like you said, we all do this. It’s all the same psychology that, you know, affects all of us and how we shop and how we make decisions.

Becca Pountney:
Yeah. And I often say as well, look at what the big players are doing. Look at the big brands, because we might not have their marketing budget, but they’re often leading the way and shaping the way the consumers are working. So that’s why I love to look at brands like Amazon and Uber and Uber Eats and all of these big brands because they’re doing things for a reason. You know, why are Google doing the things they’re doing at the moment? Why are Uber doing the things they’re doing? It’s because they know it works. And so although we don’t have their marketing team or their marketing budget, we could always take pieces of what they’re doing and put it into our own businesses. Because whether you’re a small business or a huge corporation, often we’re still selling to the same people, and therefore they’re the same kinds of customers. And often our customers don’t see us as a small business, they just see us as a business they need for their wedding. It’s often us that puts ourselves in that category.

Heidi Thompson:
That’s very true. And I think, you know, these big businesses really set the expectation, or just like the norm, of what we expect when we order something, or when we purchase something, or when we sign up for something, or, you know, hire someone for a service. Like, we are all so used to making these purchases in these ecosystems that it does have a huge ripple effect across the industry. So again, like you’ve said, if you can meet people where they are, it’s going to be a lot easier to make sales.

Heidi Thompson:
100%.

Heidi Thompson:
Well, Becca, this has been great. Where can people go to connect with you and learn more from you?

Becca Pountney:
Well, if you’ve enjoyed what I have to say, do go and have a look at my podcast as well. It’s called Wedding Pros Who Are Ready to Grow, and it just won a huge podcast award here in the UK. So if you enjoy podcasting, come over and listen to that. And if you want to chat with me directly, I hang out the most over on Instagram @beccapountney.

Heidi Thompson:
Like a true millennial, right?

Becca Pountney:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I do have a TikTok, but I definitely don’t hang out there myself very often. So if you want to get me, find me in the millennial social media place, the Instagram DMs.

Heidi Thompson:
Thank you so much for being here.

Becca Pountney:
Thank you for having me.

Heidi Thompson
All right, I will link to Becca’s podcast, which is fantastic. If you don’t listen to it, you definitely should. I listen to it, I love it, I learn a ton.

And I will also link to her Instagram so you can reach out to her, let her know you heard this episode and let her know what you learned. We genuinely all love to hear that from people.

Heidi Thompson
You know, we do these sorts of podcasts, we do trainings and workshops, and we love hearing like, what did you actually learn from that? So I will link to that and I would love to hear from you, of course.

Shoot me a DM over on @EvolveYourWeddingBusiness on Instagram.

Heidi Thompson
Let me know, what did you learn from this episode? How did it change how you are thinking about marketing your business? And I will speak to you again very soon.