National Wedding Marketing Day

Special Guest Blogger: Andy Ebon, Wedding University & The Wedding Marketing Blog

Wedding Marketing Planning Day 2014 is not an official day on the calendar, but it would be wise to schedule one for yourself.

HERE’S THE IDEA

Choose a single day to set your goals, work through a plan and budget, and commit to it, in writing.

Between now and then, gather up all your existing agreements for advertising and marketing, contact companies you have considered, but not yet worked with. Ask for their marketing kit. Query your peers for any fresh ideas they suggest you should consider.

CRUNCH THE NUMBERS

• How many weddings did you book in each of the last two years?
• What was the average dollar-sale per event?
• How much money did you spend on wedding marketing?
• Per wedding, how many marketing dollars were spent? (Total wedding marketing dollars, divided by number of bookings, weddings, cakes… whatever your unit for one wedding)
• How much available capacity does your company have for more wedding business without expanding?
• Are you turning away bookings of price? If you aren’t, your prices are probably too low.

PICK A DAY

I have a couple suggestion.  Christmas falls on Wednesday, this year, so anytime between December 26-30 makes for relatively easy scheduling.

WHERE

Almost anywhere private is good, except your office. Rent a hotel room if you must, but isolate yourself. You’ll want your laptop, but turn off email. Set a “vacation announcement” auto-response and don’t hesitate to mention you’re taking a planning day. Same for voicemail. Turn your phone off.

One of the keys to this exercise is NO DISTRACTIONS.

BUDDY SYSTEM

If you don’t have a business partner, you can increase your chances for success by working with a business buddy. Have them arrive at your secret location for the last 90 minutes – 2 hours, and discuss/critique your plans, before you finalize them.

You’ll have to sell the ideas in your plan to the business buddy. Maybe they’ll spot a couple of questionable moves. Ask them to challenge your decisions. Make it OK for them to suggest specific alternatives. You’ll either reaffirm your choices or set them aside. Either is fine. You may adopt some fresh ideas.

Of course, reciprocate with your buddy for their planning day.

ADJUSTMENTS WILL BE NECESSARY

One year is a long time. Circumstances will change, and you’ll need to make marketing modifications.

Allow some budgetary wiggle room, say 10-20% for new opportunities you don’t want to pass up.

• Track your lead sources, resulting appointments, and sales closing rate.
• Summarize those numbers monthly and quarterly. Interpret the data.
• What looks right, below par, or is exceeding expectations.
• What do you learn from the statistics and how will you adjust?

OK… get out your calendar… find a buddy, if you choose, and begin the process. Don’t plan on doing ANY other business that day. If you do this properly, your brain won’t have any more capacity for other work.

Make sure to include plenty of caffeine.

Have fun, enjoy the solitude and uninterrupted energy and expect a profitable outcome.

Andy Ebon
Wedding Marketing Expert
The Wedding Marketing Blog