Last week we attended a networking event for wedding vendors hosted by Wedding Wire in Toronto. For those of you who are not familiar with Wedding Wire, it is an American website, much like ours, that services the North American market.
The event itself was quite nice, two hours of open bar and free hors d'oeuvres. We then listened to a presentation from the CMO of Wedding Wire. I thought the presentation was educational and very skillfully designed to contain a lot of information about the advancements of Google and Facebook, search engine optimization, meta tags, mobile apps, and more.
Amusingly it reminded me a bit of a commercial I've seen for an injury law firm where the lawyer is addressing the judge and saying "mumbo jumbo, mumbo jumbo". The judge then asks "mumbo?" And the lawyer answers "jumbo". The message is "leave the law talk to us" or something along those lines.
The marketing strategy behind this type of approach is definitely effective, because the truth is that many wedding vendors are intimidated by technology just like everyone else, and just want to focus on what they want to do best - weddings. It's easy to pass over the online marketing to the professionals, and focus on what you love to do, but you have to be careful about where your money is going and what you are getting in return.
Throughout the event I met a number of wedding vendors and asked them how they liked Wedding Wire, and what they liked about it. This kind of research is also valuable to developing useful features for www.BarrieWeddingDeals.com. A number of people responded that Wedding Wire rates are "not too bad" and they only pay about $60/month. When asked what they were getting in return for that $60/month the answers became a lot more vague. Some vendors stated that they are not in fact sure whether brides were finding them through Wedding Wire at all. One person said that she did track her inquiries and ended up probably breaking even on her advertising investment. Only one person stated that he is quite aware that this is an American site, and likely will not get him much business.
Let me be clear; this blog post is not about bashing Wedding Wire or any other competitive website. Wedding Wire obviously has their stuff together and is a reputable company. This blog post is about finding the right resources for YOUR company. I am not saying that your business would never be found on Wedding Wire, I am just asking you to research your options when it comes to your advertising budget.
One of the problems with Wedding Wire is that it offers everyone the exact same package regardless of your location. Certainly as a wedding vendor your needs would be different in L.A. as opposed to let's say Newmarket, Ontario. It's easy to become dazzled by fancy talk about Google advancements, video builders, apps and promises of search engines. The question you should be asking is how is all this going to market MY business?
At www.BarrieWeddingDeals.com we believe that an educated client is the best client. We spend a lot of time and individual attention with each vendor who has questions, to explain why and how our website will work for you. We are very locally focused and we understand the needs and marketing obstacles that vendors face north of Toronto. We are also happy to let you use our website for free for the entire year of 2013, so you have an adequate amount of time to determine whether this is a valuable tool for your business.
New marketing solutions including bridal show + web packages are underway for 2014 and we promise that they will fit every budget. This business for us is not about making strategic sales and a quick buck, but about developing long lasting relationships with our vendors who trust that our expertise and experience will bring the right audience to their business.
~Nadia Mantsvetova
Founder and Operator of www.BarrieWeddingDeals.com
