In today’s digital age, couples consult more channels than ever before when planning their weddings. An integrated cross-channel marketing approach is essential to cut through the noise and reach your target audience.
At the recent Evolve wedding industry conference, presented by Easy Weddings and Venue Crew, wedding suppliers learned about modern marketing strategies to thrive in a changing industry. Here’s a recap.
At Evolve, Easy Weddings Marketing Director, Priya Kanniappan, and B2B Communications Manager, Mel Buttigieg, shared a comprehensive guide to help wedding businesses build an effective integrated marketing strategy.
Why Integrated Marketing Matters
Google research shows that 53% of Australians consult at least five different touchpoints to make a single purchase decision. As a wedding business, it’s impossible to prioritise every channel. Instead, focus on building an integrated marketing strategy that leverages both social media and owned channels.
The research phase of a couple’s planning journey is the most critical for your sales funnel. Our data tells us that couples are taking an integrated approach to their research, with social media, websites and your Easy Weddings storefront being critical touchpoints that motivate them to make an enquiry.
Prioritising your channel mix at the start of the research phase, before couples shortlist their suppliers, will maximise your success at the bottom of the funnel when they enter the enquiry stage.
The Role of Social Media
Social media offers a unique opportunity to connect with couples on a personal level. Here’s how to make the most of it:
- Engage Your Audience: Give couples a reason to follow, save your content, and re-engage. Ask questions, post polls, and encourage couples to share their wedding planning experiences.
- Build Social Proof: Foster a personal connection by showcasing your brand, creative process, and expertise. This helps build trust and credibility.
- Collaborate: Partner with other suppliers to cross-promote both businesses. Tag! Tag! Tag!
- Leverage Your Couples: Send them pics of your service or product to share with their networks and tag you.
- Be Authentic: Use visual content to showcase your personal brand, passion, and craft. Share results, including before and after shots, inspiration boards and behind-the-scenes content.
- Use Captions: Think of your captions like keywords — consumers are using social media’s search function to research products and services, so utilise this tool to increase your visibility.
1. Set Your Content Channels
Determine which channels are most effective for your business and focus your efforts there. Focus on one or two platforms that you can do well, and repurpose content across other platforms. Note that our target demographic (Gen Z and young Millennials) are most active on Instagram and TikTok, so include those in your marketing mix.
- Instagram: Ideal for targeting Gen Y and younger Millennials with video content and image inspiration. Prioritise Reels and Stories as Meta prefers videos.
- TikTok: Focus on video content creation for the future demographic (Gen Z). Don’t ignore this platform.
- YouTube: Showcase your products, especially if you’re a musician, videographer, or MC.
- Pinterest: Use for mood board inspiration and link to blog articles or Instagram.
- LinkedIn: Network with other wedding vendors.
- Facebook: Great for networking with local wedding vendors and joining wedding groups to increase visibility.
2. Optimise Your Website For Conversion
If you don’t have an enquiry form built into your website, you’re missing an opportunity to optimise your website for conversion. Keep it simple, and only request essential contact information to improve the likelihood of a lead filling it out.
Avoid making the wedding date mandatory, as they may not have set a date yet. However, asking for their partner’s name is a nice touch to help you personalise your communications with both parties moving forward.
SEO is a whole craft, but setting up a blog section on your website and sharing regular quality content relating to your category will help you rank in Google.
It’s all about demonstrating your expertise in your craft. Start by creating informative blog posts that add value, and landing pages targeting relevant keywords and topics to attract organic traffic to your site.
If you are not quite at the Pro Level, that’s OK. Focus on nailing the fundamentals of a solid digital marketing strategy.
3. Audit Your Content
Your owned channels include your website, social media profiles, Easy Weddings storefront, and promotional materials.
- Review Your Portfolio Across ALL Channels: Are you everywhere, across channels? Don’t set and forget; ensure content is consistent across platforms – including your social media, website, Easy Weddings storefront, and any brochures or info packs.
- Maintain a Consistent Brand Identity: Does your branding match modern wedding trends? Use cohesive colours, fonts, and imagery across all channels to create a memorable brand that resonates with modern couples.
- Select High-Quality Visuals: Showcase your craft with high-resolution images that are well-lit, feature people (not just products), and are emotive and aspirational, matching the trends couples want for their weddings.
- Refresh Brand Content Seasonally: Update images, videos, and copy regularly to keep your content fresh and relevant.
4. Create a Content Calendar Across Channels
Before creating a content calendar, define your content pillars and bulk-plan content around those themes.
The graphic below provides some inspiration to guide you. However, the pillars you choose will depend on your business goals.
Ultimately, you want to share content that builds social proof, showcases your personal brand, and demonstrates your expertise.
You can achieve this by sharing content on wedding trends, how-to guides, and planning tips to support couples.
Below is an example of a simple content planning template we use in Google Sheets. Our social media team populates it with images and text to plan a bulk schedule through the Later platform, saving time later on.
5. Invest in Smart Technology
You don’t need high-tech video recording equipment to create good content. Smartphone cameras are generally high enough quality to do the job – remember authenticity is the key to building a brand that resonates.
However, it can be worthwhile to invest in a decent microphone for professional audio to improve the user experience. We use a small, portable and lightweight Rode mic that connects to our team’s mobile phones, but there are some great and affordable options currently on the market.
Lean into automation and utilise tools like CRMs to streamline your marketing. Suppliers that advertise on Easy Weddings have free access to our purpose-built WedCRM platform where they can manage their leads pipeline and automate their communications touchpoints.
If you need help using the functions, please contact your Partnership Manager, call our customer success team at 1800 155 122, or email service@easyweddings.com.au.
6. Make Analytics Your Superpower
Track everything to ensure you’re meeting the needs of your couples.
Plan future activities from learnings to continuously improve your marketing strategy.
- Meta Business Suite is used to track the performance of ad campaigns, social activity and content
- Sprout Social is a platform to help manage community engagement and can also be used as a social listening tool to help identify messaging about your brand or category
- GA4 is used to analyse web traffic and channel performance
7. Chase Reviews
Weddings are generally a one-time purchase and couples have just one chance to plan the wedding of their dreams. They want to work with suppliers they can trust to bring their wedding day vision to life. That’s why social proof is so powerful.
Think of your past couples as your brand ambassadors. Their testimonials are messages to future couples about what they might expect when working with you.
Easy Weddings is not just a platform to increase your brand visibility in market, but also an additional touchpoint to receive more verified reviews. We currently have more than 300,000 verified reviews on our website, from couples who have used our suppliers.
Our data tells us that having a review improves a supplier’s chance of receiving an enquiry by 25%, but 11 or more reviews boosts those odds to 200%. As a goal, aim for 40+ reviews, to boost your chance of an enquiry by 300%!
Asking once will generate a response from 1 in 5 couples, but asking the same people twice, if they have yet to review you, increases the response rate to 1 in 3.
We always recommend responding to reviews with gratitude and with a personal account of the event — even the bad ones!)
Time For Action!
By following these steps, wedding businesses can create an integrated marketing strategy that effectively reaches and engages couples across multiple channels. Remember, the key is to be consistent, authentic, and always provide value to your audience. Don’t forget that people buy from people, so include a bit of your personality in your branding and marketing mix.
Remember: The most successful brands adapt their business to the needs and behaviours of their customers. When they change, you must change with them.
By incorporating these strategies shared at Evolve 2024, wedding businesses can strengthen client relationships and optimise their offerings to enhance their overall success. Whether it’s building trust, tailoring services, or leveraging social media, these insights provide a roadmap for thriving in today’s competitive market.
Catch up on more insights from Evolve 2024 with our articles: ‘How Wedding Businesses Are Staying Ahead in Tough Times’ and ‘The Wedding Businesses Thriving in a Challenging Market’.
To learn how your wedding venue or business can gain a competitive edge by partnering with Easy Weddings, submit an online enquiry form here, and we will be in touch.
