Tired of only getting low budget brides? Maybe it’s time to look at the source of your leads.
In today’s Q&A, I talk about a popular source of leads for new wedding planners and why it might not be working as well as you might hope.
Question
To get brides I use a service where I pay for leads. I get some brides who are willing to pay for wedding planning services but many brides want me to practically work for free.
I want quality brides. Do you have suggestions for my situation?
Answer
Unfortunately, I haven’t met any wedding planners who have been able to build a successful business just by using lead services such as the one you are using (I won’t mention the name here). Many don’t get responses when they reach out to the brides given to them as “leads.” Or, like you, they’ve found that brides were just trying to get the lowest possible prices they could for wedding planning services.
A bride who understands the value of a wedding planner and is willing to pay premium prices probably isn’t going to log into a website and request free quotes. Instead, she will go to friends, who have recently gotten married, and ask them for the name of the planner who helped them. She will ask family, friends, and fellow churchgoers if they know anyone who is good. Once she gets the names of wedding planners, she will look them up on the Internet to find out more about them to help her decide who she may want to call.
What this means, and I know I say this a lot, is that you can’t hide in your office and hope that quality brides will find you. You need to go out in your community, meet people and widen your circle of business and personal relationships. Join business networking groups, find local chapters of wedding and event planner associations, do volunteer work, join groups at your place of worship and let people get to know you.
Yes, you need to spend some time on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media sites to market your business. And, you can invest in ads on wedding websites and you may try a pay-for-leads website (watch your budget carefully). But don’t think that the Internet alone will deliver quality brides to you. You still need to physically go out and meet brides and the people who can refer them to you.
And if you have a pressing question about starting or running your wedding planning business, you can send me an email at [email protected]. I will answer them on this blog or in my ezine, “Wedding Planner Tips,” which you can subscribe to here.
