There has been a bridal show or wedding fair every weekend so far this month in my area. If you have recently participated in a fair, hopefully you are busy following up on your leads. If so, you’ll appreciate today’s Q&A, where I answer a question from a new wedding planner who needs help following up because she is on a tight budget.
Question
I recently had a booth at a bridal show and received the names and addresses of all of the brides who attended. I was planning to send all of them a postcard but I didn’t realize until now how much printing and postage would cost. I thought I would start at the top of the list and mail as many as I could and do the rest at other time.
Is this a good idea? Do you have any suggestions?
Answer
The first leads you want to handle are the ones you collected yourself in your booth. Call or email any brides who showed an interest in setting up a consultation and book them for appointments as soon as possible.
Next, contact brides who came into your booth, spoke with you, and gave you their contact information.
Take the list of your personal contacts, compare it to the list you received from the show, and eliminate duplicates.
Review the list from the show. Does it have information about when the bride is getting married? What her budget might be? Where she might be getting married? If so, and her information does not match your profile of your ideal client, don’t mail to these brides.
If you don’t have much more than names and addresses, mail postcards to the brides whose zip codes are in your target area and the ones on your own list.
Plan to send out a series of postcards, not just one. It will take several mailings to catch a bride’s attention. And don’t just pitch your services and a show discount, offer valuable tips or a checklist so a bride keeps your postcard around and knows who to call when she is ready for a wedding planner.
If you received email addresses and permission to contact people via email, market to all brides with a weekly e-newsletter for a fairly low cost using an email marketing service such as Emma, Mail Chimp, or Constant Contact. Do not mail directly from your email account or your Internet Service Provider will ban you for sending too many emails. Again, send tips and valuable information, and ask them to contact you for a consultation, don’t just make a sales pitch.
One thing to remember is that the list you receive from a bridal show is really a list of people who have attended the show or bought a ticket to attend, they are not necessarily good leads. People attend shows for a variety of reasons, some truly are brides looking for vendors, some are just looking for ideas and wedding inspiration, some hope to be brides soon, and some people just like to attend wedding fairs.
And if you have a pressing question about starting or running your wedding planning business that you want answered here, you can send me an email at [email protected].
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