photo by Jess Palatucci
@jesspalatucci
Wedding businesses are a vital part of the wedding industry, and with so many businesses vying for the same clients, it’s essential to find ways to increase bookings. From the wedding venue and planner to the photographer, catering, florists, and more, it’s becoming more challenging for wedding businesses to secure bookings with increasing competition and ever-changing desires couples have for the picture-perfect wedding. To stay competitive and increase bookings, wedding pros need to develop effective marketing strategies that appeal to their ideal couples and stand out in the sea of competition.
Here are some of my top tips to increase your bookings:
Develop a Strong Online Presence
In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for any business, and wedding businesses are no exception. Most couples planning their wedding will begin their search on social media before the engagement is even official. Therefore, it’s essential to have a solid brand presence on the social media platforms your ideal couples spend most of their time on already. TikTok and Instagram are the obvious choices but Pinterest and Facebook are also important options depending on who your target audience is and what they are doing on each platform.
Remember that you need to share content that resonates with your ideal client. This may mean posting about new restaurants in the local area, funny memes, cute dog/cat pictures, etc.  Developing a strong online presence not only increases visibility but also builds credibility and trust with potential couples. When they feel like “you get them”, it strengthens the decision to have you be a part of their wedding day versus another vendor.
Another way to attract couples and create a strong online presence is through a blog. Your blog can be a great way to showcase your expertise, offer helpful tips and advice to couples planning their weddings, and share your latest work. To make things multi-purpose, use those tips and put them into a Reel or TikTok and post it to your social media as well.
Offer Packages
Consider bundling your services/products together to create packages that offer a better value than booking each service separately. Think about the services/products and combinations that are most popular and put them together in a package. Helping your couples make fewer decisions and streamline their choices make it easier for them to say yes as well as “save” on the costs. When you are creating your packages and pricing, make sure your individual service/product options are priced slightly higher than what the package price breakdown would be.
Price anchoring is another way to use packages to help you sell more of a package you want. This is where you would have 3 options and the middle option becomes the best value when compared to the price and service/products included in the other 2 options sandwiching the middle one. Value is generally based on a relative scale (middle price compared to the other 2 options) versus an absolute value.
Provide Exceptional Customer Service
Providing exceptional customer service is crucial for any business, but it’s especially important for wedding businesses. Weddings are usually stressful events full of pressure they place on themselves as well as cultural, familial, and social pressure placed on them but others. Couples want to work with vendors who are reliable, responsive, and accommodating. Make sure to respond to inquiries promptly, be flexible with scheduling, and go above and beyond to ensure your clients are happy.
This said, you do not have to sell your soul or life to your clients either. Creating realistic boundaries that allow for you to service your ideal clients while still maintaining work-life balance is important to prevent burnout.
While it may seem like common sense, wedding businesses should be punctual, professional, and provide exceptional service. Of course, life happens and there are things outside your control, however making sure you prepare in advance mitigates risk for things like traffic, accidents, sickness, etc. Allotting extra time for travel and preparation ensure that you don’t start the wedding day stressed.
Collect and Showcase Reviews
Customer reviews and testimonials are powerful tools for increasing bookings. Potential clients often rely on reviews and testimonials to gauge the quality of services offered by a wedding business. Therefore, wedding businesses should encourage customers to leave reviews and testimonials and showcase them on their website and social media platforms. Positive reviews can build credibility and trust with potential customers and generate more bookings in the future.
Understanding where your ideal couples search for your reviews will also help you know where to focus your efforts to request reviews. Making it easy for them to write reviews is also important. Sending a follow-up email after the wedding with links to where they can write a review, letting them know they can copy/paste the review in multiple sites, and even providing an incentive like a Starbucks gift card provides a greater incentive for the couple to leave a review.
Once it is posted, make sure you highlight the review or testimonial on your social media accounts. Talk about the review and why the couple’s wedding was unique and fun for you to be a part of so other couples who can identify with it find more reasons to book you.
Showcase Your Work
One of the best ways to attract new clients is to showcase your work. No one wants to book a wedding vendor blindly. Remember that your Instagram is like your portfolio as much as your website is so make sure your photos on Instagram are not too dark or blurry. You want your product/service to be seen in order for couples to want what you offer.
Also remember to tag your posts with all the other vendors. Tag the post (picture/video) as well as list them all in the caption. Then make sure you share the post on your IG Story and tag the vendors again there so they can easily repost it to their stories and show their audience the work you did together.
You can also submit your work to wedding blogs and publications to get more exposure. Using a platform like Matchology allows for you to do this seamlessly and helps to match you with the right publications who would be interested in your work. Some publications also have vendor directories where you can have a profile and it will showcase multiple examples of your work in a portfolio like Zola. It allows for couples to find you and then view examples of your work all in one place where they already are.
Attend Wedding Industry Events
Attending wedding industry events is a great way to network with other wedding professionals. It can be a bit overwhelming if you are new or don’t know anyone else going to the event but once you’ve decided you are going, you can do some research to see who else is going and try to connect with them in advance.
Check out their work on Instagram or TikTok, like/comment/share their posts, see who else they work with, and get to know who they are and what is important to them. Taking the time to learn about them allows you to be strategic and intentional about your partnerships and time when networking.
We like to pair our networking events with other purposes to maximize your time like at our State of the Wedding Industry Mastermind events or our TBME (The Bridal Masterclass Experience) styled shoot content days to all for deeper connections to be formed while you are also working on your business and creating content to use for your social media. Be sure to sign up for our email list and follow our Eventbrite page to get notifications about upcoming events.
Collaborate with Other Wedding Professionals
Collaborating with other wedding professionals is a great way to cross-promote your services and reach new clients by leveraging each other’s customer base, increase visibility, and provide more value to couples. Getting to know other vendors, such as wedding planners, photographers, and caterers through styled shoots (like TBME!) or other wedding industry events allows you to not only meet them but work with them. When you both know you can trust each other’s expertise and make couples happy, it is a no-brainer why you would refer clients to each other.
Contributing to styled shoots together and creating ideas and executing them together allows for a free flow of creativity and fun. Working with other vendors can be intimidating or stressful when only one has a particular vision and is rigid on what and how it should be executed. No one wants to work with vendors that make their job more difficult or stressful. When everyone comes into the collaboration with the same energy, it helps to facilitate relationships and fun shared experiences you want to recreate again (i.e. work on weddings together!).
In order for you to increase bookings for your wedding business, you need to implement a multifaceted approach. If you are doing these things and still not getting any results, email me to schedule a 15-minute call to uncover ways you can improve your efforts and book more of the types of weddings with couples you want to serve: hello@thebridalmasterclass.com
