Jul 11

Jul 11 We're Not Letting WeddingIQ Be Foiled by Fear Anymore - Here's Why, and Here's What's Next

How often do you feel afraid as you run your business?

Maybe it's that you feel you project a level of success or expertise that you haven't quite earned, and that makes you feel like a fraud. Or maybe you feel like you're hiding behind a professional image that's too traditionally businesslike, feminine/masculine, conservative or "high-end" and you don't truly identify with it. Or, maybe you're scared shitless of the enormity of running a business, knowing what's at stake for you, your dependents, the clients who hire you and the colleagues who refer you.

I'd venture to guess we've all had those fearful feelings at some point or another. I certainly have; in fact, I have them pretty much on the regular.

Jul 8

Jul 8 Wedding PR vs. Marketing vs. Advertising: What in the World is the Difference?

Guest Contributor

Marketing

(Editor's Note: Our friend and colleague Meghan Ely of OFD Consulting is back on the blog today, offering more of her expert wisdom. Learn more about Meghan at the end of the post!)

Public relations, marketing, advertising...which is the best for me?

If you find yourself asking this, rest assured that you’re not alone. While each are unique and different disciplines, there’s often a lot of confusion about what sets them apart. However, it’s important to decipher the differences in order to determine which is the best option for your business goals.

Jul 6

Jul 6 Leveraging Non-Wedding Channels to Boost Your Wedding Business

Guest Contributor

Marketing

Where do couples look for our services? This is the question you have to ask yourself when delegating those precious marketing dollars. Wedding magazines, wedding shows and online wedding directories are the obvious choice. It’s where couples go to get ideas, shop vendors and plan the all the details of their dream wedding.

I don’t know about you but the last time I checked, I was one of hundreds of vendors in my category all vying for the same clients. Sure, we all try to stand out with elaborate wedding show booths, stunning imagery or paying for top online placement, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could somehow get our clients to look at only us and not the competition? Here are a few suggestions to start thinking about other ways to market yourself, making you the go-to vendor in your field.

Jul 1

Jul 1 This Mid-Year Marketing Checkup Will Save Your Wedding Business

Guest Contributor

Marketing, Planning

(Editor's Note: Today we're kicking off our July content theme: marketing! Yes, we covered this back in January, but given that we're halfway through 2016, it's time to revisit this important topic to keep our wedding businesses thriving! Keep an eye on our blog throughout the month of July for resources, support and inspiration on wedding business marketing!)

I suppose you could say that the headline for this post is a pretty bold claim. Yet, I believe it's totally accurate. After all, many small businesses, wedding businesses included, go under because their owners lose track of the big picture. It's so easy to get bogged down with all the demands of carrying out our contracted events that we forget to monitor everything that goes into attracting those events and clients. Now that the May and June madness are behind us, it's the perfect opportunity to look back at our 2016 marketing and determine what's working so far.

Jun 29

Jun 29 My Save-the-Day Secret: Vendors Share Their (Unexpected) Emergency Kit Must-Haves

Guest Contributor

Planning

We've spent the month of June talking about event day management: cultivating great vendor relationships and working as a team, dealing with annoying guests, getting into the right mindset to execute your events, effectively managing destination weddings, vendors' event day pet peeves, how to continue to market and sell new weddings even while you're working your existing weddings, and training your staff on how to get along with other wedding pros, how to prevent event-day emergencies and how to resolve them when they do arise. Whew!

Since unforeseen emergencies are an unfortunate fact of working in this industry, we figured that a reasonable conclusion to this month's content theme would be to turn to our fellow wedding professionals. We asked some leading vendors what (possibly unexpected) item turned out to be invaluable in resolving a wedding day crisis. Almost all wedding pros carry some form of an emergency kit to their events - you may want to consider adding the following things to yours!