When it looks too good to be true, it sometimes isn’t.
It’s tough these days trying to decide where your business should feature online, isn’t it?
Resources are often scarce and busy wedding suppliers like yourself don’t always have the time or money to feature on all the platforms that promise to get you noticed.
We get it.
But what if we told you that we’ve got inside information that suggests that there is a ‘magic mix’ of core, online marketing platforms that every UK based wedding supplier must take advantage of to win bookings?
All you need to know to mix your own magic formula are these three little words…
Website, Social, Bridebook.
Let’s break it down…
Continuously invest in your website. Update it, nurture it and promote it. It’s your online business card and portfolio.
Advertise your service or product on social media. Share good feedback, take photos of the weddings you work on and test out paid advertising if you’ve got the budget and the time.
Create a free account and profile on Bridebook. The UK’s number one wedding planning platform is currently helping over 100,000 UK couples plan their wedding. How can this huge audience search for you if you’re not listed on the directory? Did we mention it’s free?
The only one of these three magic ingredients that we’re guessing you don’t already know plenty about is Bridebook, so allow us to enlighten you.
Bridebook Business – the free profile that generates over 15,000 enquiries a month
70,000 UK wedding suppliers just like you are currently setting up free Bridebook Business profiles to tap into the whopping 1 in 3 UK couples who’re currently planning their wedding with Bridebook.
100,000 newly engaged people is a whole lot of love; are we right?
Did you know that on average, over 15,000 enquiries are sent to UK wedding venues every month? That’s 100% return on investment.
Of course, the more time you spend updating your profile the better, as Bridebook’s sophisticated algorithm reads the information you provide to put you in front of relevant couples.
So the more information you give the easier you’ll be found by the right kind of couples.
Bridebook was given 4.5 stars for excellence in supporting wedding planning couples and in generating business for suppliers. And you know first hand how trustworthy and important reviews and star rating are.
On that note, we’d like to leave you with a few of our reviews that might encourage you to make the best decision of your business life.
Happy reading.
Oh…and if you’re ready to jump on the Bridebook bandwagon just contact us here or call us on 02080686859.
Looking for more wedding industry supplier stories and couple insights? Head to the Bridebook Business Hub, the home of wedding industry knowledge.
Bridebook Business Hub has been created for you, the wedding industry professional. We want to make sure you have the skills and resources you need to build a strong digital presence and market your wedding business with confidence. From couple insights and trends to social media and lead generation (and much more), the Bridebook Business Hub is a one-stop shop for the all the latest news and top tips to power your wedding business.
As well as this, we look to provide supportive and educational insight into the industry. We do this by working with our Bridebook data scientists and by partnering with leading experts, inspirational thinkers, and thought generators.
Is there a Business topic you’d like to be discussed or a business concern you currently have? Pop Beth an email at beth@bridebook.co.uk and she will give you a helping hand.
How do you feel about social media at weddings? Wedding suppliers…it’s time to join the debate!
Social media at weddings – it’s like marmite.
No matter how long you’ve been working in the wedding industry for, we can all appreciate that there’s something about the simplicity of watching a wedding with your eyes rather than through the screen of a smartphone that makes the old fashioned way seem more meaningful and appealing.
Couples have probably spent a fair amount of time and money on making their big day one to remember and being present to fully experience the wedding is something guests didn’t have to be asked to do just a few years ago. They’d just do it.
But many millennial couples are embracing social media as an official part of their ‘wedding package’ and are encouraging guests to snap away and document their day. To be fair to them, the next generation of brides and grooms grew up on the internet and for many of them, their wedding simply wouldn’t seem official or complete unless it’s posted on a few social newsfeeds. It’s unnatural for them not to post.
Newlywed millennials change their status to “married” on Facebook or Instagram before they’ve even gone down to breakfast the morning after their nuptials.
There’s no denying that wedding professionals who incorporate wedding hashtags and make it easy for couples to share, tag and find wedding photos and videos on Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram have an advantage with younger couples compared to wedding suppliers who won’t entertain the idea at all.
The question is, which side are you on?
Are you willing to facilitate the move to real-time online weddings by making it easy for couples and their guests to upload and share photos and videos with just one click?
Or are you on team “unplug” – determined to preserve the sanctity of weddings by refusing to encourage all guests to become photographers?
Embracing the plugged in wedding
The main focus of every wedding day is on making sure that the newlyweds are happy. Does everyone being glued to their phones add to their big day or detract from it? The decision to plug or unplug should ultimately be the couples.
If you choose to be open about plugged in weddings and offer to support digi-savvy couples, you’ll need to work closely with each of them to come up with ways to share content in real time.
Use wedding hashtags, ask if couples use Periscope and impress them by asking if they’d like to stream live, behind the scenes footage of them each getting ready for their wedding day! And of course, ensure that your couples can easily upload and download any pictures and videos you take after the wedding.
Tip: ask plugged in couples to follow your wedding business on any social channels you’re present on and ask them to tag you in any posts they share. This way you’ll benefit from some free social advertising.
Standing strong as an unplugged wedding ambassador
You’re completely against it. The unappointed guest paparazzi don’t just ruin the wedding for themselves AND for the couple getting wed, it also affects your ability as a wedding professional to do the best job possible.
You refuse to be a part of something where guests are removed from the experience and more interested in editing pics of themselves than toasting the happy couple.
Own your opinion and lead the charge! Become an advocate for couples who want to experience every moment and encourage their guests to be present in the moment.
How do you feel about social media at weddings?
When it comes to the marmite of millennial weddings, do you love it or hate it?
Feeling overwhelmed by marketing your venue to new potential couples on social media? Christina Barker, Wedding Planner for Chantilly Rose and wedding marketing professional has honed her skills and educational talent within the industry through years of experience and research. Now she shares her top tips for #winning in social media marketing and boosting the awareness of your wedding venue below.
Whether you like it or not, your potential clients are all on social media. 2 billion of those are on Facebook alone.
You want to attract couples to your wedding venue so why not utilise those popular social media channels.
Facebook is still by far the biggest social networking channel in the world and will probably continue to be so for a long time.
With YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter also on the rise you need to ensure your wedding venue is being visible and standing out from the crowd. We’ve put together 10 top social media tips for your wedding venue to increase bookings.
1. Post consistently.
Post engaging content and videos which will entice your audience to interact with your accounts. When they do this it also increases the chance of being shown in their news feeds. When we say post consistently, this doesn’t mean that you suddenly remember you’ve not posted in a while and so instead post 5 things on Facebook in one go. Spread your posts out. For example, we recommend you post on Facebook 1-2 times a day. Even if you are only posting something twice a week. Keep it consistent. Your followers will be expecting to see new content at the same time each week from you. Use a scheduling tool to help you so you can plan all your posts in advance. This saves heaps of time and frees you up to do other tasks.
2. Share content from other businesses.
Popular wedding magazines and blogs are full of wedding inspiration for couples to peruse. You might have some recommended suppliers on your list, so keep an eye on what they are posting on their pages and help them out by sharing what they do. They will be thankful for it and doing this will help you form relationships with suppliers and other people in the industry. If you are sharing good content, couples will be coming to your account to look for more.
3. Host regular competitions.
Think about what you want to promote and have fun with this. It could be a simple like and share. It doesn’t have to be anything massive, just something that will help your page get the engagement it needs. There’s no point having a page with lots of likes but no one is interacting with it. This will also give you a chance to reach new people.
Do be sure to keep an eye on Facebook’s ever changing guidelines and rules when it comes to what you can and can’t do.
4. Advertise on Facebook.
This is a HUGE one. If you aren’t using Facebook ads you are definitely missing out on a massive market. Using Facebook ads you can target specific people. For example, newly engaged couples within a certain radius of your venue. You can spend as little as £1 a day on these ads. Obviously the more money you budget though, the more people you will be able to reach so I would always invest in these ads. Using Facebook ads you can also link it with Instagram so your ad will show on Instagram at the same time!
Unlike something like a magazine advert which you can’t track, with Facebook ads you are able to see exactly how many people have seen it and how many people clicked on it. They can take a while to get your head around but this is something you can definitely outsource to a digital marketing company like us.
5. Utilise your cover photo.
This is one people always seem not to bother with or not know about. If your wedding venue has simply uploaded a photo, thought that will do and left it, you are missing a trick! This is one of the first things a person sees when visiting your page. You could advertise your wedding packages here or maybe your next wedding fayre. Don’t forget to add in the details in the description along with any links for them to find out more information. Always be thinking about your sales funnel!
6. Check your page insights.
Look at what is working and what isn’t. What posts are getting the most likes and comments? Continue similar posts and stop posting the things that aren’t getting any engagement. Insights are there for you to check how your page is doing, so be sure to check back regularly. Have your social media manager produce a monthly report for you.
At White Heart Marketing, our team is able to manage your page and do this all for you.
7. Use LOTS of visuals.
Couples love to see lots of photos. Be it on Instagram, Pinterest or another image based platform, they like to imagine themselves getting married at that place. They imagine all of their ideas coming together. If you are seen to be posting different styles, there’s a strong chance that one of those styles is perfect for them. If they can see that your venue is able to cater for this then they’ve pretty much already decided they want to book your venue before they’ve even contacted you!
8. Hashtag, hashtag, hashtag.
Hashtags are widely used on both Instagram and Twitter. A hashtag can be used to find other people talking about the same subject. If you search for #yourweddingvenue (insert name), you can then engage with everyone that has used it. For example, a couple may have taken a romantic photo in the grounds of your venue after visiting for a show round. You could comment, ‘congratulations on your engagement, thank you for visiting us at your show round earlier, we hope your visit was everything you wished for.’
When posting your own photo to showcase your venue, make sure you are including all the relevant hashtags so people can search for you. Hashtags like #WeddingWednesday are great ones to include! On Instagram add your hashtags in the first comment after posting your photo and description. This keeps your feed tidy and hides your hashtags once you get a good amount of comments. You can use up to 30 hashtags on your Instagram posts so make sure you are taking advantage of that so even more people can find you!
9. Keep your information up to date.
When was the last time you checked your ‘about’ section on all of your accounts? Have you made sure everything is completed? Do you have any additional services you can add on? Are your wedding brochures current with all the correct pricing? Your potential clients want to be able to see the information they need without having to go off to another site or clicking on too many other links. If you have everything where it should be then they are more likely to spend time on your account as oppose to someone else’s.
10. Don’t be a slave to social media.
Just because your clients are on social media, doesn’t mean to say you should be on every single platform. Although it’s great for SEO, if they click on a social media channel and see its not been active for months it doesn’t give your company a great first impression. Try and stick to two that work really well for your ideal client. Usually for wedding venues these platforms are Facebook and Instagram. Do those two platforms really well and you could be booking out couples for years to come!
Happy couple hunting! If you feel this is all totally overwhelming, just know that you are not alone. I hope these tips have given you a little insight into what type of social media you should be doing for your wedding venue.
If you have any questions you would like to ask or you are interested in us managing any aspect of your social media, please contact us. We would love to hear from you!
Did you know that Millennials now use Pinterest as much as Instagram?
There’s something strange happening in the wedding industry where Pinterest and wedding suppliers are concerned…
Predominantly viewed purely as an online scrapbook designed to help wistful couples build a vision for their big day, the word ‘Pinterest’ seems to incite an involuntary groan from many wedding venues and suppliers who are unsure of how to make this ‘platform of unattainable dreams’ work in the real wedding world.
Despite being one of the newer social media platforms, Pinterest was the fastest independently launched site to reach 10 million unique monthly visitors according to the latest study by market research leaders, Statista. In fact, as of April 2017 Pinterest reported a whopping 150 million active users on its site.
That’s a pretty sizeable audience.
But who’s pinning what?
Did you know that Millennials now use Pinterest as much as Instagram? If we dive deeper into user demographics for the board we can see that 81% of Pinterest users are women and almost 50% of these women are aged between 18-34.
You don’t need us to tell you that this is ‘prime bride’ age.
The masterminds at Pinterest saw weddings as one of their core markets a long time ago, and they recently commissioned a study to examine all wedding-related Pins and activity to get an idea of just howsignificantly weddings feature as a topic on the platform.
Here’s a summary of the key results:
1.Over 40 million people “turn to Pinterest for guidance across the wedding planner journey” every year
2. Pinners save almost 900 million Pins about weddings every year
3. Pinners conduct 378 million wedding-related searches every single year
4. 27% of Pinners plan for their wedding several times a day, compared to 18% of non-Pinners
This latest research proves that weddings constitute a huge market on Pinterest and that couples pinning on the platform are more engaged and involved in the wedding planning process than those that aren’t.
Sounds to us like they’re the kind of people we want to be in front of.
And if that’s not proof enough that weddings are and always have been one of the most pinned-about topics, a survey published by the Daily Mail back in 2012 revealed that 70% of Pinterest users had wedding-themed boards before they were even engaged. Awkward, you may think. Opportunity, you must think.
This statistic indicates a level of intent by soon-to-be newly engaged couples (or at least, they hope so) whose behaviour suggests that they will use the platform as their primary planning and idea building tool.
So why do wedding suppliers feel anti-social about this platform, rather than Pinterested?
We’ve asked several partnering wedding venues and suppliers for their thoughts on Pinterest and why it doesn’t seem to take priority over other social platforms for wedding industry professionals.
We found that the three main drawbacks of the platform are as follows:
Pinterest only enhances unrealistic expectations for brides and grooms, making wedding planning more difficult for wedding suppliers
It’s a ‘dreamers’ platform rather than a conversion based revenue stream
It requires you to post high quality images to get noticed – the expense of which (financial and time) isn’t justified by the return
It appears that many wedding venues and suppliers aren’t taking Pinterest seriously because it’s not a channel designed for direct customer engagement and bottom of the funnel conversions. But the value to be had in being present in an environment where your target demographic is sharing attractive and desirable images and essentially building the vision for their big day must be realised.
Image sharing is just a hop, click and a follow away from a website lead, and we’re going to take a look at how you can get started and improve your chances of winning bookings using this pinning platform.
How wedding suppliers can generate interest from Pinterest
1.Set up a quality profile for your wedding business
Setting up a Pinterest account is simple. Make sure that you use a striking, high quality profile picture and include a concise profile description of your wedding business, using relevant keywords and including that all-important link to your website.
Once you’re set up and before you start building an image portfolio it’s important that you remember Pinterest isn’t about promoting your wedding venue or business – it’s about gathering and showcasing high quality images that relate to your specialism and inspire couples so that they want to share and pin them.
2. Create specialist Pinterest boards
Create categories of boards for couples to follow – such as ‘winter weddings’, ‘UK wedding venues’ or ‘wedding flowers’ and then begin to fill your Pinterest boards with original photographs and pinned pictures.
You don’t have to go over-board (pin pun intended) – usually between 5 and 10 boards is fine but if you really think you need more, just try not to go over 20 as it will become difficult to fill and manage them all.
Success on Pinterest is pretty much entirely dependent on the use of high quality imagery and fortunately, the wedding industry is one of the most photograph-centric of them all. You could ask couples (or go direct to the photographers) if they’d mind you using a few of their professional photographs to eliminate the expense of you having to regularly arrange for original photographs to be taken yourself.
Pinterest makes it easy for you to pin images directly from your website and blog. When you pin an image, the source of that image is saved which means that when your saved images are repined by other users, your website will stay listed as the original source of that image.
Put simply, it’s likely that attractive imagery will result in visits to your website as long as you use great imagery on your website – which you should be doing anyway.
4. Optimise your images
The majority of pictures you’ll pin and share on the site will either be uploaded directly by yourself, your couples or pinned from other places.
Whilst you can’t change the documented source of photos already on Pinterest, you can ensure you optimise any new images you’re uploading.
Once you have uploaded your new images click on “edit” and you’ll be able to include a description of your new picture and a link back to your website. However where possible, you should try and Pin directly from your website as it is a more web friendly and customer ‘share friendly’ approach.
Regardless of which pinning method you prefer, you should always include a short description of the image when you pin it.
5. Try out promoted pins
Because the vast Pinterest audience constitutes your main target demographic, wedding suppliers should consider using promoted pins to ensure that your best Pins appear in the most relevant places.
Why not test three of your best performing pins on various target audiences. Use time of day, location, age and perhaps ‘stage of wedding planning process’ as unique identifiers when testing your pins on different audiences to see which types of content work best for which audience.
6. Pair up and pin with other wedding suppliers
As we always say to wedding suppliers, why wouldn’t you help yourself by offering to help others?
Offer to promote other wedding suppliers and businesses you’ve worked with.
Wedding venues could create a “beautiful wedding flowers” board or a “gorgeous wedding cakes” category and ask the relevant suppliers to provide professional pictures. Wedding planners could use Pinterest as part of their social promotional package for advertising clients and have a “beautiful wedding venues” board which could feature venues they’ve worked with or products used.
This is an easy way to keep your Pinterest board populated with high quality images and it’s a great way to help cement partnerships within the industry.
Smaller businesses will love this technique as they’re most in need of increased online visibility and discoverability by potential clients. You can offer them exposure on your Pinterest account and guarantee fresh content for yourself with little effort.
Complementary images like these can also be found through re-pinning, which will help interaction with other pinners – including brides, grooms and other wedding suppliers.
Get Pinterested in this platform today
We’re not expecting this blog post to change the minds of every wedding supplier overnight. What we do hope is that we’ve given you a few good reasons to consider including this channel in your marketing plan in 2017 and beyond.
Getting started is a piece of cake, and as long as you know what to expect from the platform – that is, exposure with the hope of website visits – then you should see great value in investing a little time in it now and again.
Join your future clients today and show a little Pinterest in image sharing, optimising and showcasing the pics that make you tick.
Check out Bridebook’s Pinterest to see the idea boards and inspiring images we’re providing for couples.
There’s huge potential for wedding venues to maximise how they use Facebook and to generate bookings and business as a result.
We’re not here to tell you that social media is taking over the world. You already know that.
But deciding where to focus your online marketing efforts as a wedding venue supplier and knowing *how *to individually tailor your approach for each social channel can be tricky.
According to the latest study into the most famous social network sites worldwide in April 2017, Facebook stands out as the clear market leader and largest social network by active users today; boasting 1.97 billion monthly active users, followed by Whatsapp (1.2 billion) and Youtube (1 billion).
Facebook is the perfect platform for wedding venues – and wedding suppliers in general – looking to market their products and services because it is the number one network for close, friendly connections over mass media broadcasting.
It is a channel made up of networks of people likely to recommend products and services to their connections, and it is a platform that enables you, as a wedding supplier, to publish both written and visual content that sells your services.
Facebook is a marketing channel that wedding venues in particular cannot ignore and we’re going to explore the ways in which you can boost your wedding bookings on this platform this summer and into the future.
But firstly, let’s address a growing (or should we say, declining) problem with Facebook.
Organic reach (i.e. how many people you can reach for free when you post content on your page) on Facebook has dramatically declined since around 2012, which – if you’re active on Facebook right now – you will probably have noticed.
This is down to two things. Firstly, there’s simply too much content being published on the platform which means we’re all facing far greater competition when it comes to getting our content seen. And secondly, Facebook is now trying to display super relevant content to specific groups of people, rather than serving all content to all folk.
So the social landscape is changing and we need to change with it. More than ever before the focus is on delivering specific, relevant content to the right people and in the right ways to be seen. And being seen means being booked.
Here are 5 ways in which wedding venues can improve reach, engagement, interactions and subsequently get more bookings through Facebook alone, today:
1. Paid advertising works
Facebook advertising really isn’t that scary or expensive if you know how to approach it, and let’s be clear; we’re not suggesting that you ditch existing efforts in favour of paid.
Facebook is encouraging us to consider incorporating targeted paid advertising into our social strategy rather than just using the platform as a free broadcasting channel. The reason for this is because of the renewed emphasis on content relevance and targeting.
Facebook is taking care of a lot of your targeting for you already when you post organically thanks to an updated Facebook algorithm which now adapts to individual user preferences. Put simply, this means that if someone regularly looks at photos of your wedding venue rather than reading written content, the Zuckerberg army will deliver more photos and less content to them in future.
But we can take this one step further through the use of Facebook ads (which can run for as long as you like and can be set to expire when your allocated spend runs out) and serve highly specific advertisements to specific people in your target demographic at a time and on a device that best suits your audience.
For example, a particular wedding venue may target engaged couples within a certain distance of their venue, e.g. wedding venues in London, as well as by age, gender and lifestyle preferences.
Facebook insights (which you’ll all have access to via your Facebook account) or Google Analytics (if you’ve set this up for your website) will be able to tell you much more about the kinds of people you’re attracting, such as whether they prefer to read your content on a mobile or tablet. Use these insights to build a highly engaged audience on Facebook.
In summary, you don’t have to throw a lot of money at Facebook advertising to benefit from an improved reach, and remember, it is about supplementing – not replacing – organic efforts with paid.
2. Be selective with the content you post
It’s time to switch from untargeted, frequent publishing to targeted, selective publishing.
Whether you’re paying to sponsor the Facebook post or not, your objective should be to get as much engagement from each post as possible. Basic targeting options are available for organic posts e.g. engaged couples in London, which means that you have no excuse not to be thinking about the audience and the purpose of your content each and every time you post.
Delivering more relevant content to the people who matter most to your business is the key to securing more bookings.
Top tip: be sure to include trigger words in posts that indicate important events (e.g., “congratulations”) which will get the attention of Facebook (who love jumping on special events) and the engaged couples you’re looking to target.
Overly self-promotional Facebook content is not the best way to win business, and by that, we mean the kinds of posts that read “Hold your wedding at our venue and we’ll give you 10% off!” or “We pride ourselves on delivering the best weddings in the business”.
Produce useful and informative content for your audience that aims to drive traffic to your website and blog. These owned assets of yours are where your conversions and bookings are likely to happen.
With reviews and recommendations becoming increasingly important for brides and grooms in the decision making process, you can post subtly promotional content by sharing the good news stories and the positive comments of couples who’ve held their wedding day at your venue.
There’s nothing more powerful than photographs and comments from a happy couple who’ve had the best day of their lives at your wedding venue. This should be the angle you adopt.
It’s also worth partnering with wedding suppliers who’ve worked on weddings at your venue. Ask them to leave their own comments on your Facebook page and engage with your content, and then do the same for them.
And encourage fans to engage with your posts when they see them, so that they see more of them. This could be as simple as adding a reminder to “Please Like and share” at the end of your posts.
3. Share videos and Broadcast on Facebook Live
Did you know that Facebook ranks live video higher in the news feed, and that users spend 3x more time watching live broadcasts than traditional videos on Facebook? This means that if you can get couples live streaming their wedding day on Facebook, you’re more likely to be seen by the brides and grooms you’re looking to attract!
Why not start broadcasting your very own live footage of your wedding venue on Facebook today and kickstart your mission to improve organic reach!
Record live behind the scenes footage of your team setting up for a wedding (but be careful not to capture anything personal to the couple who’s wedding your hosting unless you have their prior permission) and include footage of florists, caterers and musicians – remembering to tag all parties involved in the live stream; subsequently leveraging your audience reach through the audiences of other wedding suppliers.
4. Update your photo gallery
This sounds like an obvious one but we really shouldn’t underestimate the power of a great picture.
See.
Save and utilise all exceptional images from weddings held at your venue and make sure any less than spectacular snaps are removed.
Your best photographs should take pride of place as your venue’s Facebook profile picture and cover photo, and you should change these feature images now and then to test which garner the most attention and to therefore inform which photographs are best shared in future to win engagement.
5. Beware the competition
Be careful not to rely too heavily on competitions or to boost your competitions too often.
The reason for this is that your audience will perhaps increase (for the short term at least) but you’ll find you often attract people less likely to spend money on booking your wedding venue and more likely to just want to win something.
Organic content and paid advertising (not boosted posts) is always best and keep competitions as an infrequent treat rather than placing them at the forefront of your social campaign.
There’s huge potential for wedding venues – and wedding suppliers in general – to really maximise how they use Facebook and to generate bookings and business as a result.
Get out there and tap in to the 2 billion internet users currently using social networks today.
Have you found this article useful? Leave us a comment!
If you’re not already present on Instagram or you think you could be doing something better, these are just some of the ways in which wedding venues and suppliers can see a dramatic uplift in online engagement through relatively little effort.
Ever heard of the saying “a picture paints a thousand words”? Well, this statement rings particularly true when it comes to marketing in the wedding industry, and we’re urging all UK wedding suppliers to start painting their story online to secure bookings now and into the future.
Giddy couples busily building a vision of their dream wedding will scour the web for visual inspiration – saving or pinning pictures, building collages and following popular wedding accounts on social media that keep them abreast of the latest and greatest styles and trends to hit the marital market.
And amongst all the ‘wedding bell’ noise out there in the online world, one visual-specific social platform reigns above all others. It is of course, Instagram.
Instagram facts for wedding suppliers
Now the seventh-ranked social media platform in the world, the video and image-sharing app that we know and love as Instagram boasts over 600 million monthly active accounts. To put this into perspective, YouTube currently stands at 1 billion active monthly users and this globally renowned video-sharing site has been on the scene for 5 years more than Instagram (that’s practically 500 years in the world of online!) and had faced significantly less competition when it started.
In other words, Instagram is doing very well and is becoming increasingly popular.
The younger generations constitute the bulk of Instagram demographics as the latest statistics from the Pew social media report and Instagram press page report:
59% of 18–29-year-olds use Instagram.
33% of 30–49-year-olds use Instagram.
The report also confirms that the dominant gender using the photo-sharing site is still women (38% of women online use Instagram compared to 28% men).
This means that Instagram constitutes the perfect target audience for the wedding industry and is, therefore, an essential marketing platform for all wedding suppliers, including wedding venues, wedding photographers, wedding makeup artists, hair stylists, cake makers and more.
By marrying a photobook-style library of images and videos with the core target age for people getting married right now, Instagram becomes a match made in heaven for wedding suppliers looking to secure new bookings.
How to use Instagram to get bookings as a wedding supplier
Keep your content light
Instagram is loved by young people and famed for topics such as celebrity, beauty, fashion, travel and weddings. Instagram is a place for fun content and it should be used to showcase approachable and welcoming wedding venues, confidently creative wedding photographers and daringly different wedding florists – it is not a place for serious or corporate messages.
Content should be light, fun and engaging. Never use Instagram to post salesy messages. You’ll be Insta-ntly Insta-shamed (see what we did there).
Get hashtag happy
Hashtags are a great way to improve the reach of your posts and help you get featured in feeds that are relevant to your craft.
Use hashtags that are relevant to your wedding business, such as #weddingdress and #weddingphotography, and include location where possible for refined targeting over volume targeting, e.g. #weddinghairessex.
An easy quick-win is to incorporate daily hashtags in your posts such as #MondayMotivation and #TuesdayTips to ensure your posts are relevant by day and to get you involved in the conversations that count. What’s better for soon to be #brides than a little #weddingvenue #mondaymotivation to get them through the day?
Sandhole Oak Barn is a great example of a wedding venue that knows how to use relevance (e.g. the weather) in the subject of the post and location-based wedding hashtags for optimum reach.
Tip:try including a few extra hashtags in the comment section of your post rather than listing them all in the status field. This gives you the added reach you’re looking for without cluttering the core text you use to annotate your image or video.
You should be using Instagram search to find the hashtags that are trending in your field rather than just making them up. Although that being said, creating innovative and unique hashtags that are specific to your brand can also help you build a highly engaged audience who are specifically interested in you and your brand.
A mix of both established and new makes for a great combination.
And another great way to find new hashtags relevant to your wedding business is to visit the profiles of successful competitors in your area and make a note of the hashtags they use in their posts. Think about the kinds of hashtags engaged couples are likely to search for on Instagram and make sure you use those as well.
Use every opportunity available to share interesting content
Everything interesting that happens in your wedding company is a photo-sharing opportunity.
Take photographs or use video to show how your wedding venue looks before and after it has been decorated for your next wedding.
Use #TBT (Throwback Thursday) as an opportunity to showcase previous weddings you’ve catered for and pick out a few unusual or popular ideas that couples have incorporated into their wedding day.
Cooling Castle Barn wanted to share their latest cocktail with Instagram followers, and why not?
You must post regular content to keep your account at the top of people’s minds.
Interact with other wedding suppliers
As well as being used as a marketing channel that helps you to connect with and engage potential brides and grooms building their dream wedding, Instagram should also be used to interact and network with other wedding suppliers.
Tag wedding hair stylists or wedding cake makers in your posts to show your followers who you’ve worked with at your venue, and to project an image of your wedding services as being connected and all-encompassing. These kinds of partnerships are highly valuable and show like-minded wedding suppliers that you are actively involved in the wedding community.
Here, wedding venue Newton Hall has done a great job of sharing a beautiful picture of a fellow wedding suppliers wedding cake, tagging the cake maker and using a great selection of industry and location-specific hashtags in their post.
The added benefit of supporting fellow wedding suppliers? Well a good deed done will surely be reciprocated and you’ll likely find other suppliers you’ve worked with will start tagging your wedding venue or business in their own Instagram posts on their own accounts.
This is how referrals and recommendations work, and the importance this kind of personal and professional affirmation plays in generating bookings should be fully realised.
Reach out to engaged couples on Instagram
Spend some time searching for hashtags that you believe local, engaged couples may use in their own posts and you will, in turn, find engaged Instagram users to follow and engage with (as well as identify some of the hashtags you could be using in your own posts).
You can also track down local, engaged couples (i.e. your target market) by visiting the Instagram profiles of other local wedding suppliers. Wedding photographers will often tag couples in engagement shoots which provides you with a great opportunity to start engaging with the posts of these couples whilst they’re in the wedding planning stage.
By spending just five or ten minutes per day liking posts and following newly engaged couples on Instagram, you should begin to see more couples following you and engaging with your posts. The bookings will follow.
Instagram is the Wedding Industry’s best friend
If you’re not already present on Instagram or you think you could be doing something better, these are just some of the ways in which wedding venues and suppliers can see a dramatic uplift in online engagement through relatively little effort.
Using a platform like this is about training your mind to think like a millennial couple. Share the things that matter to your business, be present in the places your couples hang out and engage with the content that they like to read and share.
Want more tips and tricks as to how to grow and market your wedding business? Like the Bridebook Business Facebook Page and receive weekly updates from industry experts and thought leaders across the UK.
Keep your Bridebook profile up to date and relevant by logging in and editing your Business Account HERE. Once updated, you will instantly increase your profile searchability and are able to connect with our community of 40,000 couples. In short, spend a little time adding photos, videos, and information you love about your business now, and benefit later!
You’re engaged, congratulations! You’re about to embark on one of the most amazing journeys of your life – and you’ve got your soulmate by your side. You’re on this rollercoaster together, and we promise it’s going to be full of love, surprises and celebration. So enjoy the ride!
As the realisation of what’s to come sets in, you might be wondering what happens next. Where do you start? Who do you tell first? How do you tell them? When should you start planning your wedding? How do you start?
Because there are so many things to do, things can get overwhelming quite quickly. But don’t worry, we’re here to guide you in the right direction and help make the next couple of weeks a lot easier, with a checklist for making sure you have everything covered.
So, in this post, we’re going to outline a step-by-step guide for everything you should do after you get engaged, from the order you should tell your family and friends to when the right time is to start making those bookings.
Now that you’re engaged, it’s time to start planning your dream wedding, but where to start? In this video, Bridebook founder (and qualified wedding planner!) Hamish Shephard breaks down your wedding organisation into 5 easy steps so you can plan stress-free and kickstart your wedding to-do list.
Our 20-step guide for what you should do after getting engaged
When you get engaged, everything is so exciting and feels like it goes so fast that it can be easy to get carried away. Did you do this? Did you do that? Before you know it, you’re not sure what you’ve done and what’s left to do. That’s where we come in. Below are 20 steps you can follow to make sure you remember everything after getting engaged.
It can be tempting to run to see your parents or pick up the phone and start yelling about your brand-new engagement. But before you do that, think about if you want to do something a little more creative, or figure out a way to get both of your families together in one room and blow them all away with the news.
Once you’ve figured out how you’re going to do it, you can get to the exciting part. You’re engaged to the love of your life – and it’s time to let everyone know! Just be prepared for lots of squeals, some hugs and maybe even a few tears – happy ones, of course.
Have you ever worn anything so precious… or expensive? So thoughtful, so sentimental, so valuable… Get your ring insured. ASAP. The average cost of an engagement ring is £1,978, which is an amount that very few can afford to lose. It’s unlikely that anything will happen to it, but you never know. Then you can stop worrying and start showing it off. And trust us, you’re going to want to show off that amazing new ring a lot.
4. Tell wider friends and family, starting with the A team
After telling your immediate family, it’s time to start sharing the news with your mates and colleagues. We bet some of the first people you tell will end up being key players in your wedding party. They might be your maid of honour or your best man, if you have one. Make an event of it and ask them to be by your side at your wedding over a drink or a meal out. Then start thinking about who else you want involved. Our number one piece of advice is to choose the people you love – not the people you feel obligated to have. Don’t worry about upsetting anyone – it’s your special day. You should be surrounded by your favourite people in the world.
With such a beautiful new ring to show off, you may want to do this sooner, but it’s especially important to make sure your nails are on point before you have your engagement photos done or you share the news on social media. There are going to be lots of close-ups of your ring finger, so having clean, shaped and polished nails will help those photos pop. Trust us.
It’s not for everyone, and it’s a little old-fashioned by today’s standards, but you might want to follow tradition by announcing your engagement in the local (or even national) newspaper. It’ll make your parents’ and grandparents’ days, as historically, engagement announcements included lots of details about the couple’s backgrounds, families and so on. Nowadays, though, it’s up to you what you include. If nothing else, it’ll make for a brilliant keepsake.
Now comes the time to scream your news from the 21st-century equivalent of the rooftops. If there was ever a time to share something on social media, it’s now. Whether you post a cute engagement selfie with your partner to your Instagram, update your Facebook relationship status or even make a cheeky TikTok, savour this moment and watch the likes roll in.
From the moment you got engaged, you no doubt mentally went into planning mode, thinking about venues, catering, wedding rings, the song you’ll have your first dance to… but, as hard as it might be, don’t feel the need to rush straight into it. Take a step back, breathe and enjoy the moment. Why not take a little trip away, just the two of you, and enjoy some time as an engaged couple? You’re about to embark on a busy year or more of hectic wedding planning, and taking time to enjoy your engagement is definitely worth it.
It’s party time! Get a date in the diary to celebrate with everyone that matters. Just remember that anyone who’s invited to your engagement party is likely to expect an invitation to the wedding too… But that’s only according to tradition, which of course can be ignored. So, if you want a blow-out bash, go for it. Plus, if you anticipate having to fill your guest list with second cousins at your parents’ request, now’s the time to leave them off the list and party on down with your nearest and dearest.
We’re sure you’ll want to remember this period in your lives forever so make sure to document it with an engagement photoshoot. It’s a great opportunity to get to know your photographer and get used to being in front of the camera. Think of it as a test run before your wedding – so get your smiles ready and be prepared for the jaw ache.
Unless your partner got your ring size spot on, you may need to get your engagement ring resized so it fits nice and snug. You may choose to get it done much sooner if it’s particularly loose, but it’s a balancing act between wanting to wear it to show it off, having it for the engagement photos and announcements, and making sure it doesn’t slip off and get lost forever.
Depending on the jewellers you go to, it might take up to four weeks to get your ring resized. But, if you’re willing to pay a little more, you could get it done in as little as a couple of days.
By now you’ve probably had plenty of thoughts about what you want from your wedding. So, start researching and making notes about what the perfect wedding is for you.
Here at Bridebook, we have a wide selection of tools and resources to help you plan your big day. From our budget planning tool to our easy-to-use app, we have everything you might need throughout your entire planning journey. Plus, we have loads of exclusive discounts from thousands of popular vendors that you won’t find anywhere else.
One of the best ways to get excited is by visiting wedding shows and fairs around the country. It offers you the opportunity to meet vendors, get some ideas and see what’s out there so you can get inspired and start making some decisions. One of our favourite shows is The National Wedding Show, but there are dozens throughout the year up and down the UK. Make sure you also check out local shows, which are a great way to meet vendors close to you.
You’ll likely have a ton of ideas bouncing around inside your head, which will all come together to form your ideal wedding. Don’t forget, your partner will also be doing the same. Remember to communicate all the time, so share your ideas, worries, thoughts, concerns, excitements and everything else. If you’re always open and honest with each other you’ll nail every step of your busy planning process.
This step and the step afterwards may be interchangeable, so it’s whatever works for you. Think about whether you want a big wedding where you might invite more than 100 guests, or would be happier with an intimate ceremony that’s not quite as grandiose. You may want to put together a rough guest list (which you can do right here on Bridebook) and then think about your budget, or it might be easier to do it the other way around. Whatever works for you. But, now’s the time to think about whether you really want your second cousin once removed to be there, or if you’d rather keep things a little smaller and more affordable.
In the UK, the average cost of a wedding is £19,184, which is enough for you to put on one heck of a party. But, that doesn’t mean your wedding will cost that much – depending on your guest list, venue, catering, attire and more, it could be much lower. Or even much higher.
The best way to work out how much your perfect wedding might cost is by using a budget calculator, which allows you to input all of your wedding-related costs to show you how much they’re likely to set you back. If it’s below what you were hoping for, great! If it’s higher, you can start thinking of some alternate choices or where you can make a few savings.
17. Work out what to do if you don’t have the budget you need
Once you’ve worked out your budget you’re in a position to see how it aligns with your finances. But what if it doesn’t, does that mean the wedding’s off? Absolutely not! One option is to make changes to your plans – for example, a registry office wedding is the cheapest you can have. Another option is to save money across the entire wedding – read our ultimate guide to saving money on your wedding for more information.
Another option is to ask your family for a little extra support. Only one-third of couples pay for their wedding themselves, which means two-thirds get help from family. There are unofficial rules about who traditionally pays for what, but you’ll no doubt be grateful for help in whatever way your family can.
Before you make any proper decisions about your wedding date, start by figuring out what’s going to work for your nearest and dearest. Are there any other weddings happening that year? Does anyone have a big holiday booked? You don’t want to commit to a date, only to find out your best friend can’t make it. If you already know where you want to get married, think about when it’ll look its best. Will it really shine in summer or is it the perfect location for a winter wedding?
Choosing the right date for your wedding can also be a huge money-saver. If you want to get married on a Saturday, like half of all couples did last year, it’ll cost you way more than if you were to get married midweek.
There are more than likely a fair few people in your life who have planned a wedding, so ask them for advice on how they went about it. Ask them for recommended vendors, what they loved, what they wished they’d done differently… use them, their experience and their knowledge and make some notes. Also, getting referred to a specific vendor, like a DJ or wedding car hire company, is a great way to secure a cheeky discount.
Here at Bridebook, we also have plenty of expert guides, tips, tricks and real-life stories to help answer your questions, calm your concerns and help you throughout your planning journey.
20. Consider whether or not you want to hire a wedding planner
Before you make any bookings or get a quote from a single vendor, think about whether or not it would be beneficial for you to hire a wedding planner. Generally, a wedding planner will cost about 10% of your overall budget, but they can save you a lot of time, money and stress by doing a lot of the negotiating and legwork for you. But, to get the best value for money, you should hire a planner at the very start of your planning process. Decide if this is something you’d like to do early on, as tempting as it might be to dive right in and start securing bookings.
So… what comes next?
So, these are the first 20 steps you should take after getting engaged. After that, you might want to take another step back and enjoy a few weeks as an engaged couple. Or, more likely, the excitement of your future wedding will be too much to resist, and you’ll want to get stuck right in with the planning.
Enjoy what comes next – it’s going to be long, exciting and rewarding, and most likely a little expensive as well. But, you’ll have a wonderful wedding day at the end of it.
Start planning your wedding with Bridebook
Here at Bridebook, we have everything you could need to plan your perfect wedding. Sign up and start planning your big day today!
