I only have $500. Will you take it?

A couple of days ago, I posted an item about the differences between money (price), value, budget and result. It generated lots of traffic, a comment or two, and plenty of direct email.

It also caused me to consider the phrase, ‘budget bride.’ Along with DIY Bride, these are two of the most annoying and poorly used descriptors in the industry. To a great degree, I lay that at the feet of my friends in mass media for the wedding industry. Mass media tends to be a popularization tool as much as an information source. If you repeat a phrase, such as ‘budget bride,’ often enough, it becomes part of the wedding lexicon, for better for worse.

The problem with these phrases is they paint the bride’s resources with the grayest of brush strokes. So, at the risk of being more precise, I’ll break it down from my experience.

• DIY Bride: (Budget: under $5000) Someone who probably doesn’t have the resources to get married just yet and is likely to turn most of her wedding into an Arts and Crafts project.
• Low Budget Bride (Budget: $5000 - $14,999) Has the resources, but will have to make some tough decisions on the reception. The big conundrum is whether to economize across the board or cut in specific areas, and not others.
• Statistically Average Bride: (Budget: $15,000 - $34,999) Has the resources to do a nice job on the reception. Her biggest decision should be ‘How many guests can we invite to have a nice reception?’
• High Budget Bride (Budget: $35,000 - $60,000): Has more than enough money to do great things. Her biggest challenge is not to make bad choices among wedding vendors, irrespective of money.
• Luxury Bride (Budget: more than $60,000): Daddio has wads of cash and she wants to be awash in greenbacks. Not all brides in this financial category are Bridezillas, but the risk and tendency is greater than in any of the lower tiers. Bridezillas almost always make bad decisions. It’s in their DNA.

A budget is not:

• … is not throwing a dart at a target.
• … budget is not the total amount in the parent’s bank account or your bank account.
• … budget is not what one or more girlfriends spent on their wedding.
• … is not necessarily what you see on Platinum Weddings or Get Married TV (those are inspirations)

A budget is:

• A study of the range of what wedding products and services cost in your area, balanced against your tastes, inspirations and fantasies.
• Factored by the number of guests you choose to invite.

A line budget item is not:

• “I only have $750 left for videography. Will you take that?”
• “Oh, my third cousin, Oscar, is going to take the photos.”

A budget is:

• $1 Million
• $50,000
• $25,000
• $7,500
• $3,000

Budget does not necessarily mean low budget. A budget can be…

• A specific dollar amount or less
• A specific dollar amount or more
• A range from $X to $Y (this is the preferred budget)
• Money is no object (must be the truth)

The Wedding Report publishes ongoing data about spending in the wedding industry. It consistently reports that brides spend close to 50% more than they had budgeted for the wedding, with an average wedding expense running  just under $30,000. This shows a major discrepancy between the original money allotted, from reality of their desires.

I would assert the reason for this is that their original money allotment was not a budget at all. It was dart throwing at a bank book.

Here’s the challenge from every wedding professional, wedding media outlet, and industry trade association:

• Clearly delineate what it means to be a professional in your category of the wedding industry, from the standpoint of ‘benefits to the bride.’
• Explain the relationship (if any) of your business category to others. Such as the interactions between entertainer, photographer, videographer and caterer/venue. Or flowers and cake.
• Explain the Truth or Consequences and effect of making a sub-standard choice.

The naked truth about satisfaction vs. money spent: When a wedding day is over, either the bride and groom are happy with a particular product or service or they are not. A vendor is not wearing a price tag around their neck. There is not a dollar cost at your place card, showing the price of each dinner. There is not a little flag in your slice of cake, showing its cost plus a cake cutting fee.

In retrospect, most wedding couples can point out decisions they made, that were off-the-mark. There are hundreds of decisions, big and small, involved in a wedding. Amazingly enough, it only takes one or two really bad decisions to create an unhappy outcome. And, amazingly enough, a really bad decision is often not related to money.

It would be outstanding if all wedding industry professionals would embrace educating the bride to realistic and exciting expectations, rather than than just fanning the flames of fairy tale dreams. It is true that if the wedding budget is spent disproportionately, bad things usually happen.

A bride with $12,000 to spend, should be able to experience as much happiness on her wedding day as one with $50,000. But that supposes she has enough information, common sense, and critical thinking to make consistently good decisions, and then does so.

Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good operational mission statement for the wedding industry.

Don’t you agree?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

… is probably the wrong question.

I must admit I been infused with a heavy dose of Seth Godin logic. It comes with reading his books and blog, and understanding his perspective. His angle is consistent. Ask different question. Suggest to his readers that they ask different questions.

So when one of my business friends posted the title, “To Blog, Or Not To Blog” on a private message board, I could help but suggest, “Perhaps that’s the wrong question?”

Just because blogging is almost free, in terms of hard dollars, doesn’t mean it’s easy. If you are not a natural writer, you may spend more time per post or have challenges with subject matter. At a lecture last week, I invoked the quotation: “Anything worth doing well, is worth doing badly at first.” (Ben Franklin, I think).

FACT: A well-crafted, well-maintained Wordpress blog, that lives on your website server is perhaps the greatest search engine optimization tool, around, today.

The benefits of engaging customers, prospects, industry peers and media are tangible and incalculable. Actually, not entirely incalculable.

Another FACT: The longer you wait to blog, the more run-up time you give to your competitors.

One of the most important facts of life is: Don’t kid yourself.  As my friend likes to say: “It’s a no-brainer.”

The answer to the question: “To blog, or not to blog?” (as part of my wedding marketing plan) is, indeed, a no-brainer. There are other good question to ask, but from where I sit, this isn’t one of them.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

It is already a problem that the wedding industry overly focuses on the bride. Cliches, such as Your Special Day and words such as Perfect, permeate advertisements and magazine covers. 

Today, there is more information available to the bride than ever. Websites, blogs, and television shows. Many of the TV shows inspire and inform, offering a plethora of creative ideas and interesting perspectives. But what about Bridezillas on We TV?

Recognizing that any wedding show is entertainment, my question is still the same. Does the showcasing of brides-behaving-badly do anything but foster bad behavior? Understanding that much of ‘reality shows’ is not reality, but staged, does the wedding industry need brides-to-be watching a show that gives narcissistic, mean-spirited brides centerstage?

Your thoughts…

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

Many business people are addicted to more. More products, more services, more locations, more choices… all of these allegedly leading to more profits.

In many cases, more means additional revenue. The irony, of course, is more can also mean more overhead, more headaches, more personnel, more mistakes, and more confusion.

Just in a line at a fast food operation and watch customers in front of you. You’ll see their heads begin to spin at the vast array of choices offered for a simple lunch. When out to dinner, there is nothing better than a competent waiter who not only gives you the specials, but recommendations for the dishes that he/she or customers enjoy the most. The waiter is softly taking some choices off-the-board.

In the wedding industry, over time, many wedding businesses add services and products to the point of customer confusion. Alternatively, companies simply get larger to the point of inefficiency. Is having 8 photographers better than having 3? Is having 15 disc jockeys better than having 8? It depends.

Depends on what? On the profitability of the last DJ or photographer. Not to mention the personnel juggling, clerical support and other complications brought on by more.

Entrepreneurs are, by nature, idea people. We look for opportunities to expand, grow, and enhance.

Just for a moment, knock it off!! Instead of looking at how to grow, examine how to shrink. What services or products are you offering that generate revenue, but not profits. Is your third sales office generating a profitable level of sales? When you crunch the numbers, is the first two-thirds of your capacity (people, products, office) generating more than 90% of your sales? Is that last 10% of sales profitable, at all?

If you reduced your availability (capacity) would your pricing be stable… or even go higher?

Think of it as cleaning out your closet. Are there things that don’t fit any more? Are out of style? Are just creating such clutter that you can’t even see all the choices?

Chances are such a circumstance is creating confusion within your company, as well as your contacts, customers, and prospects.

Eliminating unproductive products, services, and yes…. people, is addition by subtraction. You will recapture some time, ease, and perhaps be more productive with less.

So ask yourself, what really needs to stay, and what has run its course and should be eliminated. After you’ve asked and answered that, please comment and let me know.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

Wedding vendors are often frustrated that brides don’t appreciate the value of their services. Ultimately, aside from ‘customer service,’ there are three major factors that come into play.

• Hours of service
• Price for product/service
• The quality of the result

One major problem is the tradition of how pricing is presented. Often, particularly for entertainment, photography, videography, the pricing presented to the prospect is based on ‘time in direct contact with the client.’

That method, while customary in the wedding industry, understates the time directly serving any single client, not to mention their share of overall service and time from your business.

Until I went through the process of being a groom, I never realized how much time a videographer or photographer spent, after the wedding, before presenting the final result. Contracts for services show beginning and end times at the event, but I’ve never seen an informational description of how much time is spent in post-production, for example.

When a prospect doesn’t know how many hours it takes to edit one hour of raw footage from one camera, it’s hard for her to understand why the price is $4000 rather than $1000. Hours are tangible measure of your effort. The result is more subjective.

It is not sufficient to show a prospect a video, reference letters on your wall, headshots of DJs, and expect them to magically understand the degree of difficulty. If one doesn’t explain the situational differences in equipment, lighting, personal, and other behind-the-scenes-efforts, then you are just hoping that the client figures it out. That’s not good enough.

A DJ entertainment service prices itself for a specific number of hours of performance. Travel and set up are typically not shown, unless the event is outside the local market area.

What effect might it have if proposals and contracts had a simple ‘informational statement’ that indicated a list of additional tasks associated with the event that do not happen during the precise reception time frame? Effective implementation includes discussing the total scope of your service with the client, including a summary of those points, in your proposal, and briefly including it in (or as an attachment) to  your agreement.

Maybe this should be an industry-wide standard for wedding marketers? What would change in the process of selling if every prospect understood you total measure of service, and its impact on the final result for the bride?

I know, I’m turning the pricing and selling approach on its ear. Maybe it’s time we do that.

I invite your specific comments, and how you think this might apply within your slice of the wedding industry.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

Here’s a statistic that should get your attention. Facebook, the online social community has rocketed from 100 Million users to 200 Million users since August 2008.

For the uninitiated, Facebook started as a strictly social community, but has added an array of business features in the last few months. Recently, I asked the question, “Should you consider advertising on Facebook?.“

While that still may be an open question, I think it’s incumbent upon any reasonable person who is not signed up for a Facebook account, to do so now. If you’re signed up, but not active, then get active. If you’re active, socially, then begin to look at the business features for wedding marketing.

I can’t predict the long term future of Facebook, but I can see what the immediate trend is. If you’re a wedding marketer, I’ll see you there…

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

In a set of recommendations on GetMarried.com, 7 Tips For The Budget-Savvy Bride, acclaimed wizard Colin Cowie Tip #4 is:

“4. Opt for a fantastic DJ
Instead of a big orchestra band, find a great DJ who can create great background music and just as easily keep the guests moving on the dance floor.”
===
These days, when most couples shop for music, they usually have a preference: Band, orchestra or DJ. However, as Colin suggests, if a bride’s budget is not sufficient for a great band, it should still be large enough for a great DJ.

Music plays a disproportionate role in the success of a wedding reception.

What do you think of Cowie’s recommendation? Agree? Disagree? Your comments?

Do you think the published opinions of industry experts have significant impact on the decision making of brides? Does high-level advice trump effective wedding marketing?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

If you read this blog, or any of my published writing, you know that I harp on the notion that clients don’t know everything that you do. Staff changes at their office. Your array of products and services evolves. Over time, a disconnect occurs.

It’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t mean they don’t like you, but for whatever reason(s), the client or referral partner, is not contacting you for the types of things you believe they should. Or, the level of bookings/referrals is slowly decreasing.

A couple of months ago, I planned a trip to the DC area to visit an association client. I’ve been working on their website for about 5 years. The Executive Director is an old and good friend of mine. He brought me in to recondition their website, among other things.

The Executive Director is not my direct contact, and he does not micro-manage what I do, or take an unusual or unhealthy interest in the service I provide. I elected to visit the association office at my expense to reintroduce myself to the staff, two-thirds of whom are new, since my last visit over two years ago.

What surprised me was my position on the organizational chart (which included suppliers and vendors). I was at the bottom of the totem pole. i teased him, and said, “No wonder no one calls me for big ideas or marketing suggestions, I’m at the bottom of the pecking order.” He seemed momentarily shocked, and answered, “Maybe you have a point.” Fortunately, since I was making a house call on the client, I would have an opportunity to restore my credibility and scope of capabilities.

This morning I gave a presentation on using Wordpress software for a separate convention website and introduced some specific online software for collaboration by the association’s members.

By the end of these two days, I had completely repositioned myself as an expert, learned a great deal about the challenges of the individual staffers, and provided a positive outcome for the organization.

If you have a significant client, don’t wait as long as I did to take the initiative. Be on a regular maintenance schedule to bring them current on your company, your services, and the industry. And, most important, find out what’s keeping them up at night.

Your thoughts,

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority