Well what a year it’s been.

Whether you’re eager to see the back of it or are feeling super positive about the changes this year has brought you, the New Year signals a fresh start which means out with the old and in with the new.

As we near the end of 2017 and prepare to welcome a new year steeped in brand new opportunities, it’s time to think about what went well this year and decide what we resolve to do in 2018.

We’ve taken a fair few learnings out of 2017 and it is with this new insight that we bring you our recommendations on where you should be focusing your efforts to win more bookings next year.

Here are 3 New Year’s Resolutions we want wedding suppliers to commit to in 2018.

Define your brand

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business – whether you’re large or small, B2B or B2C. Your brand is a promise to future clients that you’re a trustworthy wedding supplier who commits to delivering a certain quality of service, consistently.

Brand should reflect whether you’re a high cost, high quality wedding supplier or a low cost, good value for money one, and potential clients should be able to recognise where your product or service sits on this spectrum.

Resolve to answer these questions in 2018 and ensure that everyone you employ at your wedding company understands your brand attributes and what makes you, you.

• What is your company’s mission – why do you exist and what are your objectives?
• What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
• What do existing clients and prospect couples already think of your company?
• What qualities do you want people to associate with your company?

To do list:  once you’ve defined exactly who you are as a wedding business resolve to build a brand guideline document which details all the key brand attributes your team should be aware of and how these tie in to your business objectives. If you currently work alone, this is still a great exercise and will help remind you of your brand values throughout the year.

Ask For Reviews

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt from 2017 it’s that reviews matter. And we mean REALLY matter. Newly engaged couples are clocking up hours researching wedding suppliers like you on the internet, and they’re particularly interested in star ratings and reviews.

You must resolve to ask your most recent clients to leave you a review in 2018 and beyond. Showcasing reviews from over a year ago simply won’t do. Potential clients are looking at dates and relevance – they want to understand who you impressed recently.

Go one step further and ask couples who said no to leaving you a review why they made that decision. Appropriately managing negative reviews or opinions can actually help new potential clients see your wedding business in a positive light as it shows that you care about the opinions of couples you’ve worked with and are always looking to improve.

To do list: set up an alert system whenever you receive a booking from a new client for 1 month after their wedding date. This will remind you to reach out to clients post-wedding and ask for a review once they’ve had time to get over the wedding buzz.

Psst: post reviews on your Bridebook Business profile and secure more new bookings than ever before thanks to increased brand exposure (+40,000 couples to be precise).

Refine your online presence

Does your wedding business feature on multiple sites and platforms across numerous corners of the web?

Well as long as you’ve been strategic in deciding where to feature your wedding services it’s good that you’re showcasing your brand in various places. However you must ensure that you always keep your information up to date – otherwise this increased presence could be detrimental to business rather than beneficial.

Resolve to ensure that wherever you’re present on the web – that means your website, your Bridebook profile or your social media accounts – that you ensure you’re featuring current photographs in your portfolio, new reviews, accurate pricing information and correct contact details.

Millennial couples will do their research and may check out your Instagram profile, then your Bridebook profile and then your website, so make sure you’re consistent.

To do list: it’s really important that you link between profiles to ensure Google knows you’re all joined up as one wedding business. Make sure you include a link to your website on your Instagram accounts and other profiles.

Let’s make 2018 your best year yet

Wave goodbye to 2017 and welcome in 2018 with these key action points and watch your wedding business flourish in the new year.

What did you learn in 2017 about your wedding business or the industry in general? And how will this affect how you do business in 2018?

We’re dreaming of a white Christmas. And with that, we’re also wishing for a successful snowy season for you and your wedding business.

But why rest your dreamy head in the wintry clouds when you can create your own winter wedding success and secure seasonal bookings?

Introducing the 12 tips of Christmas.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my wed-pro gave to me…

…“twelve excellent tips on how to make your wedding business stand out over the Christmas period.”

Ok so our version of that crimbo song may not have the same ring to it but our advice is worth its weight in gold.

We’re gifting you with twelve tips on how to make winter weddings your thing so that you can build a dream vision of your wedding services and attract couples dreaming of a winter wedding.

1. Wedding venues – carry a camera (or a photographer!) with you everywhere.

The weather is unpredictable and you never know when those flakes of snow may fall or when you’ll catch a newlywed couple snuggled by your venue’s roaring fire over a steaming mug of mulled wine. Christmas 2017 is a wonderful time to capture sparkly moments that you can advertise on your website, and appeal to couples hoping to get married in the winter of 2018.

2. Wedding photographers – do what you do best.

We don’t have to tell you what makes an inspiring winter wedding photo – you’re the experts. But as winter weddings aren’t yet as popular as fair weather weddings, take a look at the world around you and capture the season itself if you’ve no winter weddings booked to photograph.

Showcase a gallery of frosted flowers, iced lakes and mugs of hot mulled wine and cinnamon sticks by a fireplace to draw in attention from winter wedding loving couples. You need to sell a story to capture hearts.

3. Wedding florists – stick to seasonal flowers.

Upload shots of berry bouquets and holly adorned garlands to your social accounts and website. Think brides in fur boleros holding frosted flowers in the snow and sell your services visually.

4. Wedding caterers – create seasonal menus.

What winter warmers can you conjure up to offer prospective couples before they’ve even thought about exactly what they’re after? Whether you’re a fresh produce and wholesome food provider or an elegant a la carte caterer, now is the time to be creative with your culinary skills and whip up winter menus that no other wedding supplier could rival.

5. Winter wedding cakes  

if you specialise in making beautiful wedding cakes make sure you’re not seasonally biased! Present photographs of your wonderful winter collections of cakes on your website to show how versatile your skill set is and how dreamy winter wedding cakes can be.

6. Wedding transport

If you’re in the specialist business of wedding transport make sure you’re optimising your website to get to the top of google results for all sorts of specific terms, including phrases such as “winter wedding transport”.

7. Wedding decorations

Between November and January wedding venues should build a festive atmosphere to really set the scene for winter wedding lovers. Make a real statement and create a winter wonderland of your very own; transporting couples to a Christmassy world adorned with fairy lights and scented cinnamon candles.

8. Wedding planning

Although wedding planners are typically behind the scenes you should absolutely boast about the weddings you’ve helped plan on your website. Optimise your site for wedding planner searches by season.

Did you know long tail keyword searches are one of the best ways to target smaller but more engaged audiences? Try including phrases like “wedding planning for winter weddings” and ask permission to use photographs of winter weddings you’re particularly proud of.

9. Wedding entertainment

Bands and musicians…why not include a couple of christmas favourites on your playlist or share on facebook? Who knows; your rendition of the Pogues, Fairytale of New York, could help you win the hearts of a newly engaged couple keen on a festive affair!

10. Wedding dress

The perfect winter wedding dress is stylish, demure and elegant but with practical elements to keep the bride warm. A faux fur throw is always a great winter addition but could you offer something different? Be daring and creative with your winter bridal wear collection and turn heads for all the right reasons! Dress your shop front to reflect the change in season and make sure your website showcases the best in winter bridal wear.

11. Wedding accessories

Remember to invest in a new collection of closed toe shoes for your wedding boutique in winter, and it may be worth investing in a few pairs of white wellies to ensure you’re offering an ‘all eventualities covered’ one-stop-shop for brides. Sparkly hair decorations work particularly well in winter as do velvet headbands decorated with crystals or feathers.

12. Wedding makeup

Winter makeup can be a much more enjoyable affair than summer makeup, as makeup artists need not worry about the bride sweating off her foundation and more! Embrace the colder seasons and show your talents for fair foundations with peachy pink blushed cheeks, icy tones for eye makeup and a bold red romantic lip. Show your best season makeup trends on your wedding website.

This winter is your chance to show couples getting married next year how well you cater to winter weddings and how beautiful and romantic a frosty affair in the UK can be!

In recent years, wedding technology has advanced somewhat and we’re seeing pioneering businesses lead the way with innovative new ideas on how to make the wedding experience, even more, WOW for next-gen couples.

This is largely in response to millennial couples expecting technology to play a big part in their wedding day (as well as in the planning and research phase of their wedding journey) now more than ever before.

Predicted technology trends for 2018

1. Something old something new

We’re not the only wedding business to have detected a surge in the popularity of online invitations between 2016 and 2017, and sending digital invites has become normal custom for many younger wedding planning couples in particular.

In 2018 we’re expecting to see a resurgence of the physical invitation but with a modern ‘techy’ twist.

We predict that on pretty printed wedding invitations, couples will start to ask guests to download an app and scan their personal invite to RSVP, or at the very least, visit their wedding website to respond.

2018 is going to be all about streamlining and efficiencies. Couples want to keep their weddings personal but also make their own lives easier, hence the decision to collect RSVPs all in one place – online.

For wedding stationery suppliers in need of a little inspiration, Interactive Wedding Invitations is a UK based wedding supplier that specialises in making real wedding invitations come to life.

2. Virtual wedding planning 

Wedding industry experts expect couples in 2018 to go fully mobile with their wedding plans, using platforms like Bridebook to help them plan their big day.

Millennials want to be able to plan their wedding on the go and have access to all the information they need there and then – right at their fingertips.

According to a Forbes article on tech trends that will shake up content marketing in 2018, 69% of digital media engagement happens on mobile platforms across all industries right now.

Experts predict a continued increase in the entire wedding planning process happening online and we’ll begin to see more and more wedding suppliers developing processes and systems to facilitate this change in behaviour.

3. Photo apps will become the norm

We’re seeing more couples choosing to use photo sharing apps for their wedding day in addition to (not instead of) a professional photographer.

Photo apps like Scripin, mean that guests can be actively involved in the happy couple’s wedding day -taking photos and videos, sharing them with all the other guests in one simple and easy to use app, that you can download after your wedding so you get the complete picture!

4. 3D wedding planning designs

We’ll soon wave goodbye to loose conversations about reception layouts and colour scheme blends because 3D design tools that help couples virtually design and plan their reception rooms and then explore them in 3D are coming in 2018.

These tools do already exist and are becoming increasingly popular within the US wedding industry, so we predict they’ll be crossing the pond into the UK very soon.

These design tools enable couples, suppliers and venues to collaborate in an interactive, real-time way to create beautiful layouts and styles within the room specified.

Couples simply drag and drop wedding themed items into their real wedding venue or a template venue created to the exact measurements of the real deal.

They can then start designing how their day will look – making it almost impossible for wedding suppliers to misinterpret a couple’s requests and in turn, reassuring the couple that everything they’ve chosen works well together.

We expect to see future wedding technology trends build from this idea, and have seen similar examples of virtual wedding planning support in the form of Brookfield Barn which offers 3D virtual tours of their facilities on their website – helping couples and suppliers work together throughout the planning stage without having to actually visit the venue in person.

5. Hidden action cameras

Expect to see GoPro’s in brides’ bouquets, in vicar or registrars’ top pockets, in brides’ hair, on pets walking down the aisle, and even on bottles of alcohol and disco balls!

As a wedding photographer, get creative and go one step further than offering drones. Incorporate action cameras as part of your premium wedding day packages and impress the couples you work with in 2018.

6. GIF Photobooth

We’re seeing the already very popular wedding photobooth give way to the GIF booth in 2018.

A GIF booth captures a selection of around 3-5 photos and then automatically animates them into a GIF that is instantly shareable there and then. The booth also provides printouts of the single shots as well so you still get all the benefits of the original wedding photo booth.

7. 3D Printing

3D printing is nothing new but we predict an increase in popularity as 3D printing helps facilitate some truly unique and special ideas such as 3D Wedding Cake Toppers of the actual bride and groom (both humorous and personal!) and 3D Wedding Cake projections.

Couples will start to experiment with printed cake designs and personalised 3D projections to make their wedding cake come to life.

This process is unique and requires a lot of time but the results are stunning

8. Social will play an even bigger role 

Couples will continue to find new ways to integrate technology into their wedding day plans; adopting things like custom Snapchat geofilters.

This year, we’ve also seen more wedding venues offering live streaming as a service in wedding packages, indicating a shift toward incorporating social and tech into standardised wedding packages.

Are you ready for the latest in wedding technology?

Whilst we don’t think anyone expects all wedding suppliers to tick all the techy boxes any time soon, it’s important to keep abreast of industry developments to ensure you’re not lagging behind.

What technological advances do you think will hit the UK wedding industry in 2018?

Will your wedding business be investing in a techy upgrade next year?

Where do quality wedding enquiries come from? Well isn’t that the million dollar question.

Whether you’re inundated with wedding enquiries of a mixed quality or are struggling to get enough leads to your inbox, it would be pretty handy to know exactly where you should be focusing your efforts and resources to guarantee the best quality enquiries, wouldn’t it?

Well we’re here to tell you that if you can invest a little more time in being strategic in your approach to lead generation and begin to build insights around your target audience’s behaviours you could very quickly streamline your marketing efforts so that they focus on the channels that bring YOU your best enquiries.

What does a good quality enquiry look like to your wedding business?

Before we look at where you can find quality enquiries you must first determine what you consider to be a high quality enquiry for your wedding business.

We use a traffic light system to categorise the types of enquiries we typically receive and to determine where they fit in our priority list. This helps us to decide where to allocate our resource.

Here’s what a traffic light system could look like for your business:

Green = newly engaged couples with a wedding date, location and budget in mind

Amber = couples who seem to be contacting many suppliers to ‘get a feel’ for what is on offer

Red = secret shoppers or individuals reluctant to give you much information about themselves

Once you’ve established what a good lead looks like for your business it’s time to go through your enquiry database from the past few months or year (depending on the volume of enquiries you’ve received – you should ensure you’re working with a large enough sample size) and organise your enquiries into categories to see which channel has been working well for you historically, over the short-medium term.

Determining where to allocate your resources

It is important not to entirely dismiss a channel that appears to be delivering lower quality enquiries unless the volume for that channel is also very low.

High volume enquiry channels mean exposure. You’re getting noticed. These channels are worth closer inspection to see if there’s anything you could be doing to filter your enquiries further and ensure only the ‘Green’ enquiries make it through to your inbox.

This is the formula we use to help us decide how to approach each channel, post enquiry analysis:

High volume, low quality = opportunity

High volume, high quality = lead gold

Low volume, high quality = opportunity

Low volume, low quality = dead wood

The ‘lead gold’ channels are the ones you simply cannot do without and they’re the ones that are already working well for you. Take a closer look at these channels and make sure you’re doing all you can to make sure they continue to work well for you.

The ‘opportunity’ channels are there for your exploration. You’ll need to invest time and effort into optimising your business presence on these channels in an attempt to generate higher quality leads and filter out the Red enquiries altogether. Make sure you set yourself a deadline to revisit and re-measure the success or failure of ‘opportunity’ channels. You should be looking for short-medium term improvements in their performance to justify your resources being invested there.

The ‘dead wood’ channels are those that have consistently delivered poor quality leads and disappointing volumes for a prolonged period of time. You should cut your losses with these channels and allocate your resources elsewhere, where they’ll be more impactful.

Taking a closer look at key lead-generation channels 

Company website

Your website should be a high quality enquiry generator. It will most probably fall within the lower volume, high quality category which means there’s a definite opportunity to work on optimising your website and increasing traffic to it.

And more relevant traffic to your website means more, high quality leads.

Tip: read Using local SEO to attract local brides and grooms.

Social media

Social media is a tricky medium to call in terms of predicted success rate as it depends entirely on your objective for each social channel.

Many wedding professionals find Linked In is great for networking with fellow suppliers but it’s certainly not a channel for attracting couples.

Facebook and Instagram are probably the best two social platforms for attracting newly engaged couples however actually generating quality enquiries on social platforms is tough.

The fundamental nature of social media is that of fast content consumption and skim reading behaviour, and your messages are broadcast to a vast, broad audience which means it’s a lot trickier to use social channels as lead generation platforms.

Social media is better placed as an attraction tool – helping your wedding business improve local exposure so that couples want to find out more about your wedding business rather than make an instant enquiry off of the back of a social post.

Wedding directories

It is commonly believed that enquiries coming through third party websites such as wedding directories are of poorer quality and that couples enquiring through these channels are just looking for discounts and cheaper suppliers, regardless of whether they’re professional or not.

This kind of stereotyping is harmful, as it deprives many wedding pro’s of an excellent opportunity to benefit from a high volume of quality leads. As mentioned above, where high volume is concerned there is at the very least an opportunity to receive excellent quality enquiries if you approach featuring on wedding directories in the correct way.

Choose the right third party platform. A UK based platform such as Bridebook focuses on location based searches to ensure couples searching for wedding suppliers are shown the most relevant wedding companies possible. This is good for couples and it’s good for you.

Most wedding planning platforms are free for suppliers to register with. You can feature your wedding business on Bridebook completely free which means the risk associated with receiving what you deem to be a low quality lead is minimised because you’re not actually paying anything for it.

Optimise your business profile by adding tons of relevant information about your wedding services, location, pricing and reviews. This is likely to get you noticed in search, help filter out any time wasters and ensure you only receive informed enquiries from couples with real intent to book your wedding services.

It’s important to be where your clients are

If we could ask our readers to take away one key thing from this article it would be to remember that your business is unique and that what works for you may be very different to what works for a fellow wedding supplier.

Of course, sharing tips between wedding pro’s is helpful but be sure not to let preconceived ideas about certain channels discourage you from trying them out.

As long as you adopt a strategic approach to identifying which channels work best for your wedding business and you ensure that your wedding business has a presence where your potential clients are hanging out, you can’t go far wrong.

Remember, millennial couples behave differently to the generations before them and you need to be where they are. This generation of newly engaged couples will browse wedding services and suppliers on multiple platforms. They will do their research and use tools such as Bridebook to ensure they’re getting the best supplier for the best value.

It’s now up to you to be strategic in your approach to choosing where to feature your wedding business. Be where your audience are and provide tons of useful information to filter out the ‘Q&A via email’ process.

Do these things and you’ll snare the highest quality enquiries in the wedding industry.

Working as part of a small team can have big perks – both for employers and employees. 

We all have to start somewhere and it’s reassuring to know that even companies like Apple and Facebook would have started with a handful of experts before growing to employ hundreds of thousands of people all across the world.

What we do know first hand is that having a small, quality team of skilled, engaged and motivated employees beats having a large team. But knowing how to keep that team engaged, motivated and productive is the key to making sure your small team delivers big results for your wedding business.

Here are five ways to get the most out of a small team…

1. Hiring the right people

Being selective with who you employ is paramount for a company or team of any size but hiring the right people is even more crucial for small teams. And the right person isn’t necessarily the one with perfect experience.

Ensuring that a new members personality fits your wedding company culture is key as you’ll need new additions to be hard working, ready to get stuck in with all manner of tasks and able to thrive in a small team environment.

You’ll need to make sure that you’re hiring a people person too. The wedding industry is a public facing one so personality is key.

The impact of hiring the wrong person can spread throughout the entire team quickly and it can negatively affect the performance of your wedding business.

2. Cultivate a culture of respect

The benefits and challenges of a small team are that you’ll be spending a pretty significant proportion of your lives together. This can result in a close team with great relationships but it can also mean frustrations and disruptions are likely.

By encouraging all employees in your small team to have respect not only for each other but for the business, you maximise the chances of developing a professional yet relaxed environment for all team members to flourish in.

Boundaries are important when small teams become good friends as well as colleagues.

Be sure to arrange team building events to show you support relationship development but be clear that work time and down time are two separate things. And make sure to include all team members in decision making – giving everyone a voice by holding regular team catch ups and encouraging an open forum of discussion and idea sharing.

3. Ensure clearly defined roles and responsibilities

It is especially important that you ensure everyone is clear about their tasks and responsibilities within a small team. This prevents people stepping on each others toes and competing within close proximity. That isn’t to say that you should discourage collaboration on certain tasks; simply ensure that day to day tasks don’t overlap between colleagues for more streamlined operational efficiencies.

4. Invest in learning

Having a smaller team means that you can invest more time and money in helping them develop and grow as individuals. Offer to send employees on training courses or to wedding industry conferences and they will become valuable assets to your business.

5. Ensure your people have fun and a good work-life balance

Encourage your team members to have lives outside of work and you’ll enjoy the benefits of happier team members who spend less time doing a better job than someone who’s burnt out and demotivated.

Be sure to celebrate successes and arrange fun activities as a team to acknowledge a job well done.

A small team can have big advantages for wedding pro’s

A small team can be as successful (or even more) as a large team as long as they’re managed in the right way.

In a small team, each team member has even more responsibility in ensuring your wedding business is successful; so hire well, reward right and ensure everyone pulls their weight, and you’ll pride yourself on having the best team in the industry.

Start with good people and success will follow.

Did you know that Targeted Account selling is now recognised as the number one approach in lead generation by successful wedding suppliers?

Targeted Account management – or taking a strategic approach towards developing relationships and partnerships with specific companies or industry heavyweights – is being hailed as a game changer in B2B marketing for 2018.

For suppliers, the wedding industry has long been centred on winning customers in the form of engaged couples. And whilst this is still the case, 2017 has seen a surge in wedding professionals choosing to focus more of their time on developing relationships with other wedding suppliers and wedding venues instead.

We’re moving from a siloed industry approach to an inclusive one.

The benefits of referrals and preferred supplier lists is only really just beginning to be capitalised upon by UK wedding companies.

However the success of these partnering relationships is so significant that we predict business and bookings in 2018 will be driven largely by B2B relationships and targeted account selling and management.

What do we mean by Targeted Account selling?

Targeted Account selling is based on you identifying the very best potential customers for your product or service, and then spending time, efforts and resources on targeting that audience with personalised messages and communications.

It’s about being proactive in your approach to securing new wedding bookings rather than being reactive to enquiries that come through to your inbox.

This means building strategic B2B marketing objectives into your marketing plan – be that partnering with wedding venues, forging mutually beneficial referral relationships with other wedding suppliers, spending more time networking and even speaking at events and exhibitions.

Your key accounts will be the ones that generate the most bookings for your business and in accordance with Pareto’s 80:20 rule, you should spend more time (80%) on the smaller proportion of clients (20%) that bring you the most business (80%).

Here are three tips to help you kick-start a Targeted Account management approach in your wedding business…

1. Take your time and do your research

Learn as much as you can about local wedding venues and local wedding suppliers.

Do your research before approaching potential partner suppliers and find out who the decision maker is for the wedding venue or organisation you’re approaching.

You should have the name/s of one or two people you want to reach out to when discussing preferred supplier lists and referral agreements – don’t settle for sending a generic email to a generic address.

Swot up on all kinds of information about the wedding pro’s you’re targeting. What have they announced recently on their website? Which events have they attended or sponsored?

The key is to know more about your targets than your competitors do so that you leave a lasting impression and come across as professional, personable and knowledgeable.

2. Be clear and persistent in your communication

If at first you don’t succeed…

Reaching target wedding suppliers and receiving even an initial response may take multiple attempts, and whilst you should persist to get noticed be sure that each communication is clear, simple and focused, not harried.

The content and medium of communication should vary for each attempt you make at contact. Try emailing your target once then following up with a phone call before reverting to another email with new content. If that doesn’t work, perhaps try attending a local event or researching where the wedding venue or supplier may be exhibiting.

Be creative with your communication attempts and develop a system that works for you.

3. Prepare your marketing material in advance

When you hear back from your target account contact they’re likely to want to arrange a meeting with you, and knowing the wedding industry as well as we do, that meeting is likely to take place pretty quickly.

Make sure you’re ready to accept their meeting invitation by pre-preparing marketing materials ahead of time.

Prepare standardised questions that you can tailor to suit each wedding supplier as well as your portfolio of works, and have a think about any referral fees, rates and USP’s you can sell to partner suppliers that might work as an added bonus to them working with you (e.g. a successful blog you own or awards you’ve won that position you as an industry leader).

Choose a Targeted Account approach for your wedding business in 2018

Wedding suppliers – start building an account list today so that you can focus your sales and marketing efforts in the right place and on the right people in 2018 and beyond.

Target Account selling is a structured, repeatable methodology that enables you to efficiently build a network of distribution channels – that is, suppliers and wedding venues who will market your services to their audiences to help you win more bookings.

This Targeted Account approach will help you reduce marketing costs and rely less on more resource heavy avenues such as online advertising.

Partnerships and referrals are a surefire way to earn the trust of engaged couples and are one of the best ways to win new business in an era of savvy consumers.