Create Your Wedding Invoice Template for Marketing Effortlessly

Wedding invoice template for Marketing

Are so many different ways that you can market your wedding planning business. And in this video, I want to share with you eight free ways that you can market your wedding planning business. If you're new here, hey, I'm Candice Coppola. I'm your business BFF. I'm a former wedding planner and designer, turned business coach. Back in 2019, I decided to hang up my wedding planner hat. I was like, okay, girl, I think I'm done with this wedding planning thing. I sold my business and I decided that I wanted to coach wedding planners and pros like you on how you can build a profitable business with purpose. And part of building a profitable business with purpose is knowing how to market your business best. There are so many different marketing techniques that you can use to market your wedding planning business. But I thought, you know what? There are eight free ways to market your business that can actually have a great impact on your sales, your leads, your profitability, and your revenue. I gathered them all together and we're going to talk about each in this video so that you can get out there and market your business in some new ways and also do it on the cheap. This is great for anybody who's just starting out to where funds and resources to get your business going might be limited. And it's also great for just any stage of business where you want to explore some free 99 options to market your business. So let's get into eight free ways to market your wedding planning business. The first way that you can market your wedding planning business for free is to get on free wedding directories. There are tons of free wedding directories, both national and global global and even niche to where you might be located, city and state. Put your business phone number, name, description, link, whatever they give you access to. Get your business on some of these free wedding directories. They tend to show up a little bit higher in search engine results. So if somebody is googling or searching for a wedding planner in a specific location, this free wedding directory might come up. And if you're listed, well, they'll certainly click on your link. And occasionally, these free wedding directories, when they give a link back to you, Google will see that as a sign that you're trustworthy. So having that link back can help to just boost your overall website SEO, which is search engine optimization. And that's how you're found on Google. So my first tip for you is to add your business to free wedding directories that are local to you and in the niche that you want to serve. And just they make money off of the ads that play on their website. So they offer this free real estate, this billboard space. It's almost like the pin board at a coffee shop or a local Starbucks where people can pin their business cards. Starbucks makes money off the coffee while these free directories are making money off of the ad views and clicks that are on their website, which is why they're riddled with ads. But anyway, it's just a great place for you to be. And why not be there if it's free? So the first place that you'll want to market your business for free is to get on those free website directories. The second way that you can market your wedding planning business for free is to network with vendors. The wedding industry is such a relationship driven industry. The more that you can forge relationships and partnerships, the more opportunities that are going to come your way. So if you want a free way to market your business, my advice is to start getting in with your local wedding industry community, even more so than you might be right now. Host an event and gather people together. If nothing's really happening in your area, connect with other wedding vendors who are working with similar clients and who might be in front of that next level couple you'd like to attract. Go out to lunch, go out for a cup of coffee, go grab a spicy Margarita, whatever your poison is. Get together in person and start networking more with your local vendors. You can simply reach out to people, see if they have any availability to meet, and if they have a place of business, a brick and mortar like a bridal store or a floralist, you might even just be able to set up a time to meet them in their studio or in their office and introduce yourself and get to know each other and see if there's any opportunities for collaboration or further connection. One of the biggest, I guess, benefits of building relationships in the wedding industry, especially during COVID when everything was shut down and nobody could work, it was relationships. Relationships is what carried wedding pros through that really difficult time. Not only just having other people who understood what it was like to go through this crazy moment in your business. But when things started to come back on and our deposits turned back on and water and money and couples and weddings was flowing, it was those relationships that really helped businesses get back up on their feet. So I just want to encourage you to make sure that relationship building is at the top of your priority list when it comes to marketing. And it is free. I mean, you don't have to go out for coffee. You don't have to spend money on spicy margaritas. But why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? It's a business write off, right? So make sure that you are networking with vendors and establishing those relationships. The third way that you can market your business for free is to establish relationships with venues. There are so many different venues for your couples to choose from based on where you are located geographically. And the more you can ingratiate yourself with wedding venues, the more likely you are to book clients from those venues. I want you to be strategic about which venues you approach to develop relationships with. You obviously want to choose venues that are in the right budget bracket for your ideal client, that they would choose stylistically, and that would tick off whatever other boxes your ideal client has for their wedding location. But the more that you can get in with wedding venues and the more that you can develop relationships with them, the more they're going to refer their clients to you. They're going to be like, You know what? This bride or this groom or this person seems like they need a wedding planner. And we're going to going to refer the best, which, PS, it's you. We're going to refer Candice, or we're going to refer you to our couple and have you work with them because you're going to make our lives a lot easier. And we know that you're going to make this wedding amazing. So make sure that you're establishing relationships with wedding venues. I would put this at the top of your priority list. And it doesn't really cost you anything except some gas money to do venue tours and any way that you might want to follow up on those relationships, like sending a card, sending a little gift to your venue coordinator and being like, Hey, girl, thank you so much for meeting with me. Just keep me in mind anytime you have a couple who needs a wedding planner. That goes a long way too, by the way. Any gifts you might send or any things you might need to do in order to continue to connect with your venue. It doesn't cost you a lot, but it definitely has a huge benefit for your wedding planning business. My fourth tip for you in marketing your wedding business for free is to put some time and energy into your SEO. Now, SEO is search engine optimization, and this just means this is a strategy to getting found on Google. The majority of couples getting married use Google to plan their wedding. They also use Pinterest and TikTok and Instagram, but they're also using Google searches to find vendors and to get information and access to information and inspiration. If you can spend time learning SEO, which, by the way, you can learn pretty much for free here on YouTube. There's plenty of SEO content here teaching you the basics and even advanced techniques in SEO. If you can spend some time learning and honing in this skill, it's going to benefit you forever. It's going to benefit you throughout the length of this business that you have and any future businesses or endeavors that you might find yourself in. Because knowing how to rank on Google is one of those life skills that we all need to know. It's like changing a tire. It will help you out in the trickiest of circumstances. So put some time and energy into learning how you can advance your SEO. And this is doing things like keyword research and then optimizing your website so that it shows up for the keywords that it should. And those keywords typically are your location, wedding planner, wedding planner in, insert your location. Those are typically really like your A plus keywords, the things that you would love to be found for. Now, there's a great SEO course. This is put together by a friend of mine, Sarah Dunn, and it's called SEO Boot Camp. I'm going to put a link to this in the description box below. And if you use the code playbook, you'll also get a discount on this SEO course. Sarah's amazing. She's so smart. And her SEO course is actually created for wedding industry professionals. So it speaks to the nuance of the wedding industry. The examples are all wedding related. And Sarah is really one of the few people I trust when it comes to SEO and giving SEO advice. So I'm going to pop that in the description link box below. If you want to brush up on your SEO skills and you want Sarah's help, that's an option for you. You can also research this on YouTube. While we're talking about SEO, my fifth tip for you is to write blog posts. If you want to market your business for free, have having a blog and writing blog posts is probably the easiest way for you to rank on Google and also market your business. If you don't have a blog, you should. I don't care if you've been in business for five minutes. There's lots of things that you can talk about and there are lots of blogging topics out there. There's things that you can speak on. There are things that your ideal client is searching for that they can't find and we want to create blogs and articles on your website that drive those people to you. Now, I know that this is where a lot of wedding planners and a lot of wedding pros get hung up. What should I blog about? What topic should I talk about? Ps, we give you four blogging topics every single month inside the Planner's Playbook when we deliver your playbook. We actually give you a full marketing strategy for the month, including Instagram prompts, blog posts, content buckets. We take care of you. We sort you out inside the Planner's Playbook every single month with a brand new marketing strategy. But I decided that I think what's going to help you take a step forward in blogging is just having some blog post ideas. So I decided to create a freebie that you can go and download. It's 10 blog posts for wedding planners. And this is a great place to get started if blogging is new to you or if you're just stuck trying to figure out what you should blog about. Inside this freebie, I give you 10 blog post ideas and I even tell you what you should write in each blog post so that you can show up on Google. Blogging is an amazing way for you to market your business for free. All it takes is having a blog on your website, which most website platforms offer, and just some time. And with the invention of AI and tools like Chat GPT or Jasper AI, blogging has become that much easier because these AI tools can even give you a full blog outline that you can use to write your own content. The more you blog and the more you make your website an authority on wedding planning in your location and in your niche, the more Google is going to want to rank you when people are searching for a wedding planner in your area. So start small. We got 10 blog posts options for you to begin. And over time, you're going to build an awesome catalog of information over the years that you can point clients to, that new clients will find again and again. It's just such a smart way to market your wedding planning business for free. My next tip to market your wedding planning business, but for free, is to use Pinterest. Listen, as a wedding planner, you know Pinterest is the place where all couples go to find inspiration. Now, TikTok and Instagram, they're coming in hot. I think a lot of couples are using that to find inspiration and save it. But Pinterest is a place that just makes sense to plan a wedding and to look for inspiration. Your work should be on Pinterest. So get used to using Pinterest and pinning work from your website to Pinterest, not just pinning other people's inspiration and work. Pinterest has been a huge traffic driver for me my entire career. When I was a wedding planner, I adopted Pinterest really early. And then even as I made my transition into a business coach, I use Pinterest every single day. It's where a lot of people discover me. In fact, you may have clicked on a pin and been delivered to this video. You could be here because of Pinterest. But a lot of people discover me for the very first time because they're using Pinterest as a search engine. And that's what interest is. It's a visual search engine. So if you can create pins and pin them to Pinterest and direct them to your homepage, to any other pages you have, and of course, your blog posts, you are just increasing the opportunity to bring traffic to your site and to get your next best client. So don't just use Pinterest to find ideas for your clients or to get your Keto recipes organized, because that's what I use it for, if I'm going to be honest. Outside of business, I'm looking for low carb recipes and occasionally building my dream house. You can also use it to pin your own content, too. And it's an amazing traffic source for your business. My next idea for you to market your business for free is to use Google My Business. Now, as a coach for wedding planners, I'm often asked, Candice, where should I have clients leave reviews for me? And there are a lot of options. You have something like the Knot or big wedding directories like Wedding Wire. And then, of course, you have your website where you might want somebody to write a review so you can post it on your website. There's also Google and gosh, a host of other things like Yelp. And I mean, just pick. There's tons of places for people to leave you reviews. And so I always say your best bet is to have them leave you reviews in as many places as you can. But if I had to choose one, it would definitely be Google. The more reviews that you can get on Google on the actual platform, the better. It's going to help you improve your SEO to help people find you. You want to make sure, though, that your business is on Google My Business. Make sure it's on Google Maps. Make sure that you have a Google My Business profile. You can also update that almost like a social media channel. Make sure all your information on there is current and up to date. Because couples use Google to plan their wedding, we want to make sure that you show up in as many searches as possible. Google My Business is one way to do that. Keep your profile updated and definitely direct your couples and any customers you might have or anybody who wants to sing your praises and write you a review. Make sure you direct them to Google reviews first. You can also ask them to just copy and paste that and then go to another site and just paste the review there. That's common practice and totally okay to ask. But if we had to pick one place, it would definitely be Google reviews. My eight and final suggestion for you on how you can market your wedding planning business for free is to create connections on Instagram. I know you're using Instagram, which is why I didn't really include it as an idea here because you're using it, I know you are. But I want to make sure you're using it smartly and that you are using Instagram as it was intended to be used, which is a social platform. In order for you to use Instagram to its fullest breath, you need to make sure that you're creating connections and relationships on Instagram. This means commenting, liking, networking right on the platform. So yeah, you don't even have to do your hair or put on a nice outfit and go out for spicy marks. You can do this from the comfort of your couch during commercial breaks, but also even while you're watching shows because I don't know about you, but I don't even watch TV anymore. I'm just like, the TV is watching me and I'm watching my phone. Instagram is a great place for you to forge new relationships, to build connections, to find opportunities, and to build your brand and your presence. So I want to make sure that you're using it socially as the social platform it was intended, and not just posting and ghosting. Not just throwing up your Reel or your latest post or sharing something in stories and then just disappearing. Make sure you're using the platform and engaging with other vendors and researching and finding new people to connect with. I promise you it will come back to support you in so many different ways. As a small business, you really appreciate when people pay attention, right? When you put so much time and effort into a real or into a marketing strategy for your wedding planning business and you post something on Instagram and somebody takes the time to like it, somebody takes the time to comment on it, and oh, my gosh, somebody even takes the time to share it, that creates an imprint on you. It's like this core memory you have of a person. They leave an impression and you feel seen, appreciated, heard. And you're like, Wow, that was really nice. They didn't have to do that. Thank you. I feel seen. I feel appreciated. This is working. Be that person, be that guy for someone else. It will pay you back in your business tenfold, I promise. All right, so let's recap. These are my five ways that you can market your wedding industry business, your wedding planning business for free. The first, get on free directories. You might as well be there. It's for free. You never know when they're going to send you traffic to your website. Network with vendors. Get out there, meet people, make sure you're building and establishing relationships. While you're doing that, establish some core relationships with the very best venues in your area. They have the power to refer to you. Put time and effort into learning SEO. It's going to help you throughout your entire career, whether it's this business or you decide to do something different in the future. And in doing that, make sure that you have a blog and you're writing blog posts and you're publishing articles on your website that are going to help to draw people to you and tell Google that you're an authority on wedding planning in your area. Next, use Pinterest. Don't just use it for your Keto recipes. Make sure you're pinning your own work and your own content there. Use Google My Business. And when you are ready to get reviews or when you have reviews from customers, make sure they're posting them directly on Google. And finally, create connections on Instagram. Remember, it's a social platform. It's meant for you to socially interact with other people and not just post and ghost. These are just a few ideas to get you started and to make marketing your business a little cheap, definitely cheerful. These are some free ways. I'd love to hear from you in the comments section below, which options here are you already using in your wedding planning business? What's new to you? What are you going to try? And do you have any suggestions for any other free ways that we can market our wedding planning businesses? I'm going to link a video here that I think you should watch, and I'll see you in the next video.