3 Steps to Booking Weddings [in the new normal]
In this new guide you’ll learn the 3 critical steps that will ensure your wedding venue, service or product keeps booking wedding couples through 2020 and beyond. My clients have continued to take deposits, keeping their businesses healthy and continuing to serve couples throughout the covid pandemic.
So, if you want to book more weddings then this guide is for you.
About the Author
If we haven’t met before, my name is Kelly Mortimer and I help wedding business to drive enquiries, increase average spend and book more weddings. Keeping their businesses profitable while serving more of the couples they love.
My clients see increases of 45% -120% on bookings after applying my strategies.
STEP 1 The Wedding Couple’s Enquiry Journey
Most of my venue & vendor clients feel that all they need to do is get more enquiries.
They believe their sales journey starts when the couple make contact by email or call or meeting. They only want to fill the top of the proverbial funnel.
This is a huge misunderstanding and is even more relevant in the new wedding market.
Your wedding couple is researching your venue, service or product online. We see huge spikes of traffic to wedding websites and social accounts during 9pm – midnight. As they sit on their sofa ‘multi screening’. Watch TV and scrolling venues & vendors.
They are shortlisting their choices and deciding which FEW to reach out to. They don’t have time, energy or effort to waste in finding their wedding tribe. So they stalk you. Your website, your Insta Account, Google images to name a few.
And they are fickle. (aren’t we all today?)
A photo that looks old fashioned? You’re not shortlisted.
A website that is overwhelming and doesn’t hook them? You’re not shortlisted.
Information that isn’t clear about what you offer? You’re not shortlisted.
If you make your couples work too hard, email you or call you then you’ll likely miss the shortlist. Which means you never hear from them.
So then you’ll say: “I just need more enquiries!”
But you are getting them, they just aren’t converting from the online journey.
With a fresh pair of eyes look at your online presence. What are a wedding couple seeing, feeling and thinking? Is it enough to COMPEL them to move to the next step and contact you?
STEP 2 Get comfortable with video calling
I hear you. It’s awkward, you don’t like to zoom or skype. I get it.
But video calls convert at the highest levels.
It’s much easier for your wedding couple to have a brief chat with you before committing to a bigger next step such as a venue tour or in person meeting.
Offering brief Zoom calls to go through their requirements and answer their questions can be a great way of moving your couples smoothly through the sales journey.
Put down the old fashioned phone!
The face to face aspect of video calling means you’re much more likely to connect with your potential couple. The more you connect, the safer they feel, the higher your conversion will be.
Using an easy scheduling tool such as Calendly makes your couples lives even easier.
STEP 3 Let’s get flexible
We don’t have a crystal ball and our couples are hesitant to put down deposits when no one really knows what the future looks like.
Make it easy for them to put that first payment down by being flexible (where possible) with your T’s & C’s.
For example, can you offer 1 date change subject to availability should they need it.
If you’re a venue and couples need to see you in person, then give them a guarantee money back if they change their mind when they come for the tour. (very unlikely).
What you’re looking to achieve is giving wedding couples reassurance that it’s safe to book with you while maintaining cashflow into your business.
CONCLUSION
One of my venue clients took 80 NEW bookings through lockdown. New deposits based on great online journey, Zoom calls and flexible T’s & C’s. You can too.
I hope you enjoyed this post!
Now I’d love to hear from you…
Which was your biggest takeaway from this post?
Are you already using some of these steps in your business?
If so, what’s working well for you?
Let me know by leaving a comment below right now.
PS: Need more help to book more weddings right now? CLICK HERE to see more.
That I’m doing something right as I’ve also continued to take bookings throughout lockdown.
But biggest gain was signing up for your initial week long ‘class’…… it focused my mind to get on and do what I wanted/needed to do to be more visible to my potential customers.
Hopefully next time I’ll be able to sign up for #nextlevel
great tips Kelly
Fantastic support and advice as always.
We have continued to take bookings and deposits throughout the past couple of months … have offered a staggered deposit payment to show flexibility; held zoom calls prior to showrounds; have used WhatsApp for simple messaging; sent relevant images and videos prior to showround and directed views to Instagram, all of which has hugely helped aid speed of conversion…3 confirmations for next year this week!
Biggest idea to take away is the use of Calendy for Zoom bookings. I rent out vintage chinaware and retro props and usually its one of the later things that get booked. All this years weddings have moved on to 2021 some have changed their date 4 times – luckily I have flexed with them all.
I loved your 5 day intensive course. Once I am back on track I would love to book the next level with you. This year I took the plunge and rented a larger showroom storage facility as I had out grown the last one. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time but with higher rent and no money coming in its proving a costly exercise!