Autumn Marketing Tasks for Wedding Celebrants

Oct 19
The autumn is the post-wedding season lull when a lot of house-keeping can be done before the peak engagement season starts at Christmas. 

It is this time when Wedding Celebrants can plan and take action on a range of important marketing tasks including: 
  • Attending local wedding fairs
  • Reviewing which wedding planning directories to subscribe to (and which to axe)
  • Planning & preparing content for their social media platforms
  • Updating their website with new photos, new prices, new text

All these marketing tasks will be investigated in more detail in future blog posts. 

However, according to "Guides for Brides" the single most important factor for brides and grooms when choosing a wedding supplier is online reviews and testimonials. BrideBook agrees, their data suggests 99% of all couples will look at reviews before they make a booking, with 90% of couples less likely to book a supplier that does not have a good range of reviews.

So if successful Wedding Celebrants want to do one thing that will help grow their business this autumn it is to plan for and collect more successful online reviews. 
For newly trained Wedding Celebrants not having any reviews is their biggest barrier because some engaged couples will simply not consider a Celebrant unless they have a track record. And you can't blame them?

A couple's wedding is likely to be "the happiest day of their lives" and it will certainly likely be most expensive. So consequently, having trust in the person they employ to start their big day off with the ceremony is very significant. 

So what do you do? 

Newly trained wedding celebrants can offer pro-bono or heavily discounted ceremonies to friends-of-friends or relatives or offer an "Introductory rate".
There will be couples out there who are looking for a bargain more than they are looking for experience and they will take a risk on a new trained wedding celebrant knowing what an amazing job they'll do with their fresh training and enthusiasm. 

Newly trained Wedding Celebrants should plan in advance the amazing customer journey they will be taking their engaged couple through as this will maximise the chance of getting that 5 Star review. 

Things like the following: 
  • Your on-boarding & "welcome pack" you send your couples when they first book you.
  • The communication you give them when arranging their initial meeting.
  • The professionalism of the initial ceremony planning meeting including the follow-up email summarising the decisions & next-steps.
  • The way you timely & professionally meet your own shared deadlines and chase the couple for decisions. 
  • The communication you have with the couple the week before, day before and morning of the wedding to put them at ease. 
  • The way you conduct yourself as soon as you arrive at the wedding venue with other wedding suppliers, guests and VIPs (the couples parents and grandparents). 
  • How you put the couple and their guests at ease before and during the ceremony.
  • Your follow-up communication one or two weeks after the wedding where you send the couple their commemorative wedding script. 
 

How do you get Online reviews?

It is well known in commerce that 70% of happy customers will provide an online review if asked to do so. 

So the most important thing a Wedding Celebrant should do after they have delivered an amazing client experience is to ask for an online review. 

I teach how to do this in your final written communication to your couple when you send them their commemorative copy of their wedding ceremony. 

This then needs to be followed up with an email with links to make leaving a review easy and simple to do. 

Most wedding planning directories that Wedding Celebrants subscribe to will have easy-to-use links to include in an email to your couples for them to complete a review. You will then get a notification when they have left you a review.  

In an ideal world you would like all your couples to leave you a review on all of the wedding planning directories you subscribe to but this wont always happen. Instead, have a priority order, the one directory you want most reviews on and then ask your couples to copy and paste this review to other links. 

In an ideal world, I would love all my couples to leave reviews on Hitched, The Celebrant Directory, Bridebook and Google. Some will leave a review on all 4, but I focus on trying to get at least 70% of my couples leaving at least one review. 

You have to be persistent. Couples are busy and may want to leave you a review but no matter how much they love and value your work, they just don't get round to it. So track who is leaving you a review and who you need to chase again. 

Some couples may need chasing numerous times on email, WhatsApp and even text. But keep at it because if you have delighted all your couples it will be worth it. 

Once you have their review, plan to use it and shout about it in a number of ways especially in time for the peak engagement season (December - February) and peak Celebrant enquiry time (March - May). Use edited versions on your website on all your social media accounts. It is not a problem selecting parts of your review for this purpose, it is more important that the length of the text you use is appropriate for how it will be used. E.g. do not put lots of small text on an Instagram post because it wont be read. Use headlines only. 

Do use reviews and testimonials even if you did the ceremony for free or at a heavily discounted price. Couples are not going to put that you were "cheap" in their online review!

Please don't do the following which I have seen as it looks really bad and insults the intelligence of your couples: 
  • use funeral celebrant reviews on wedding celebrant sites
  • use lots of different reviews from different friends and family members who attended the same wedding
  • don't invent a review - couples should be able to find photos of the couple & their wedding on your website and social media 

I am proud to say that in 2023 was the most recommended Wedding Celebrant in England on Hitched.co.uk. Learn how I achieved this and get templates and documents you can adapt and use on our course "Become a Wedding Celebrant from Scratch" or for existing Wedding Celebrants they can simply enrol on "The Wedding Celebrant Business Launch-Pad".  Feel free to get in touch to find out more. 


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