Start-ups Part 3: Promotional and Branding Strategies

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This week, we are discussing start-ups!  On Monday, we discussed the first things you need to do when launching your wedding business.  Yesterday, we discussed budgeting for your start-up costs.  (Both days have downloads available, so make sure to check them out if you are setting up your biz.)  Today, Kelly takes us through Promotional and Branding Strategies for start-ups… specifically, she reminisces on what it was like when she started out.

What I wish I Would have Known When I First Started…

When I started my Wedding Planning career 8 years ago, promotion and branding were two words I never thought about.  I simply benefited from word-of-mouth referrals since I was really just doing weddings on the side and had my day job, so I had more than enough weddings to keep me busy.

However, when I decided to launch my business full-time 3 years ago, I had a whole new outlook on promotion and branding strategies.  Why?  Because I had just made one of the riskiest moves of my life by changing careers and pursuing my dream of truly becoming an entrepreneur…which meant I had to actually make money and this wasn’t just a hobby anymore!

All this to say, in the Marketing Plan section of my Business Plan for Sweet Pea Events, I outlined the promotional drivers that I would invest in to help me meet the aggressive sales plan I had set before me.  I also had identified what I wanted my brand to look and feel like so I had a great plan in place!  This all sounds good and dandy, and in the end I was successful in meeting my sales plan goals and financial numbers…however, it wasn’t all hunky dory to get there so I wanted to share some of my mistakes AND my lessons learned!

Let’s start with my two biggest mistakes related to promotion:

• Overzealous with Advertising

In my Business Plan I had outlined five wedding advertisers I wanted to invest in.  I was SO eager to see my ads online or in print that I just couldn’t imagine NOT participating in one of these five publications!  Not to mention, I had worked really hard to create a unique brand that I was proud of and I wanted to show it off!  So I signed up for all five ads without a blink of an eye (sound familiar?!).  I still remember how I felt after I saw my first ad go live on-online and I was a “real life” entrepreneur and Wedding Planner!  Thrilling! And it was even more exciting when I saw my ad published in print in a magazine – that was huge for me.

I believed that all five of these ads would all provide me with a significant return on investment.  The truth is – some provided a greater return than others, but overall I broke even and the sales I received from these promotional ads equaled the cost.  So, lesson learned is that it’s OK to pass up on advertising opportunities and do your research ahead of time to determine what advertising mediums are perfect for your brand!  Also, realize that there are plenty of free ways to get your name out there – through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, those are both great, free ways to advertise your business so just remember advertising doesn’t always cost you! Now, read on to understand why breaking even doesn’t cut it and this was my first mistake!

• Forgot I Needed to Pay the Bills

In my head, I told myself if I could just break even and at least cover my costs of the ads then it would be worth it to advertise with each of the five publications – so wrong!!  I was clearly forgetting about something called TAKE-HOME PAY. That’s right…how was I going to pay the mortgage, let alone eat?  So, after my first year being in business full-time I took a tough look at my promotional strategies and determined that I needed to scale back on advertising expenses and I pull two of my five ads which were giving me the least return and I decided didn’t fit my overall promotional strategy anymore.  I had also tracked where my clients had come from, and realized quickly that 60% of my clients were from word-of-mouth referrals and the other 40% were from these five ads.  That was a huge eye opener for me – I knew the wedding business was high-trust, but these statistics just confirmed that I needed to be focusing primarily on networking.  I now understood what I needed to do in order to increase my revenue and decrease expenses!

Let’s now look at my two biggest lessons learned:

• It’s All about Networking

After I decided to pull those ads, I freaked out a bit wondering if my sales targets would still be met without the exposure that I had been receiving.  I quickly figured out my game plan that I knew needed to happen.  Invest in people.  Plain and simple. With my background in Human Resources, I know that relationships are typically the key to any success and so I set out on a mission to established genuine relationships with wedding professionals in my market.  Not just any professionals…I targeted those who were focused on my same or similar target market and whose branding I identified with.

In my post a few weeks ago on Top Ten Tips for Building Your Network I talked about setting a weekly goal for meeting with wedding pros and starting a “Vendor Lead Generation List”.  We have a FREE template for download that we’re providing you to help get you started so you have a tool to keep you on track!  This has helped me to successful build a network of wedding professionals that I trust, respect, and love working with!  Just remember to always be on the lookout for new partners and don’t close yourself off to meeting new people once you do have a substantial network established!  Download the template below:

Sage Wedding Pros – Vendor Networking Sheet

• You Are Your Brand

At The Simple Plan workshop we launched in Seattle last week, we talked a lot about branding and how it is critical to the success of any small business.  When I first started, I thought the logo, advertisements, marketing pamphlets, etc. were all I needed to focus on to establish a brand.  True, these elements are very important to any brand…but I didn’t realize until my second year in business when I started focusing on networking more that my logo wasn’t my brand, KELLY SIMANTS (me) is my brand.  People associate my company with how they relate to me – am I approachable, laid-back, fun-loving yet sophisticated?  That was what I wanted to convey with my branding but I didn’t realize that I, myself, was my brand and that I absolutely need to make sure I convey these characteristics to everyone I meet!  When Blair and Christy from Junebug Weddings presented at The Simple Plan last week, they summed this concept up best by saying “You know you have a brand when people are talking about your business the way YOU would talk about it.”

There is soooo much more that I could cover related to Promotional Strategies and Branding but hopefully this helps to give you a glimpse of some strategies you may want to consider for your own business.  And, if you’re looking for a lot more info to help give your business a boost, we review Promotion and Branding in detail at The Simple Plan, Sage Wedding Pros Business Plan Workshop.