Christmas is less than a month away, which means that engagement season is almost here! 9% of engagements take place between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, making January the biggest month of the year for wedding planning.
Not only that, but thousands of other couples jump into the new year to start planning their weddings again, whether they’re getting married in 2019, 2020 or beyond.
To make sure that your business can capitalise on the busy season and get more bookings from potential couples, we’ve made up a list of things you can do now to make sure that your business is ready for the new influx of couples.
Make sure your contact details are up to date
All roads must lead home, so it’s important for every online reference to your business links back to your website or storefront.
While this might be easy to track with platforms such as Facebook or Instagram that you use on a regular basis, sometimes it can be easy to forget platforms you haven’t updated in a while.
When was the last time you checked whether all of the links on your Pinterest are working correctly? Or when was the last time you updated your YouTube channel?
It doesn’t matter how often you use that platform, if it’s something that you want to use to drive traffic back to your website then it’s important to update your contact details. A contact form, email address, and phone number are all important to make sure that every couple who is interested in your product or services can reach you when they need to.
Update and source new content
Sometimes the year can get away from us and it’s a while since we’ve updated the content on our website or storefront. If you haven’t touched your content in more than 6 months, it’s time to look at what you can update.
Have you done more weddings that showcase the new services or products you offer? Has the quality of your pictures improved? Have you done more real weddings? Or have you simple done more work that you want to showcase alongside the weddings you already have featured?
Look at your visual content to see what it can add to your website or storefront update it where necessary.
Alternatively, if you still don’t have enough content, consider setting up a styled shoot or organising a photographer for some additional images before Christmas. That way you can still get all of your new pictures up before the start of the year.
Schedule social media posts
January can be a busy period with expos, meetings and weddings all taking up more of your time on the weekends as well as during the week. It can be hard during these times to keep on top of the usual business admin that you usually would take care of, including your Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Make sure that you’re making the most of your social platforms in those times that you’re busy and schedule some content to go out during the month. That way you can still have some of your work being showcased and linking back to where couples can enquire with you, even if you’re too busy to actually post at the time. Making the most of holidays such as Christmas and New Year’s Even can also help increase your engagement by up to 30%.
Facebook can do scheduling within the platform, while Later.com is good for scheduling Instagram posts.
Set up email templates
Email templates are a great way to stay on top of enquiries when you’re out of the office and can’t get back to a couple straight away. Sending a quick template to say that you’re working a wedding, at an expo or in another meeting and will get back to a couple shortly will keep you front of mind when you can respond back properly.
Just remember, most couples expect a response within 24 hours. Couples usually book with the first supplier who gets back to them, so if you can send an email template and then an actual response within 24 hours you can help position yourself as the supplier to secure that booking.
Turn on phone notifications
To make sure that you are improving on your response time, turn on notifications on your phone. Whether you’re getting enquiries through email notifications or from the WedCRM app on Android or iPhone, which will let you know when an enquiry as come through in real time, notifications can give you real notice of when couples are trying to get in touch with you.
This means that you’ll always be on top of when enquiries are being sent and can maximise your potential to get back to couples first, whether it’s via text, email, phone, or whatever medium they’ve contacted you in from the get-go.
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