}
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Is Your Marketing Plan Efficient?
I work with many event planners on their marketing plans and strategy. One of the most important things I evaluate is whether their marketing strategy is efficient. What do I mean by that? Are you getting the most return on your investment from your marketing dollars? Are you getting the most marketing for the least amount of time spent?
If your marketing strategy is focused on networking to get referrals, you may be spending tons of time going to events or being a leader (or on the board of directors) for a local networking group. For many planners, this is a great use of time. However, for others, they are spending a good chunk of money to belong to a group or association in addition to spending hours upon hours every month doing work that helps the organization.
The questions to continually ask yourself are:
If you are feeling overwhelmed and over-scheduled, it could be your marketing strategy that is causing the stress.
For example, instead of spending 5 hours a month and $1200 a year with an industry organization, would it be more useful to put that $1200 into SEO or Google Adwords and save you 60 hours of time in the next year? Or perhaps it makes sense to cut back to half of the networking events and use your extra time to write blog posts that help your SEO? Think about how you can work smarter instead of harder to get clients.
In general, the rule of thumb for small business marketing budgets is to spend 5-10% of your gross income on marketing. For example, if you are grossing $50k per year in your planning business, you could spend up to $10,000 per year in marketing expenses as a newer business, or up to $5,000 per year in marketing expenses for an established business. Of course, spending less is often better but this is a general guideline.
If I see an established event planner spending more than 10% of their gross revenue on marketing, I work with them to analyze where they are spending money, where we can cut back, and what we can re-allocate to be more efficient (i.e. working smarter, not harder). I also love working with event planners to establish effective marketing plans that save time and money.
Too often we continue to spend time and money on marketing that isn’t working for our wedding and event planning business. However, if you aren’t keeping track of where your inquiries come from, you will have no idea what marketing tool is actually making you money. This can result in a huge waste of resources (i.e. your time AND your money).
ALWAYS ask new inquiries how they found you. It is the most important question to ask!
Do you feel comfortable with your current marketing budget? Is your marketing plan working for you?
Could you use professional help to develop a smart marketing strategy that fits your budget, is effective, and saves you time? If you need help creating, evaluating, or strategizing, sign up today for a one-on-one coaching session.
A complete set of templates, checklists, and tools for professional wedding planners.
Business
Wedding Planning
Marketing
Day in the Life
Self Development
Friday Favorites
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