One of the things that can bring the excitement of starting a wedding planning business to a screeching halt is the moment you realize you’ve gotta market it. Because even though you’ve picked your brand colors, come up with a name, and maybe even printed some business cards (which makes everything feel real), the whole “build it and they will come” approach you thought was going to work all of the sudden…well…definitely doesn’t. 

• How am I going to book my first client?
• When am I going to book my first client?
• How am I going to get enough weddings to quit my job?

The list of how this “I need to market my wedding planning business” realization can look is long. And it’s slightly different for everyone. But at the end of the day, it’s something we all experience—and pretty immediately try to start figuring out.

So you start Googling all the things. Maybe you even typed “wedding planner marketing” into the search bar to get here! And you’re finding lots of articles that give you ideas. And more ideas. And then ideas to the point you are just as lost as when you started.

Well, prepare to find the answers my friend. Because I’m going to spell out wedding planner marketing to help you get your new(ish) business off the ground.

Side note: You might be wondering why you should listen to me (I get it). Because who is writing this article, and what does she really know about wedding planner marketing? Rest assured; I’ve been helping wedding planners do their marketing for 10 years.

Step 1: You need a website

Full stop. That free listing you have on The Knot doesn’t count. And your Instagram profile doesn’t either. You need a website (that you are in control of) so you have a proper home on the internet.

Because your website is the thing all marketing points back to. People who want to refer you need something to send to folks. The people who find you on Instagram will want to go to your website to learn more. And you absolutely need Google to understand you exist!

And while a 1-page website might be the easiest thing for you to get turned up, I really encourage you to build a website that has these pages:

• Home
• About
• Services
• Contact

And a blog—but more on that in a bit.

You can use platforms like Showit and Squarespace to build your own website, and I recommend purchasing a website template to start with. Why? For 2 reasons. The first reason is you’re not a website designer and it will take. you. forever. to try and design one yourself. So even though it’s free, you’ll spend way too much time trying to fully DIY it. The second reason is it’s also too soon for you to invest in a custom website. You and your wedding planning business are going to change too much over the next few years to make it worth the investment (and it’s an investment).

A few pro-tips to help you get started:

• Purchase a website template to customize. Some of my favorite template shops are Tonic Site Shop, Davey and Krista, With Grace and Gold, and Ashley Ferreira Design
• Plan out your website before you really dive in. Sunday Muse Design has a great website content planner
• Don’t use the photos from your own wedding. Invest in high-quality wedding stock photos from a company like Sourced Co.
• It’s okay to use AI to write some of your website copy, but do not use AI written copy without making significant changes to it
• Educate yourself about SEO to make sure your website is going to get found on the internet. Sara Does SEO is great resource but this article on the Enji blog is also a great place to start

Step 2: You need a marketing strategy for wedding planners

Once you’ve got your website ready to rock (actually, you don’t even have to wait to dive into this!), you need to create a marketing strategy for yourself. It’s really not optional because in my decade of working with wedding planners, trust me when I say you don’t want to be thinking about this only when things have gotten really hard.

So what is a marketing strategy? It’s not complicated—a marketing strategy is your plan of what you’re going to do to make sure people know you exist!

And when it comes to your marketing channels as a new(ish) wedding planner, there are definitely some tried and true places you should be doing your marketing. So even though all those Google searches tell you to be here, there, and everywhere, trust me when I say you don’t need to be at this stage of the game.

Here are the marketing channels you should be focused on as a newer wedding planner.

Referrals: It’s extremely likely your first few clients are going to be a friend, family member, or friend of a friend. So don’t be shy about telling everyone about your new wedding planning business—they need to know about it before they can start telling other people about it for you!

Social media: Regardless of how you feel about social media, it is something that fits into your nearly $0 marketing budget right now, so you should be using it. But make sure you have realistic expectations about these platforms. They are really meant to help people find you (so you location-based hashtags and keywords in your captions) and get interested enough that they go to your website. And if you’re stuck on how to come up with a plan, Enji’s marketing strategy generator doesn’t just create your marketing strategy for you, it dives into social media too!

Blog: Told you we’d be talking about blogging in a bit! Once you’ve got your website out into the world, your blog is the way you help feed Google the information it needs to really understand you (and then put you in front of people who are searching). So work to get 1-2 blogs out a month and focus them on answering questions about wedding planning—and providing helpful and in-depth answers. And make sure to optimize your blog for search too!

There you have it! Your wedding planner marketing roadmap to help you build your business in the first 1-3 years! And if you are looking for a tool that can help you do a good job with your marketing, be sure to check out Enji—I basically turned myself into software so you can have a proper marketing system that actually guides you.

You can start your free 14-day trial here. If you subscribe, know that group coaching is included! I really want to see you succeed, so get out there and start marketing your planning business. You’ve got this!