Create a Money-Making Niche For Your Wedding Business
by Debbie Tobias
Don’t fall into the trap that so many businesses do of thinking that you can serve all brides well. Many wedding planners struggle with this, because they are afraid to turn away business.
If you want to be successful in any business—weddings or otherwise—identify your niche and subsequently your target bride. This doesn't mean that you can't plan weddings for clients outside of your target group. What it does mean is that you shouldn't be tempted to divert your marketing energy and dollars beyond the brides that are in your core audience.
Many successful businesses have carved out niches by doing something better, faster (think Jiffy Lube) or just being bigger (think Amazon.com) than their competition. There's no reason that you shouldn't do the same for your wedding planning business.
CREATE A NICHE FOR YOUR BUSINESS
As a wedding planner you can also set yourself apart from other planners (i.e. your competition) by creating your own niche. Possibilities for a wedding planning niche include:
* Encore weddings - 2nd or 3rd weddings
* Same-sex unions
* Serving price conscious brides
* Planning High-end weddings - wedding budgets upward of $50,000
* Celebrity weddings
* Theme Weddings
* All-inclusive wedding planning
* Weddings in a hurry (I once read about a planner, in Florida, whose specialty was planning local weddings in a week!)
* Destination weddings—focus on one particular destination or area
* Ethnic weddings
OWN YOUR NICHE
Once you decide on a niche for your wedding business, own it! Find out all you can about your specialty and the brides that your specialized wedding planning services will attract. Open your eyes to her demands and desires and do all that you can for her. Become the expert so that you're ready when that email or phone call comes in.
For example, let's say Brenda Bride just got engaged and wants to do something different for her big day. She has known from a very young age that a 'typical wedding' with the big poofy dress and formal tuxedo for her groom just wasn't for her. And now that the time to plan her big day has arrived, she wants her nuptials to reflect her personal style and she decides to have a 1930s wedding. (love that!).
Now let's imagine that you're a wedding planner who specializes in vintage weddings. You know all about incorporating vintage details from the Art Nouveau elegance of the 1910s; to the Audrey Hepburn-era of the 1950s. You're familiar with all the necessary vintage wedding elements like invitations, music, menu and more. Now, how excited do you think Brenda Bride (and others like her) will be to speak to YOU, the vintage wedding planner. (And just imagine how interesting you'd be to the local media!)
Do you get the idea?
With a niche for your wedding business, you will know who your target bride is and then you can make her happy—very happy—instead of trying to make a lot of different types of brides moderately satisfied (which is what the majority of wedding planners are doing now!).
HAPPY PLANNING!
© 2009 Debbie A. Tobias. All Rights Reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wedding expert and self-proclaimed life-of-the party, Debbie Tobias, is the creator of Weddings For A Living, a wonderful, one-of-a-kind resource for wedding planners and wedding professionals who want to skyrocket` their wedding planning business to ultimate success.
NOTE: You're welcome to reprint this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to debbie@weddingsforaliving.com.
|
