CAN GOOGLE'S GOGGLES HELP YOUR WEDDING BUSINESS GROW?

 

Now say that three times fast.

Is Google's Goggles about to hit the Canadian wedding industry? If it does, it could prove to be a sophisticated, albeit pricey, way to reach the mobile market.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this technology, Google's Goggles is a mobile app available for download on the iPhone and Android that recognizes real-world objects through Smartphone camera lenses. With the original version, you would take a snapshot of the QR Code (that funky barcode-ish looking thing) and would immediately receive information related to that product such as what it is, who made it and where you can get it.

 With Google's newest version Goggles 1.3 you now have the ability to retrieve information simply by hovering over the QR Code (and now BARCODES too!) rather than having to take a snapshot. What's even cooler is that the new version has the ability to read QR Codes in print ads. For those of us who combine our print marketing with e-marketing strategies and social media...YEE-HAW! This is just one more way of connecting the dots and putting your business everywhere all at once.

Think of all the possibilities that this little do-hickey can bring to marketing your wedding business! Print ads do not have to simply be print ads any more! Not only can the QR Code provide potential clientele with additional information for your product or service instantaneously but it can also send them to the URL for your service. The trick to putting Goggles to task is to ensure that the Goggles tags bring up info that can't be found by a general Google search. You want to ensure that your potential clientele or consumers are receiving real-time info that they can't find anywhere else.

Will "reality advertising" guarantee sales? Not sure. Will it put you one step closer to reaching couples that are constantly on the move, tech-savvy and glued to their phone? Yuppers!

And for those of you who have no idea where to start with QR Codes for your marketing practices...it can also solve your Sudoku Puzzles in a matter of seconds.

Seriously.

MARKETING PREDICTIONS FOR 2011

With 2010 coming to an end and 2011 right around the corner, we thought we'd share with you a few of our wedding marketing predictions for 2011:


ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING WILL GET EVEN BIGGER

We've already witnessed the upsurge of Social Media, Blogging and Online Advertising among the wedding industry and most of us have adjusted our marketing to accommodate this new wave of online movement. In the New Year more and more wedding professionals will be shifting their marketing budgets to online mediums for the mere reason that online is where the bulk of their audience is. While print marketing is not about to bow out by any stretch of the imagination, most wedding professionals are going to realize the need to mix their Marketing Campaigns with Online Marketing Campaigns in order to get the most bang for their marketing bucks.

In 2011 we'll see more wedding professionals jumping on the Social Media bandwagon as they'll have a better grasp of what Social Media is. Those who just didn't "get it" this past year will be trying it out in the new year. (In other words, if you're not on Social Media, you might want to get on that).

You will also begin to see more career paths dedicated to Social Media Marketing (meaning you'll see more wedding professionals assign or hire team members for the sole responsibility of listening and researching in social media communities, social gaming and social video as well as handling marketing in these areas on a day to day basis). As a result, wedding professionals will seemingly be everywhere all at once.

As well, more educational opportunities will be popping up both in formal educational institutions and informal seminars for wedding professionals (or any professional really) to gain more knowledge on how to best use SMO for their marketing practices.  That said, that excuse you've used all of 2010 that you just don't "get" Social Media will be tossed out the window my friend.



SEO AND SMO WILL EXPAND AND COMPETE EVEN MORE

In the past couple of years wedding professionals have been focusing a lot of energy on increasing their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and well I'd certainly hope so as it's pretty much been the number one way of getting found by your target market. However with the emergence of other search engines as major contenders like Bing, MSN, Ask, etc it's become not just about being on the first page of Google anymore it's about getting on the first page everywhere. So guess what? Now your SEO is on-par is more important than ever.

Then you have social media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more which provide new ways to be found online. Toss in Mobile Searches and Geo-Location Searches and voila -- you have so many more places into which you have to get your brand.

Acknowledging that there is so much more than just Search Engine Optimization on Google is the first step to increasing your brand's profile. Embracing the new practices and using them is the next one.



STAGING WILL BECOME MORE PROMINENT


It works for the real estate, fashion and culinary industries and while it's was embraced rather slowly in the wedding industry it's usage is anticipated to pick up speed in 2011. 'Fashion shoots' are no longer only for the fashion industry. These days wedding professionals - from cake designers and decorators to caterers and wedding planners -- are styling, staging and photographing tabletop designs, theme decor, food and more in classic 'high-fashion' style as a way to showcase their talent for design and detail in their portfolios, blogs and as a gateway to the media.

While 'staging' in the wedding industry is definitely not a new concept, fashioning and photographing wedding concepts in 'high-fashion' zine-like style for self-promotion is. Gone are the days of simply setting up a table yourself and taking some photos with your own camera or hoping that a high-profile magazine will offer to do a shoot for you. While it can be costly, these days wedding professionals are hiring or partnering with other professionals in the industry to put together full theme concepts (aka their 'vision') and having established photographers skillfully capture it. Everyone who participates essentially wins with equal promotion and let's face it, it looks so much better than if we did it with our rinky-dinky point-and-shoot.

Staging has become the newest form of collaborative partnership among industry professionals and can be expected to increase in the New Year.


MOBILE MARKETING HAS A RUNNING START

With the success of the iPhone and the introduction of the iPad and Google's Android, Smartphone technology is booming and so mobile marketing has sped up from a light jog to a full on run.

In the New Year mobile marketing won't just be about texting, emails or applications. We'll see an escalation of new applications, new devices (ahem...the new iPad anyone?) and an increase in technology making our networks that much faster and technology that much smarter. That said, our marketing efforts will expand to Smartphone technology services like location-aware programs, mobile games and applications that will feed interest to our consumers and send them in our direction. Where will you see the most wedding professionals in 2011? You'll see more wedding professionals develop their own 'Apps' for their services or making use of Wedding Apps that already exist like iWedding and more.



ONLINE VIDEO WILL GET EVEN BIGGER (YES IT IS POSSIBLE)

One thing that stood out in 2010 was the increase of numbers of people watching online video. With an abundance of video sharing sites like YouTube, Loomia and Woomu and video hosting sites like Hulu

While using video for marketing purposes is not a new concept,  (promo videos, 'trailers', recorded interviews, etc. have been used for the last three years in practically every industry from entertainment to publishing to fashion and more) there has been a dramatic increase in using video for marketing among wedding professionals as a result of this increase in what's being referred to as 'Social Video'.  From 'wedding trailers' to 'video testimonials' you can expect to see more promotionally-aimed videos coming from the wedding industry than from the wedding couples themselves.



PERSONALIZATION AND CUSTOMER SERVICE WILL BE EVEN MORE OF A KEY FOCUS

More wedding professionals are realizing that 'personalizing' their marketing efforts are getting more personable results meaning that by tweaking their marketing to capture the interest and needs of their 'target market' they see a stronger presence of that specific audience in their ROI (Return on Investment).

In 2011 you'll likely see more wedding professionals 'getting personable' with their target audience as well (and not just with direct marketing methods). More conversations will be sparked by wedding professionals in online social communities, more wedding blogs will surface (but more importantly more wedding blogs will reflect and attract specific audiences) and more attention will be paid to how customer service is handled.

Speaking of customer service,  2010 proved that consumers don't want to wait for an answer to their question or a solution to their problem. Everything had that "I want it now" mentality. Some professionals labelled this mentality as "demanding".  Other professionals saw this mentality for what it was -- a desire for real communication in real time.

As a result, in 2011 you'll find that many companies will be providing 'real-time' customer service to engage and appease their consumers in this fast-paced era. Consumers now have more than one option of obtaining customer service. (ahem...remember the good ol' days of waiting on hold for what seemed like eternity?)

In 2011 you'll likely see a decline in the use of online forms as a way of obtaining customer service and instead you'll see more direct email options and direct phone numbers. You'll also likely notice an increase in the use of Live Online Chat or Messenger Boxes for customer service which  provides the highest level of 'Real Time' Customer Service.



These predictions don't mean that we've looked into some magic crystal ball and are telling you what you must do in 2011. These predictions are the marketing trends that we anticipate will impact the wedding industry as a whole in 2011. And as a wedding professional your key to success will be to develop a marketing plan for 2011 that will reap the most benefits for your business.

AND IF YOU'VE NEVER DEVELOPED A MARKETING PLAN, GUESS WHAT YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION SHOULD BE?

A LOOK BACK AT 2010: WHAT MARKETING TRENDS WORKED & WHAT DIDN'T - PART I

 

“Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.”
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850

In just a few short weeks the Holiday hub-bub will dwindle down and we'll be (*gasp!*) heading into a brand New Year full of new hope for successful wedding businesses and new marketing plans to make it happen.

Of course to do that we have to re-evaluate our marketing plans from the past year and determine what has worked and what hasn't (or for those of you without marketing plans you'll have to actually create one!).

Following along the theme of looking back on what has worked in terms of marketing your business and what hasn't, A Look Back at 2010 examines a few of the marketing trends that took off in 2010 and a few trends that are on their way down.

A LOOK BACK AT 2010 - PART I: 

RING OUT THE OLD

DIRECT-MAIL

I'll likely take a lot of heat on this one as there are many marketing companies out there that still thrive on the Direct marketing route, but hear me out. We live in a world that's obsessed with saving time. We send emails over Blackberry because it's faster, we opt for self-check-out at the grocery store because it's quicker than having someone else do it and we have cell phones because we can no longer wait to get to a landline to chat. That said, the idea of having to sort through endless Direct Mail pieces in our mailbox to get to the  mail that actually means something to us is a waste of time (not to mention a waste of paper). Most Direct Mail pieces are viewed as "junk mail" nowadays and are simply ignored.

That said, if you plan to remain loyal to your Direct Mail campaign ensure you're piece is doing two very important things: 1) visually eye catching with the right call-words and  2) connecting your consumer directly to something online (and fast!).

TELEMARKETING

I'm really hoping that I don't have to explain this. Telemarketing is one of the most inconvenient marketing methods imposed on consumers and yet there are a ton of companies out there that missed the memo.

Put it this way, there's a reason that "Do Not Call" lists exist. Better yet, think of the last time you were contacted by a telemarketer and then tell us how hooked you were on whatever they were pitching to you.

Exactly.

PRINT ADVERTISING

Now I'm not one of those people who is going to join the "Print-is-Dead' parade because I truly don't believe that. However I am going to be completely frank here:  the print mediums that are surviving out there are the ones that have integrated their print efforts with their online mediums. Those that don't are in danger of fading into the "remember when" category. Why? The amount of people doing their research online is increasing every year. Consumers want real-time reviews and photos of products and services and they want their information in great detail and this can't easily be done with a print ad. Gone are the days of the thick Yellow Pages book or when consumers looked forward to thumbing through catalogs in the mail and here are the days in which with a simple click on an online ad a consumer can be immediately transported to a page or web site that's chock-full of information that the consumer wants about that product or service.

If you look at the wedding magazines that are still enjoying great success you'll notice that they all have one thing in common: they have online counterparts that take the print content and propel it into real time digital-tangibility. If you're opting for Print Advertising, ensure that it has the capability to connect with an online campaign and make that you have your web site prominently displayed on that print ad. After all, where do you think the consumer will go after seeing your print ad? Think about it.


TELEVISION ADVERTISING

There's a reason that sites like You Tube are thriving. More and more consumers are watching television programs and video online than ever before, making television commercials less effective than they once were. Also, with the wonderful invention of the PVR which grants consumers the power to fast forward through commercials, successful television advertising has become dependant not only on the delivery-style of the information but the strategy of timing and placement.

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in.  A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.”

~Bill Vaughan

Stay tuned for 

A LOOK BACK AT 2010 - PART II: RING IN THE NEW!