Category: Marketing and Social Media

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Collecting email addresses at a wedding fair with a QR code and ChatGPT

Luke emailed me yesterday as I was about to solve for myself the problem he identified: What software would you recommend to use for a marketing list? Again are there any zaps or workflows in setting up the marketing list?

Great question Luke! I’ve been toying around in this realm for a while and have regrettably landed on the most expensive solution around: Active Campaign. I’m going to show you how I created a Zapier zap to collect email addresses at a wedding fair and get ChatGPT to send each person an email instantly after they scanned the QR code and entered their email address. It was such a smooth and professional workflow, I’m really happy with it. But before I show you how I created that I want to talk about email marketing for a moment. Email marketing is amazing and horrible. It’s amazing because people who identify with you and how you roll can and will give you their email address, and you have the opportunity to bring value back to their inbox via marketing emails. It’s horrible because trying to land in someone’s actual email inbox and not their spam folder is an arduous exercise that even yours truly finds hard, and tiring, and annoying. So you’ll try the cheaper products, then you’ll try MailChimp, and the rest of them, and marketing folklore tells us that if you are serious about this you end up on Active Campaign. so that’s where I am. Whenever someone enquires with me, books with me, or if I interact with them at an open day or wedding fair, that email address heads into my Active Campaign contacts list and I try my hardest to bring them immense value and joy. Not spam. So let’s have a look at this zap to collect emails at a wedding fair.

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16 Growth ideas for wedding celebrants

A celebrant friend was complaining to me recently about the market, we’ve all had the same conversation, either us being whined at, or us doing the whining. The truth is that we are not owed our next enquiry or booking, we need to work for it. So here’s some ideas on how to work for it how to grow your business. Take any of these ideas and deploy in an authentic and meaningful way for you.

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How to start taking better photos at your weddings

An element of my social media content strategy I’m quite proud of is that I’ve really worked hard at making better photos, photos that I have made – and therefore own – so that I have photos and video for my own social media channels and blog. If you’re interested in pursuing that art as well, Josh Rose has written a really good guide that I think would help you. It’s aimed at taking better holiday photos, but the advice translates directly to weddings as well.

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“The truth is most of your followers won’t see what you share” on Instagram

Instagram has shared a post today about how and why people see what they see on Instagram. I’m not going to speculate on how much of this is smoke and mirrors, or politics, or conspiracy theories. Instead, lets take them at their word and believe what they say.

You can read the whole report here, and I’ll share some excerpts and thoughts on it below.

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When Facebook shuts you down, are you ready?

Your Facebook page, Instagram page, Google My Business account, your LinkedIn, and god forbid any of you have a Parler account, but they’re all not your property. Running your business on the back of those properties is like going to your local cafe and setting up shop at a table. Putting up a little sign with Married By John Citizen on it, and accepting meetings and enquiries there. It might be ok for the longest period of time (thanks for hosting me, Sisterhood Coffee), but at any time that business owner can ask you to leave and not come back.

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What if Google didn’t exist?

Google, in light of legislation being introduced in Australia, has threatened to pull out of the Australian market. I’m sure they won’t, if only because they won’t walk away and leave $59 billion of income on the table and destroy the trust in their brand over a couple of dollars being paid to news organisations.

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How to name your celebrant business

David Placek is the branding genius behind some of the biggest names in the technology world. The words Sonos, Intel Pentium, Apple PowerBook, Blackberry, Gimlet podcasts (home of Reply All), and the Impossible burger, all came from David’s branding company, Lexicon Branding. In 2014 Placek released a book which I’d love to read – but can’t find for purchase. Luckily for me, and for you, Om Malik recapped the book in his blog recently.

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How to be your own publicist

A solid foundation of my business success as a celebrant has lay in the realm of good publicity. Good publicity can’t make a filling business profitable, or an unskilled celebrant, talented, but if you’re already rocking a good business operating system, and your ceremonies are resonating with people and getting good reviews, publicity is the cream on top that helps more couples find you, and book you. In this article I wanted to lay out a few tools that I have used in the past, and continue to use today, to “get my name out there” but in a very deliberate and meaningful way.

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How to become a travelling celebrant

Alinta asks: I am going to take up the gypsy/not-yet-too-grey nomad life for a year or so and I wonder if it would be possible to be a sort of travelling celebrant? We will be travelling in a substantial caravan and aren’t intending to be too structured about our timing so that we can follow our hearts and interests… Any thoughts or suggestions on if this would work?

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When you are not different even Google is against you

A really powerful way for you to spend your time and energy whilst weddings are essentially furloughed, is to evaluate, reevaluate, and evaluate even more, your current business systems and marketing strategies. I like to view my marketing strategy as a journey, and the end of that journey is when someone “walks into my store” and makes a purchasing decision, and my “store” is my website. On a recent Google Office Hours webinar, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller, made this comment on being different to a webmaster who has a ringtones website who was complaining of traffic dropping and their search engine position dropping …

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Moving town as a celebrant

Kath asks: Hey Josh, Just wondering if you have any advice on what I should be doing in preparation to “move/expand” a celebrant biz interstate. I am moving to Hobart mid year and would like to make a start on some marketing now which will in turn affect my bookings for the end or the year and the beginning of next. Apart from reaching out to some lovely local celebs in the area to say hello and booking in to attend an expo, do you have any ideas on what I should or could be doing online (website copy, SEO, blogging, google listing, marketing, back end kind of stuff) while I am in this early transition stage.

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When you’ve got an odd name pronunciation

I married a couple recently and the bride had one of those names where there was a few different ways it could possibly be pronounced. In that situation, when we first meet, I introduce myself with my name, and expect the same in return, I’ll then note how they pronounce their own name. But she didn’t!

I feel the same way about business.

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When wanting to be featured or talked about, know this one thing

A favourite read of mine is the regular Susbtack email from Ariel Stalling. You might know her name from a little blog called Offbeat Bride. In this week’s mailout, Ariel tells the story of how someone a little bit like her was covered in the New York Times.

Before I actually read the words in the piece I thought Ariel was telling the story about how she was covered in the New York Times which would’ve been kind of cool, but then when you sit down and read it you realise that someone slightly similar to her with a really good publicist was covered in the Times instead.

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What are the ABIA awards? A guide for celebrants

A reader asks: “I’ve noticed the ABIA awards presentation nights have been occurring but what is the ABIA awards and how do people win the ABIA awards? What is the scoring based on? I see these marks of 99.93 etc.” I’ll answer this question on behalf of ABIA, then with my own opinion, which may or may not include the now famous, Billockery Awards, the celebrancy industry’s most favourable fictionalised awards system.

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Please put the (sales) gun down!

A quick Saturday morning flick through the social media feeds showed me six celebrants doing a bad thing on social media.

They’re not breaking the law, and in their minds they’re not doing a bad or evil thing. Many people would see the same thing I did and think it’s perfectly fine.

But my advice would be to stop.

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It’s time to wean ourselves off this teat

The most popular question I’m asked in person by my wedding industry colleagues, and here on the Celebrant Institute, is which website do I advertise on or which directory do I list in that works?

Somewhere along the way, wedding vendors have gotten really comfortable being fed off the teat of wedding blogs, directories, websites, and magazines.

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Josh’s plan for posting on social media

When I post on social media, I’ve got one plan in mind. Not to sell, not to do a deal, not to whinge or complain. I want to be known. So when people that like me make a decision about a celebrant, I’m who they think of. When I saw this recent meme about the mortifying ordeal of being known and loved it resonated with me so much I had to work it into a talk for our recent conference.

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Five easy SEO hacks you can do that are driven by research

Everyone knows a guy who knows a guy who can get you on the front page of Google. I’d argue that you might not want to be on the front page of Google for everything, but it doesn’t hurt for the right people to be able to find you.

In this article I’m not going to add to the SEO noise, you can read a million articles about SEO practises and there are even more people willing to take your cash to make it work for you.

But if you don’t mind kicking around the shed that is your website, here’s a check list of things you can change or improve on, and they’re backed up with good research. As opposed to the standard old wives tale SEO advice that most people’s parent’s next-door neighbours are dishing out.

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What should I do at a wedding expo?

Hi, I am a new country celebrant with three weddings booked late this year, early next year but none performed so far. I am attending a wedding expo soon ( in the country) and am not sure what to do. I have collaborated with a supplier to use an arbor, have my logo enlarged to easel size and have business cards. But wondering what else I need. I dont have photos of me officiating yet obviously. What information type material should I have with me, what questions do you usually get asked, do I just stand there and smile, “have chockies to reel them in”? Please help!!

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Old marketing versus new marketing, example 503,000,091

Old marketing would put the right message in the right place so the right people would find it. The celebrant would advertise in the wedding magazine because people having weddings bought wedding magazines. The tools were at the tool shop so people who needed tools would know where to buy them. The cheap services were advertised where cheap people shopped, and expensive services were advertised where people with too much money shopped…

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Which directories should we advertise in?

Sarita asks: I’m a relatively new celebrant and just after some advice on the world of wedding directories. There seem to be loads. Apart from the obvious ones like easyweddings, ABIA, there’s lots of smaller ones like polka dot bride, wedding guide, celebrant society, etc etc & a huge variation on how much it costs to list with them. Have you any tips, recommendations on where to go and where not to go. I feel like I should be listing somewhere (shouldn’t I?) but where to go!

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How to publish Facebook ads that work

I don’t know.

If there’s anything you can expect from me today and into the future is that I’m not going to talk BS. The good news is that I know as much about Facebook advertising as most marketers and advertisers do, and they don’t know either, because there is no one perfect ad that will close all the deals and make all the bookings. So as much as I don’t know how to publish Facebook ads that work, I do know how to publish Facebook ads that work for me, so I’ll take you through that process and also weave in some professional best practises and see if we can’t help you.

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What should we do on social media? Part 3

A member asks: When chatting with celebrants recently I heard again and again that most celebrants aren’t really that interested in following the general Instagram “best practice” advice that you see on social media blogs/podcasts. Most people a) don’t want to invest the time and energy to go down the Pinterest-style heavily-curated aesthetically-pleasing path, and b) think it’s bullshit anyway. They don’t want to follow a posting schedule, they may not even post very regularly. I think most celebrants just want to post photos that they like, when they have them – but want to maximize the appeal/reach of those posts and spend the least amount of time on them. Can you share any practical little hacks to shave a few minutes and a few headaches off your posting/planning time.

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What should we do on social media? Part 2

A member asks: When chatting with celebrants recently I heard again and again that most celebrants aren’t really that interested in following the general Instagram “best practice” advice that you see on social media blogs/podcasts. Most people a) don’t want to invest the time and energy to go down the Pinterest-style heavily-curated aesthetically-pleasing path, and b) think it’s bullshit anyway. They don’t want to follow a posting schedule, they may not even post very regularly. I think most celebrants just want to post photos that they like, when they have them – but want to maximize the appeal/reach of those posts and spend the least amount of time on them. Can you share any practical little hacks to shave a few minutes and a few headaches off your posting/planning time. There’s a reason Facebook and Instagram have personal and business accounts. There’s a place for you to post what you like, and a place for you to post content that has a positive on your business.

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What should we do on social media? Part 1

A member asks: When chatting with celebrants recently I heard again and again that most celebrants aren’t really that interested in following the general Instagram “best practice” advice that you see on social media blogs/podcasts. Most people a) don’t want to invest the time and energy to go down the Pinterest-style heavily-curated aesthetically-pleasing path, and b) think it’s bullshit anyway. They don’t want to follow a posting schedule, they may not even post very regularly. I think most celebrants just want to post photos that they like, when they have them – but want to maximize the appeal/reach of those posts and spend the least amount of time on them. Can you share any practical little hacks to shave a few minutes and a few headaches off your posting/planning time.

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The do’s and don’ts of email marketing

A pertinent question about building and maintain an email list today: For anyone looking to follow your example of maintaining “an email list of all couples I meet at expos, fairs, open days, along with all who enquire with me” and sending them a weekly newsletter – are there any legal considerations or permission issues (opt in/opt out) we need to consider? Is it fine to just add any email address to a newsletter database or is there particular wording we need to use in sourcing those addresses for that purpose? Cheers.

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Get testimonies that matter

Celebrants offer such a personal service, your service is very different to mine, to every other member of this website, and the thousands of other celebrants available. We can communicate our differences in text and photos on our website, through blog and social content, and by meeting people but meeting every single enquirer can become tiresome.

So, let me introduce you to a secret warrior in my sales toolkit: testimonies.

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The only thing you can rely on in the wedding business

This afternoon a couple got engaged and they have never heard of you, they’ve not made any decisions about their wedding, and it’s highly likely they don’t know anything about the wedding industry, how it works, what things cost, and who does what.

The only thing you can rely on in the wedding industry is that today a couple got engaged and all of your previous branding, marketing, advertising, and godowill in the market means nothing.

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