Last year I had to start again after taking a year off. After 15 years of making weddings I took a break. Covid’s affects on our businesses had ripped my heart out, parenting never takes a day off, being a husband is my most important work, and no-one was getting the best of me. I was dropping the ball in all areas of life, so I refunded a bunch of weddings, asked many of you to cover for me for others, and Britt and I packed up the family and went to Mexico, then the USA, hopped-skipped-jumped through Austria, France, Liechtenstein, England, Italy, and Singapore to eventually come home to the Gold Coast, and now Hobart.

I think its important to evaluate, and re-evaluate, all elements of life on a regular basis so basically putting my entire celebrancy practice on ice was a pretty harsh way of finding out I still loved the art of celebrancy, I just had a really rough 2020-2022 and my therapist is impressed I’m still smiling – he does think I have a self-deprecating sense of humour though.

2012’s marketing efforts

I say all that to say that my marketing efforts when I started the business had changed from when I really put my foot on the gas in 2012 to 2022 when I put the whole thing in the freezer. In 2012 I was on Easy Weddings and blogging like a madman, plus the field of celebrants was different to now. I left Easy Weddings when I didn’t need to pay for their service in 2015 because my brand had grown significantly over that year and by pure momentum and brand awareness I made enough bookings. Knowing that you can only milk a cow for so long I continued marketing efforts, they evolved to a longer-term branding effort, not necessarily a “please book me now, I’d like to make money today” kind of marketing.

Fast forward to 2023 and reach from branding was lovely, but I needed to push-start this car from the zero kilometres per hour it was going in the freezer.

2023’s marketing efforts

I knew that the industry had changed, the celebrant population had changed, and the couples booking weddings were not just different but they had different means and ways of identifying which celebrant was the best for them.

Trust the experts

Sitting in our beachside casa in Mexico’s Baja California Sur in March 2023, the week that we booked flights home for August that year, I decided to trust the experts. Particularly because I was physically and brand-wise absent from the market they were promising to sell into.

Which experts?

Ask anyone in the wedding industry and they’ll have a strong opinion – for or against – the blogs, directories, and magazines, that all want to send you an invoice for marketing.

But so few of us actually have skin in that game, so few of us have bitten the bullet, put our best foot forward, and run a campaign with Easy Weddings, Hello May, Celebrante, etc, so I thought I would.

Common wisdom in business says to market on Facebook, Instagram, and Google search ads. In March 2023 at least, I felt that entering a crowded room meant I was trying to access to last few breaths of oxygen in a room where the air was already thin, like advertising in Times Square, does anyone actually see you there?

Plus these wedding advertising companies are all making great promises in aid of our business goals:

  • Easy Weddings asks “are you looking to book more weddings?” with an invitation to inquire with them.
  • Hello May writes “should you choose to spend your carefully saved, (and hard-earned), advertising dollars with us you’ll know you will always be in good company” promising that you’ll be in the right lineup for the right crime.
  • Together Journal presents that in their magazine, “now is a great time to come on board and get your brand out there in front of couples for future wedding bookings.”
  • Nouba says it’s “a valuable resource for couples to discover unique wedding vendors who they’ll truly love working with.”
  • Wedding Diaries will help you “gain the confidence of Australian couples planning their wedding.”
  • Wedlockers will “get (you) more recognition” while One Fine Day says it’s expos can make “magic happen.”
  • Wedding Qld emailed me this week promising that their “team are experts in wedding advertising in Queensland and will work with you to tell engaged couples how amazing your business is!”
  • Even the self-professed awarder of all the best awards in the country, ABIA, says that spending with them will help you “close more sales” because they “connect your business to thousands of newlyweds.”
  • Celebrante is also willing to throw you some leads at $40 a pop!

There are a lot of tubes of toothpaste but as Colgate used to say do they do “exactly what it says on the tube”? Do these companies do what they say on the tin?

Return on investment

In the marketing world you talk in terms of ROI, return on investment. A 5:1 return on investment is an average, normal, expected ROI. 10:1 is great, 2:1 is bad.

So if you spend $10,000 on marketing, you might expect $50,000 of sales as a direct result of that effort.

I spent a lot of money, did I get the return on investment?

What did I do and why?

  • Easy Weddings – they look to be the big mama of the wedding marketing industry. I started with a lightweight listing, then I stepped things up and chose the highest package listed across all states – $1,650 a month for six months, in total, $12,988 for the past year.
  • Wedding Diaries – I’d never heard of them but they ranked well on Google (and after some communication, seem to be run by lovely people) – $500 a year.
  • thecelebrantdirectory.com – some listings are just good for SEO, that’s what I hoped this UK-based directory listing would bring. – $30 AUD a month
  • WedShed – I love the team there, they’re genuinely lovely people who make a good product filled with passion – $80 a month
  • Polka Dot Wedding – they’ve been doing the good work of writing about meaningful and awesome weddings since before I started and they’re also lovely humans – $90 a month
  • Junebug Weddings – another SEO play plus a hope to reach a broader international market and higher end market – $35 a month
  • Isle Weddings – coming home to Australia we knew we wanted to eventually move to Tasmania and my friend Nina runs this magazine and website – $135.
  • Together Journal – it’s a good looking magazine promising a high end of town that likes to fly to other places to get wed – $850 for the year.
  • The Bridal Journey – a friend recommended this website because it was delivering a good ROI for him as a wedding photographer and at the time they had zero celebrants – $3200 a year.
  • Three Best Rated – these guys run a simple website that seems to be a pure SEO play, at no cost, but you can spend $90 to say thank you and get a certificate. I’m a believer in putting my money where my mouth is so I spent the $90 and said thank you – $90.

I stopped advertising with a few sites before the 12 months was up, so let’s say it’s a $20,000 spend.

What were the results

Did I see $100,000 of revenue from that?

That’s a big simple no.

Sales I can directly attribute to those efforts total about $30,000 with another $20,000 of sales that are not directly linked to any of those efforts, but the benefits of branding can never be totally attributed. A common old-school saying in sales was that people needed seven touch points before closing a sale, one might be a billboard, another a magazine advert, then you might call them, have a meeting, send the email, et cetera, and the sale is made.

Many of the other websites delivered an average of zero to two website referrals a month. Wedding Diaries was the only one that delivered more than single digits each month.

I’m honestly embarrassed for many of the others that have seemingly built houses on sand. I can speak personally of Wedshed, the team there are investing heavily in bucking this trend and building the platform to be something usable and meaningful in the marketplace.

In preparation for this piece many of you got in touch corroborating my personal findings. Most of you have a similar story to me, and Grace, who said that “after 5 months being listed on Easy Weddings, I’ve received a total of 26 enquiries, and only one booking. Vast majority of enquiries ghost after their first message. From the few that do respond, several have said I’m out of their price range. So far I’ve invested $1100 at $220/month and am locked in for 12 months. Can’t wait to get out there!”

I met with my Easy Weddings account manager last week, and in preparation for that meeting I went through every single enquiry in “WedCRM” and compiled these numbers:

  • for the past 12 months I’ve spent $12,988 with Easy Weddings and can directly report a $8,852 return in revenue from that spend.
  • the platform reports that my listing has had 117,627 views, which had converted into 2,818 storefront views (storefront being my profile/page), which in some way contributed to 156 enquiries in my inbox
  • I’m no wiser as to how many of those enquiries actually chose me directly or they came indirectly by Easy Weddings pumping the enquiries channel by getting enquiries through other celebrant storefronts which is a practice they engage in, but apparently less than 5% of enquiries are made that way.
  • 91% of my enquiries never even replied to my emails, text messages and calls.
  • I was a part of the new wedding packages program and zero packages were enquired about and sold.

So what now?

Well, now that I know that an investment is not returning good dividends, I take my money, time, and efforts elsewhere.

  1. The only directories I’m on today are on Wedding Diaries – those guys have done the work to rank well on Google, plus they link to my website (unlike Easy Weddings) – and I’ve made more money off my $500 Wedding Diaries spend than I have from my almost $13k Easy Weddings spend – and Wedshed, because they’re building something new and I trust them.
  2. I’m investing heavily into SEO because I’m in a new market in Hobart so it’s a whole new set of work. I do my own web and SEO work – if you’d like my help in that, get in touch.
  3. I’m also doing the hard work of connecting with every single venue and wedding planner in the region, building relationship – genuine relationship – making compromises and efforts to become someone they know and might recommend to the right people.
  4. Finally, here at the Celebrant Institute we’re launching a new tier of membership and a new podcast called Premium Insights where every week I’m going to be on the phone with real couples planning their real weddings asking them how they’re making their booking, buying, purchasing decisions. How did they meet their vendors, through what channels, and how did they ascertain trust and quality in their vendors. How does each social network, directory, magazine, affect their decision-making process, and what was it about their vendors that closed the deal?

Want to hear that podcast with real couples? Become a Premium Insights member today. $25 a month or get a month free when you sign up for a year. Existing members can upgrade by logging on to members.celebrant.institute and changing their plan.