Amanda asks about social media and marketing:

Hi, I’ve been registered since March 2024. Initially, I was lucky to secure four bookings relatively quickly, but lately, it’s been super quiet. I’m attempting to navigating the world of advertising and could use some guidance on the most effective approach with a pretty small budget. I’m on social media, have a website, and have undertaken some paid advertising, but I’m very unsure about the best way to go in this industry moving forward, seem to have lots of money going out with little reward. Some people have suggested focusing solely on social media, others recommending Google Ads or partnering with larger businesses. Yes I know I need to be patient but I would appreciate some advice for a newbie please?

Hi Amanda, welcome to the team, we’re so glad you’re here! You’ve tapped onto one of my favourite conversations, I’ve been writing about starting as a celebrant for close to a decade! I’ll share some truths and then explain what I’m doing.

Most business advice is like winning the lotto. If I won the lotto and gave you my winning numbers, they’re unlikely to win again. It equates to “I made this decision and got this result” without considering environmental context and pure luck. Listen to others’ stories, but look for the underlying strategies, not just the winning lotto numbers.

Secondly, the wedding industry is in a weird place right now. Years from now, you’ll be the lucky one who can say you started in the valley and climbed to the peak with the rest of us. Covid and the 2020-2023 era was strange for the wedding industry. Weddings involve gathering people together, often from different places—things that were hard, frowned upon, or avoided for almost four years. Additionally, the regular cadence of people meeting, progressing into relationships, engagements, and then marriages was disrupted in 2020/2021. This disruption means fewer people are getting married now. On top of that, the cost of living with inflation and interest rates means spending isn’t like it used to be.

A third point I learned in commercial radio is that a big portion of advertising isn’t meant to generate revenue or build brand equity. A lot of advertising is paid for to make the business, business owners, and marketing team feel good. Many wedding businesses love to be featured on specific websites or directories, but little comes from it. I know wedding businesses spending thousands annually to be on certain websites or magazines simply to be known as a business on that platform, which is wild to me.

Finally, much wedding social media created by wedding vendors and celebrants is purposeless—it’s just noise in an already noisy room. Remember, social media isn’t advertising; it’s marketing. Our goal there is the engage with couples, help them, entertain them, inspire them, love them.

Advertising aims to convince people to transact with you now or soon. Marketing is about brand awareness and strength so that when people are ready to transact, they choose you without shopping around. My goal is to pull those two levers as needed but always be marketing. When done well, you never need to advertise—at least in my humble opinion.

An old business adage states you can hold one of three positions in a marketplace—cheapest, best, or first. The marketplace is defined by you and ratified by the real world. It can be a geographic area—dominating a city might be hard, but your local area could be easier. It can also be a theme or type. Identify where you can bring the most value to a community and be the best there. If you can build workflows and efficiencies to be the cheapest while still profiting, you can try that as well.

On price, I encourage celebrants to raise their prices because we do important and valuable work in our communities and deserve a good wage.

However, when I started 15 years ago, I charged very little because I delivered very little value. My price matched the value I brought. When I did my first wedding expo 12 years ago, I offered $550 wedding ceremonies and would MC for free if booked that week. It was a roaring success. I credit my business success today to that small start where I learned so much from doing many weddings at a low rate.

Today, I charge $1800, and if the economy was in a better place and I wasn’t trying to break into the Tasmanian market, I’d charge more, purely because I know how much my business costs to run today and what kind of wage I’d like to earn. I share to reinforce that price should match the value you bring. If you want to charge more, bring more value.

So what am I doing today? I’m playing the long game and working hard at delivering immense value through my social media. This way, if new people find me, there is value waiting for them, and for my existing community, I continually deliver value.

As for advertising or building new business, I focus on:

  • Attention arbitrage
  • The 2024 version of search optimisation
  • Product

Attention Arbitrage

Where is everyone’s attention? Which website, blog, network, or app are my people focusing on? That’s where I want to be marketing and advertising. Personally, I think many wedding blogs, magazines, and directories don’t have anyone’s attention anymore. I’m spending money, time, content creation, effort, and community building (aka replying and commenting) in the areas where my couples have attention today.

Here’s a good book on the topic

2024 Search Optimisation

SEO in 2024 is about more than just search engines; it’s about being found where people are looking. People Google, but they also ask AI chatbots, use Snapchat, YouTube, and Instagram. I’m working hard to understand how people search and how to be found there. Have you asked ChatGPT who the best celebrant in Coffs Harbour is? Then ask it how it knows that. I reverse-engineer search results to understand how to get listed.

Read this chat log from ChatGPT

Product

The world is forever changing. The Australian civil marriage celebrant role is revolutionary worldwide, with over 80% of all weddings and many funerals. The wedding industry continues to evolve. I keep my ear to the ground, research, engage on social networks, and read articles to understand what people want in a celebrant today and how I can match my skills to market needs. For example, on your website, you mention naming ceremonies, milestone, and celebration of life ceremonies. I’d be curious how many of those ceremonies were booked in Australia last year. I’d bet $100 it’s less than ten.

Focus on what you do best, find your product niche, own it, excel, and make it yours. Let your website showcase your product expertise and value until you’re making a good income. Then, expand to other things you’re passionate about and enjoy.

Professional people wanting to make celebrancy their professional income get other professionals to help them with this work, so hiring a photographer, website designer, marketing and social media consultant and others will almost always be a better spend than advertising in a wedding magazine, particularly while you’re young in business.

It doesn’t matter what you and the rest of the industry think – the people paying the invoices have the final say on what is being bought and booked, look to them for inspiration and for you to lead them

I’d also be remiss to not plug our upcoming Instagram mythbusting webinar for you and all celebrants wanting to actually understand how to win on Instagram.