Undoubtedly, wedding vendors play the most significant role in a wedding. They are the ones who help the couple to create the best wedding ever. Couples hire wedding vendors to take care of their wedding, from wedding décor to wedding food, wedding photography to wedding music, etc. to make their wedding a great celebration. However, amidst huge competition, it is not very easy for the vendors to get the client. Moreover, only getting clients is not enough, there are several other factors that you need to determine to sustain the cut throat competition.
Here in this post we will walk you through the steps that you need to take as a wedding vendor to get more business and attract more clients.
Here we go…..
1. Stay Abreast
First things first, being in the service industry it is important that you stay abreast. Gone are the days when vendors used to depend on referrals for getting new work. Today, people use technology to find anything from a wedding dress to a wedding vendor. Therefore, it is crucial that you are updated. It is important that you have your own website or webpage that displays your services. Also, do not underestimate the power of reviews and feedback. Besides, be present on digital platforms, like Facebook, Instagram etc. Today’s generation is tech savvy and for anything they love to scroll their phone rather than scrolling newspapers.
2. How You Behave Matters
Since, wedding vendor services involve a lot of interaction with people or dealing with people. It is implicitly a people oriented job. How you behave with your clients’ matter a lot. Behave inappropriately with your client is the first thing that you need to avoid. There may be situations where you would not agree with your client, but then you need to understand it’s their wedding. You may be the best wedding vendor in the town but how you behave with your clients will fetch you work either or not. If you have a habit of throwing bad tantrums and using harsh language; then, negative word of mouth will spread about you. This will surely impact your business. Hence, if you really want to retain your customers and want to get more work, learn to be polite.
3. Maintain Transparency
Whenever a client approaches you, make sure you maintain transparency. Maintaining transparency helps you to gain a good name for yourself and for your business. Having a good name in the industry automatically makes it easier to get the business.
4. Know Your Client’s Requirements
When a client approaches you for the details of your services. Make sure you take all the information about what exactly they are looking for, when is the event, the location or venue of the wedding, etc. Besides knowing all the details of your client, tell about your way of work clearly. Don’t forget to take down the number of a point of contact at the wedding to have a smooth flow. Make everything clear in your first meeting itself. Things should not be hazy from any end.
5. Don’t Underestimate The Power Of Client
How you serve your customer can either make or break your name in the industry. Only great services and marketing is not enough for your survival in the industry. Without unflagging customer service, those referrals won’t come your way. Your job is to make a couple feel good and satisfied about your services. If you don’t respect time and deadline, then getting referrals is next to impossible for you. If you are the one who keeps his client chasing him, who always uses a rough tone, or a grumpy person, then you know how long you would survive in the industry. As all these attitudes don’t go well in the Industry, nobody is ready to take delays, rough tones or anything as they know there are many wedding vendors in the market. Never forget that your work is customer centric and your client or customer is king. Value your king. Remember, “Client recommends client,” based on how you have been with them.
6. Be A Good Listener
In the service industry it is crucial that you are patient and a good listener. Only when you will understand your client, you would be able to give the best services. It should not happen that a client came to you and you in super excitement never bothered to what your client said. Clarity will only come when you will give your ears fully to your client. First, know what exactly your client is looking for. Before booking a client, please mind listening to their requirements in detail. You might be a great vendor, but every client has diversified expectations and diversified requirements for his/her wedding altogether and you need to understand their requirement. As said earlier, “Customer is king,” and yeah, king loves to be heard.
7. Communication Is The Key To Success
Whether you believe or not, communication is the key to success no matter which industry you are in. Uncertainties are a part of life and anything can happen any moment. However, escaping the situation won’t help, instead be clear on your part. For instance, you are a florist and your client asked you to arrange for white carnation. But somehow you couldn’t find them may be because of unavailability or off season. Do not simply put any other flower on the wedding, instead, tell your client about the unavailability of the flower in the market and ask for other options that you can probably arrange easily. Also, if your client’s demand is undeliverable, then be clear in the first place. You cannot commit something which is practically not possible. Remember, if you are the one who keeps things clear with his clients then your client will never despise you for your honesty.
8. Eliminate All The Issues In The Beginning Itself
If there is any issue, which you think can become greater later, eliminate it in the first place. There is no point agreeing to do something which is beyond your limits. There are clients who tend to complain about everything. Sometimes the reason could be genuine but not always. SO, whenever you find someone with an attitude problem, making complaints for no reason, you need to be very clear at that point only, if you will not do something in the beginning it will continue to happen until the delivery of the final product. It is good to eliminate the issues in the beginning itself.
9. Communicate Your Way Of Working
It is crucial that you communicate your way of working in the first place. A wedding vendor has too much to offer to the client. You always have the prerogative to have his own rules when it comes to delivering his services. It’s just not about accomplishing a task but to give the best to the client. Do your best to deliver the best of the services to your customers so that when they feel grateful that they hired you in the first place.
10. Build Connection With Your Client
Being in a customer centric profession, to build great connections with your client can help you get leads in future too. Building connection with your client will not only help you give the best services, but also help you grow your business in the future! People help people when they feel connected. To have that rapport you need to build a connection with your customers. For instance, your client’s brother is also set for marriage in a few months. If you build connections with the couple and give them the best services you will automatically fetch work for future.
11. Don’t Be Just A Mediocre
Believe it or not, customers love when you exceed their expectations. You always have a choice, either give them ordinary services or exceed their expectation by giving them what they didn’t think of. Exceeding your customer’s expectation will automatically give them the reason to recommend you for all future events in their circle. When you exceed their expectation you simply tempt them to come back to you for the next wedding which is planned in the coming months. Then you leave them with no choice except to have you to take care of other weddings as well.
12. Be Online
Today, being online is as important as your wedding services. If you do not exist online, then you are already prepared to lose your clients to your rivals. Today, people surf their net more than anything. The moment they get their wedding dates, the first thing they do is to search online for all the wedding vendors. Make sure you exist online, that will make a huge difference in your life as a wedding vendor. And if you don’t then have a website of your now. Where will you put all your services, your website is the first place people visit to see your work for making further decisions?
13. Keep Your Website Updated
Only having a website won’t serve the purpose if the website is old and boring. You need to update your website on a regular basis, if you don’t do that, then surely you have reason to lose potential clients. Today, clients are interested in knowing how you deliver services more than what you deliver. So, make sure you keep your website updated at all times. For instance, if you are a wedding decorator, then the best you can do is capture pictures of venue decorations from all the angles. Don’t miss to do this even for a single event. And put all those pictures on your web page. You never know which decoration will entice a potential client.
No matter how busy you have been, spare some time to update your gallery with your current splendid pictures, you just can’t depend on referrals. Couples upon getting their final wedding dates in hand the first thing they do is start their Google search. If your gallery is only talking about the picture of recent events then they will have some negative notion about that too, they may think that you don’t get work on a regular basis. Remember that “there is no second chance for the first impression.” Your website is a first impression and it should be great.
14. Your Service Packages
When a couple flip through your website they not only see your services and pictures, but also they visit your price page too in your website. Price page on your website is one of the most important pages to make a decision whether to hire you or not. Make sure you have a specific pricing model which is simple and easy to understand. Your pricing model should be such that the client at least thinks of making a call to you to know about your services in detail. Having simplified pricing for your services will help you get more business online.
15. Take Advantage Of SEO
Today, Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a very important tool. It plays a vital role in online marketing of your business. The ranking of your website depends on this a lot. It is very simple – whenever a client searches for something for a wedding decorator he will put some keywords based on his search, Google will present few results. Usually clients prefer to visit websites which come in two pages; they don’t even bother to visit the third page. Hence, make sure that you pay a close attention to SEO or search engine optimization.
While placing targeted keywords your goal is to appear on the very first page of the search. If you rarely pay attention to SEO, it is highly likely that you lose out on clients who are actively searching. Focus on targeted keywords for your website, blog, etc., this is a great way to get business online. If you incorporate the product specified targeted keywords on your website and blog, it will not only increase your ranking but also your chances of getting good business online.
16. How Are You Unique From Others
Yes, this is the first question that your customer might ask you. And the simple reason for that is – you are not the only wedding vendor in the market. If you really wish to attract clients, you need to be unique, you need to figure out how you’re different from others, how you’re unique from others. In this era of cut throat competition it is essential for a wedding vendor to be unique in all perspectives. There are many wedding vendors in the market already, but how is your work different from them matters. Only having long experience is not enough, in fact, what matters the most is your uniqueness in the sector.
17. Give The Best Offers
Along with the best services, customers also look for the best offers. Hence, it is important that you give the best offers to your clients. It is in fact a great strategy to have a good amount of business. However, giving best offers never means that you compromise on the quality. Your offers should have both good prices and best quality. Compromising on the quality to give the best price won’t help you in the long run. So, be wise while you give the best offer to your customers.
18. As For Referrals
Following up with your client can help you find or get new clients in the market. As said earlier, ‘People recommend people’ works in the wedding industry very much. The best part of staying connected with your clients and vendors is to have lifelong referrals from your connections. Why would they go for someone else when you exceed their expectations in all their special occasions? Some vendors even become regular vendors for few families. They become so close to them that they don’t even want to think of any other vendor for that matter.
19. Build Connection With Wedding Planners
Today, the wedding planning industry is flourishing and many couples simply hire wedding planners for their wedding. Wedding planners simply take care of a couple’s needs and requirements. In fact, these planners have their own vendors, in such a situation it is better to stay connected to them. Make good connections with wedding planners, they can be a great help to you!
20. Take Help From Other Vendors
As a wedding vendor, you not only need to stay connected with your clients and wedding planners, but also to the other vendors. Other wedding vendors, like caterer, florist, photographer etc. can be a great source of business for you. You need to create great relationships with them too so that in future they should feel free to recommend you to their clients. Also, develop connections with new vendors too to expand your presence in the market.
21. Stay Connected To Your Past Clients
Wedding industry is an ongoing industry. There will be no time when people won’t marry. And no couple wants to host a simple wedding. Every couple today looks for ways to make their event a great one. And you must have already made many couples happy by now, by creating their wedding dream-like. By making their special occasion wonderful for lifetime, by giving them the best memories to cherish throughout their life. Be in touch with them, wish them their anniversaries, birthdays, welcoming of their first child, festivals and other occasions. There are several occasions when you can be in connection with your past clients. This way you would be able to have a nice rapport with them and they would choose you only for future events as well.
22. Take Advantage Of Networking
Especially in small towns, this works. In small places everyone knows each-other, which makes it easier for wedding vendors to get business through their local networks. Rapport works well in such cases, all you need to do is to have a nice rapport with the people in your area. Give them the best services and they will always stay by your side for sure.
23. Strong Peer Relations
Strong peer relationship can also work wonders for you! It is not necessary that you have only competitive relations with the peers. You can even think of building good relations with the parallel wedding vendors in the industry. Peers can help you get new clients. So, build strong peer relations it will help you get referrals and business from them.
24. Make Happy Clients Your Priority
Only getting business should not be your objective or motive, instead you should focus on making your clients happy. Happy clients definitely help wedding vendors to get more business. For instance, you are a wedding caterer and you took very good care of your client’s guests at their wedding. You offered the best dishes along with that your staff was also very polite and well trained. All this will leave a positive impact on your client’s guests. You never know when some wedding guest would approach you for handling their daughter’s or son’s wedding catering. So, you have to be really optimistic and be ready for clients coming from any side. And this can only happen when your clients are really happy with you.
25. Give Your Client Reason To Admire You
If you really want to get a repeat business or sustain a good name in the market, then give your client reasons to admire you. Remember that clients never like compromising on anything, especially when it is about their wedding. Wedding in any couple’s life is the best event, which they want to celebrate with grandeur. So, leave no stone unturned to make their event the best and classic, which they will cherish all their lives. Doing this will help your clients talk good about you, admire you for your work, and recommend you to other people as well.
AND FINALLY…….
As a wedding vendor, it is essential you follow all these tips. Following these tips will allow you to have more business and clientele. Moreover, being creative, optimistic, polite, and customer centric can help you have happy customers and get more business!
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