[GUIDE] 8 Steps to Make Your Wedding Venue a Success

If :

• you dreamed of opening a magnificent wedding venue out of passion for this sector,
• you wanted to diversify your customer base due to the current context in order to optimize your recovery,
• you wanted to improve your business,

here is THE guide that gives you the keys to successful marketing.

Pandemic or not, love continues, couples get engaged and imagine their big day.

That's where you come in! Finding THE place to celebrate your wedding is one of the first 3 things to do according to wedding planners (as well as making your guest list and defining your budget). In addition, a third of the bride and groom's budget is generally dedicated to renting the venue. This share increases if you offer other services to customers...

And although many newlyweds complete their wedding project, mandatory or preferred deferrals fill the calendars for years to come in a spectacular way!

Control the offer of your market

Knowing your local competitors is essential!

What are the wedding venues in your area?

Are there places that offer the same thing as you? If that's the case, try to figure out how to give your customers a unique experience: “be unique.”

By your personality already, which customers will feel during your exchanges. But also through your attention to detail, your interior and exterior decorations, your carefully chosen service providers,...

Then try to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Take a look at wedding venues in your area and try to see how they differ from one another. Which do you find the most appealing and why?

BONUS: Do not hesitate to contact well-known providers in your region on the wedding market (wedding planner, caterers, photographers,...) and ask them what is missing on the market to fill future newlyweds. They will surely have very qualitative feedback to give you.

Stay on top of trends

One of the most effective ways to get a customer to book your room compared to your competitors? Show that you know the wedding world like the back of your hand. Make it clear that you have experience and that you know what makes a good marriage these days.

Take a look at the media, blogs, podcasts, and network accounts that regularly post wedding market trends, and then see how well your venue can offer it.

It can be as simple as highlighting the interior spaces of your place that benefit from the best natural light or offering the installation of string lights in the garden for free...

Example of items:

• https://organisation-dday.com/les-alternatives-au-lance-de-riz-en-languedoc/
• https://www.mariages.net/articles/jeux-de-foire-au-grand-air-pour-petits-et-grands--c8748
• https://www.zankyou.fr/p/10-idees-menus-mariage-chics-originaux-35084
  

BONUS: Personalization is a big fundamental trend that should definitely be followed. The bride and groom no longer want a wedding like everyone else. They want a unique experience that is just like them. Taking the time to understand the expectations of your customers and knowing the market trends ensures you have a wow effect and a complete place for the whole season!‍

Set up a reliable network of service providers

Creating your wedding provider list is a key step for two reasons:

• You need to work with people you can trust who will take care of customers as much as you do,
• If you have a strong relationship with your service providers, they will also be the ambassadors of your place.
  

We are talking here about wedding planners, caterers, DJs and musicians, entertainers, equipment rentals, sound, light, photographers, makeup artists, hairdressers,...

You cannot take the risk of having dissatisfied customers because of a provider. It is very dangerous for the reputation of your place. So meet them, open your doors to them and build a lasting relationship by pampering them.

Take the time to search and build a list of high-quality service providers: website, salon, word of mouth,...

You can even regularly (every year) hold open houses to let professionals (re) discover your place.

BONUS: 3 ideas for sourcing your service providers.

1. Ask providers that you have already selected for their recommendations (for example, call your caterer and ask for these recommendations)
2. Organize open houses in your place and invite as many service providers as possible. See who you have a particular connection with and get to know each other.
3. Look at wedding planning sites and meet the providers listed there.‍

The photos, the photos, the photos and the videos!

As a place that hosts weddings, you are a dream creator. While some customers can easily project themselves into your place because they have an imagination, most will need a helping hand. How can we help them? Focus on professional photos featuring your establishment.

You will obviously need photos of your indoor-outdoor spaces and the atmosphere of your place. But above all, you need photos of the bride and groom during the wedding! It is the best way for your future customers to project themselves. Do not panic if some newlyweds do not want you to use their faces, use photos where they are from behind for example.

These photos will be distributed on all your communication media: website, social networks, provider site,...

And do you know what format is also very powerful: Videos! Today you can shoot short videos for a very reasonable budget, especially if you order them regularly. The video will be your sales ally.

BONUS: Did you know that some service providers, such as wedding planners for example, regularly organize inspirational shootings. What does that mean? The provider asks you to lend him your space free of charge for a few hours, when it is available of course. The provider comes with a team of professionals and takes inspirational photos that help the bride and groom to plan and dream of this big day. What is the result of the accounts for you? You have a database of professional photos for free to feed your site and social networks and the service provider will be able to indicate that the shooting takes place at your home. A bargain!

Generating marriage requests

Now that your offer is trending, you have the best providers and great photos, it's time to bring in requests and confirm them!

First of all, a website, an Instagram page, a Pinterest account and a well-filled Google my business form are essential. If a customer has heard about you, what do you think their reflexes will be? Yes, look for you on the internet and on networks. And if he doesn't find you, he will probably go elsewhere...

And why Instagram and Pinterest? Simply because they are the 2 biggest social networks used by the bride and groom to organize their wedding.

A blog on your site can also be a source of numerous requests. You will be able to speak and highlight your place and your know-how. Think about it.

At the beginning of the article, it was mentioned that your service providers could be your ambassadors. It is interesting to take some time with them to see how you can collaborate so that they too can send you requests.

You can use business providers like Mariage.net or Zankyou for example. There are a multitude of other provider sites. It's up to you to choose the one that seems the most interesting to you: interesting traffic and serious customers. Be careful, however, not to have your live traffic stolen (Everything is explained in this article).

You can rent or participate in wedding salons in your region or nationally depending on your goals. It is a great way to make yourself known to other players in the market and to the bride and groom.

Have you thought about your public and press relations? Have you already searched the internet for “wedding location France”. On the first page, you can see numerous articles from the general public: Marie France, Journal des Femmes,...

Finally, it may be interesting to do paid advertising on Google or social networks to highlight your establishment.

BONUS: The open houses mentioned earlier with service providers are also an excellent tool for your customers and business providers. Open your doors several times a year, during off-peak periods for you and create a sales highlight. Offer your service providers to participate alongside you. For example, your caterer can organize a pastry and drink buffet for visitors. In exchange, he can put up a display showing his name and contact details.

The keys to customer relationships with future newlyweds

Once you receive marriage proposals, you will have to take care of them carefully. The attention you pay to your customers will weigh heavily in the balance of their decision. The bride and groom are in the process of choosing the location for one of the happiest days of their lives, the pressure is at its peak. Your mission will be to reassure them, to understand them and to support them to make them want to trust you.

The first step is to take care of the customer as quickly as possible (less than 12 hours). Call the customer who asked you and do a qualification (Find out how to qualify here). The purpose of the qualification is to give you the keys to understanding your customer. If you know what the customer wants and what they are sensitive to then you will know what to sell to them and how to support them in organizing their event. The opposite is also true, this qualification can also allow you to understand that a customer is not made for your place.

Now that you know who your customer is and what they want, it's time to seduce them. Careful presentation brochure (Tutorial here), photos, former newlyweds testimonies, videos, videos, visit your space with a free glass of champagne. It's up to you to define your levers for making a request a signed event.

Remember to follow up on your requests. Once you have made an initial proposal, when the customer is supposed to think and come back to you, don't wait idly by... Check in: Did they receive your proposal? Are there any questions? Etc.

Transparency is essential to build the trust of your customers but also to ensure that the event will take place without a hitch on the big day. You must absolutely have general conditions of sale that the customer will have to accept in order to validate their event.

BONUS: Sometimes, during busy activities, you don't have time to properly care for the customer. In this case, send him a short message to let him know that his request has been received and explain that you will get back to him as soon as possible. You can even attach your presentation brochure to keep it busy while waiting for your next exchange.

Optimize your filling

Weddings are a seasonal business. So you can't afford to have an empty Saturday on the agenda during the high season. To do this, accept all requests received and apply the options strategy (How to use the options here) to be sure to have a full agenda.

In addition to the options, on dates where customers have already confirmed, you can propose a waiting list. In uncertain times, customers sometimes cancel their event or postpone them, it also happens that customers are not serious or reliable in the end. So if an event falls through, you will already have a list of customers interested in contacting them again as soon as possible.

And why not show your customers the romance of a winter wedding at your venue or the benefits of a weekday wedding? Another way to fill up your agenda.

You may have the possibility and/or the desire to focus only on weddings and to take advantage of the off-season to work on your strategy, administration, and rest.

But maybe you want/need to optimize your filling throughout the year or maybe the wedding complements another clientele. In this case, it may be interesting to separate your activities. Keeping a simple and legible message for each activity and customer segment guarantees a better overall confirmation rate. If a customer contacts you for a wedding, they are not interested in your team building offer and vice versa.

Concretely, you can create separate pages on your website to talk about the 2 activities or even have 2 websites. Same with social networks.

BONUS: On the other hand, once a customer has come to your home for the first time, whether for a wedding or another event, you can explain to him that your place hosts several types of events. So the bride and groom who were there at the time for a wedding may talk to their company about your location for an end-of-year cocktail or a press presentation. ‍

Manage your wedding reservation requests

And the best for last. Now that you have the keys to develop your business, you need a competent tool to save time! And as this article shows you, we are the experts in our field!

BookingShake accompanies you and helps you manage each stage of the event: reception, follow-up, customer database, billing, internal communication,...

If you are a customer and want to develop your wedding business, call us.

And if you don't know our tool yet, contact our attentive teams (hello@bookingshake.com) who will be happy to show you how they will change your life!