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DELIGHT THEM With the ongoing unknown of how the wedding industry will be affected in the short, medium and long term. Now more than ever wedding suppliers that want to survive through this global pandemic and thrive in the ‘new norm’ need to refocus their thinking. Here at The Boho Bride Guide, we have put together a series of blog posts to enable you to reflect on your current business position and take action to:
Today, this blog is to highlight the first of the Diversify and Thrive Pillars, the importance as to why we need to surprise and delight our wedding clients to build our business reputation and dominate your wedding niche. 
Gone are the days where you can provide a value for money service and have wedding clients raving about your business and lining up to share a positive review. It is an expectation in today’s market that all services provided by small businesses, are excellent and you provide what you say you will in your contract. However, if you want to ‘stand out from the crowd’ and begin to dominate your wedding niche, you need to provide a truly exceptional wedding service that goes over and above your clients expectations. This principle remains your first priority, especially in a global pandemic, and your customers need to feel compelled to publicly say thank you to you. HOW do you provide an exceptional experience that surprises and delights?
Create a short online feedback survey that your customers can complete after their big day. Keep the survey, short (under 10 questions), I would suggest around half the questions to be ‘on a scale of 1-5’ option) and then the other half to be open questions to capture as much information as possible. Or better still, if you have built up a good relationship with your clients and feel they will be honest with you, ask for 10 mins of their time and ask the questions over the phone and make notes or record. This does come with a caveat though. Be objective when receiving the results, as if you are getting all 5’s and no comments, I would suggest that the respondent isn’t being honest or spending the quality time thinking about their answers. Then with this feedback, you can make continuous improvements and changes to your wedding business services and products to ensure you remain top of your game, by providing a delightful service that truly addresses your clients wants for their big day.
Fellow Wedding Suppliers, Supplier Directory write ups and shout outs all have a baring, but most important of all is what your previous wedding couples are saying about you via business reviews online. 76% of customers regularly use online reviews to determine which business to use and 52% of customers trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations, which it is why your online customer testimonials need to be up to date and relevant to the products and services you are providing today to win new wedding clients for the future Research also suggests that 96% of unhappy customers wont complain to you, but will tell 9-15 friends, which can be disastrous to a small business and could create masses of subsequent work to rectify the issue and save the name of your business. This is why clear communication channels are essential when managing your clients wishes for their big day. Another factor in this to remember is the WAY you communicate. To receive honest and open feedback from our clients, we need to constantly self check ourselves, our non verbal communication, the language we use, the actions we take, to ensure we are creating an environment where our wedding couples feel at ease to say what they are really thinking and feeling. This will then ensure we can provide a first class, delightful service for them that caters to their wedding aspirational needs and wants for their big day. (Stats from www.reputationrefinery.com). HOW do you build your customer review portfolio?
 This means that as wedding suppliers, we need to have a system in place to follow up with our previous brides and request a review from them in the places that matter. On your social media handles, on your Google Business account and on any Supplier Directory profiles you have would be some key places to ask for a review. You can then copy these reviews onto your own website too. To make it super easy for your client send them all of the links to the review pages so they can easily and quickly complete the task for you. And don’t forget to say a BIG thank you!
You could think about a ‘refer a friend’ through word of mouth, type set up where you offer previous clients some kind of benefit if they pass on your business details and get subsequent a new client from the transaction. Or an effective way of capturing customer testimonials is via video, this would look brilliant on your website as we as humans always love to see, hear and feel how people are talking about another service or product they have used.
This will have a massive positive impact on your brand influence and dominance within your wedding niche, as well as assist greatly with your online marketing strategy. Make your previous wedding clients your marketing advocates by using their testimonials about how great you are, this will pay dividends! Love Jen x
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 | 1)DELIGHT THEM - Cater to your existing clients changing requests due to Covid and provide them a delightful service regardless of how the new requests may have reduced your bottom line for that particular celebration. Go over and above your clients expectations of your service and make it memorable. Get your clients raving about the service you provided them and let them tell many others about how great you are. |
| 2)REFOCUS - Create new products within your area of specialism that will cater for the new ‘Covid Friendly Wedding'. Find out what your clients now WANT that is different to pre-Covid and create a hierarchy of products all around this new requirement. How can you provide this service? Does it mean you need to create new in house products to better suit this new type of wedding? Does this mean you need to collaborate with other suppliers to provide an ‘all inclusive’ intimate wedding service? |  |
For example: As a florist I have refocused my attention from providing packages that cater for large bridal and groomsmen parties, to specialising in providing bespoke ‘Just Married’ boho inspired backdrops. Where the newly wed couple sit and eat their food and listen to speeches surrounded in floral beautifulness, which actually has a higher profit margin ironically!
I have partnered up with a fellow event hire business to enable us to create unique one off newly wed table transformations, for couples looking to create a WOW factor in their wedding photos to share with their wider friends and family that were not able to attend.
I have partnered up with a fellow event hire business to enable us to create unique one off newly wed table transformations, for couples looking to create a WOW factor in their wedding photos to share with their wider friends and family that were not able to attend.
 | 3)NICHE NICHE NICHE! Concentrate your efforts on marketing your ‘Covid Wedding’ products and for now, become known for your speciality niche service. So couples finding themselves in the position of getting married under restrictions, they will remember you for your tailored service to the current pandemic situation and book you! |
| 4)DIVERSIFY YOUR INCOME STREAMS - I’m not gonna lie, number 4 will take a little bit more effort, but to survive and thrive in a global pandemic, needs must! Now we must look at growing your resilience as a small business and increasing your income streams. As for now, your wedding income stream is going to be rather limited for the short term at least. So this section is all about how do you pivot your expertise and specialism from within the wedding industry and either serve your existing clients in a different way, or seek out a new audiences that your service, with a little tweaking, could cater for well, which has not been hit so hard by Covid. |  |
The other element to this section is how to potentially inject a ‘passive’ or ‘semi passive’ income, or how I would rather view it ‘online assets’ into your Business Product Hierarchy – where you are no longer trading your time for money.
AN EXAMPLE
So using my wedding florist background as an example, I could choose to cater for my existing audience, ‘boho brides’ and create an online course teaching how to create their own boho inspired wedding flowers, for a one off fee. So once the course is online, other than content management, improvement and asset marketing, you then have an online product that brings you in income without having to provide a physical service each time someone buys.
Remember – someone wants the information you have and are willing to pay for it!
AN EXAMPLE
So using my wedding florist background as an example, I could choose to cater for my existing audience, ‘boho brides’ and create an online course teaching how to create their own boho inspired wedding flowers, for a one off fee. So once the course is online, other than content management, improvement and asset marketing, you then have an online product that brings you in income without having to provide a physical service each time someone buys.
Remember – someone wants the information you have and are willing to pay for it!
So I hope this has given you some motivation and fire back in your belly as wedding suppliers. I’m afraid this is not for everyone, as this is going to take more blood, sweat and tears to get this right and to create wedding business that will survive through Covid and thrive in the ‘new normal’. But if you are up for the challenge, then hold tight as my next 4 blog posts will go into more detail around each of these 4 pillars and how to implement them within your wedding business.
See you there!!
See you there!!
Jenny x
The Boho Bride Guide
The Wedding Business Blog
A biz. development blog dedicated to wedding suppliers looking to grow their business resilience and thrive amid Covid 19 and beyond.
Founder of The Boho Bride Guide
At the beginning of 2020, Jenny identified a gap within the wedding industry, and realised by bringing her two areas of expertise together, her background in Training and People Development, as well as her experience running her small business in the wedding industry, she could really make a difference to wedding suppliers looking to grow their business and their brand.
At the beginning of 2020, Jenny identified a gap within the wedding industry, and realised by bringing her two areas of expertise together, her background in Training and People Development, as well as her experience running her small business in the wedding industry, she could really make a difference to wedding suppliers looking to grow their business and their brand.
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