3 Reasons Bridal Shows Are Probably a Waste of Your Money
by Kristin Binford - Successful Venue Owner and Secret Sharer
Are you opening a wedding venue? Are you wondering exactly how you should spend your precious advertising dollars when literally everything about opening a venue is more expensive than you expected?
This post will save you from the wedding venue marketing trade show trap.
I'm not going to say you'll never book a bride from a bridal show, but there are much more cost effective ways to reach your ideal couple.
3 Reasons I Don’t Recommend Bridal Shows for Wedding Venues
Brides make their venue decision first and fast.
Often at bridal shows about 70% of couples attending have made their venue decision already. That leaves roughly 30% looking for a venue. Doesn't sound too terrible until you realize they are looking for a specific style of venue, specific date, and specific price point. It's pretty easy for them to rule you out on one of the three quickly and all of a sudden the potential pool of couples has gotten much, much smaller.
If you have the right other marketing strategies working for you, the people you meet will probably already know about your venue.
Because we have other effective strategies in place, the shows we have done have resulted in lots of conversations like "Oh I love Haue Valley, but I'm so sad you are basically sold out for the next 18+ months!" Wedding show and magazine reps tell you, "That's okay—brides need lots of touch points before they book with you." Umm.... false. That's just the way they try to justify the fact that you still need to spend thousands of dollars on their trade show and in their magazine.
The brides and grooms you meet are less qualified.
Here's why—if they don't already know about you, they just stumbled past your booth. They have no idea if you are in their price point, offer the services they are looking for, have their preferred date available, etc.
What if instead of wasting your money on bridal shows, you spent those precious dollars in areas that gave you a greater return? What if you didn't spend them on advertising at all, but you still saw the leads roll in?
That's the kind of stuff I get excited about.
Being a NEW wedding venue owner is tough. Join me in my new Facebook Group just for NEW and PROSPECTIVE venue owners at the link below.