Are blogs, forums and Facebook taking over from online directories? Has the online wedding directory had its day? I think it probably has. But I’m embarking on some research to find out, so watch this blog for more.
Online directories charge anything from £20 to £300 for a year’s listing. Wedding suppliers are grouped by type and region, and you’ll see premium listings and basic listings. Some include links, some include contact details, some include images.
But I’m wondering how many brides– and grooms-to-be bother with wedding directories these days. If the Marketeers are to be believed we rely on word of mouth and reputation as well as timely marketing platforms like Facebook and Twitter, more than the likes of directory sites.
And surely if you’re looking for a wedding florist in your area you’ll go to Google to search rather than a specialist directory? After all, a Google search will take you directly to the supplier’s website, cutting out the middle man and finding what you need quickly. Or am I wrong?
Are you a supplier listed with wedding directories, and do they work for you? Or do you advertise elsewhere?
Or are you a bride– or groom-to-be? Have you used online directories, and were they good? Or do you choose your suppliers another way?
Share your comments here and I’ll use your feedback in this little bit of research, to be published soon. I’m fairly sure traditional online wedding directories have had their day, and other things have taken over…
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Hi. I get married in October this year and the only directory I’ve used was one on a website to fins bridal shops in London (its quite difficult to track them down). I’ve googled everything else. If I was ever to do it again (hopefully with the same man!) I’d be using blogs as a way of finding everything. I know most blogs have sponsors though — so maybe it is the traditional directory, rather than the concept that is outdated.
Thank you Caroline, this is great feedback and supports the way I was thinking too! You make a good point about the traditional directory vs concept being outdated — directories which have branched out, sites which combine forums and directories, and perhaps specialist directories even, seem to be going strong.
I really appreciate your input. Thank you. Have a fantastic weekend. Claire xx
I’ve never had much luck with directories and no longer see the point of them. Like you say in your post, I think most people now tend to do the research themselves on google and also go with recommendations from friends. Blogs that you connect with are great, like Caroline says, some have sponsors, but if you connect with the sense of style of the blog then you are likely to connect with the sponsors and the people featured on that blog. Blog’s also do some hard work for couples, researching and finding lots of vendors that they might never have heard of which is a great thing for everyone.
Caroline Alexander´s last [type] ..Vicky and Richard — Wedding Photos Sneaky Peak — Gloucestershire Wedding Photographer in Herefordshire
Thanks Caroline, that’s exactlyl how I feel too. Good to hear your thoughts on blogs as well. I purposely didn’t really mention them because I didn’t want to blow my own trumpet, but it’s a great point. When you look at something like Rock n Roll Bride which has — last time I heard — 80 — 90k visits per month, and advertising space on the home page though, it seems so much more effective than tucking yourself away in the depths of a little directory though… Thanks for your feedback, speak soon and have a gorgeous weekend. Claire x
Hi Claire,
We’re fairly new to the wonderful world of weddings so we’ve taken a good long look at various wedding directories over the last year or so. And we’ve even paid to advertise on two or three. But I have to say that I’m disappointed by the response, especially compared to the direct Google route and increasingly the Facebook/Twitter social media stuff which we now put much more effort into. The problem with most directories is that that just list stuff: there’s rarely any comment or feedback — none of the stuff that people are used to these days from using Amazon and the like. A directory that acts as a ‘curator’ and critic, rather than just a list: that’s the way forward, as demonstrated by Rock n Roll bride and others.
Jamie
Jamie Mordaunt´s last [type] ..Diamonds off-the-shoulder and on the ball
Thank you Jamie, long time no speak! A great point about Amazon (I always read the synopsis and look for a review to get a feel for a book before I buy it) and also — ‘curator’ is an excellent way to describe the role of bloggers. You’re quite right to mention Rock n Roll Bride — I admire the way Kat does this, selecting very carefully the suppliers she’ll advertise. (Steve Gerrard’s great ad on her site always springs to mind!) Thanks Jamie.
Claire x
Interesting blog, I have placed adverts with several directories and I have to say that the amount of traffic they have generated has been disappointing. I would agree that facebook and twitter campaigns are more effective. Social media and blogs is where the future lies in getting your service to market.
However for the time being I will continue to use the wedding directory as still helps to increase your google search ranking.
Many thanks
Hi Jonathan and thanks for your feedback. It’s good to know other suppliers actually check the response from directory ads… I should check my own; all I know is I’ve never seen any mentioned in my Analytics reports. Haven’t actually looked, mind you! Good point about social media, and interesting too that you’re perservering with the directories for the backlinks. It does all add up, that’s for sure.
Thank you.
Claire x
Hi
I’m a wedding stationer and I’ve found that online directories give me next to no traffic at all. Google (and facebook actually) are definitely the way to go… I do advertise in magazines too but most of my online traffic comes from Google! I planned all of my own wedding through google too.
The wedding directories are difficult for people like me because you have to select an area most of the time and then find who is in it, as you’ll know most of us do much larger areas or serve UK wide so having this sub section doesn’t work.
Hope this helps!
Sophie x
Hi Sophie,
Thank you for your comment. It’s nice to hear I was right about Google being easier for brides than the directories. And as a stationer I agree with the category / area thing. Isn’t it annoying that there’s never a category for mail order / online businesses who do business all over the UK. That old “pay £££££ to be listed in more than one county” is the worst!
Magazine advertising will probably make up a future article, since you mention it. I’m also wondering at what point the blogs will be a better resource for brides and a more effective advertising media for suppliers. Must write that down somewhere!
Thanks for commenting. Enjoy the weekend!
Claire x
Hi everyone, Not sure I agree with your article, though it does pose some questions for thought. Weddings in Surrey is an online wedding directory that has been growing consistently month on month. We saw an 80% increase in hits during January and February this year, and the arrow is always pointing North, rather than South. However, our niche is that we only market to Surrey, and not Nationwide which gives us the edge over numerous UK wedding directories. Like you say, we are a little more than just a flat directory, offering a Plan the Day Guide with tools and informative articles, together with a forum.
Agreed, couples can Google a supplier, but a lot of wedding industry suppliers are small part-time businesses that can’t invest in SEO in the same way. What you will often find is that Googling wedding suppliers will result in the wedding directories appearing on the top ten of the major search engines, linking directly to the wedding suppliers page on that directory. Our advertisers listings often rate well above their own website on Google and Yahoo, meaning they are extremely happy with their small investment of say £30 a year. One of our advertisers state that our site provides 75% of their wedding business. I just did a random SEO on “wedding dresses Surrey” and we appear in the Top 5 today, which will lead the enquirer to an offering of over 25 wedding stores in their area. I believe this cuts down search time, not adds to it.
Twitter and Facebook are fantastic supplementary tools that work alongside directories and blogs and are used to link to websites. They are a great way of promoting a site, but primarily these are ‘social’ networking sites and too much hype about your business just turns followers away.
I think wedding blogs are a great way for brides to get an insight into what’s on trend and what other brides are doing, but most blogs don’t have enough wedding suppliers to engage the bride to search for that specifically.
To summarise, I think there is definitely a place for the wedding directory and wedding blog to co-exist very happily alongside each other and don’t believe that either site compromises the other.
Love Pamela xx
I love Wedding Blog Sites, and English Weddings and RocknRoll Bride especially, but will not change the direction of weddingsinsurrey.co.uk.
Hi guys
thanks for your nice comments about my blog and sponsors. I agree with the ‘anti-directory’ route. I think that a big old list of everybody and anybody who is able to pay £10 a year (or whatever) to be listed is generally going to be a big hodge podge of suppliers — and usually the not so great ones as these are the ones with small advertising budgets.
As a blog with a select number of specifially targeted sponsors it makes me pleased that you realise that the people I choose to have on my site are selected due to their damn right perfectness for my niche of readers (and yes you are right to single out steve gerrard’s ad — it is in fact one of the most sucessfull click-thru wise on my site! what does that show you?!?) I hope my readers realise this and therefore are more likely to trust and book the few sponsors I allow to represent my brand and I am happy to represent.
It’s really the difference between a personal recommendation from a friend vs flicking through the yellow pages!
The problem with directories is that they pretty much let anybody on them and are so not reliable that you’ll get a good service from someone who has paid a nominal fee to be listed. blog directories just remind me of the back of all bridal magazines where you are bombarded with hundreds of tiny, ugly adverts about everything from cheap looking favours to cosmetic surgery…and how many brides do you think actually look at these in detail!? exactly…
kat — rock n roll bride´s last [type] ..Modern Vintage Style
Thanks Kat,
Great to have your comments here. I think there’s a lot to be said for your branding and targeting a specific type of bride. Maybe I should have given more credit to you and the style of your blog for the success of Steve Gerrard’s ad. Reading Pamela’s comments too, I’m thinking that your blog and her directory are specialists in completely opposite fields — which is why they both work. (Yours being alternative and also v. high quality — I think most of the photographers who advertise on Rock n Roll Bride travel throughout the UK for weddings.)
Interesting stuff, lots to think about as always!
Cheers,
Claire
Hi all,
Interesting comments from all, and here is my input.
I believe there is place for wedding directories, wedding blogs and social networking. Each medium has its own place in the market and can cover different niches.
Weddings in Surrey is a niche directory for the Surrey market, and saw an 80% increase in traffic month on month this year. Our directory is SEO enhanced, to ensure that we get results for our advertisers, and we feature on the first page of Google for most Surrey Wedding related keyword searches. A random “wedding dresses Surrey” search just now ranked us in the Top 5, which will then lead the visitor to 25+ bridalwear outlets “in their area of search”.
Most wedding industry suppliers are small part-time businesses who cannot afford to pay mega money in promoting their business or for SEO enhancement on their website. This is what the wedding directories do for them, which is why they are on the first page of Google or other major search engines. Great returns for little financial investment.
Because a business is small, does not mean that they are inferior. In fact small businesses are often more focused than the larger ones but they do not have large advertising budgets,
Blogs are a brilliant showcase for what’s hot and what’s not, some great photography and informative articles — and I believe these work alongside wedding directories. They are not a great source of supplier information for brides as it would be pot-luck as to whether the suppliers are in the right geographical area or even in the right country. A lot of blogs feature US products and suppliers — great for information, not so easy to fly them over for your wedding unless you have a lot of dosh.
Social networking is just that “social” networking — too much hype about your business quickly turns your followers away. But they do work alongside blogs and directories as an additional promotional tool.
So to summarise, I believe that directories, wedding communities, online magazines and blogs can co-exist very happily alongside each other, all fulfulling their niche of the market.
Weddings in Surrey, launched 2 years ago, and have been growing steadily and profitably ever since by using all of the mediums of social networking, our directory, articles and blogs.
Love Pamela x
Thanks Pamela,
I was hoping some directories would get in touch — and this is great feedback. Again it’s the niche marketing strategy which works, and diversifying the directory so you’re more than just a list. I’ll be checking out your site to have a look at the suppliers on there too, hope you don’t mind! And I’ll include some of your points in my article — I do want it to be a balanced piece.
I disagree with your comments about SEO though — it’s a frequently misunderstood concept I think and the factors that influence search rank are changing fast. Then again — as a calligrapher I optimised my own site pretty easily, perhaps if I was competing with a few more people (stationery / jewellery) it would have been a bit trickier!
Great comments, thanks so much for sharing your perspective on this.
Claire x
When I set myself up in businbess last year I listed my self on every wedding directory I could find.…..so far I have had no bookings from them at all. I do find that certain sites are better than others and I do get traffic to my website through some of them, but still not a huge amount of business.
I also Blog alot on my site and on others (such as English Wedding) and I find that the traffic I get from this avenue is much higher. Blogging and social networking give your compnay a personality and something that the bride and groom can relate to. A listing in a directory can’t do that for you, it’s just your name and deatils and a few pictures if you pay the extra.
My subscriptions will be running out soon and I don’t think I will be paying again to renew.
xxxx
Thanks Kelly, same here with the directories, I’ve never had a booking from any that I’m aware of. (And I’ve been going for 5 years!) I like what you said about personality as well, especially for a wedding planner that’s really important… so now I’m thinking there are lots of businesses in the wedding industry that aren’t compatible with directories for that reason. You’ve started another interesting thought process, thank you!
Have a happy Sunday,
Claire x
Speaking as a wedding supplier, I’m ambivalent towards online wedding directories. My background is in web development so perhaps I have more of an insight into how the web has changed things so radically even in the last 12 months.
Look at any social media stats for the last 2 years and the old style mechanism of advertising on list based sites is on the wane, in my opinion.
I advertise on a handful of sites, typically those that I perceive are going to be of use to me to get into fairs at certain venues or have a readership that reflects my ideal client. Can’t say I’ve ever had a direct referral from anywhere I’ve advertised but some sites are good for search engine optimisation.
Behind all of this is a more web savvy client who is more social online and has access to world wide web of reviews, opinion and information.
I think the future is more inherently social, wedding fairs still have a place but I think they too potentially have a limited life span. Blogs such as this and those directory listing sites that go the extra mile and provide content that people want to read and engage in will be the ones that win out in gaining supplier spend.
All very interesting comments will be interested to see how this progresses.
I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on wedding fairs too (particularly varying costs local vs national)? I’ve only done one and sadly it was so disappointing it has put me off… are these dying out too?
Have a good week guys
Sophie
Hi Sophie,
When I started out I tried to do a scientific test of wedding fairs — I did one local, small hotel one (cost me £80 I think), two slightly bigger ones in posher hotels which cost me about £150 — £200 each, and then I did Tatton park which cost me several million pounds (felt like it!)…
And the conclusion of my clever little test was that none worked for me.
I’m not saying they’re a waste of time, but I think most brides-to-be go to fairs and exhibitions to book or meet photographers, look at dresses, all the early things that you book a year or two in advance. And in most cases people are looking at stationery for inspiration, nothing more. For a stationer to make wedding fairs work you need a really good way of getting contact details, a really good hook to keep brides interested in your designs way before they’re ready to order, and a good strategy for keeping in regular contact with brides you meet on the day. For some stationers it works. For the majority, I don’t think fairs are a good idea. Just my opinion though!
Claire x
Claire,
I am going to be launching a wedding directory at the end of the year and I have done a lot of research looking at existing directory websites. I agree that they don’t have a lot to offer.
Many wedding directories themselves are part of the problem, they charge people to advertise their business, then clutter up the directory website with ‘sponsored adverts’ detracting from the whole directory aspect of their site. They often have poor navigation, so anyone visiting the site looking for vendors will struggle to find their way around.
Directories succeed and will always be needed, as Google judges a website based on it’s age and the number of links it has. New sites with no links stand a very poor chance of ranking in a high competition market, so vendors need directories to stand a chance of ranking in a Google search, even if the directory itself is not giving much traffic. Many suppliers are too busy running their business to spend the time on off-page SEO for their sites, with directories offering an easy and convenient alternative.
Lindsay
Lindsay´s last [type] ..New Blog – The Handcrafted Card Company
Thanks for your comments Lindsay,
I agree with what you’ve said about a lot of existing directories being cluttered and confusing from a navigation point of view. Not so sure about the future for directories though (you probably already got that!) — New sites will always spend a bit of time lurking at the back of the internet, but Google ranks more on content, keywords, logical structure and update frequency than backlinks these days I think — it’s a tricky one I suppose without knowing the details of their algorithm.
True about the off-page SEO though, it takes up soooo much time.
I have to say I think your wedding blog directory is an amazing idea though. Perhaps you’ve tapped into the future with that — the category navigation is perfect and I think it’s incredibly useful as a resource for brides to be.
Claire
Hi Claire,
This is a very interesting post and discussion!
With Toptableplanner, we’ve never really bothered much with directories other than historically from a link building point of view. They generally just don’t provide sufficient traffic or sales.
I think the days of the more traditional list-based directory are certainly numbered. The web has evolved and people are looking for more that a simple list of names, numbers and web addresses. However, niche directories like Weddings In Surrey I believe will survive because of the added value they’re offering.
Google is constantly evolving and changing (don’t those of us that do our own SEO know it!!) and the trend seems to be to provide answers in search without the user even having to leave the search pages. Google Local (or Google Places or whatever it’s called now) listings can be an incredibly useful tool for those with geographically specific businesses, i.e. probably the majority of wedding suppliers! A properly optimised listing with photos, reviews etc possibly gives all the information a potential purchaser is looking for and a Local listing will usually appear in the search results long before a natural/organic entry will.
To be honest, I’m not sure if blog advertising/sponsorship is really the way forward as most users these days mentally block out banner/image advertising. In-content, textual links within blog reviews are wonderful though, but unless these reviews are updated regularly they could quickly become out of date and irrelevant. It’s also a lot harder from an advertiser’s point of view to get a blog review.
Hi Adam,
Glad you’re enjoying it! This whole debate is really appealing to my inner web / marketing geek, I love it!
Thanks for adding your comment about blog advertising as well — I hadn’t thought of it but you’re spot on when you say web users are advertising savvy — and yes, because blogs have little space for sponsors and not enough time to feature everyone, I guess it’s not an option for the vast majority of small wedding businesses. Good point about the timeliness of feature posts as well.
Hmmm… best go and root out my drawing board again!
Thank you.
Claire
Bit late to the conversation here, but I’d like to echo Adam’s point about thinking of advertising in directories only really as a link-building exercise. For the directories we’re in, we’ve little-to-no expectation of getting significant direct traffic (though we appreciate what we get, of course) — but we make sure that the link provides (at least potentially) some value for Google, and weigh the cost of advertising against that. Directories that use the wrong type of redirect from a link whose anchor text merely reads “website” get fairly quickly disregarded, I’m afraid.
Andrew at Buy Our Honeymoon´s last [type] ..Three minor updates
Hi Andrew,
Thank you — I will mention your point about the anchor text in my article. It’s something a lot of smaller businesses may not realise, and something I’ve probably missed myself when listing with directories. Could potentially have saved me a lot of time submitting to worthless directories in the past if I’d had my brain switched on to that one. The same applies to link swaps too, which is still pretty big with startups in the industry.
(I am going to add your article as a blog post this week — it’s taking me sooooo long to reshuffle all the pages, I feel bad for sitting on such a well written helpful article for so long!!!) I’ll incorporate it into the static pages at a later date.)
Claire x
Claire,
Thank you for your observations about my wedding blog directory. It was important to me when organising the categories, to balance keeping the navigation simple for my visitors as well as representing the blogs appearing under them.
Lindsay.
Lindsay´s last [type] ..New Blog – The Handcrafted Card Company
Thanks Claire, I appreciate the feedback — I had a great response on the day itself but then nothing after which was so disappointing after the time & effort that goes into these things. We got contact details etc., but still nothing! I know what you mean on the millions of pounds feeling for some of them too!!
Sophie x
Adding fuel to the fire… I’ve just had an email from a wedding directory I won’t name — offering a “supplier of the month” position for £25.
How do you qualify to be “supplier of the month”? Great product, something exciting, original, quirky? No. You just have to be the first one to pay them £25.
Claire — I’ve had the same one!!!
Just stumbled across this blog for the first time and although I’m about 10 days late, this is a really interesting debate!
I think directories are pretty useless… I’m a wedding photographer listed on over 10 directories and I have only had one enquiry as a direct result. Directories are often a dull list of names and you can’t make an impression of a supplier that way. Furthermore most directories don’t help a bride to choose between the suppliers listed, it simply promotes the supplier willing to pay them the most money!
Wedding blogs such as this are personable, diverse and, most importantly, helpful! I think Kat summed it up perfectly “It’s really the difference between a personal recommendation from a friend vs flicking through the yellow pages!”.
The thing is when you’re starting out in wedding photography you don’t have a huge collection of photographs to draw on and so you’re just trying to gain experience, and to do that you need work, and to get that you need a high google ranking, and to get that you need site popularity and links… so you get listed on directories even though you expect little or no traffic from them! : )
I knew reciprocal links were pretty useless, but Andrew had an interesting point about the quality of anchor text… duly noted. It’s a minefield out there!
Vic
Thanks for the comment, Vic. Lol — I’m always the latecomer on other blog debates, so I like you for keeping this one going for me! I was nodding along as I read your comments — same here with my calligraphy business. Building up a site is very tricky, like swimming up through treacle trying to get to the top.
Love your blog too — the veterans brought a tear to my eye and the wedding with the fairytale dress is a one off for sure! I’ve never seen a dress like it.
Keep in touch!
Claire x
“No. You just have to be the first one to pay them £25.”
I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with that. Your aim is to get your business in front of potential customers. If that £25 brings you £50 profit does it matter the ‘reason’ you were ‘supplier of the month’?
Almost all directories will give you no appreciable benefit in the eyes of Google — any link that you can get for free, or by paying, will be almost entirely without value. Google wants to see solid editorial links that are from a trusted on-topic page.
You have to decide how you want to measure value. Is it the brand awareness — how many times your advert is viewed? Is it number of potential customers — how many clicks you get? Is it how much each visitor cost? Is it how many paying customers you get? Or is it how much profit (ROI) you get from that advertising spend?
It’s probably a mixture of all of the above.
However, to accurately measure all this is not a straightforward task. Personally I see the best benchmark to use across your online advertising is how much each visitor cost. This is the measure used by Google Adwords — you pay for each ‘click’ and you can easily see these figures.
What percentage of those visitors convert to an enquiry or sale is almost completely down to your website, your products, service, USP and how you present this to your potential customer.
This goes for directories and normal advertising, banners, links etc.
We sell advertising in our directory and on our website and what can be frustrating is when we send people visitors at 15p per click, and that is perceived as ‘expensive’ — yet compared to Adwords it’s very competitive. Then when we question advertisers they have no methods in place to track those clicks through their website — so the £15 they spend with us could have sent then £100’s in business — but they don’t know and only see 100 clicks in a month and think that is a poor return on £15.
Thanks David. The £25 thing is because from a visitor’s / bride’s point of view, I think you’d expect a supplier of the month to be chosen on merit.
Your comments are great from the suppliers’ side of this debate though. I’ve decided to split my blog feature into distinct parts, so on at least one day next week I’ll be writing solely about wedding suppliers’ best options for advertising. I’ll credit you as I’m sure I’ll mention some of the points above.
I have to admit I’m the worst person for tracking conversions on my calligraphy site though, and perhaps for a lot of startup wedding businesses (esp. craft specialists) this sounds complicated so isn’t done.
Your point on Adwords is a good one, and your own advertising rates on Wedding Chaos are interesting and very original. (Also, your site ranks among the best in the UK because of your forum and advice / blog content, so when I talk about directories I don’t mean your site. You, Confetti and Hitched, among others, are wedding sites with a directory, rather than directory sites with other sections.) In my opinion at least.
Thanks for your comments, it’s very much appreciated.
“The £25 thing is because from a visitor’s / bride’s point of view, I think you’d expect a supplier of the month to be chosen on merit.”
That is a tad idealistic though — how would we (for example) be able to confidently judge the merits of the businesses that advertise with us? Unless we knew them personally we have very little to go on.
“perhaps for a lot of start-up wedding businesses (esp. craft specialists) this sounds complicated so isn’t done.”
I totally agree — which is why it is frustrating. To help address this we are going to produce some articles for businesses on how this can be achieved with relative ease, and importantly, free.
“your own advertising rates on Wedding Chaos are interesting and very original.”
We firmly believe in helping businesses to get the best from their advertising. Too many companies charge a flat 12 month rate for advertising and you have no way of knowing whether this is cost effective or not — and if not, well, that’s tough luck, they have your money and there is no way of getting it back.
With us you can change, move or delete your adverts whenever you like. We only deduct ‘credits’ each day your advert is live and you can pay for just 30 days and renew only if you are happy. We are always happy to discuss different options and way to improve your adverts.
It’s different — but once it’s understood we think it works well.
What an interesting blog! I hope I can add value here.
I started my wedding business in 2002 and my marketing plan was very specific. My degree is design and marketing and I studied further through the chartered institute of marketing as a post grad, so I kind of have experience in putting together a plan & monitoring the market.
In 2003 I literally went on tour and attended 16 local shows in as many weeks, the return was rubbish but I made valuable links within the industry with other local suppliers who later recommended me and lots of planners from that time still use my services. The National shows were initially incredible and took my business from a part time concern to a full time manic job. During my first shows I would take a ridiculous number of leads, 6 years on we take about 20% of the leads we initially took and our conversion rate through shows is much lower than it was.
Wedding fairs in the current climate are primarily an “inspiration” exercise for brides and a good way to build up links within the industry. Over the last 6 years the cost per lead at a trade show for us has increased from 42p per lead to £5.00 per lead with a lower conversion rate. HOWEVER it’s cruicial, in my opinion, if you want to place your business within the market place that you attend at least one national show in your business lifetime (not least to experience 18,500 visitors passing you by). They do work but be very clear about your objectives.
In terms of directories, we have advertised in most and only 2% of our enquiries come directly from that avenue. However, brides who reach us via another route do say they have seen us on a directory also, so it means our brand has strength from advertising on them. They do add value.
A lot of the major magazines have directories and online boards. Initially I thought these were great — word of mouth. But I noticed a lot of bad mouthing on these boards. I had an experience of “a client” moaning about me and my work, when I wrote to them it transpired it was a competitor writing bogus reviews, not just for my business but for many. I also read a review on one of those boards about a competitor I had admired, the “client” was saying such terrible things, I found it upsetting to read.
Facebook, in my opinion, doesn’t work. 80% of brides source their suppliers at work through the internet and many companies block facebook. So, Facebook is accessed via mobiles predominantly and this doesn’t support the company pages well (in my opinion). There are loads of reports about facebook as a marketing tool, again, great for building links within the industry, not great for reaching clients or leads.
So, what really works? Twitter is really good for us. We do build up a rapport with many couples via this and this features strongly in next years marketing plan.
Blogs are invaluable. I write an article for The Wedding Community each month and this reaps a good return in terms of leads.
Advertising locally is brilliant. We started as a national company and advertised accordingly. But, with increasing transport costs, and the fact many couples find it difficult to manage suppliers from afar, a lot of our clients are south based. They don’t often call in, but they do have the option of dropping by, should they need to. I connect with brides a lot, I run “Creativi-tea” sessions, where brides pay for an afternoon of tea and paper creativity and when Wrapit had its showrooms I’d often spend a day in London meeting people.
Things have really changed within the industry over the last 8 years that I’ve been involved in it and at the moment it seems a bit crowded and very confusing. I’m planning my wedding and I’ve stayed off google because it pops up such random results. I am using 100% local suppliers.
Hope my perspective is of use! I will watch other comments with interest…
Natalie
http://www.twobytwoweddings.com x x x
Hi Natalie, and thank you. Your perspective is great, fascinating for me as a kind-of-stationer as well. Your experience is quite different from others’ I’ve heard about though, especially re Facebook and Twitter. And your points on the mobile web are very useful for me personally too! (Sorry — selfish of me but I imagine lots of wedding suppliers will read this and think the same as I am.) Couldn’t agree more about the forums, I think we all start out using forums, but when things like you’ve mentioned go on, it gets a bit much. (I’ve mentioned an article I’ll be writing about professionalism in the industry and this is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind, so a useful anecdote for me there too.)
I’ve just had a peek at your blog and twitter feed too — like your comment about putting your 2pennithworth in here… 5poundithworth at least, Natalie!!
I’m still digesting your comment, and I know I’ll keep coming back to it again and again. Fascinating stuff. Thank you. Keep in touch!
Claire x
Hi Claire
Really interesting article, just wondering exactly the same thing myself, — as a wedding supplier I have recently found that twitter and facebook are much more immediate, interactive and visual (v important as a florist) than any directories and I have stopped renewing most of them, will keep my eye on the responses to see what other people think
Fiona
Hi Claire,
I may be wrong about the Facebook thing! Some suppliers I know do get a lot from it, but the suppliers I see on there seem to have their personal friends as fans. Do my friends really need to know that this months most popular colour scheme is fuschia and black?! I think I’d drive the non creative people round the bend!
In terms of my clients 70% of people who have spent money with me don’t have a facebook account, or don’t regularly use facebook. The 30% who do are fans of 3 pages on average, they generally don’t get involved with suppliers on those pages because they want to keep the elements of their wedding secret from their friends.
I’m tempted to set a page up now, despite the statistics, just to see what happens!
I look forward to your article about professional conduct in the industry. It’s interesting how to distinguish really good companies from the not so good. I thought awards were a good idea, but we’ve had strange experiences with them. We entered the Wrapit awards in 2008 and got through to the National Final, I was so proud of this achievement. Then Wrapit folded and had such bad press that the finalists were told to remove the logo’s from their websites save affiliation with them.
Thanks a million for such an informative article.
Natalie x
I can understand entirely how an article like this came to be written, there are so many wedding directories out there, and many of them are poor quality. Many wedding directories are built using very cheap PHP scripts and templates and require very little effort or skill to build and run, and offer very little value for advertisers.
Of course, I believe some wedding directories do offer value for advertisers, but you are right in saying that people look for wedding venues in different ways these days. Wedding directories can now only really offer true value for advertisers if they find ways to engage their audience and keep them coming back to the site over and over again. A plain wedding directory is pretty much never giong to gain repeat visitors unless the visitor happens to find the same wedding directory twice in two Google searches, it certaily isn’t going to create any real visitor loyalty.
At Wedding Service Providers we recoginise that people are finding wedding suppliers in different ways these days, but we also see out traffic going up month on month. Most of our traffic comes from Google organic search results (around 35,000 uniques pm), and many of our visitors use our directory to find suppliers and clicks through to at least one supplier website, we can tell this by studying behaviour in our analytics. However, we no longer refer to ourself as a ‘Wedding Directory’, we are a Wedding Planning website with a directory, and our work now largely involves developing new site features to bring new traffic and develop visitor loyalty.
Recently we lanched our wedding blog, and we are about to luanch a products gallery, where our directory advertisers will be able to list any tangible products they sell, with pictures, descriptions and price info. We are also getting ready to launch our wedding forum.
Adding new features to the site not only helps us to get visitors coming back to us, but it gives us extra opportunities to put our advertisers details infront of people. We are developing ways of matching our directory advertisers with our content, so if someone is reading a blog post about wedding photography, we will be able to show adverts from our wedding photography directory category, and use IP data to make sure we show photographers in the visitors local area.
So I do think directories can work, but the directories need to be doing more than just list businesses to make it work. Those wedding directories that use cheap PHP scripts and have no inhouse development just wil not be able to cut the mustard anymore and will die out, hopefully.
I do hope that directories such as our at Wedding Service Providers, and other good directories like Guides For Brides, Hitched and a few other good ones, are not bundled in with all the cheap and worthless wedding directories when people talk about the value of wedding directory advertising.
Jon´s last [type] ..Simon Walker Photography
Hi all,
This blog made me very annoyed. I sell advertising space on http://www.guidesforbrides.co.uk. Yes there are substandard directories out there, most of them fronting wedding shops or web design companies, but http://www.guidesforbrides.co.uk provide a useful service for over 70,000 unique visitors per month, a figure that continues to rise each and every month. We offer a free iphone app for brides, a free planner and more information than you will ever find in a blog. I was saddened that Claire, who essentially runs a wedding directory, look at the adverts within the text or the banners that sit along side the blog, has said that online directories have had their day. This is not true in any way and our visitors, visit length, demographics and the great reception that our iphone app has had, are pointers to the continued success and longevity of an online wedding directory. Even during the recession our website is very successful and we continue to invest in it.
Blogs, forums, facebook and all the other social network sites offer a great, inexpensive way to promote your business, but these should be in addition to, not instead of, entry on a directory website.
And don’t forget that we are rapidly approaching an internet that will charge for most content, twitter have been trying to monetise their content, a few newspapers charge for their news online, so the free advertising avenues will become less and less and more time consuming. Why not let an expert promote your website / business within a directory format with relevant traffic and a much larger spend.
Thanks for reading.…
Neil
Thanks for your reply, Neil.
I appreciate your point of view and of course I know not everyone will agree with what I’m saying. My controversial articles are written to spark a debate just like this!
If you’d be willing to elaborate, I’d be very interested to hear if Guides for Brides is successful for the wedding businesses who are investing in directory listings. Your site has a busy forum for brides, solid information pages and is full of tools and advice — which in my opinion makes it more than a traditional directory anyway — but how many of your 70k visitors click links to wedding suppliers’ websites from the small listings on the directory pages?
Feedback on performance of the listings on your website would be a better indication for me (as a potential advertiser) of the ‘success’ of your directory. How many clicks does the average ad get? Do you have cost per click stats for suppliers? Do you follow up with the advertisers who sign up for your directory to see if their listings are working for them?
You might be interested in an advertising test I’m writing up this week, which I did with Wedding Chaos. They offer ad space within the content of their pages, and I personally feel this is much better value for wedding suppliers… keep an eye on the blog for that one, maybe next week.
PS… I’ve just checked, and I have a listing on Guides for Brides. It’s a free one, so I can’t complain — but I’ve never had an enquiry from it.
Thank you Claire for your reply.
I will gather some facts for you reference click throughs etc..but what we have found is that advertisers who use us to supplement their advertising and work on their advert throughout the year do best. It is important that they utilise everything we offer, uploading a showreel, getting reviews, making sure phone numbers and contact details are up to date. In common with every business we hear the bad news first, for some reason people tend not to give praise if everythings fine. We work hard to promote the listings and infact a homepage revamp is underway. We have loads of testimonials from happy customers, and the cost per click, certainly with businesses such as photographers and venues who would pay a lot per click due to demand , is very competitive. We offer all wedding businesses a free listing on the website but the additional elements that are included in a paid listing, work better and of course provide a email / web link.
One thing we have found is that despite websites being the first stop for many brides, is that many wedding businesses do not track their traffic. If you have a wedding business you must add google analytics or stat counter to your website. I know they are initially daunting but do give you a really important insight into where your customers come from.
Thanks Neil,
Some interesting points there — and I actually found myself nodding along as I read!
My personal point of view (from a fairly non-competitive area of the wedding industry it has to be said) is that if you can optimise your own website you should always do that before paying a penny for advertising anywhere. BUT — I’m starting to appreciate the position the larger wedding businesses are in, and those in very competitive areas.
I’d be very interested to see a few stats and you’ve got me thinking about further research — an in-depth comparison of the benefits of press and online advertising could be very interesting (and fun to research), I think.
Claire
Claire´s last [type] ..Wedding market segments and targets
What an interesting article. I’ve really gained some valuable knowledge here.
I’ve been running my business since 2007 as a part time venture (still is part time!).
I’ve never really bothered with directories only one or two major ones. I wonder if spending £10 — £50 per year on the smaller directories would do me any good, because there are so many of them it’s hard to know which ones to target.
I’ve advertised in Wedding Ideas mag a few times, done the major wedding show at Milton Keynes twice now.(@ £400+ for the weekend I can’t afford that as I’m a very small business)
But my main aim is to keep my site as high as poss with Google.
Most of my leads come from word of mouth, Google and occasionally Wedding Ideas mag/website.
I’m wondering if Iphone apps may be worth looking at? Also being a social network dinosaur I’m trying to resist Facebook/Twitter but I may have to get involved if I want to keep up!
Claire x
Really interesting debate, but for us, we sometimes do get the odd enquiry from a few directories…have they ever converted into a job…No. However, I don’t see any harm being on them, the free listing ones at least. They don’t do your SEO or organics any harm. As far the subscription ones go, we tend to give them a miss. Like lots of our fellow colleagues within this industry, we spent many years testing and measuring various methods and the directories showed no return. the major percentage of our enquiries come from Google, so we invest our marketing and advertising budget there.