The UK wed­ding mag­a­zine review so far has focused on brides, giv­ing an idea of what’s inside each of the best UK wed­ding mag­a­zines. I hope it’s been help­ful for some of you and will prove use­ful for future brides and grooms.

Now it’s the adver­tis­ers’ turn. I know a lot of wed­ding busi­ness own­ers read the blog and you have strong opin­ions about wed­ding mag­a­zine adver­tis­ing, based on your own expe­ri­ences. It’s been very inter­est­ing read­ing your tweets, face­book com­ments and emails so thank you!

UK wed­ding mag­a­zines: advertising

I’m going to pro­vide you with “the sci­ence bit” in this blog post. I have my opin­ions; but this blog post is about the facts — add your own opin­ions on the Eng­lish Wed­ding face­book page or in the com­ments below.

As a blog­ger in the indus­try I really wanted to write pos­i­tively about wed­ding mag­a­zines. They pro­vide a valu­able ser­vice to brides — sales fig­ures prove that. Adver­tis­ers are a cru­cial part of wed­ding mag­a­zines, love them or hate them!

In this blog post I’m going to present a bal­anced view of the best UK wed­ding mag­a­zines aimed at giv­ing wed­ding sup­pli­ers the infor­ma­tion they need to make adver­tis­ing deci­sions.

Adver­tis­ing and com­pe­ti­tion in UK wed­ding magazines

Click the table below to see my analy­sis of the top UK wed­ding mag­a­zines. It’s inter­est­ing from an advertiser’s point of view: here’s a lit­tle food for thought.

• the aver­age UK wed­ding mag­a­zine has 264 pages
• on aver­age, 139 of these pages carry advertising
• that’s over half of the magazine
• I’ve counted pages, not indi­vid­ual ads — there were too many to count
• Within that lot, it’s not going to be easy to get your ad noticed
• espe­cially if it’s at the back of the magazine

Note: fig­ures are my own counts, based on a sin­gle issue of each mag­a­zine. Click to enlarge

I find these fig­ures pretty scary to be hon­est — as a small busi­ness with a lim­ited bud­get for adver­tis­ing, the last thing I want to do is spend money on an ad that just gets lost in the crowd. I could pay £2,000 for a full page ad and get noth­ing back.

If you’re a small to medium sized wed­ding busi­ness I’m sure that like me you get more than enough calls from wed­ding mag­a­zines ask­ing you to adver­tise. And I imag­ine the national mag­a­zines will be ask­ing you to adver­tise at the back of their mag­a­zine. Time to ask your­self why. Why there? Because it’s cheap? Because it works best for small businesses?

Because they’re fill­ing space. Because they’re run­ning a profit-making busi­ness. Because it’s the way the indus­try works. Because some adver­tis­ers don’t ques­tion the mag­a­zines when they quote read­er­ship fig­ures — it’s pitched as a good idea, so it must be — and it’s all too easy to trust an adver­tis­ing sales rep. I’ve done it!

Wed­ding mag­a­zine adver­tis­ing does work — for some

Nev­er­the­less, I’ve heard pos­i­tive sto­ries about wed­ding mag­a­zine adver­tis­ing. The table above is a warn­ing: wed­ding mag­a­zine adver­tis­ing is com­pet­i­tive so if you choose to do it you should make sure you’re doing it right. And if you can do it right, suc­cess for your wed­ding busi­ness will follow.

One top bridal jew­ellery designer told me she only adver­tises in the top UK wed­ding mag­a­zines — it works so well it’s all she needs to do. Her adver­tis­ing strat­egy is care­fully thought out, tar­geted and visu­ally appeal­ing. Com­bined with prod­uct place­ment in care­fully selected bridal stores, this has made her busi­ness a resound­ing suc­cess in recent years.

A pho­tog­ra­pher who really wasn’t a fan of the wed­ding mag­a­zines and never paid to adver­tise recently told me he’d had sev­eral enquiries from a top wed­ding mag­a­zine after plac­ing a wed­ding pho­to­graph within an edi­to­r­ial fea­ture. While pre­vi­ous fea­tures hadn’t gen­er­ated any enquiries, this par­tic­u­lar image had really cap­tured brides’ imag­i­na­tions — another suc­cess story.

You shouldn’t write off adver­tis­ing in wed­ding mag­a­zines, but it’s so impor­tant to work hard to make sure it works for you.

That’s the warn­ing and the suc­cess sto­ries cov­ered — now for the “how-to” bit.

Know how to play the game before you start

The most impor­tant thing is to do your research on wed­ding mag­a­zine adver­tis­ing. This isn’t some­thing you can do on a whim. You should never sign up to adver­tise in a wed­ding mag­a­zine just because their sales­per­son con­vinces you it will work. This isn’t some­thing you can set up in a day if you want it to be a success.

Read Ali­son Wren’s four part advice series Adver­tis­ing in Wed­ding Mag­a­zines. It’s sound advice for any wed­ding busi­ness adver­tiser and covers:

• why you should con­sider wed­ding mag­a­zine advertising
• why it might not be for you
• some dos and don’ts
• how to research wed­ding mag­a­zine advertising
• choos­ing the right pub­li­ca­tion and frequency
• nego­ti­at­ing the price
• design­ing a suc­cess­ful wed­ding mag­a­zine advert
• mea­sur­ing the results of your ad campaign

Wed­ding mag­a­zines have been work­ing with adver­tis­ers for years and years. While the mag­a­zines and their adver­tis­ing sales teams know their plays like the back of their hands, most wed­ding busi­nesses aren’t so au fait with how the process works.

Think back to your most recent sales call from a wed­ding mag­a­zine adver­tis­ing depart­ment. They were very good, weren’t they… slick? Really lovely and friendly? Per­haps a pro­fes­sional sales­per­son rather than some­one on the team at the mag? I know the last per­son to call me about a wed­ding mag­a­zine ad was a born sales­man. The very fact they’re sell­ing so hard should ring warn­ing bells.

New wed­ding busi­nesses be warned — you’re a top tar­get for the wed­ding mag­a­zines, who are look­ing for new and inex­pe­ri­enced adver­tis­ers in their clas­si­fied direc­to­ries. You’re an eas­ier tar­get, more likely to say yes if a sales­man can con­vince you that wed­ding mag­a­zine adver­tis­ing works. What he won’t tell you is that most of the time, it doesn’t.

Find a mag­a­zine that fits your brand­ing and demographic

My review of the best UK wed­ding mag­a­zines gives you a bit of back­ground infor­ma­tion on each top wed­ding mag. Go back to the begin­ning, read what I’ve writ­ten about the mag­a­zines and let it help you decide which fits your tar­get demographic.

The sim­plest part of this is to iden­tify the mag­a­zines which focus on value: Wed­ding Ideas and Per­fect Wed­ding pro­mote afford­able brands while You & Your Wed­ding, Brides and most oth­ers aim for the brides and grooms with big wed­ding budgets.

• You & Your Wedding
• Brides mag­a­zine
• Wed­ding Ideas
• Per­fect Wedding
• Wed­ding
• Your Man­ches­ter Wedding
• Cos­mopoli­tan Bride
• Cheshire Bride

Spend to be successful

Pic­ture a wed­ding mag­a­zine in your mind. How are the con­tents organ­ised? Think­ing of adver­tis­ing in par­tic­u­lar, what would you expect to see at the begin­ning of the top UK wed­ding magazines?

My analy­sis of UK wed­ding mag­a­zines shows very clearly that the first 20 pages of every mag­a­zine have a very high con­cen­tra­tion of adverts, and in most cases these are dou­ble page spreads adver­tis­ing bridal designer col­lec­tions: Ian Stu­art, Jenny Pack­ham, Car­o­line Cas­tigliano… the big brands, and the big adver­tis­ing spenders. It’s unusual to see any other adver­tis­ers near the front of most UK wed­ding mag­a­zines — per­haps with the excep­tion of big wed­ding ring sellers.

At the back of wed­ding mag­a­zines we always have clas­si­fied direc­to­ries: pages with mul­ti­ple small adverts, which are sold by the square inch to smaller wed­ding busi­nesses. Make no mis­take: if you choose to adver­tise at the back of a wed­ding mag­a­zine it’s cheaper for a rea­son! Ever been to a music fes­ti­val? Has your idol on stage ever looked directly at you, smiled and winked? Me nei­ther… and it’s the same with clas­si­fied ads in wed­ding mag­a­zines: you’re just another face in the crowd — you won’t be noticed.

The wed­ding mag­a­zines will tell you oth­er­wise of course, but my advice would be never pay for a clas­si­fied ad at the back. Won’t work.

The excep­tion to this is Wed­ding Ideas mag­a­zine with their fea­tures list: take out a clas­si­fied ad and they’ll send you their fea­tures list. This way, you get your prod­uct within their edi­to­r­ial pages. The ad will do noth­ing, but use the fea­tures oppor­tu­ni­ties well and these might work for you.

The only way to suc­ceed with wed­ding mag­a­zine adver­tis­ing is to spend money to get at least half a page and as close to the front of the pub­li­ca­tion as you pos­si­bly can. You’re look­ing at spend­ing around £1,000 — if you don’t have the bud­get for this, then spend your money else­where, not in the national wed­ding mag­a­zines.

Con­sider other wed­ding adver­tis­ing or promotion

The wed­ding mag­a­zines aren’t the only places to get your busi­ness noticed, so if you don’t have the bud­get for a sound adver­tise­ment in the press look elsewhere.

• Pop­u­lar wed­ding blog fea­tures from £50 — £200 a time
• Wed­ding fairs from £100 a time
• Web­site improve­ments from £1,000 for a designer to cre­ate a beau­ti­ful and opti­mised website
• Social media — if you don’t have time your­self look around for some­one to write your blog, keep your face­book page buzzing and rep­re­sent your busi­ness on twit­ter (price prob­a­bly varies wildly along with expertise)

Online resources for wed­ding busi­ness advertising

There’s plenty to be found online to help you pre­pare a suc­cess­ful adver­tis­ing cam­paign, either in UK wed­ding mag­a­zines or else­where. Here are some of the best resources you should see first.

Eng­lish Wed­ding Mar­ket­ing Guide

Read my guide to mar­ket­ing a wed­ding busi­ness — avail­able as a mag­a­zine or to read online. If you buy the mag­a­zine you get the dig­i­tal ver­sion free

Mar­ket­ing your wed­ding business

Wed­ding Busi­ness Success

Spend an hour or so tak­ing notes as you read Ali­son Wren’s web­site and blog full of prac­ti­cal tips for mar­ket­ing your wed­ding business

www.weddingbusinesssuccess.com

Cre­ate a stand out wed­ding mag­a­zine advert

Com­ing up soon — I’ll be shar­ing tips to help you cre­ate an out­stand­ing wed­ding mag­a­zine advert. With exam­ples to get your imag­i­na­tion tick­ing, this will be an aspi­ra­tional advice fea­ture for wed­ding advertisers.