Ever wonder how to effectively sell to more brides at a Bridal Show?

If you’re like me, you probably have asked yourself this question before or how to increase the number of brides that purchase your services after meeting you at a bridal show.

Sonja van Florestein, of the Houston Wedding Showcase, has put together a seminar for not only her existing clients, but for anyone who exhibits at bridal shows. Best of all it’s free and you don’t even have to sign up for her Bridal Show to get all the great information she has to offer.

I am going to give my honest opinion and review to the best that I can. It is not influenced by anyone nor was I asked to do this.  I was intrigued by the email Sonja sent and I honestly had no intention of attending her show.  I just wanted the free information. After attending the seminar, I was compelled to write this review.

The seminar I attended was held on Wednesday, May 27th at Chateau Crystale. Doors opened at 5:30 pm for networking and the seminar started at 6:00 pm and went until 8:00 pm. She also offers one, today, May 28th, but it did not fit my schedule and besides I wanted to get in early to the information.

The name of the seminar is perfect:

The Secrets of Selling to Brides

If you got her email you could see that she asks a few key questions about Selling to more brides, getting the most out of your marketing dollar, and increasing your sales.

I think she delivered right on target!

The presentation was excellent, very well prepared, and very professional.  Two hours did not feel like two hours, they went by fast.

Without giving away all her secrets, here are a few things that I picked up that could definitely drastically increase my sales as a result of attending a bridal show.

1. I generated 3 key ideas on how I can  stand apart from my competition (no I’m not giving those away)
2. I was able to ’see’ the different components that make up a well organized and effective booth. I could see a booth and say it looks good, but I could never put my finger on why or what made it look good. There are some key components that I had not realized before.
3. The seminar covered in great detail the importance of advertising and really made me understand how and why advertising works. It made me want to advertise, and that is hard to do, since I have all the free traffic in the world from Google and Yahoo and all the search engines.
4. How to figure out how much you are spending per bride, and the importance of knowing that one figure.
5. The #1 secret, in my opinion, to effectively sell to more brides at the show. I almost feel like giving it away, but that would be unfair to Sonja, you have to attend the show yourself in order to completely understand it.

I could go on with 5 more key concepts that I learned, but you will not get the full effect until you attend the seminar.

In my opinion this seminar was worth over $300 dollar if you had to put a price tag for attending, however in benefits, it is up to you on how you implement what you learned but you will definitely increase the number of visitors to your booth if you implement the ideas well.

There were over 17 points well covered in great detail. Any exhibitor (me or any other wedding vendor) could easily understand and implement all or any of them  into their booth.

The only thing I wish I would have seen covered more in detail would have been “Compelling Content.” They threw that word around a couple of times, and in my opinion that is one of the key factors in selling to the brides.  This is just a suggestion that I think could add another dimension to an already great presentation. However, it may increase the length of the presentation a little.

Like I said before, this was a well organized presentation, very professional and inspiring, and many other people would have charged well over $300 to sell that same information. Sonja gave it away for free. In my opinion, she wants to gain your business and your trust by helping you have a better turn out at any bridal show, no matter what bridal show you attend. Who does that? Would you give away your secrets for free, even if your client bought from your competition?

Congratulations Sonja on a great seminar.  you can’t beat the price, the ideas presented were great, and if implemented well, you will definitely;

1. Sell to more brides
2. Get the most out of your marketing dollar
3. Increase sales

If everything works out well, I hope to see you at the  Houston Wedding Showcase on August 29th. For more information visit their website at HoustonWeddingShowcase.com!

Happy Bloggin!

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|o| Simply Frank |o|
Bloggin Wedding DJ in Houston

Ok, so a few days ago, I posted an update on my Facebook profile stating that I need help. I have so many online inquiries that I cannot keep track of. As a matter of fact, yesterday I spent some time going through my history of emails and fond 10 (TEN) emails from the past 2 months that I had lost track of, and what I mean lost track of is not that I did not reply to them, but that I did not follow up with a reason why they had not responded to my last email. Most had already hired another DJ and 2 were still interested but would get back with me (more following up, IS THERE AN EASIER WAY TO DO THIS?)

Now, that’s not that bad compared to how many inquires I get from my online forms.

1. January 2009           31
2. February 2009        27
3. March 2009              31
4. April 2009                 39

So this year I’ve had a total 128 leads as a result of having an online form as I suggested in a previous article about converting bridal show leads into online clients using the power of the net. Now, since I have not done any bridal shows in over a year, and I only advertise in one magazine, Premiere Bride, and I have only one online ad that I pay for, The Knot, and since keep track of where all my web visitors come from, I know a few things for fact.

1. 90% of those 128 leads come to my website from the search engines.
2. 5% of the leads come from The Knot
3. 5% of the leads come from other thing such as My magazine ad, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, referals, etc…

Now 128 leads may not sound like a lot to you, but take into consideration many limitations on my website…

1. I don’t have my prices online… Major turn off to some people as they feel I may be hiding something or I am too expensive.
2. I proudly am a Bilingual DJ and Master of Ceremonies…. Major turn off to some people as they feel that I may not be able to represent them correctly or I may not know the music.
3. I don’t have the most beautiful DJ website out there… some people may be turned off by how simple it looks.
4. My website is too wordy… Some people are turned off by not enough pictures and having to read my stuff and find out there is no price anywhere to be found.
5. I don’t have the details about my DJ equipment that I use… this is mainly something other dj’s have suggested.
6. I have ads on my website.
7. I am marketing online… Vendors automatically assume that online brides are cheap, they are if yo u consider paying a DJ 1,200+ for a wedding reception cheap.
8. Worrying what people will say about telling their friends and relatives that they ‘found their DJ online.“
9. They never have heard me play before and I don’t allow outsiders to my events… EVER!
10. People worry about giving out their personal information online… This is a huge one, well they are all big
11. Many other limitations, or mental blocks that people place on their heads about putting an online form on the FRONT PAGE OF YOUR WEB SITE.

Keep in mind, these are all leads that used my online form, mainly because when they arrived at my website, they did not want to call me.

Here is something that you may not realize…

When people are online, having to reach for the phone and call you is an extra action that they have to initiate! They really don’t want to call you unless they really have to and they are extremely motivated to do so.  Think about it when you are online doing research, don’t you want to keep researching, whatever you may be researching? Don’t you want to continue without any interruptions? (unless of course they are friends or family members calling to distract you, lol.) Aren’t most of us procrastinators? Don’t we say, ahhh, I’ll get to this later (I’ll call them later)… and how often does later never come?

What I’m getting at, is make it sooo easy for your bride to contact you that the 11 (Eleven) objectives above are not even thought about, or are easily outweighed.

I even go as far as putting on my form, give me your phone number ONLY if you want us to contact you by phone, what that means to me is that they are interested but are too lazy to look for the phone to call me so they would really love you if you called them… So they don’t have to.

I hope you understand that I’m not trying to brag about how many leads I get; but I am just merely giving you a report on how you can INCREASE the number monthly leads. It’s so simple, place a contact form on your website. I have it on all of mine where they can easily fill it out. See for your self, I have it on my Houston DJ Website and My Photo Booth Rental Website.

Happy Bloggin!

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|o| Simply Frank |o|