Nathan’s Personal Blog

OK, if you’ve reached this page from a Google, Yahoo, MSN, or some other keyword search and you were thinking about signing up for any of the following places to advertise your wedding business – David’s Bridal, www.mywedding.com, www.weddingwire.com , www.wedplan.net , www.wedj.com , or any others, you will get my opinion based on my own dealings with each.  This is not intended to be an attack on any of these places, but merely how working with them affected my business.  Keep in mind, as they say “your mileage may vary”

David’s Bridal Vendor Program

So I received a phone call about a year ago (my how time flies) from a sales person with David’s Bridal telling me how nice my site looked and asking me about signing on with one of the local stores.  The way the program is supposed to work according to her was that I would pay a monthly fee ($400 a month in my case, some locations are less, some are more) and in exchange, I would get the leads from the local store which consisted of the contact information from the brides that come into the local store – name, email, phone, wedding date, etc., which I could use to call or otherwise contact them to try and earn their business.  You would also have the opportunity to display your product (in my case two 16×20 prints), and flyers in the store for inclusion in the packages that are handed to the brides.

I would receive the lists from the Vendor program twice a month and it would average about 200-300 names and I used several ways to contact them – email (using a web called iContact.com that would send out mass emails and allow me to track who opened, who read, how many were bounced, etc and I noticed the following:

out of approx. 300 emails

20-25% were bad email addresses
50-60% were never opened
of the final 15-30%, half of them already had a photographer and the other half were outside of my budget range (when I first signed up, I was told my range was about the average that most of their brides spent and I discovered that the brides I contacted only wanted to spend $1000.00 or less and in most cases it was far less).  I even had someone making phone calls for me and the percentages were about the same – either bad phone numbers or people that did not want to be contacted by Vendors or other representatives from David’s.

I was also allowed to set up a table in the store and meet brides as they came in which I did three times and I guess it was my timing, because each time, there was very little traffic and the brides I did speak to were not willing to spend more than $1000.00 on photography.

The staff in the store was GREAT and they were always a pleasure to talk to but the return on investment (ROI) was little to none.  of course, if I had to do it all over again, I would not.  I based my decision in part on the sales person’s sales pitch and her guarantee (which I know I can’t hold them to) and the conversation with another photographer in another part of the Country that has had great success with the program.  What I didn’t realize was that his price point was half of what mine is and that was the reason he was booked solid and I could hardly get a client.

MyWedding.com

Ok, this is one of those places that when you look at it, the phrase “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” comes to mind.  when you look at the site, it looks clean, very appealing to brides and photographers and they are ranked very high in the Google and yahoo searches.  they may also be listed under my”yourcityname”wedding.com.  I signed up for a free listing (which is the first thing you should do on all these sites before spending any money – if they don’t allow for a free listing or a free trial – RUN!!!

I saw a banner ad for a friend of mine who I respected as a great photographer and decided to check them out.  I called and they told me all the wonderful things about their site and how much traffic they generate and how they market to the “higher end bride”.  The offered a special for $700 for a year for a top level listing that included images and a detailed listing.  I signed up and waited for the leads to pour in….and waited……and waited….

I checked my stats almost daily to see how many people were hitting my page and the numbers were low in my opinion.  I was getting better numbers from my own SEO and Google searches.  They tried upgrading me and giving me a permanent “tile” on the Houston page and that did very little to increase the number of hits to my page.  So in essence, I spent $700 for what I was already doing for myself for free.

Wedplan.net and WeDJ.com

I have been a member of these sites for quite some time and have been very satisfied with my ROI from them.  I have gotten brides from every price point on my price list and beyond in some cases while my monthly investment is rather low.  With wedplan.net, you can sign up for a basic listing or pay extra for the premier listing and leads matching your preferences are ent to you (with the premier listing, you get the leads 4 hours ahead of the basic members so sometimes there is an advantage).  to get the client info, you pay an additional $2.00 and their phone and/or email address is sent to you.  You are bidding with up to 10 other vendors, so you have to be quick, but for me it is still a good return on investment.

With WeDJ.com you are given a gateway from their site that leads to your site.  they are also ranked high in the search engines and a potential bride searches their site and can find vendors depending on how you are listed.  They have 3 levels – Gold, Silver and Bronze with Gold members being found first, then Silver, then Bronze.  Gold and Silver members also get access to their planning software GigBuilder which helps you and the client and the vendor plan by offering calendar, listing info, venue info among other things…

as with any service, YMMV and what works for one, may not necessarily work for another.  I am only sharing what works for me and what did not.  Feel free to comment or ask any questions and I will try and answer them…