Marketing Predictions for 2011

By: Melissa Nowakowski of Marketing Unveiled

With the year just starting, I thought I'd share my wedding marketing predictions for 2011:

 
ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING WILL GET EVEN BIGGER

We've already witnessed the upsurge of Social Media, Blogging and Online Advertising among the wedding industry and most of us have adjusted our marketing to accommodate this new wave of online movement. In the New Year more and more wedding professionals will be shifting their marketing budgets to online mediums for the mere reason that online is where the bulk of their audience is. While print marketing is not about to bow out by any stretch of the imagination, most wedding professionals are going to realize the need to mix their Marketing Campaigns with Online Marketing Campaigns in order to get the most bang for their marketing bucks.

In 2011 we'll see more wedding professionals jumping on the Social Media bandwagon as they'll have a better grasp of what Social Media is. Those who just didn't "get it" this past year will be trying it out in the new year. (In other words, if you're not on Social Media, you might want to get on that).

You will also begin to see more career paths dedicated to Social Media Marketing (meaning you'll see more wedding professionals assign or hire team members for the sole responsibility of listening and researching in social media communities, social gaming and social video as well as handling marketing in these areas on a day to day basis). As a result, wedding professionals will seemingly be everywhere all at once.

As well, more educational opportunities will be popping up both in formal educational institutions and informal seminars for wedding professionals (or any professional really) to gain more knowledge on how to best use SMO for their marketing practices.  That said, that excuse you've used all of 2010 that you just don't "get" Social Media will be tossed out the window my friend.

SEO AND SMO WILL EXPAND AND COMPETE EVEN MORE

In the past couple of years wedding professionals have been focusing a lot of energy on increasing their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and well I'd certainly hope so as it's pretty much been the number one way of getting found by your target market. However with the emergence of other search engines as major contenders like Bing, MSN, Ask, etc it's become not just about being on the first page of Google anymore it's about getting on the first page everywhere. So guess what? Now your SEO is on-par is more important than ever.

Then you have social media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more which provide new ways to be found online. Toss in Mobile Searches and Geo-Location Searches and voila — you have so many more places into which you have to get your brand.

Acknowledging that there is so much more than just Search Engine Optimization on Google is the first step to increasing your brand's profile. Embracing the new practices and using them is the next one.

STAGING WILL BECOME MORE PROMINENT

It works for the real estate, fashion and culinary industries and while it's was embraced rather slowly in the wedding industry it's usage is anticipated to pick up speed in 2011. 'Fashion shoots' are no longer only for the fashion industry. These days wedding professionals – from cake designers and decorators to caterers and wedding planners — are styling, staging and photographing tabletop designs, theme decor, food and more in classic 'high-fashion' style as a way to showcase their talent for design and detail in their portfolios, blogs and as a gateway to the media.

While 'staging' in the wedding industry is definitely not a new concept, fashioning and photographing wedding concepts in 'high-fashion' zine-like style for self-promotion is. Gone are the days of simply setting up a table yourself and taking some photos with your own camera or hoping that a high-profile magazine will offer to do a shoot for you. While it can be costly, these days wedding professionals are hiring or partnering with other professionals in the industry to put together full theme concepts (aka their 'vision') and having established photographers skillfully capture it. Everyone who participates essentially wins with equal promotion and let's face it, it looks so much better than if we did it with our rinky-dinky point-and-shoot.

Staging has become the newest form of collaborative partnership among industry professionals and can be expected to increase in the New Year.

MOBILE MARKETING HAS A RUNNING START

With the success of the iPhone and the introduction of the iPad and Google's Android, Smartphone technology is booming and so mobile marketing has sped up from a light jog to a full on run.

In the New Year mobile marketing won't just be about texting, emails or applications. We'll see an escalation of new applications, new devices (ahem…the new iPad anyone?) and an increase in technology making our networks that much faster and technology that much smarter. That said, our marketing efforts will expand to Smartphone technology services like location-aware programs, mobile games and applications that will feed interest to our consumers and send them in our direction. Where will you see the most wedding professionals in 2011? You'll see more wedding professionals develop their own 'Apps' for their services or making use of Wedding Apps that already exist like iWedding and more.

ONLINE VIDEO WILL GET EVEN BIGGER (YES IT IS POSSIBLE)

One thing that stood out in 2010 was the increase of numbers of people watching online video. With an abundance of video sharing sites like YouTube, Loomia and Woomu and video hosting sites like Hulu.

While using video for marketing purposes is not a new concept,  (promo videos, 'trailers', recorded interviews, etc. have been used for the last three years in practically every industry from entertainment to publishing to fashion and more) there has been a dramatic increase in using video for marketing among wedding professionals as a result of this increase in what's being referred to as 'Social Video'.  From 'wedding trailers' to 'video testimonials' you can expect to see more promotionally-aimed videos coming from the wedding industry than from the wedding couples themselves.

PERSONALIZATION AND CUSTOMER SERVICE WILL BE EVEN MORE OF A KEY FOCUS

More wedding professionals are realizing that 'personalizing' their marketing efforts are getting more personable results meaning that by tweaking their marketing to capture the interest and needs of their 'target market' they see a stronger presence of that specific audience in their ROI (Return on Investment).

In 2011 you'll likely see more wedding professionals 'getting personable' with their target audience as well (and not just with direct marketing methods). More conversations will be sparked by wedding professionals in online social communities, more wedding blogs will surface (but more importantly more wedding blogs will reflect and attract specific audiences) and more attention will be paid to how customer service is handled.

Speaking of customer service,  2010 proved that consumers don't want to wait for an answer to their question or a solution to their problem. Everything had that "I want it now" mentality. Some professionals labelled this mentality as "demanding".  Other professionals saw this mentality for what it was — a desire for real communication in real time.

As a result, in 2011 you'll find that many companies will be providing 'real-time' customer service to engage and appease their consumers in this fast-paced era. Consumers now have more than one option of obtaining customer service. (ahem…remember the good ol' days of waiting on hold for what seemed like eternity?)

In 2011 you'll likely see a decline in the use of online forms as a way of obtaining customer service and instead you'll see more direct email options and direct phone numbers. You'll also likely notice an increase in the use of Live Online Chat or Messenger Boxes for customer service which  provides the highest level of 'Real Time' Customer Service.

These predictions don't mean that we've looked into some magic crystal ball and are telling you what you must do in 2011. These predictions are the marketing trends that we anticipate will impact the wedding industry as a whole in 2011. And as a wedding professional your key to success will be to develop a marketing plan for 2011 that will reap the most benefits for your business.

AND IF YOU'VE NEVER DEVELOPED A MARKETING PLAN, GUESS WHAT YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION SHOULD BE?

*Copyright of Marketing Unveiled

Melissa Nowakowski is also a certified Wedding Coordinator and Instructor with The Wedding Planners Institute of Canada. She also has also worked within the wedding industry for many years as a reputable wedding planner and Creative Director for Et Là¸fte Events. She is WPIC's "Go to" girl for anything to do with marketing.