Wedding Marketing – Seo, Search Engine Marketing, Viral Marketing and Direct Email Marketing Decoded

84% of all brides use the internet to plan their wedding. That’s an astounding 190,000 brides! Everyone has a website these days, but there are plenty of websites that aren’t optimized for search engines. Wedding vendors that should consider optimizing their website include: photographers, videographers, floral designers, bakeries/cake designers, DJ, Band, jewelers, bridal consultants, limousine companies, ceremony sites, reception sites, and honeymoon locations.
SEM or Search Engine Marketing includes: Paid inclusion in a directory where you can pay to have your business added to a search engine’s directory. It is useful if you want to make changes to your content frequently because your site will be indexed more often by the search engines. You can also see how the changes that you make will affect your ranking.

Traditional Ads involve placing your ad on search engine result pages. (SERPs). You pay by impression – this means that whether or not someone clicks through to your site, you are paying for the ad. For example, a banner ad is considered a traditional ad.

Pay Per Clicks are text only ads. Paid keyword searches are a set of search engine results that
relate to the specified searched words. The paid keywords show up depending on how many other competitors are paying for the exact same keywords. Advantages of PPC campaigns: you control the budget, set the maximum that you will pay per click, and pay only when someone clicks on your ad. Disadvantages include: Your competitors can click on your ad, the more competitors you have for the keyword you’re advertising The more competitors you have, the more it will cost for you to achieve the
top position. It is also easy for a competitor with deeper pockets to outbid you. Example: Google adwords.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should always be the first step when you decide to better your website. The purpose of SEO is to make the site better for both search engines and the end user. Example: Any search engine results and where you rank organically.

Viral marketing is a strategy that encourages individuals to pass on your message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Brides love to read the blogs of wedding vendors. They truly get a taste of the latest and greatest as to what the bride who got married just last weekend did for her wedding. Brides no longer have to wait until next month for her wedding magazine to come out to see the latest trends which are already a few months old by the time the magazine goes to print. Example: Myspace, facebook, etc…

Direct email marketing is a great tool for targeting brides. Using lists of leads generated from other marketing resources (i.e. portals, bridal shows, etc…), users can quickly and cheaply market themselves to potential customers. A number of elements make direct email marketing different from spam or other less sophisticated email campaigns. For example, the sender may use customer segmentation techniques to ensure that the message is appropriate for the group it's sent to, and use personalization techniques so the recipient is addressed as an individual.