Wedding planning starts now — so should wedding marketing

By ISJ Media

Couples who are getting hitched should start planning their wedding six to nine months before the date, according to realsimple.com

Since most weddings take place June through September, couples — and wedding planners, photographers, etc. should start planning, well, now.

This is great news for business involved in the wedding industry. Businesses like photographers, florists, bakeries; vacation and travel services and wedding venues should take advantage of this early opportunity to get the attention of both the bride and groom.

So how can you make your service or business stand out during the early stages of wedding planning? Here are some tips:

1. You must have a digital presence.  There is no bend here. If your wedding planning related business or service is not online, and more importantly available on mobile devices, you’re not going to be successful in this market, period.

Think about your target audience.  According to mentalfloss.com the average age people in Idaho get married is 26.5 for men and 25 for women.  Do you think these people are scanning billboards for photographers and wedding dresses? Nope, they are on their mobile devices — a lot.

Is your website mobile-friendly? Does it need an overhaul? Now is the time to check.

Considering advertising on mobile apps and for mobile devices. Ad campaigns can be designed just for the purpose of reaching mobile customers, and mobile campaigns have proven to be highly effective in east Idaho.

2. Sell the solution, not the product. This applies to any business or service, not just the wedding industry. Identify your target customer.  You need to go beyond the simple “I’m targeting brides.”  Create a customer profile, for example, Julie is a 25 year-old getting married in June. She wants a modest dress with a removable train that won’t break the bank. Does your shop sell modest dresses? Don’t just advertise that you sell dresses, offer a solution by offering modest dresses, free adjustments etc. Solve a problem.

3.  Provide information too. Consider providing a blog with weekly wedding planning advice or a wedding planning checklist on your website. By showing that you are an expert in your industry you’ll build brand loyalty and increase your Google search ranking.

Do you need help planning a mobile campaign? Contact www.isjmedia.com at 239-3532 for a free consultation.

What is retargeting?

One of the most common terms heard in digital marketing is "retargeting." But what is it? To put it simply, it's a powerful tool that allows advertisers to keep their brand or service in the minds of potential customers after they've expressed interest.

There are several types of retargeting, but for now I am going to talk about site retargeting. Let's say you run a shoe store and you have a website that allows people to purchase online. With retargeting, a code, called a pixel is placed on the back end of your site. When a potential customer visits your web site this code adds what's called a cookie, a small information file, onto his or her browser. So now the browser, be it Google Chrome, Firefox etc. "knows" that the user was on your site.

When the user leaves your site the pixel "fires," triggering your ads to appear on the next web site(s) he or she visits.

So what about the other advertisers who are also retargeting? Don't their ads compete for space? Say your potential customer visits another shoe store website that is also set up for retargeting in addition to yours before leaving for another site. Which ad will appear? That's done with a process called bidding. When the user goes to another page, retargeting bids the available ad spaces out. This is called Real Time Bidding or RTB. The ad that has the highest bid wins the space.

The bid provided depends on how much the advertiser is spending on the retargeting campaign. The higher the budget, the higher the bids.

This happens in nanoseconds and only saves the visit, NOT sensitive information about the user.

Did you ever wonder how the ads on the websites you've visited seem to know what you're interested in or the sites you've recently visited? It's not coincidence, it's retargeting.

It sounds complicated, but ISJ Media makes it simple. Just tell us what you want to spend, what ads you'd like your users to see and what website you'd like to target, we'll take it from there and provide your monthly reports on impressions (the number of times your ads were viewed) and clicks.

This graphic from retargeter.com shows how it works: