Show notes:

This August on the podcast I am walking you through a step by step analysis of the customer journey. Today in part two we talk about getting the enquiries. People may know you exist, but are you doing enough to turn those viewers into enquirers!

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Time Stamps:

00:07 – Understanding Client Engagement in Wedding Businesses

01:04 – Understanding the Inquiry Stage of the Customer Journey

04:42 – Marketing Strategies for Wedding Professionals

08:09 – Understanding the Importance of Testimonials in Business

11:10 – Understanding the Customer Journey

Transcript:

Becca

00:00:00.400 – 00:14:19.480

Did you know that on average, for every seven couples that come and look at your website or social media, only three of them will ever make an inquiry? Why is that and how can we make it a higher percentage?

I’m Becca Poutney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger, and you’re listening to the Wedding Pros who Are Ready to Grow podcast. I’m here to share with you actionable tips, strategies and real life examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.

If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you love, then you’re in the right place. Let’s get going with today’s episode. Welcome back to Part two of our summer series, all about the Customer Journey.

This summer I’m going to be walking you through the things that I do with my one to one clients.

And one of those things is we break down the customer journey to see where things are going wrong and where small improvements can be made to fix the issues. In the last episode last week we talked all about the start of the customer journey.

If you haven’t yet had a look at that or listened to that episode, I do recommend you go back before you listen to today’s episode. Today we’re going to be talking about the next part in that journey, which is the inquiry stage.

Last time we talked all about how to make sure people know you exist, but now we’re going to think about, okay, well, they know we exist.

How are we going to get them to actually not just look at us and then go elsewhere, but to look at our business and engage with us, inquire with us and move on to the next steps. We know that in 2025, in the age of the marketing, theme park, choice is everywhere and couples on the whole are overwhelmed.

But we also know that they are definitely the research generation that are coming through and getting married right now.

Which means not only are they interested in what they’re buying, but they spend a lot of time researching and looking into it before they actually make the call or fill in the inquiry form on your website.

We recently purchased a car, a secondhand car, and we were talking to the man in the car garage in Hyundai and he said that the way people buy cars has completely transformed that. Now people are researching for almost 45 hours on average before they even walk into the showroom. So it’s no longer his job to sell the car.

By the time they come into the showroom, they’re pretty much, much Already sold. And this is exactly what we’re seeing in this part of the customer journey with our engaged couples.

Once a couple gets engaged on the whole, they have a pretty good idea about what they want to spend their money on and how they want their wedding to look.

And whereas before they would maybe just go to the local venue, the local florist, the local cake maker, they have so much choice now and they know that there is all sorts of different options out there. And so what they will do is they will start doing their own research.

They will start looking into how much things cost, they will look at what kind of vibe they want for their wedding, the kind of venue they’re looking for, the kind of flowers that they want, the kind of photographer that they want, and they will do a huge amount of their own research.

And this is why we know from the UK Wedding report that on average, you know, a couple will look, for example, at seven photographers websites, but they’ll only ever, they’ll only ever inquire with three on average. So at some point in the mix, four of those photographers are getting lost, they’re getting discounted before the couple’s even spoken to them.

So this is likely happening to you and to me and all of us all of the time. So what can we do about it?

What can we do to improve this part of our customer journey, to try and keep those couples interested and ready to inquire with us rather than us losing them to the competitors? Well, I’ve got a few different areas that I want you to consider today.

And we’re talking about your website, but we’re also talking about your social media presence as well, because we know now that couples will send inquiries and reach out to you via social media too, not always just by your website. So the first thing is, is it clear where you’re based?

Again, like I said, people aren’t necessarily looking for the person the closest to them, but they do want to understand whether or not you’re close or in the vicinity of where you want to get married, or if you specialize in weddings in a certain area of the country or in a certain area of the world.

Have you ever had that experience where you come across an amazing cafe or a restaurant on TikTok on Instagram and you think, I’d love to go there, and then you realize it’s in a country the other side of the world, it’s no use to you, it’s probably not going to happen.

Well, we have the same experience when we find a wedding vendor or Venue that we want to work with and then realize they’re based the other side of the world. So the first thing is, if you want to keep hold of those couples, is make it really clear your location and also where you’re happy to work.

This needs to be very clear as soon as I land on your website, but also on your social media profile, in your bio. Have you had a look at that recently? Is it on there?

And if you are based, for example, in Birmingham, but you’re willing to travel the whole of the uk, add that in. Based in Birmingham, covering weddings, the whole of the uk, specializing in destination weddings. If you’re happy to go abroad.

But you need to tell people whether or not you’re willing to work where they are getting married. So that’s the first thing. Location. The second thing is you need to be speaking to their desires.

As I said earlier, we know that couples already have an idea of the kind of wedding day they want in their heads, probably before they even got engaged. And so you need to speak directly to what they’re looking for.

So if your marketing messages that we discussed in last week’s episode are clear, they should speak directly to them and make them think, oh, yeah, this must be the person for me, because they’re talking exactly my language. This is why if we keep things too vague, if we don’t know who we’re trying to talk to, that we often get discounted started.

Because if, for example, I am vegan and I’m looking for a vegan wedding cake and I come across one cake maker that really specializes in vegan cakes and that’s all they do, and they have the same moral compass as me and another cake maker that just does a bit of vegan wedding cakes on the side, you know, chances are I’m going to go with the person I see as the specialist rather than the person who I see as just doing it on the side because they’re really talking to me.

So if you really want to convert the people that come to your website, you need to be talking their language, which is why it’s really important you’re clear about your marketing messages, about your core values and about what you can do. The other way we speak to people’s desires is through images.

Are your images on social media and your website selling where you want to be rather than where you are now? Are you selling the dream? Are you showcasing exactly what you do to make those couples fall in love with the service and the product you offer?

If you don’t want to be Chosen by price alone. Then, as I said last week, you’ve got to have something that makes you stand out.

We’re willing to pay more for something if we think we’re going to get a better service or a better product, or if we can’t get that product or service service elsewhere at the same quality level. So review your website images. Review your social media images. Do you need to upgrade them? Do you need to update them?

Do you need to have a photo shoot? Is it something that’s letting the side down or are they just a bit out of date? This is the same if you’ve got a directory listing.

When was the last time you updated the images on your directory listing too? The next thing is, we know that today’s couples want to see pricing, or at least an idea of pricing.

And we also know that if you don’t have pricing, your inquiry levels are likely to go down. People don’t like to not know the price.

So even going back to my car sales example, previously a car salesman would have sold the car in the showroom and then started talking about price. But now people know the price before they walk into the showroom and they’ve already decided whether or not they can afford it.

Yes, there may be some upselling along the way, but on the whole, they know roughly what they’re planning to spend. And it’s the same for our couples who are getting married.

So by hiding our prices, we’re actually just creating friction by saying we need to get people on a call before we tell them the price. Prices. Well, that might work, but you’re also probably losing business along the way as well.

Unless you want to be so exclusive and so elite to prove that you’re the highest, highest, highest part of the market. I really recommend you put some level of pricing on your website.

And I’ve done plenty of episodes on this podcast about pricing and about why I think that and different ways you can display your pricing as well. But as I always say, you should have a minimum of a from price so people know what’s the minimum budget you’re willing to work with.

So if they don’t have that, they’re not even going to inquire. So if we don’t have these things and we’re leaving it up to chance, we’re letting them decide how much they think it costs to work with us.

And often they have no idea and often they’re way off the mark or they just don’t even consider you and they’re going to go elsewhere to a competitor who is being transparent about their prices. So if we want to improve this part of our customer journey, then clear pricing, clear, transparent pricing really will help you.

The next thing is testimonials understanding that people want to know what other people are saying about you, rather than just what you’re saying about yourself. We know that testimonials are powerful. We know what someone else says about us is much more powerful than what we can say about ourselves.

We trust other people’s opinions, which is why it’s so important for us to collect Google reviews and Facebook reviews as much as we can, or reviews on our directories. But we also need to make sure we’re using these words that other people are saying about us on our social media pages and everywhere on our website.

If you hide your testimonials on a testimonial page on your website, you’re doing yourself a disservice. In 2025, they should be everywhere.

I shouldn’t be able to land on a page of your website without being able to see someone saying something amaz about you. And as they update and upgrade over time, if you don’t have very many, then keep refreshing them, keep adding them.

That really helps people gain your trust. It makes them realize what it’s like to work with you.

Especially if it’s what people are saying about you is what’s resonating with them or what they’re looking for.

The other thing I’ve noticed recently is if you start asking chatgpt things, often it pulls wording from your reviews and says this is what other people are saying about you. So even more important for you to get nice words. Because if I’m looking for a particular vendor, I can.

I could ask ChatGPT what should I work with this person? What do you think about them? And ChatGPT will pull from reviews and tell me exactly what they think. So bear that in mind as well.

But testimonials are incredibly important. I know they’re difficult to get sometimes, but where possible get testimonials from as many couples as possible.

The final thing that I really want you to consider when you’re looking at this part of the customer journey, and this is something I spend a lot of time with with my one to one clients is are the next steps you want people to take clear and simple to follow, or are you making it really confusing? None of us like a confusing custom journey. When we feel uncomfortable, we don’t know where to pay, we don’t know what we have to do next.

We tend to freeze and do nothing or feel really uncomfortable about it. And so we need to make sure it’s really clear on your website or in your bio, on social media or in your call to action on your post.

What do you want people to do next? Do you want them to download a pricing guide? Do you want them to book a call with you?

Do you want them to inquire with you to check your availability? Make it clear what you want them to do and they’re more likely to do it. And make sure you’re signposting people everywhere.

If you’ve ever been to any training about sales pages, then they talk about the fact that you need to have the buy button multiple times in multiple places all the way down the page because number one, you don’t want to leave it to the bottom. But number two, people miss it and people see it in different places. So we need to make sure on our websites it’s really easy and repetitive.

What you want people to do next is it check our prices and then book a call with us? Is it come and fill out this form and we’ll check availability and get in touch to have a call.

Whatever is, lay it out and make it so simple and put it everywhere on your website and all over your social media so that there’s not really complicating factors. The thing is with this part of the customer journey is what’s important is to make it as easy as possible for people.

The less friction there is, the more chance you’ve got of converting them into an inquiry. People need to feel comfortable in order to reach out and be vulnerable and give over their details.

And people are not willing to do that unless they’re genuinely interested in working with you.

So by the time someone sends you an inquiry, especially via your website or social media, on the whole, they’ve already done their research and they know a lot about you. I get this myself. Sometimes people will contact me about working with me, for example, one to one or with the agency.

And when I start talking to them, I realize they actually know everything about my services already. This is kind of just the final call to just check I’m a genuine good person and to check we have synergy.

They already know my prices, they already know what I do, they’ve already looked at testimonials, they’ve already seen examples of my work, maybe they’ve watched my reels and my TikToks. By the time they get to the point of contacting me and being on a call, they’re pretty much Ready to go ahead.

And so your couples are in the same situation. By the time they get there, they’re ready to go ahead. And so we need to work extra hard to stop any friction on that customer journey.

Friction will be things like not being able to find the images that they want, or you not looking like the right person for them, being unsure where you’re based or who you are, or whether they can trust you, not being able to read what anyone else has said about you, not understanding what they actually have to do next or it being confusing or them feeling like they’ve got to pay something or, you know, anything that is going to confuse them on that journey, or not knowing what the price are and not knowing if you’re too expensive or too cheap or where you are sit and feeling like, well, I can go elsewhere and get prices easier. We know that you have a problem in this area.

Well, quite frankly, all of us will always have a problem in this area and we can always do more to improve it. But there are a couple of other ways we can see that maybe things aren’t working in this area.

The first one is if you’re getting lots of social media follows. Lots of people are engaging on social media and following your accounts, but then nothing ever happens. Crickets. And your inquiries are low.

The second reason we know that we’re struggling is if you look at your Google Analytics and every single one of you should have Google Google Analytics installed on your on your website. You need to make sure that when you’re doing that, you’re looking to see how many people are coming to your website.

Because if lots of people are coming to your website, but no one’s ever inquiring, the question is why? You can dive really deep into those stats.

You can look at the pages they’re going to, you can look at the bounce rate, you can look at how long they’re spending on your website. But ultimately, if people are landing on your website, you’ve got part one right, they know where that you exist.

But something’s going wrong in part two and that’s where you need to start to work out why exactly that is.

So whether it’s going through your website in granular detail, whether it’s going through your social media and working out why people aren’t converting, are you telling them what to do next or are you just putting up pretty pictures?

Or if it’s updating your directory listings because you’re not getting the inquiries there that you want, there’s probably some work to be done to make this one sense better. When people do work with one to one.

As I said earlier, this is one of the things we spend most amount of time when people commission me to do a full marketing review of their business to try and work out what friction there is that’s stopping people going ahead and making the inquiry. There’s loads of work for you to do there.

Go and look at your website, your social media directory listings with a fresh pair of eyes and if you want me to look at it instead, reach out to me and we can chat about a marketing review or working one to one. Next time we’re going to talk about what happens after someone inquires and how we take them from the inquiry through to the sale.

I’ll see you next time.