WeddingWire had a great time at the 2009 Wedding MBA Convention, the world’s biggest convention dedicated to teaching you how to make money in the wedding business, last week in Las Vegas.  WeddingWire’s CEO, Timothy Chi, and CMO, Sonny Ganguly, had the opportunity to educate attendees in a two part ‘Pimp My Marketing’ series on the latest trends to help increase online exposure and further reach to today’s engaged couples.  We have had such a great response on the material we discussed that we decided to share the information with the entire WeddingWire Community.

• ‘Pimp My Marketing’ Season 1: Email strategies, SEO basics, and top online sites
• ‘Pimp My Marketing’ Season 2: SEM basics, tracking and monitoring, and top online sites

Again, we had a great time meeting all the attendees at this year’s convention. We hope to see everyone at the 2010 WMBA Convention, which will be in Las Vegas again!

Each month we will highlight some of our favorite sites on the web and show how they can help you run your business more efficiently. This month we feature Animoto, Issuu and Mint.

• Animoto: Animoto is one of our favorite new sites on the internet. It is the easiest way to make professionally produced videos from your existing images, and it does it automatically. Simply upload some of your photos, add some copy, and pick a song. Animoto does the rest! Within a couple minutes the site will create a professional quality video for your business using ‘Cinematic Artificial Intelligence.’ Animoto videos have “the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.” We love the quality of the videos, they look great on your WeddingWire storefront, and you can get started for free!

• Issuu: Do you have a presentation coming up? Looking to create a wow factor with your next client? Issuu is an online publisher that allows you to publish your presentations, documents, sales kits, brochures, magazines and more online. You can send a link to potential clients and they can flip through the contents just like reading a book. Issuu allows you to create a free account and is a great way to showcase your portfolio. Simply add a link to your work in your email footers.

• Mint: Mint claims to be ‘the best Free way to manage your money,’ and so far we think they may be right. The site allows you to link all your accounts in one place, from checking and savings accounts, to credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and more. Mint makes it easy to track your spending and provides detailed breakdowns by various categories. Even better, the site sends a notice any time an upcoming payment is coming up or if any of your accounts are hit with unwanted fees. Mint is like having a personal money manager on your staff that doesn’t get paid!

WeddingWire has teamed up with Meebo, one of the largest social media companies on the web, to provide a new real-time vendor to vendor chat feature within your WeddingWire account. Now you can ask questions, get feedback, or simply communicate with vendors you know from anywhere across the country. Whether you are updating your Storefront or perusing the Vendor Education Center, the chat feature will be visible in the lower right hand corner of your account so that you can easily connect with other vendors.

Don’t see any buddies on your list? Simply connect with other vendors through the Vendors I Know tool, located in the “My Community” section.  Once the connection is approved by the other vendors, their names will show up on your buddy list.

The new Meebo feature also allows you to gather all of your friends on a single buddy list from within your WeddingWire account, so you can communicate in real-time across different IM platforms and social networks, including AIM, Twitter, and Facebook Chat.   All you have to do is log-in to your Meebo account from within the new vendor chat bar to access your accounts.  And if you don’t have a Meebo account, you can easily register for an account and then connect with your various IM and social network accounts straight from the new vendor chat bar.

Log-in to your WeddingWire account and check it out today!

There are millions of sites on the web, and hundreds of new ones popping up each day.  Which sites should you care about?  Which can help you grow your business?  Each month we will highlight some of our favorite sites on the web and show how they can help you run your business more efficiently.  This month we feature Mashable, iStock Photo and Wufoo.

• Mashable: Wondering how Twitter appeared out of nowhere?  Or maybe what new online sites can help you grow your business? Are you looking to keep up with the latest trends on the internet?  Mashable is one of the largest blogs dedicated to social media and it is one of our favorite sites to stay on top of today’s online trends.  You’ll find the latest news about Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, the iPhone and much more.  Mashable allows you to easily become a tech guru!

• iStock Photo: Are you looking to find high quality wedding photos?  Want to make sure you own the rights to the photos? iStock Photo is the largest royalty-free stock photo destination on the internet.  The site boasts over 4 million different images, and each file can be purchased for as little as $1 and then used as often as you’d like.  If you’re looking to update marketing materials or any of your bridal images, take a look at the variety of images iStock Photo has to offer.

• WuFoo: Don’t let the funny name fool you, Wufoo is one of the easiest ways to collect information over the internet.  The site allows you to easily create contact forms, online surveys and invitations so that you can collect data, registrations and even online payments.  What’s best, is that you don’t need to be a web developer to create the forms!   So whether you have an upcoming event or want to do some market research, Wufoo allows you to create forms easily and the first 3 are free.

Staying up-to-date with business and marketing trends is critical to any company, but especially in an industry like weddings where most marketing happens online these days.  But information doesn’t just fall from the sky, it means we have to do some homework.  Finding time to learn something new everyday might not fit into your schedule, but carving out an hour or so a few days a week should be a priority, after all your clients expect you stay current with today’s trends.

Keeping current with wedding trends is probably easy as you know where and how to find that information, but what about search engine marketing trends?  Or Search Engine Optimization tactics?  Or web design best practices?

To start, you’ll need a RSS reader account.  I’ll suggest using Google Reader as it’s free and easy to setup.  Below are a few of the websites I follow regularly:

Continue reading »

LinkedIn has been beefing up their advertising platform to bring it more in line with Facebook recently and today on the LinkedIn Blog, they announced that their DirectAds advertising platform has been updated to include CPC (cost per click) ads. Previously, they were just offering impression based ad packages which isn’t ideal to small businesses with smaller marketing budgets.  Now that CPC ads are an option, why not try LinkedIn advertising. Many of you have tried Google Ads by now and some even Facebook ads. While LinkedIn doesn’t have the same user base and web traffic as either of those two sites (only about 37 million members), many will fall into the typical age range of engaged couples.  As the internet space becomes more crowded, branching out and trying different marketing avenues is a must.

When will Twitter release a CPC ad platform?

What is the difference between marketing and advertising? Although it seems like a simple question, it is very common to confuse the definition of the two.

By definition marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, and delivering offerings that have value for consumers and society at large (American Marketing Association).  Marketing is the first step in developing a product or service.  Seth Godin said it perfectly in his recent post, “Just about every successful product or service is the result of smart marketing thinking first, followed by a great product that makes the marketing story come true.”

Advertising is the act or practice of calling public attention to your product, service, need, etc. (dictionary.com). Advertising includes paid ads, which can be online, in print, on billboards, etc. Advertising is a main component of marketing.

A good way to look at it is to think of marketing as a pie, in which you have slices that include advertising, market research, product branding, interactive media, SEO, sales strategy, lead generation, consumer involvement, customer support, and more.  Marketing is everything you do as a small business to facilitate a connection between your business and your consumer.

Our goal at WeddingWire is to provide the platform for vendors in the wedding industry to do both.  As a vendor you can create an account and build your Storefront, which helps you create and communicate your product offerings to your consumers (engaged couples).  Our vendor catalog, which is listed off of numerous networks (i.e. Martha Stewart Weddings, BridalBuds, WeddingAces), serves as a means of advertisement for your business for all incoming engaged couples to see.

What are your thoughts on marketing and advertising? Share your feedback in the comments sections!

Interested in seeing how many visitors you get to your website or blog?  Check out this list of 50 analytics tools you can use to monitor and analyze your web traffic.  The list comprises of everything from analytic software packages to other tools for market research data and site rankings.  You will also find a variety of free basic tools and some that are more advanced and cost a fee.  All and all, it’s one big list.  Thanks to Cameron at Mashable for her excellent compiling skills!

How do you measure your web traffic? Share in the comments section.

Want to become WeddingWire Rated? Get 3 or more of your past clients to review your services and you become eligible to place the WeddingWire rated logo on your website! It’s a great way to let your past clients speak on your behalf - especially before the flux of new brides hits in the New Year!

Visit the Marketing section of your WeddingWire account today to get started!

Now that the election is finally over and it’s back to reality, the economy is still struggling.  Those in the wedding industry have been relatively fortunate that the wedding industry tends to be more resilient compared to many other industries (think auto industry).   That being said, as a business owner it’s still a time for compassion as we all need a little help from time to time.  I was reading Seth Godin’s blog this morning and he wrote an insightful, two sentence post that I thought speaks volumes:

“Your customers and employees and investors will remember how you treated them when times were tough, when they needed a break, when a little support meant everything.

Can your email address build your brand?  Absolutely.  Part of my job here at WeddingWire is to manage our email communications with our member base.  When I look at an email list of vendors I’m constantly amazed with how many vendors still use email addresses from Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, and local ISP’s (ie - Verizon, SBC Global) as their business email address.  What’s more amazing is that they have websites with their own personal URL.  If you own your domain name, there’s no reason for you to not have an email address that uses your domain.  Having your company name in your email address is branding and I’d say adds to your credibility. It’s an ultra competitive wedding market right now and these are the little things that speak to your credibility as a business owner. This is one of those things that potential clients won’t notice when you have your domain in your email address, but when you don’t, it definitely gets noticed.

It’s easier than ever to use your domain in your email address.  If you host with a company like 1and1.com or GoDaddy.com, then you defintely have email addresses waiting for you.  If you use a private company to manage your website, contant them about new emails immediately as they should have emails for you as well.  Even if you’re a true do it yourselfer and host your website on a computer in your own home and only have a domain, Google Apps provides business solutions to manage email through Gmail while still maintaining email addresses that end in your domain and not gmail.com.

The bottom line is having your company in your email address is a must these days.  Even you think too many people have your current email address to change, simply start replying to emails with your new one and people will have your and improved email address.