If you’re a chef, decorator, photographer, or event planner, you already know that finding new customers is an all-year task. So, if you’re a wedding planner, you’re probably already planning about how to get your next appointment – even if you are already fully occupied throughout the wedding season.
But where do you begin? If you’re a seasoned wedding planner, you’ve most likely developed a playbook of tried-and-true strategies. However, it never hurts to review your present initiatives, assess their effectiveness, and plan for the coming year. If you’re new to the game, now is the best moment to write down your strategy.
Okay, so it’s not quite “secret,” but it’s certainly not generally utilized! Follow these recommendations if you’re an event planner trying to book more commercial customers and you’ll be ok on your road to a completely booked calendar!
1. Employ Appointment Scheduling Software
Here’s the deal: People are sluggish. The more convenient it is for them to contact you and schedule an initial client appointment, the more of those encounters you’ll have. Millennials are at a point in their lives where they will seek out event planners, but this generation despises making phone calls. They’ll go for it if they can arrange an appointment with you by just clicking on an application within your webpage.
These appointment scheduling programs are straightforward: you add your convenient dates and hours for consultations, and clients may then reserve an open timeframe inside that program. A confirmation message will be sent to both you and the customer, as well as a reminder email regarding subsequent consultations.
2. Don’t be apprehensive of going corporate
There are far fewer business event organizers than there are wedding and party coordinators. Try corporate event organizing if you want to extend your customer base and want to break into a new market. This doesn’t imply you have to rethink your business model or learn how to organize conferences with 2,000+ attendees!
When it comes to corporate conferences, yearly sessions, or annual holiday celebrations, many smaller companies would benefit significantly from the assistance of a qualified event planner. Planning for such events is usually delegated to a junior employee or an executive assistant at these businesses. Advertising your services to business owners is a terrific strategy to grow your event company and earn more work.
You can advance your marketing with LED sign posts and through social media platforms. Growing a social media platform is great as you can get more clients and be able to interact with people offering the same services and learn new techniques to offer better services.
3. Join forces with the appropriate individuals
Some firms and experts in your neighbourhood will automatically attract clients who are similar to yours. Simply by having these experts market your firm to their customers in return for marketing their products and services to your own clientele, you can obtain a large number of new customers. This is a highly successful method of generating brand awareness and, as a consequence, more clients. Despite this, only a small percentage of event planners make an effort to establish these connections.
If you want to make things easier for you, you should consider partnering with companies that you can both benefit from. For instance, if you plan lots of weddings, you might want to partner with an eyelash extension vendor and quality makeup brush manufacturer, that way, your clients can always be assured of excellent service when it comes to cosmetics.
4. Establish planning agreements with smaller venues
Look for local hotels, pubs, recreation centers, galleries, and other establishments that rent out facilities for special occasions on a routine basis. Not all of these locations, particularly smaller or kinship firms, have in-house event organizers!
Many times, establishments will receive requests to rent areas from people who haven’t even considered employing an event coordinator to assist them. When those clients approach the venue, you might offer an “all-inclusive bundle” of your services. For an additional fee, the venue would provide the client with “complete event planning by a qualified event organizer.” The facility would then get you in contact with the customer and compensate you immediately for your services, according to prearranged rates.
5. Participate in community events
As an event organizer, you understand the value of connecting. However, socializing does not have to be limited to “experts.” Make an effort to attend local community activities. Attend events such as fairs, charity banquets, and the local barbecue fest to meet new people.
You don’t need to be “in their face” when selling your services. Making friends and nonchalantly stating that you’re an event planner can often lead to word-of-mouth recommendations. It’s easy to get caught up in “oh!” chats. A baby shower is being planned by my sister. I think I’ll give her your business card!” This is a very low-risk (and completely free!) marketing strategy. Simply keep a stack of business cards on you at all instances and then go out and meet new people!
6. Stay in contact with previous customers
It’s tempting to dismiss event planning clients as “once-in-a-lifetime” situations. Particularly if you’re throwing a farewell party or any event that the customer is unlikely to repeat. However, old customers can be your best potential clients as well as new client recommendations. Make the most of them! Organize a “follow up” schedule to contact previous clients in a relevant way. Keep in touch with previous customers.
The Bottom Line
Getting more bookings as an event planner is not easy. Use the above pointers to get yourself more bookings. Moreover, interacting with more event planners will help you grow your popularity in the event planning business. Best of Luck!
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