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Best Bridal Show or business lead follow-up cover letter ever?

Fuller Marc — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:15:14 +0000

One of the most difficult things about following up on leads and contacts is being comfortable with your cover letter. It is the first impression and many marketing professionals believe that the cover letter makes the sale. The pressure to make it the best possible can feel intense .

So I started looking for cover letters, all types of cover letters. The best models and advice I found was related to cover letters for resumes. Which makes sense for small business too. After all when a small business responds with a letter and other collateral to someone who is asking for more info about services or products isn’t that analogous to seeking a job?

Here is the “The Best Cover Letter I Ever Received” according to Harvard Business Review (HBR).

Dear Xxxxxx:

I am writing in response to the opening for xxxx, which I believe may report to you.

I can offer you seven years of experience managing communications for top-tier xxxx firms, excellent project-management skills, and a great eye for detail, all of which should make me an ideal candidate for this opening.

I have attached my résumé for your review and would welcome the chance to speak with you sometime.

Best regards,

Xxxx Xxxx

Why is that cover letter so good? Here is what David Silverman the author of the HBR article has to say, “Here’s what I like about this cover letter. It’s short. It sums up the résumé as it relates to the job. It asks for the job.” Read more from David Silverman about this cover letter and other readers’ comments.

And look how easily, quickly it can adapt to a powerful cover letter to a bridal lead.

Dear Xxxxxx:

It was a pleasure to meet you at the Xxxxxx bridal fair. I am writing in response to photographing your upcoming wedding and reception at .

I offer you seven years of experience photographing weddings and receptions in Xxxxx (your market area) and more than a few at Xxxxx (chosen venue). My work is well reviewed and I have received awards for my artistic skills coupled with a great eye for detail and commitment to excellent client satisfaction and value. All of which make me an ideal choice for photographing your wedding for a lifetime of great memories

I have attached my brochure including samples of my work, client reviews and rates for your review and would welcome the chance to speak with you sometime soon.

Best regards,

Xxxx Xxxx

As you create your letter focus on the benefits you have to offer the reader. What is in it for her? That is what she cares about.

Finally, no matter how good your communication is … remember it also needs to be timely. Get your letter and email lead responses sent out within 5 days.

Hope it helps. Send me an email or leave a comment if you have questions.

It’s a Slam Dunk – the power of wedding show lead follow up

Marc — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:37:58 +0000

This is a continuation of my earlier post in that it is a note from the same person, regarding her website traffic improvement and upcoming appointments by following up on the contacts from the wedding show.

“I know you love this stuff for your blog, so I thought I would update you.

After sending a follow-up email to those that I gave a pricing packet to and signed up for my email. I have 3 consults on Sat. and 3 brides who can’t make it but are serious shoppers. I guess those stats are pretty good since I selectively handed out 27 full info packets and my stats are way up since Sat. 116 for this time of the year that is good for me. Follow up is SUPER Important and works!“

Note – This person has also become a client for a new Kertesz WordPress based professional photography web/blogsite to “wrap” her existing Bludoman Flash website, to integrate her blog, dramatically improve search rank/marketing and enhance overall accessibility. So there be more updates, soon.

Always try to finish the loop for maximum marketing ROI

Marc — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:38:50 +0000

Yesterday I had a note from a client who was disappointed by the low number of website visitors following her presence at a well attended wedding show.

She wrote:

“I did what was supposed to be a BIG wedding show. … I checked my {website} stats from this weekend and there were really very few hits. I am surprised. I had by far the best booth and some of the best work. I actually had one young lady tell me I deserved an award for my booth. It was very welcoming and people were able to set in comfortable chairs. … I have done follow-up emails already today to each person individually and my stats have not increased.”

“It was on my signage (my signage was 4×8 feet), my card 4×6 , my beautifully packaged pricing info that I only handed to really interested brides (in the form of a folder so not to get lost). Basically everything in very clear writing. I also added it and my blog as links at the bottom of my follow up email. I don’t get it. I checked my website both days to make sure it was running.”

As you can see she did an excellent job of presenting her website URL, she took her site name to the top, but what was missing was a reason for people to visit her website. It is important to get people to your website because it makes another contact and reinforces your brand during their decision making. But, if you don’t provide them an explicit benefit to visit they will not close the loop for you.

When you present your website information always try to think in terms of a brief statement with an explicit benefit for visiting. It can be a free report, tips, a modest upgrade to a package, newsletter sign up, your blog, a drawing etc. The more benefits you can share the more likely someone will be motivated to take the effort to actually visit your website.

So; 1) ask them to visit your website, 2) share the address, and 3) give them a good reason to do it. And, that’s the completing the loop.

MUST DO – follow up those wedding and bridal show leads

Marc — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:36:16 +0000

This was going to be the “everything you need to know” post of following up on your bridal and wedding show leads. But I found that Andy Ebon has just recently created a great post on this most fundamental practice, though unused opportunity. And then that there was some relevant stuff in other posts on this blog. So I put it all together for this post with just one new idea.

I think this is the most important graf from Andy’s post. Hard proof!

“In my recent years, when attending bridal shows, I would register as a groom (for research purposes). The shocking result was the total lack of follow up. No one seemed to do telemarketing. Email and snail mail usually totaled a combined 5%. One pair of shows, for example, had a cumulative unique vendor count of more than 200. I received 6 emails and 2 letters. …

Plainly put, one should be communicating with every qualified prospect that enters your booth (signing up for something). Secondarily, one should process the show leads-list, and follow up with a slightly more general message.”

You should really read Andy’s entire post.

When you start preparing your follow-up think first how you want to lead to an action … “asking for the order”. Then begin preparing your follow-up to support that the idea of that action. And conclude your follow up specifically asking for that action.

For more creative ideas of what and how to include in your follow-up message, review my earlier post of 17 ways to get 300+ inquiries.

Always communicate and frequency is key. Use your wedding and bridal show follow-up as just one of a few targeted messages to your qualified leads. It is not just one message that may make the difference, it is the number of messages. As I posted a number of months ago, it has been found that typical prospects need from 6 – 8 messages before they easily reach a decision.

Email or regular mail is acceptable. For email I recommend using a service like Aweber or MyEmma the tracking options are well worth the price in learning what gets responses and what does not. But lately, I am thinking that this economy is returning people to value traditional, simple, meaningful and tactile. So I would explore using standard mail for the follow up to at least your most qualified prospects. And to make it potentially very memorable, if it is timely, I would send them with a memorable postmark.

: Special 2008 Valentines Day Loveland Colorado postmark

Use a Valentine’s Day postmark! (Again, if it is timely.) Many towns have a special postmark for mail during Valentines Day. All you need to do is request the Postmaster to use it on your letters. Here is how if you want this year’s special Valentines Day Loveland Colorado postmark on your mail to brides-to-be.

To have your mail re-mailed with the Loveland postmark, enclose your pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelopes (envelopes should each have 41-cent postage; postcards should have 26 cents postage), add extra stamps/postage for heavier/odd shaped valentines, mail in a large stamped envelope to:

Postmaster
Valentine Re-mailing
446 E. 29th St.
Loveland, CO 80538

Deadlines for re-mailing and delivery by Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14:

Valentine cards/envelopes destined for re-mailing outside of the U.S. to other countries and international destinations should be in Loveland by Monday, Feb. 4.

Valentine cards/envelopes destined for re-mailing within the U.S. and outside of Colorado should be in Loveland by Saturday, Feb. 9.

Valentine cards/envelopes destined for re-mailing within the state of Colorado should be in Loveland by Tuesday, Feb. 12.

In many ways we are in the love business and I think that this might really make your message stand out, at least she will keep your envelope for a long while.

Face it, you are not going to get the business unless you ask for it. Bridal and wedding shows are expensive … get the most you can out of it.

Does anyone respond to these with more than a chuckle and delete?

Marc — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:58:14 +0000

I really hope not! Every month brings another few scam emails targeted, however poorly, at wedding professionals. And occasionally, but thankfully rarely, there will be a question about the possibility of the email being a real opportunity. It is not. It is only an opportunity to rightfully wear this t-shirt:

For anyone that hasn’t been the “lucky” recipient, here is a copy of one of the most recent of the scam emails-

Subject – Wedding Taking Place in Austin TX
From – Mrs Rose L. W.

Hello, My name is Rose Winans, I Live in Austin Texas,
but presenlt in Tennesse for the sake of the my Son's
Wedding, I will be back soon I am deaf if not i would
love to call about this enquiry, I will like to Make an
enquiry Concerning my Son's Wedding which would be
Coming up on the 29th of November 2008 , I need a Good
photographer who will be Covering all the event (5 hours)
In TX. Please let me know if you are Available and if
you have facilities to accept Credit Card Payments
(No Paypal, i dont have a paypal acc). Hope to hear from
you in other to know your Prices. ROSE

No related posts.

Teleseminar recording with exceptional wedding/bridal marketer Lori Osterberg

Marc — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:29:00 +0000

A lot of people have asked when this recording would be available and I just finished the editing and upload. I think it was the best, most valuable teleseminar for wedding/bridal marketers yet!

This last Wednesday evening was our regular monthly Great Wedding Network wedding/bridal marketing teleseminar.

Guest expert Lori Osterberg CEO of Vision of Success and author of “Six Figure Wedding Photographer” provided some great advice and insights. Our discussion ranged from how she grew her wedding photography business to the marketing power of blogs as websites to improving direct email marketing to understanding how to use social networks for business. Lots of useful information from someone with first hand experience.

I invite you to download and listen to the mp3 at your convenience. Here is the link (mp3, 9.9mb) to the teleseminar recording.

The Power of APPLICATIONS! Easy, Low-cost, Results – Expand Your Brand plus Direct Market in Facebook & MySpace

Marc — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:15:00 +0000

Many people have well justified reservations regarding the return on investment in marketing on social networks such as MySpace and Facebook. While brands are easily extensible into the social networking environment through profile creation, addition of friends, group presence and advertising, actually making sales is difficult.

Advertising on social network has had infrequent success. The initial comparison of social networking sites to portal sites Google or Yahoo has been proven wrong as network members demonstrate an established resistance to clicking to off-network websites.

Plus, the nature of social networks and expected privacy standards also make it impossible to easily include social network friends in direct marketing efforts.

Building your social network of friends can be expensive. While participation in most social networks is free, actively networking in their environment is very time consuming.

Yet there is a a very powerful, and mostly overlooked, low-cost way to build strong brand relationships and generate leads for direct marketing from your social network based target markets.

For full understanding first allow me to review some why and what related to users of social networks.

The reason why, is that social networks can be incredibly rich in certain demographics. For example, while engaged people comprise lees than 1% of the US population, they are as high as 6% within some networks on Facebook.

Secondly, what is a social network profile other than a collection of personal information that the profile owner desires to share with her friends.

These two points, a discernible richly populated target market with individuals wanting to share personal information is a potential “treasure”.

The way to reach this social network treasure is through a social network application that supports the targeted profile owner’s desire to share some particular piece of information, while at the same time extend your brand and support non-social network direct marketing efforts. In other words, someone using your application on their social network profile is virtually providing you word of mouth advertising and allowing you contact information needed to support direct marketing through regular email.

When we first began our efforts on MySpace almost two years ago I noticed that quizzes were madly popular. So we created our own quiz to appeal to our target market and provide traffic to our website. The quiz was just a few simple questions and a formula that, dependent upon the value of different answers, presented a banner to be displayed on the quiz taker’s MySpace profile. The quiz is named “Which Princess Bride Are You?” and has five different bride types. This created a huge number of links and dramatic increase in website traffic.

And, last year when Facebook opened up their application platform. We developed an application to place in her profile an engagement announcement and a fully functional self-created Google wedding map where she can share all the important location details of her wedding. This application allow us to extend our brand to a large number of Facebook members who are engaged and supports volume lead generation for direct marketing efforts for us and our client wedding professional subscribers.

I have also developed custom applications for a social cause (womens shelter), clients and helped others to do the same. While these social network applications cost from a just a few hundred dollars, they will operate for months with almost no time (and money) consuming personal involvement from the owner or assistant while providing measurable results 24/7/365. Leads, traffic and virtual “word of mouth” advertising – automatically.

After many discussions and brainstorming sessions, I think that almost all business can benefit from an application, because almost all our businesses provide some services, goods and expertise that our clients would enjoy sharing with their friends. If you would like to talk about how an application could be linked and useful for your business or the value of targeted applications in general just send me an email*. I would be glad to share more specific in-depth thoughts.

(* – Or if you are a wedding professional who would like to participate in our unique bride-to-be leadstream.)

Indeed – Email Marketing Still Works!

Marc — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:10:00 +0000

For another insight into the value and power of well managed direct email marketing read this recent eMarketer article.

A few important grafs -

Half of US adult e-mail users surveyed in April 2008 for Merkle‘s “View from the Inbox” study, conducted with Harris Interactive, said they had made an online purchase in the previous year as a result of permission-based marketing.

In addition, e-mail was second only to customer reviews on Web sites for influencing online purchases, according to DoubleClick Performics‘ “Green Marketing Study,” conducted by Opinion Research Corporation in February 2008. E-mail was roughly equal to search results in terms of influencing online purchases.

“There is a substantial gap between what marketers believe is relevant to the consumer, and what consumers rate as valuable,” said Lori Connolly, director of research at Merkle.

This last point contributes to what I have been stressing in our weekly newsletters as we are attempting to help wedding professionals redesign their marketing communications.

There is a lot more info and statistics in the article. Worth the read.

Insights to Facebook and MySpace friends and our upcoming May 28th teleseminar

Marc — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:50:00 +0000

Just a short post, part of getting ready for our free teleseminar regarding how wedding/bridal professionals can use MySpace and Facebook to increase their income.

Newsweek has a helpful article online by Steven Levy covering Facebook and MySpace friending, “How Many Friends Is Too Many?” The article provides excellent info contrasting the two social networks and how their prime users manage online friends in the virtual social network.

Our free teleseminar on how to use Facebook and MySpace to increase your business will be Wednesday May 28th, 8pm EDT, 7pm CDT, 6pm MDT, 5pm PDT. Mari Smith published Facebook business author, business development consultant and former wedding DJ will be featured guest speaker.

If you would like to participate in our teleseminar just send me an email I will reply with call in phone number and access code.

Direct Email Marketing and the Rule of Seven

Marc — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:55:00 +0000

How many products have you ever purchased based upon the first and only commercial information you had? Any? That is the foundation for the Rule of Seven. And it is important because it is one the marketing rules, that when followed, will make you successful.

The Rule of Seven stems from marketing research work that Dr. Jeffery Lant and others have done that find in order to enter a prospective clients consciousness it takes 7-8 messages. So it has become known by many as the Rule of Seven.

It makes sense once you consider how many of the marketing messages you come across are repeated. How many times have you seen the same commercial on television? Why is it repeated? Simply because it works!

It is my opinion that brides-to-be are possibly a little easier to reach. After all a bride-to-be is very “tuned-in” to any attractive, informative and helpful wedding and bridal information. Still if the average person is 7-8 messages, even reducing this by half because of a bride’s focus on her upcoming wedding means that you should be prepared to deliver at least four different direct emails providing information about your product or service. Each of the four being at least a little bit different in content and layout.

It is not just the frequency though that makes an impression; it is more importantly the value in each repetition of communication that makes the “right” impression. Always be sure your different marketing emails are “client centered” and are

interesting,
helpful,
include appealing relevant images, and
have the courtesy to allow for the receiver to opt out of receiving any future emails.
include promotion, but limit promotion to 30% of content

All important elements which must contain anyway if you want to demonstrate that you truly care about the bride-to-be’s wedding. Emails that include those four elements are rarely felt to be “spam”.

What do you get if you do this? Well, more than few direct marketers convert over 10% of their direct email prospects to sales.

The best parts of direct email marketing;
1) We can easily afford to change our message and send again in a week or two.
2) The conversion rate and ROI is very high compared to any other method of marketing.

The tip -
Be helpful. Be informative. Share your benefits. And, be willing to ask more than once.