It’s almost wedding season, and if your bridal boutique wants a chance at standing out from the competition, you'll need to get started with your digital marketing now.
Because the bridal industry is so competitive, you must exceed your customers’ expectations so that new customers say “yes” to your business.
And, since reviews can make or break any local business, they should be a big part of your bridal marketing plan. That's why we asked our team of strategists for some of their tips on building a solid review marketing strategy for your wedding business.
Check out these five bridal review marketing strategies to help you bring more customers into your store this wedding season.
1. Don't ask for a review until your customer picks up their dress.
Maybe this seems obvious, but you shouldn't ask customers for reviews until after they've already picked up their dress. Otherwise, you could be stressing brides and getting a more negative review than you'd get if you waited until the dress is with the bride.
Brides and grooms will be busy with other areas of wedding planning and may be feeling stressed out when they choose a dress from your store.
Asking for a review too soon, while they're still stressed, could annoy your customer. They might either leave a less-than-positive review or ignore your request as they're too busy at the time.
So, give yourself plenty of time to be accommodating to the bride before you ask for a review.
Our strategist, Sabrina Morrison, says the following:
You may get feedback from her before then, but you will probably have the most success getting a bride to leave a review once she has her dress.
2. Use the right directories for your online reviews.
This next tip is so important that two of our digital marketing strategists wanted to stress the importance of using the best directories for your bridal boutique.
Here's what our senior digital marketing strategist, Megan Aikman had to say about the importance of industry-specific directories:
"Google should usually be the focus of new reviews, but Wedding Wire and TheKnot are also very important."
One of our digital marketing strategists, Rachel Daubenmire also had the following to say about using the correct directories:
"Brides really value reviews on TheKnot and Wedding Wire. These are the top resources that they use in planning their wedding."
So, don't just ask for reviews on Google. Go for those specific directories so that your online reputation is stellar everywhere brides-to-be are searching.
3. You'll want to have plenty of recent reviews.
You want to have as many positive reviews as possible, but what good are those reviews if they’re from two years ago?
Brides want their wedding day to be perfect, so they'll always go with the highest rated vendors and wedding businesses.
However, they also want to pick businesses that other brides have recently chosen for their weddings because they need businesses that are active and prompt with their customer service. How can they trust your business if it's not up-to-date with reviews?
Ninety-five percent of couples use reviews when choosing their vendors and recency is the most important factor when couples evaluate your reviews.
So, make sure you always ask your newest customers for reviews (when the time is appropriate).
4. Make your requests for reviews personal.
Would you write a review for a company if the review request sounded impersonal and generic?
When you reach out to your customers asking for them to write a review, you'll want to keep it personal with every email.
You can still automate the process of sending out review requests, of course. But, as long as you're not invasive, being friendly and asking about your customer's wedding can go a long way for your business.
We actually recommend personalizing reviews to all of our cients, no matter the industry!
Here's what Renown (our review marketing platform) manager, Zac Herr, has to say about personalizing your review requests:
"Even an automated request should sound like you're standing in front of your customer asking them the question."
5. Don’t forget to respond to all reviews.
Positive or negative, you need to quickly respond to all the reviews that you receive. Not only does it build your online presence, but it also humanizes your business and shows that you care about your customers.
Here’s how to respond to every type of review.
Or, take a look at these additional resources: