Is Your Funnel Ready for Engagement Season?

Transcript of Short 42

Grab Brandee’s Fully Customizable FAQ Template Here!

Brandee Gaar: [00:00:00] Hey there, CEOs. Welcome back to today’s Thursday short of the Wedding Pro CEO podcast. I’m your host, Brandee Gaar, and I am on a mission to help you, the wedding industry entrepreneur, to ditch the overwhelm and to build a profitable business that you love. 

Brandee Gaar: You guys, on today’s Thursday short, I want to ask you if your funnel is ready for engagement season.

Brandee Gaar: Now, what does that mean? As you know, engagement season starts on Thanksgiving, it runs from Thanksgiving to St. Patrick’s Day. And one of the really cool things about engagement season is that it is the same for basically the entire United States and honestly a good portion of the world. But I’m going to just focus on the United States, Canada.

Brandee Gaar: That’s where we know that it’s engagement season, and that’s because of all of our holidays that fall During that time. It is Thanksgiving. Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day. There’s so much going on during this time, and so a lot of engagements [00:01:00] happen during this time, and therefore it also becomes engagement season, which in the wedding industry some of us refer to as booking season.

Brandee Gaar: Now, I don’t love calling it booking season. I’ll just Give that caveat right up front. I don’t love calling it booking season because to me, if a couple was to hear you say that, it almost feels like, okay, we’re just booking as many contracts as we can. We’re writing ’em and then moving on to the next.

Brandee Gaar: And while we may be doing that, while it, that may be the desire that we all have, I don’t think, it’s a great term to use couples facing. So I always love to say it’s engagement season. It’s happy, it’s exciting, and therefore we know as wedding professionals that we are going to be able to book as many weddings as possible during this time.

Brandee Gaar: So what I want you to do is I really want you to make sure that your funnel is ready and what does that look like. 

Brandee Gaar: So the first thing I want you to do is I want you to go to your website and I want you to fill out your, “contact us” form. I want you to really look at,[00:02:00] what’s required on your form.

Brandee Gaar: You know you want to have as few required fields as possible. You can ask as many questions as you want, though. I think really like four to six questions is about the max, but you can ask as many as you want. Just don’t make them required. A lot of us make things like guest count and budget and date required, and honestly, Especially when somebody just got engaged like two days ago, they may not know those answers. And so it’s frustrating when they’re required. You can still ask them, but don’t make them required. 

Brandee Gaar: The only things that you really want to make required would be their name, obviously, their, email address, because that gives you an option to be able to get back in contact with them.

Brandee Gaar: Now, we still ask for their phone number. We ask their venue if they know it. We ask their budget. If they know it, we ask their date if they know it, but we don’t make any of those fields required so that it’s not as frustrating. 

Brandee Gaar: Now the next thing I want you to do is I want you to look on your contact us form and I want you to see if there’s additional ways to contact [00:03:00] you.

Brandee Gaar: I want to make sure you have a phone number that you can be reached by an email address if they would like to email you. And then I also am going to encourage you to have a link to go ahead and directly book a meeting with you. I use Acuity for all of our brands, but you can also use something called Calandly, or if you have Honey Book, there’s a system already integrated into there.

Brandee Gaar: But whatever you use, that’s not the point. 

Brandee Gaar: The point is I would love to see a way that couples who are warm leads, who maybe have been following you on Instagram for a while and they’re already excited to talk to you cuz they just got engaged. I would love to be able to see a way for them to quickly be able to just go straight to booking a consult with you.

Brandee Gaar: So I always like to have that on my contact us page too because it’s like, why wait? Go ahead and just book a consult with us. 

Brandee Gaar: And that is a really, really easy way to move people through your process very quickly. 

Brandee Gaar: Now, the next thing I want you to look at is after someone fills out your contact form or you fill it out as you’re trying to [00:04:00] go through it and see how it works, I want to know what that first automated email is.

Brandee Gaar: Okay? So the very first automated email that they should get from you, it should go out right away, is. Going to have a couple of answers to some of the most commonly asked questions that you get. 

Brandee Gaar: What I do not want you to do, is to send them an email that says, Thank you so much for inquiring. We’ve received your inquiry. We’ll get back with you as soon as possible, or we’ll get back with you within the next 48 hours. No, because there’s no reason that you can’t go ahead in that very first email and provide them with as much information as possible about what you do, or they’re most frequently asked questions and give them a call to action right there in that email.

Brandee Gaar: So what does that look like? That very first email should say something like, Hey Nancy, thank you so much for inquiring with us. We’re thrilled. We can’t wait to chat more about your wedding in the mean here is, a little bit about us, so you can link them to your about page of your website. [00:05:00] Here’s some of the most frequently asked questions that our couples ask, and you can absolutely create that in Canva and just link it right there.

Brandee Gaar: And then you can say, Here are our package prices and link them. Do not put them in a pdf, right? We want them to know our package pricing cuz we don’t really want to get on a consult with them if they don’t even know our pricing. And then, are you ready to book a consult and put that link to go ahead and book with you right there?

Brandee Gaar: Why is it important that you make the call to action for them instead of you having to get back with them? Well, in today’s society, guys, people want information right now. Like they want it right now. They’re hot, they’re searching now. So if they went ahead and booked through your contact form, give them the information that they’re likely going to be asking or they’re likely going to want to know, and then give them a call to action to go ahead and book a consult with you. Now, the great thing about this is that that gives you the freedom that during booking season, during engagement season, that you’re running around and you’re busy. [00:06:00] like, Oh my gosh, I’m trying to do 10 things at once that you’re not now like, Oh my gosh, I’ve gotta get this information to this client as soon as possible.

Brandee Gaar: No, you’ve already gotten the information to them that was automated, and now the action is on them. If they’ve reviewed your pricing, you put in there, they’ve reviewed your frequently asked questions, then absolutely they can book a consult right there in the email. Okay, now, I, as a, a helpful tool for you.

Grab Brandee’s Fully Customizable FAQ Template Here!

Brandee Gaar: Would love to give you a download of my Frequently Asked questions template if you do not already have a frequently Asked questions template. It’s super easy to make in Canva, but you can just take my template that we have and you can make it your own. So all you have to do is download it. I’ll put it in the show notes for you below.

Brandee Gaar: So just click there, grab that template. You can add your own logo. Switch the questions out to ones that you feel like people ask you most often about your service, and then you can link that right there in that automated email. I’m telling you guys, [00:07:00] this will change the game for you so much. now they’ve booked a consult, right?

Brandee Gaar: You want to make sure that you make it super, super easy for them to book a consult. If they decide they don’t want to book a consult or they just didn’t from that first email, now you can wait, two or three days, maybe even four days, and you can follow up with another email. I always like for that follow up email to be, Hey Nancy, we hope that you got all the information we sent the other day.

Brandee Gaar: We know that your wedding is super important. We would love the opportunity to learn more about your big day. And that link, the calendar appointment link again, right? So you’re linking it again, and that’s what’s really important is that you’re constantly kind of putting that call to action back on. Now I tend to follow up five times.

Brandee Gaar: Ours is completely automated, which is actually really, really helpful for us. But if you cannot automate that system, just create templates for each of these emails, it makes it so easy for you to be able to [00:08:00] quickly just be able to send that email off, send that email off when you’re doing lead follow.

Brandee Gaar: And five emails may sound like a lot when you’re like, Oh my gosh, brand, you want me to email these people five times, But I don’t want every single one of your emails to just say, Hey Nancy, are you still looking for a planner? Or, Hey Nancy, um, did you book your DJ yet? Hey Nancy, I’d love to meet with you.

Brandee Gaar: No, that’s boring. And people are just like, That’s spammy and I’m going to delete it. What you want to do is you want to become the expert. You want to give them information that they’re already. Seeking. You want to fill a pain point for them. So what does that look like? 

Brandee Gaar: On your third follow up, one of the things you might want to do is give them some fun facts about either how to create a budget or the top five songs.

Brandee Gaar: A lot of the things we talk about in creating a blog, you could even link them to one of your educational blogs that you do and just give them a fun tip about planning. Remember that they’re going to be at the earlier stage of their planning here. So you want to do something like maybe having to do with budget or having to do with [00:09:00] three questions to ask your DJ before you book them, like anything like that.

Brandee Gaar: But if you can link them to a blog about it on your website, that’s even better. But really giving them information and filling a pain point is going to be a great way to do this follow up because it’s not just you asking yet again to get a meeting with them. It’s really serving a need that they have, and I think this is such a great opportunity to gain trust with this ideal customer and one that’s already a lead and has inquired.

Brandee Gaar: And it’s also a way to stay top of mind now on every single email that you do, every single one of them. I want to make sure that you’re putting that link to go ahead and book a consult with you. Now in the very last email, I want you to make sure that you tell them this is the last time that you will follow up.

Brandee Gaar: Okay? You want to say something like, Hey Nancy, I know that it can be busy planning a wedding, and I’m sure life is just a little bit crazy. We don’t want to fill up your inbox, so I’m going to assume that you’ve already booked your planner or your DJ or whatever it is that you [00:10:00] do. This will be the last time we follow up, but if you’re still interested in our services, I wanted to give you one last opportunity to go ahead and click the link below and schedule a consult with us.

Brandee Gaar: This makes it super, super easy for them to just click that link, like I already said, but it also is going to help to make sure that they understand that you’re not going to continue following up after this. 

Brandee Gaar: Now why is this important? I have found, especially during engagement season, that this final email that you send out and it says this will be her final email, a lot of times we get a response back that says, Oh my gosh, I’ve just been so busy.

Brandee Gaar: Or, you know, we’re just trying to figure out all the wedding plans, but I’m definitely interested in you. Could you follow back up with me in three weeks? Or I want to go ahead and book a consult, but I’ve just been so busy. I’ll go ahead and do that now. And so that is super, super helpful and really giving them that urgency to go ahead and click and book a consult with you. 

Brandee Gaar: It is so important that during engagement season you are fully focused on selling and your [00:11:00] leads funnel and really ensuring that every step of that process is giving them an easy call to action. What is that call to action? It’s a simple as click this link and book a consult with us.

Brandee Gaar: The ideal situation is that if you can get them to book a consult, Most of the time you’re going to close them because at this point, you’ve already made the short list of them inquiring with you, and now it’s just as simple as getting them into a consultation and closing that piece of business. They’re a warm lead, but you want to make sure that you are constantly providing value, that you’re really staying top of mind with them because, whoa! During engagement season, they are being pummeled by so many different vendors and so much education and so much information. So really be that vendor that gives them something that helps them so much in moving their wedding forward and really becoming that expert for them that they can trust and planning their wedding.

Brandee Gaar: Oh my gosh. This was so great. I cannot wait to do some more [00:12:00] training about this over in the Wedding Pro CEO Facebook community. So if you’re not already part of the Facebook community, I’m going to invite you right now to just jump down into the show notes below and to just click the link to join us in the Facebook community.

Brandee Gaar: It is such a thriving community of other wedding pro CEOs that are building their businesses, building profitable businesses. Join us over in the Wedding Pro CEO community. I’ll be doing so many trainings during engagement season to really help you to get those sales that you need to take your business to the next level.

Brandee Gaar: You guys, thank you so much for being here every single week, and I will see you next time.

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