Wedding Fairs….Good marketing opportunities or expensive waste of time?

With over three hundred thousand weddings held in England and Wales alone each year and on average most weddings costing approximately £17,000, the market is huge. There are now thousands of wedding fairs held annually right across the country, many of which will be in your area and in some of your regular venues. Wedding fairs are now organised by regional and national wedding magazines, Marquee companies, and wedding venues such as hotels, conference suites and wedding co-ordinators.

If you intended to have a slice of this business then attendance at wedding fairs has become as necessary as business cards. Time consuming and expensive wedding fairs may be however have you considered a different approach? All wedding fair organisers expect you to pay to be present, however the organisers then have to hire in someone to provide a microphone and PA system for general announcements or in some cases a production company to provide music for a catwalk show, why not try offering to provide these services at no charge and then use this as an opportunity to promote your services, ask for a space to display some promotional material, business cards and leaflets in return. Don’t set out to impress prospective clients with you gear, it never works unless your prospective client is another DJ. Generally most disco gear looks appalling in daylight, scruffy and confusing to the uninitiated. Set up a simple display that catches peoples eye. I always try to display items that will catch peoples attention and therefore encourage questions from the visitors, conversation will soon follow once you have an ice breaker to kick stat their interest in your display the interest can soon be turned into an enquiry and a booking with a little skilful sales patter. It would certainly be worth considering having some sales and marketing training to gain the skills necessary in steering enquiries through the route required to turn them into confirmed and contracted bookings. This training may be available from specialist marketing consultants if not at your local collages and universities. A most useful resource for wedding marketing skills is undoubtedly the Peter Merry published material as seen in Pro Mobile Magazine.

When exhibiting at a wedding show I always try to make a point of laying out my stall in an informal manner, never hide behind a barrage of gear as you would at a gig, try to create the opportunity for conversation with visitors, stand up and out in front of your display to maximise opportunities for conversation with visitors. Ensure that you and any assistants you have are wearing appropriate attire. If you are fortunate to have a partner of the opposite sex (wife or husband etc) try and get them to help out as I find this is a useful exercise to present yourselves as a family business. If you intend to use a desk for your laptop or diary, set it up so that you sit with the prospective client rather than opposite them. Ask questions of them that encourage them to talk about themselves and their plans as people like to talk about themselves. Take every opportunity to use open questions that require full answers rather than just “yes” or “no”, most people will be familiar with the situation when you walk into a shop and an unskilled assistant asks “can I help you” you will nearly always answer “no” even if you have interest in what they have on offer, it is your natural reaction to confrontation. Psychology plays a major part in what you should do and how you encourage a reaction from the prospective client. Try to find a question that acts as a pleasant ice breaker. For example when you have a group of ladies approaching you (as is often the case) you may ask “so which of you lovely ladies it the bride to be” and perhaps direct the question at the eldest of the group (grandmother) and she will laugh and say “oh no, its not me its my grand daughter Sally”, you have broken the ice and encouraged conversation, you may alternatively pick on the 8 year old girl with them and ask her if she is getting married soon? This always works for me particularly when she announces “No silly I am the bridesmaid of course” make a fuss of the kids, a free glow stick or a small bowl of sweets is a good idea at this point, once you have the kids on your side, the adults are easy.

Generally at wedding fairs I show our illuminate glass toped table that we have built for champagne fountains along with various confetti cannons and confetti effects. A big drum with confetti brimming out of the top and a detonator with “FIRE” written on it in bold print is a great way of attracting attention from passers by. In-fact I have found confetti cannons (both our Le maitre and Sky High Effects cannons) to be far more useful at wedding fairs that at the parties themselves as so few venues (and in many cases your PLI) now prohibit their use anyhow. Your visitor’s will want to know “ what does that do?” or “how does that work”, the conversation has stated and the ice is broken.

Why not take along a small TV and show video footage of your last function or wedding, show the dance floor full of happy people, never film the disco kit flashing or you doing a bit of mixing, show them what you can do with our kit, the atmosphere you create and the great time the guests are having.

A very useful and often forgotten sales technique is to remember is that your prospective customers don’t buy “features”, they only buy “advantages”, that is they want what you can do with your gear not the gear you have! This is something that many if not most DJs forget. They are not interested in how big your sound system is or whether you have the latest super moon, wiggly gobo mirror moving head DMX intelligent lighting effect, they are just interested that you can fill the dance floor by playing the best selection of music and creating a great party atmosphere, making their night unforgettable for all the right reasons. Show them this and they will book you.

During quiet periods when there are not so many visitors present take every opportunity to chat with other wedding service providers, befriending them will always pay dividends and promote networking, give them some brochures or business cards to display in their shops, follow this up by visiting them at their premises, take a bunch of flowers along with you and present them to the manageress at the local bridal shop, this will never fail to impress, they are wonderful allies to have. After the wedding fair is over make a point of chatting wit the organisers, ask how they feel the day has gone and try to find out if they are prepared to give you a list of the names and addresses of visitors for you to follow up on.

Always take great care to note down “all” enquiries and their contact details to follow up on after the wedding fair as more often than not leaflets or business cars are lost or discarded. Put the work in and you will be repaid with more work. Remember that 72% of all brides say they would have spent more time choosing their reception entertainment and almost 100% say they would have spent more of their budget on the entertainment. However during wedding planning the brides highest priority is their wedding dress, followed by the reception site and caterers, unfortunately entertainment is among the lowest of their priorities. Within one week after their reception 78% of Brides say they would have made the entertainment their highest priority! When asked 81% of guests say the thing they remember most about a wedding is the entertainment and as much as 65% of all couples that chose a band to entertain at their wedding said if they had it to do over again they would have chosen a good DJ.

Finally to end on a lighter note I was told that a NADJ colleague provided DJ services at a wedding between a TV aerials man and his fiancé, who was a satellite TV engineer, apparently the wedding ceremony was not up to much but the reception was fantastic!

Written by- Mark Weller (Ocsid Entertainment Solutions) NADJ Wales

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