These are the top 3 ways I find wedding clients for my wedding business:
- Referrals from my past clients.
- Facebook groups – wedding groups.
- Referrals from vendors in the wedding Industry.
You can take a look at our referral program at the end of this post!
How to get Referrals from Clients and Vendors
They are other different ways you can get clients such as Facebook Ads, wedding shows, Blogging, from Google, directly from your website contact…and the list goes on. While some of these work really well getting referrals is the best way of getting clients without much efforts.
We have already touched on how to maximize your Facebook wedding page to attract brides. But how do you get clients through referrals? How do you get real couples to persuade other real couples that you’re good enough to take on their wedding or events? It seems tricky, but it’s not when you try your hardest.
Referrals will keep your business afloat, especially during the high wedding season when you are just to busy and do not have time to market your wedding services. With a steady amount of referrals coming in, you could…
- Halve the time you spend marketing your wedding business.
- Stop stressing out because you haven’t booked enough clients or you just not sure where the next bride will come from.
- Have lots of wedding inquiries in coming into your inbox
- Book more clients and earn more money hopefully 🙂
If your business is at least a year old then you have had at least a few clients and you would have already made connections with vendors. This opens the window for referrals to come in.
You can also read: 10 Ways to attract more weddings to your business!
If you…
- Are good at what you do
- Have an awesome wedding portfolio (style shoot count as portfolios)
- Have kickass testimonials from your past clients (I use Wedding Wire stricktly for collecting testimonials)
- Have a streamlined, organized process that makes working with you easy
…Then your wedding business should be getting referrals already, and plenty of them! Because when you do all of the above, past brides will not hesitate to recommend you to their friends and colleagues. People tend to only refer you if you’re trustworthy, talented and efficient. So make sure you’re known for being these things!
If you’re doing all of the above and still not getting referrals, something needs to change. You need to think outside the box and come up with creative ways to get wedding referrals for your business. This should be one of you marketing plans.
PS: If you have not purchased our worksheets that are perfect for wedding planners starting out, or if you do not yet have a system set up to streamline your wedding business-Get it now!
Now here are 7 ways your wedding business can get referrals from past brides clients and vendors:
- Ask your clients directly. When wrapping up a wedding, ask your client directly if they know of anyone who may be in need of your services, I also do this during the planning process.
- Ask indirectly. If you are not comfortable asking them directly, then ask them in your testimonial form. (A testimonial form is a short questionnaire you get your clients to fill in about your time working together, and you create their testimonial from combining their answers.) As your final question, ask ‘do you know of anyone who may be in need of my wedding services?’
- Collaborate. Write to a few wedding vendors and offer to send work their way if they send work your way. This works especially well if you’re both in different vendor categories such as a decorator and a planner, planner and a DJ, venue and planner etc.
- Create a referral program. Offer your couples and partners 5-10% of every successful referral you get from them. So, if they refer a client to you who buys one of your wedding packages, they would receive 5-10% of that. I am not a fan of this. What I would do instead, is offer the client 5-10% off their wedding services and 5-10%of their referral wedding services. This way you are not exchanging cash or anything. Same goes for the vendors. You can have the DJ offer your clients 5-10% of their wedding services and then give them lots of clients and they can do the same.
- Offer an incentive. Offer your clients a discount or a freebie for every successful referral. – This is what I meant for my point above.
- Refer work to others. Only refer work to other vendors you admire, trust and respect. People you genuinely think your clients will love. And when you send work their way, let them know you’ve done so by dropping them an email or a quick phone call. It opens up the way to a great friendship, which could lead to them sending more clients your way.
- Email others in the same market as yours. Sometimes people email me asking if I will keep them in mind for referrals. If their work is good enough and their email is sincere and modest enough, I always do! I typically meet with them for coffee and discuss different ways referrals and how we can collaborate more.
If you would you like to join our Wedding Professional Hive Facebook group, we would love to have you!
Now a special Gift! Get a copy of what our Referral Program Certificate looks like. You can edit it, change it, add your info, but make it yours!
Happy Planning