Wedding Wire Spot Light Ad

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DJ Ricky B

DJ Extraordinaire
Mar 9, 2015
7,756
6,386
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I received an email from the sales rep in my area that the Spot Light ad just opened up. I wonder why it opened? Maybe the DJ company who had that spot felt it wasn't worth the money they paid.

I asked her what the price is...HERE IS THE RESPONSE:

Hey Ricky,
The listing is $8,650. If you choose to pay monthly it would be 12 installments of $720.83.
If you wanted to pay in full we offer a 15% pay in full discount which would make you eligible to opt out of the listing at any point after 6 months and receive a refund for your unused months.
This would be a 1 time payment of $7,352.50.
Let me know if you have questions!



I'm trying to wrap my finger around how this ad could be beneficial for me at that high of a price.
 
I received an email from the sales rep in my area that the Spot Light ad just opened up. I wonder why it opened? Maybe the DJ company who had that spot felt it wasn't worth the money they paid.

I asked her what the price is...HERE IS THE RESPONSE:

Hey Ricky,
The listing is $8,650. If you choose to pay monthly it would be 12 installments of $720.83.
If you wanted to pay in full we offer a 15% pay in full discount which would make you eligible to opt out of the listing at any point after 6 months and receive a refund for your unused months.
This would be a 1 time payment of $7,352.50.
Let me know if you have questions!.

At a grand a gig you would have to book 10 to break even when you deduct business expenses on those gigs and that doesn't leave much room for paying yourself on them. You can't even justify it as a long term investment in building top of mind awareness there just aren't enough views.

You could buy a lot of Google/Facebook ads for $7,352.50. and have a much better ROI long term
 
At that price, it is better suited to larger multi-op that is getting the benefit from high levels of lead volume. A single-op or small multi-op simply can't do enough volume to benefit from that kind of spend. But for a volume business, it might be worth it.
 
$720.83 a month is more than I pay for my mortgage.
$8,650 is more than I paid for my car.
 
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Just to bring the subject of Wedding Wire back.

They contacted me the other day, and I exchanged a couple of emails with my "Senior Account Rep". I told her I would have to be under $100 a month to even consider going back to Wedding Wire. She sent me an email claiming she could get me "VERY CLOSE" to $100/month, and to give her a call. She actually called me. We talked. She did inform me of a single change that is leading to more views for new advertisers. They put a little blue ribbon on your profile pic in the directory, and she said that causes brides to click on the new advertiser...for some reason Brides want to check out the newer vendors more often. (I didn't say it, but obviously, that is because the brides are thinking newer vendors might have lower prices!" ---DUH!)

Anyway, after a few more minutes of chatting. She asks how much can I go above that $100 a month. I said I really can't go above $100 a month, but I could run my budget analysis again and see if I can go $110 as I would like to try WW again. ...She says "let me put you on hold and I will go and tap the shoulder of my manager and see what we can do..."

Of course she probably just puts me on hold and counts to 60 while filing her nails or something LOL....

About 90 seconds later she comes back and says "Ricky, My Manager is willing to offer a big discount, and we can do $125.38 a month, but that is ONLY AVAILABLE RIGHT NOW". ---Like after this conversation, it won't be available. ...I'm thinking to myself "What a sleazy car sales type tactic.

The discount is only $22 less per month than their Regular price online. I declined, and said I have to converse with my other DJs to consider going $25 over budget. She tried to pressure me into signing now...it didn't work. Conversation was ended.

$125 a month to be on the 2nd page of Wedding Wire in the Baltimore Market. So over $1500.

...Unless I have a lot of luck with clientele booking us off of there, I don't see this as a wise decision to move forward with.

I was with WW in 2012 through 2014, and I could never verify more than 2 weddings a year coming from Wedding Wire itself.

Anybody currently using Wedding Wire? How is the platform working out for you this year?
 
Anybody currently using Wedding Wire? How is the platform working out for you this year?

I do... I dropped my Featured listing (guaranteed first-page placement) in favor of a Professional listing (first-page placement not guaranteed, but it includes the photos, website link, etc). Is it worth it? No. Is it important for my company to be listed there? Sure.

Neither WeddingWire nor The Knot guarantee that you'll book weddings by advertising on their site; their purpose is to get people to look at your listing. Judging the success of your paid placement based on the number of weddings booked through WW is pointless.
 
Weddingwire only works if you have the standout marketing material to support it. Remember, a bride is clicking around everyone looking to find that hidden gem... I was just doing it the other day for photographers. I didn't even stay on a site more than 20 seconds if it didn't appeal to me with something awesome. So either you're going to attract price shoppers that send a copy paste email to every vendor hoping to book the best price... or you'll have to invest thousands in supporting marketing material to stand out from all the others to attract the couple willing to spend more.
 
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Just to bring the subject of Wedding Wire back.

They contacted me the other day, and I exchanged a couple of emails with my "Senior Account Rep". I told her I would have to be under $100 a month to even consider going back to Wedding Wire. She sent me an email claiming she could get me "VERY CLOSE" to $100/month, and to give her a call. She actually called me. We talked. She did inform me of a single change that is leading to more views for new advertisers. They put a little blue ribbon on your profile pic in the directory, and she said that causes brides to click on the new advertiser...for some reason Brides want to check out the newer vendors more often. (I didn't say it, but obviously, that is because the brides are thinking newer vendors might have lower prices!" ---DUH!)

Anyway, after a few more minutes of chatting. She asks how much can I go above that $100 a month. I said I really can't go above $100 a month, but I could run my budget analysis again and see if I can go $110 as I would like to try WW again. ...She says "let me put you on hold and I will go and tap the shoulder of my manager and see what we can do..."

Of course she probably just puts me on hold and counts to 60 while filing her nails or something LOL....

About 90 seconds later she comes back and says "Ricky, My Manager is willing to offer a big discount, and we can do $125.38 a month, but that is ONLY AVAILABLE RIGHT NOW". ---Like after this conversation, it won't be available. ...I'm thinking to myself "What a sleazy car sales type tactic.

The discount is only $22 less per month than their Regular price online. I declined, and said I have to converse with my other DJs to consider going $25 over budget. She tried to pressure me into signing now...it didn't work. Conversation was ended.

$125 a month to be on the 2nd page of Wedding Wire in the Baltimore Market. So over $1500.

...Unless I have a lot of luck with clientele booking us off of there, I don't see this as a wise decision to move forward with.

I was with WW in 2012 through 2014, and I could never verify more than 2 weddings a year coming from Wedding Wire itself.

Anybody currently using Wedding Wire? How is the platform working out for you this year?

I'm on wedding wire. Waiting 5 more months and then I'm dropping them.
 
Yes, it's better. I'm planning to continue with TK.

I just talked with them today. While similar in price, they are lower than Wedding Wire. They are also offering a "2 month" spotlight position for new members where My Ad would be placed at the top as a bonus for 2 first months if I sign up right now. I have not tried them before, so I think I might give them a try.
 
I just talked with them today. While similar in price, they are lower than Wedding Wire. They are also offering a "2 month" spotlight position for new members where My Ad would be placed at the top as a bonus for 2 first months if I sign up right now. I have not tried them before, so I think I might give them a try.

The thing I really like about TK (besides more/better leads), they don't play the yearly game of excessive increases in their rates. WW will jump rates, then when you fuss, they'll back down. I LOATHE having to hardball negotiate with an advertising vendor who's trying to overcharge me. I gave WW one more chance this year and they blew it. I'm going to re-route those dollars over to TK.
 
If I were to pay for a listing on one of these lead sites, it would probably be The Knot, ive heard more good things about TK than I have with WW, the other thing that I liked is TK didnt pull WW BS of having to talk to a rep before they will "approve" your listing, god I feel for that hook line and sinker, that is an hour I will never get.
 
If I was going to get in to big dollar advertising again I would be strictly social media based. Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Snapchat is where I would be and very targeted. For what TK or WW are charging to be on page 3 I could create a TOMA with a very specific desired demographic and geographic location

This would be especially good for someone like Taso who has great videos to share
 
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I spent $350 in total for 2016 on Instagram/Facebook (same company so you can have them run across both platforms) ads. I had a 1 minute video of each a wedding and sweet 16 running in separate campaigns to specific age ranges and specific towns. The wedding yielded nothing. The Sweet 16 ad brought in 4 inquiries... of which 2 booked for a combined total of $7500 in revenue. Was it worth it... yes technically since I made my money back and then some. Was it as effective as I thought... not really. I did get a lot of click throughs... so people did go to the site, but I guess I was too expensive for a majority of the people as the other 3 that didn't book wanted to spend half of what I charge (thats why I say word of mouth is really the best advertising, because your name is being spread to people in similar financial positions as the people that booked you and are spreading your name). In 2017 I spent $100 and have yielded no results.

Twitter... completely ineffective. I don't know if you can pay for advertisements... but no one cares about that platform anymore. It's only good for celebrities to share news, and for the media to actually report it. Just look at how their stock price is plummeting as a reflection of how popular the service is.

Snapchat... I spend about $100 on this a year to create custom filters for my clients. It's very effective in reminding the guests as to who you are when their using the filter. It also then spreads to all their friends on snapchat who view the post they made with my filter. Have I booked any party directly because of Snapchat.... No. However, it definitely keeps my name amongst that group of people and their friends, as I have had other parties book who mentioned they remember seeing me at one of their other friends parties because of their post on snapchat with my name on it.

Youtube...THIS IS MY GOLDMINE. It's 100% free and EXTREMELY effective for me. People that are looking on youtube are clearly not looking for price, and are looking for something different and want to be impressed. In 2016, 8 events were booked because of youtube... at an avg of $2350 an event, that's $18,800 in income. In 2017 thus far, 6 events have been booked from youtube.. this yrs avg event is $2650... so revenue is $15,900. In 2018 so far 2 events have been booked from it. It typically accounts for around 8-10% of my income... but again... its FREE.

I do not do any weddingwire or the knot or anything of that sort. I focus on making my events awesome and having the guests do my marketing for me. In 2017... a record setting year for me with almost 20% growth (despite me expecting to lose income since I split from the company I was with for 8 years), ONLY 3 EVENTS DID NOT come from word of mouth or being a guest at an event of mine. My marketing costs go to my website primarily and little things here and there like tshirts to give to my sweet 16 clients, canvases for my office, or having a graphic designer update my pricing catalogs and business cards... thats about it. However I still do lots of marketing, but its mostly free, and its directly focused on my existing clientele who follow me online (around 7500 followers between facebook personal page, business page, and instagram).