Module 23: Marketing, Insurance & Tax

About advertising your business

About Building
a Website for Your Wedding Planning Business
The types of insurance you're going to need

Facebook, Twitter,
and Social Media Advertising

In this module
you will learn

 
            About advertising your business

About Word of Mouth and Your Reputation

About Building
a Website for Your Wedding Planning Business

Facebook, Twitter,
and Social Media Advertising

The types of insurance
you're going to need

23.1  : Marketing Your Business - Advertising

Advertising is essential, regardless
of how big your budget is.

Fortunately, there are several options that are expensive, and those that are not so expensive.

Here are some to consider:

Placing an advert in the window of a local relevant
business, such as a hotel.

You can print off business cards, and ask to display them in a local business.

You can print off leaflets, and hand deliver them.

You can advertise in a local newspaper or community magazine.
In addition, there are wedding
magazines.

You can advertise on the local radio, or through a local TV channel

Obviously the latter two options are the most expensive. Therefore, they are only worth considering if you can plough a lot of money into your advertising budget.

23.2  : Word of Mouth and Your Reputation

In the events industry, word of mouth is often your best asset when it comes to marketing.

By building a good reputation
for yourself, you can encourage
your clients to give your business cards to their friends and family. In many cases, simple recommendations will come naturally
with a great service.

Here is how to achieve this:

Never be late for meetings with couples and avoid backing out of them. Very few things ruin your reputation more than being late.

Always go above and beyond. Think about what someone's expectations are, and then surpass him or her. This is someone's big day we're talking about!

Leave clients feeling positive
about their wedding or event.

Be friendly
and personable with all clients.
A good personality will take you far and is essential in this line of work.

23.3  : Getting Recommendations Through Promotions

One of the simplest ways to generate
recommendations is through promotions.

When you arrange
an event for a client,
consider leaving a leaflet stating that they can receive 10% off their next fee if they recommend
you to a friend and secure some business.

Other ways to do this include:

Advertising money off promotions with business cards and leaflets

Advertising extra offers like free initial
meetings

Offering a discount to pensioners

23.4  : Building a Website for Your Wedding Planning Business

Very few businesses can succeed these days without some form
of web

presence.

As such, it is down to you to create yours. You can either hire a web-master to do this, or you can use a simple web building package.

Some great sites for simple web building
include Moonfruit, Wix, and Blogger.
When using any of these sites, do not rely on their domain names—it
looks unprofessional, and it makes Search Engine
Optimisation (SEO) difficult. Instead, purchase a domain name through a provider like 1&1 or GoDaddy.

To make sure your website receives visitors,
update it with relevant content.
This includes keyphrases, blog posts about your services,
and locally targeted
header tags. Great events managers
will blog about their service
on a regular basis, as this is more likely to attract visitors and clients.

23.5  : Building Links to Your Site

As well as writing great content, you need to generate links to your site.

You
can do this by:

Posting useful comments on other people's
blogs. Wedding blogs are incredibly
popular!

Answering questions
on sites like Yahoo Answers

Answering questions
on forums—do not spam while doing this

Creating “Share
bait” blog posts.
For example, “7 Tips for a Perfectly
Organized Event”

Posting on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook

Using social
sharing sites like Digg, Delicious, and Reddit

Writing articles
for sites like Ezine and GoArticles.com

23.6  : Using Local
Business Directories

Research your local business directories to find the best ones to advertise
your site through.

Using several directories at once increases your business' exposure.

23.7  : Facebook, Twitter, and Social Media Advertising

Having a Facebook
or Twitter account
is almost essential
these days.

In order to make sure you stay organized, stick to one or two accounts at first, and then expand as your business grows.

Here are some simple beginners' tips:

Facebook: Invite all of your friends and family to like your page, and ask them to share it. Add a like button to the bottom of each blog post you write. Add your Facebook
page to all offline promotional materials.

Twitter: Make the most of trending
hashtags to draw attention to your business.
For every one promotional tweet you use, throw in 10 useful ones. This encourages followers. Join in with relevant conversations.

Pinterest: A Pinterest account can be useful. If you have the time to track down images and pin a few a day, you can generate a little interest.
This works especially
well if you link it with Twitter
and Facebook. Brides especially love the use of Pinterest,
so work on this as much as possible.

When using social media advertising,
consider your budget carefully. Those who advertise through Facebook can narrow down their target
audience by age, gender, occupation, and interest. Do this wisely to get more out of your budget.

23.8 
: Using Google Adwords

Adwords can soon become
expensive if you do not know what you are

doing.

Adwords are the adverts that you see at the top and right side of the page on Google search results. By setting up an Adwords
account you can get your adverts to appear alongside
the organic search results and if someone clicks on your advert and comes to your website you will be charged. This is also known as pay-per-click advertising and can be a very effective way of finding new clients.

In order to make sure you do not throw money away on campaigns, you need to measure the efficacy of each one, and pay for relevant
keywords only:

Target
long tail keywords. For example, rather than advertising “Wedding planner in { Your City Name}” advertise “Wedding planner in
{City District or zip code}”. The more specific you are, the less keywords cost.

Set a budget each day—you don't want to check your bank account to find that Google has debited
you several times.

Use Google Analytics and Webmaster tools to measure
which traffic comes from Adwords.

Ask clients if they found you through an Adwords campaign.

23.9  : Insurance, equipment & Health and Safety

The basics of health and safety have been covered in a previous module,
but it doesn't hurt to go through
the importance of them in relation to setting up an events management business.

When you're an events manager,
your role in health and safety changes considerably. In short, you are going to be the person who is in charge of the personal safety of everyone
else.

When you are first setting up your business,
you will need to do the following
to ensure you adhere to health and safety guidelines, which will vary according to your location,
but generally:

You must look at the Health and Safety Executive guidelines
for setting up a new business

Public liability
insurance is a requirement, as is employer's indemnity insurance

In addition
to insurance, you're going to need some business equipment.

How much you need and what you'll use it for depends largely on the type of events business you're running.

However,
at an absolute minimum, you're going to need:

A dedicated
laptop

Dedicated mobile phone

Branded stationary

Otherwise, most equipment
comes from vendors. If you're planning on placing more emphasis on the weddings
side of things, you may also want to have sample favours,
brochures, and mood boards.

23.10 
: Why bother with insurance at all?

If you want to avoid getting sued and need to maintain
your reputation, you'll

invest in insurance.

If you're really serious about
insurance, you'll also consider professional indemnity. Not only will you then be protected
against something happening
to members of the public, as well as your staff, you'll be protected
against financial losses.

23.11  : The Types of Insurance
You're Going to Need

First and foremost, you need to pay close attention to public liability

insurance.

Some venues will already have this. However,
it's your duty to make sure that this is the case and you also need to verify that it'll cover everyone in attendance, including the staff. Events managers
need higher levels of public liability insurance
than other businesses, which is something
you need to bear in mind.

If you have employees, you need to make sure that you have employer's
liability insurance that protects them when they're away from their usual place of work. This is particularly important when working
on sporting or music events, which can pose a risk to the lives of employees.

23.12 
: Tax

For those who choose to become self-employed, it is necessary
to follow certain
tax rules.

Failing to do so can result in fines and a whole load of legal trouble.

Before you start your business
it is best to consult
a financial advisor,
accountant or your local tax

office who can give you professional advice about the tax rules that apply to your jurisdiction.

It also worth remembering that many things you buy will be classed as tax deductibles. For example:

Office supplies

Travel costs

Insurance

Overheads for your office. If you live and work at home, you can deduct approximately 25-50% of utility bills and rent. This depends on how much of your home you dedicate to this purpose.

*Again check with your local tax authorities about exactly what you can claim for.

You usually cannot, however,
claim for things like:

Your lunch

Your personal
phone bill

Your hairdresser's bill

A lot of taxes are down to common sense. However,
when in doubt, consult a professional.

Module Summary

Regardless of how big your budget is, there is a great deal of flexibility when it comes to marketing
your wedding planning business. Understanding some of the options available
to you is essential before you begin purchasing supplies
and creating your overall budget.

This module mainly covered the essential aspects of insurance,
but will also focus a little on equipment too. You learned a little about health and safety and how insurance backs that up. In addition, you focused on the three main types of insurance: public liability, employer's and indemnity.