How To Increase Your Leads Immediately

Years ago I hit a bump in the road with my event planning business.  My leads had slowed down, sales had decreased, and so I did what most people do at a time like that.  I panicked.

 
One of the first things I did was spend THOUSANDS of dollars hiring an SEO firm to go through every detail of my website to find out how I could better optimize it to rank for Google. And one of the very first things they pointed out was a simple fix that had a HUGE impact.  My contact form was too long!!


How many times have you gone to a website and the contact form is just overwhelming?  You know the ones that ask you things like what is your favorite cookie, asks you to “tell a little bit about yourself,” or has you put in every single detail about the potential event?


The people that have these types of contact forms (and you might be one) are well-meaning.  They want to stand out or find ways to connect with you by asking you personal questions. Some want to be efficient and get as much information from you as they can so that they can properly quote you.  But what they are really doing is asking TOO much from a potential lead.


If you are so niched that there is no one else out there that can fill their need, they may fill out your form.  But if you are in a market where there are plenty of fish of the sea, you are going to lose some of your leads. 

I will be honest, when I am looking for vendors for my clients and I come upon these types of contact forms, I go elsewhere.  I don’t have the time or patience to fill out 50 questions when I simply need a quote.  I scan the contact form for an email address and email them directly. If they don’t have an email address, I find someone else.  And you may have done that too.  Sadly, not everyone will even scan your site for the email.


So if you want to increase your leads in a big way without spending a ton of time, follow these steps.

  1. Make our contact form short. People shouldn’t have to scroll down to see it all.
  2. Only ask for critical information. Name, email (or number if you prefer), and what they need.
  3. Cut out all non-relevant questions. Do you really need to know their address, their partner’s name, etc. Those things are nice to know but if it cost’s you a lead, is it worth it?

Now sit back and enjoy the additional leads you will get simply from minimizing your contact form. If you are an Event Planner wanting to diversify your Wedding Business income, check out my FREE resources here:

Top 3 Reasons You MUST Add Proposal Planning To Your Services NOW!​

The Ultimate Guide to Selling Pop-Up Wedding Packages

A Mistake I Made That Cost Me Thousands

When I started one of the world’s first Proposal Planning companies 11 years ago, I made a lot of mistakes. After all, I didn’t have a mentor. There were no resources out there to help me get started. And there were certainly no courses out there to teach me the best way to get clients.

So I spent several years NOT doing something that I now know could have earned me thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that one thing is, having an email list. What is an email list? An email list is a collection of emails that you have received through your inquiries.

Why Do You Need An Email List?

Potential clients will come to you at all different phases in the buying cycle. Here are the 4 stages of the buying cycle:

  1. Awareness – This happens when a client finds your website and your marketing educates them that they have a problem.
  2. Consideration – At this phase, they know they have a problem and they are considering their options
  3. Intent – During this stage, they are ready to make a decision
  4. Purchase- They are ready to make a purchase

Why Does This Matter?

It matters because that means if a client visits your website at any stage in the buying cycle OTHER than when they are ready to purchase, there is a chance that they will browse your site and move on. They may never return again. However, if you capture their email, you can continue to market to them and nurture that lead. This ensures that when they are ready to purchase, you are in the forefront of their mind.

Interested in learning more about selling pop-up wedding packages or becoming a proposal planner? Download one of my FREE resources below.

How To Identify Your Target Market

If you are a Wedding Planner that is launching Proposal Planning services for the first time, you are probably overwhelmed at the thought of targeting this new market. After all, you are used to targeting brides in your current marking and this is a big change. And if you are new to event planning and starting your own Proposal Planning business, this is likely your first time needing to identify your target market and that can be a lot as well.

If you really want to intimately understand the type of client that books a Proposal Planner, you won’t want to miss my FREE masterclass that is coming up in March. Sign up for the waitlist here. In this masterclass, I go over the characteristics that almost ALL proposal clients have in common. But each Proposal Planner will also have a target market this is more specific to the type of client THEY want to serve. So how do you identify that market?

What Is A Target Market

Before going forward, we should define what exactly I mean when I say target market. A target market is a specific, defined segment of consumers that a company plans to serve with its services. So all Proposal Planners are targeting clients looking to propose. But you want to figure out which segment of those clients you most want to target. Examples might be LGBTQ+ community, luxury clients, etc.

Why This Is Important

You need to know exactly who you are targeting BEFORE you create any marketing materials. Marketing materials include your website, social media profiles & content, blogs, and more.

How To Determine Your Target Market

  1. Think about which segment of the market you want to service. Again, examples of this could be the LGBTQ+ community, luxury clients, etc.
  2. Think about the characteristics of that market and the aesthetic they may like. For example, for the LGBTQ+ community you may want to use bright colors and feature same sex couples throughout your website. For a luxury client, you may wish to stick to a neutral palette and a modern design.
  3. Brainstorm where this target market hangs out online. What Instagram profiles to they follow, what blogs do they read, etc?
  4. What are their hobbies and interests? For example, if you are targeting ultra high end clients, maybe they play golf and fly in private jets.
  5. Think about their values. Do they value exclusivity (being offered something no one else can get)? Do they value equality, being offered the same thing everyone else can get?

What To Do With This Information

Once you have done research on your target market, you will take everything you discovered and use it in your marketing. If you are a Wedding Planner, you will use this to create your Proposal Planning page, your blogs that are geared towards the proposer, your social media content, and your keywords & hashtag strategy. If you are new to event planning, you will use this information to create your website, your social media profiles, and all of your content, keywords, and hashtags.

Wondering if becoming a Proposal Planner is right for you? Check out my FREE downloads below.

How The Pandemic Inspired The Heart Bandits Academy

When I was 7 years old I turned my first profit. I created a neighborhood circus and I recruited the talent, marketed the show, sold tickets, and made money.

I got my first taste of being an entrepreneur then and have been chasing that thrilling rush ever since.

I know EXACTLY what it is like to be an entrepreneur with no business idea. Or an an entrepreneur with an idea but feeling much too overwhelmed about getting started.

I know what it is like to want something so bad but not have a clear path to get there.

Because of this, I always wanted to create a training program for entrepreneurs that wanted to follow my path and start their own Proposal Planning biz.

After spending a decade running the world’s most successful Proposal Planning business, and after receiving hundred is not thousands of emails from people all around the world asking me for advice on how to start Proposal Planning, I believed this was my next calling.

But I just never had the time to do it.

And then the pandemic hit. And my industry was ravaged by a blow of event bans and gathering size limitations.

I knew I had to step up.

I created The Heart Bandits Academy and quickly launched my first course designed to help Wedding Planners pivot their business and offer Proposal Planning. And in about a month, I am going to launch The Complete Proposal Planning Blueprint™which will teach entrepreneurs how to start their own Proposal Planning biz from the ground up.

In The Complete Proposal Planning Blueprint™, I teach:

  • Everything you need to know about the Proposal Planning industry
  • How to choose your Proposal Planning target market, niche, and style
  • Create a solid Proposal Planning Business Plan
  • Develop a business naming strategy and tools to create your website
  • How to plan a proposal from A-Z
  • How to price your Proposal Planning services
  • Develop a robust Proposal Planning marketing strategy
  • How to maintain the momentum and continue to grow

If you want to be the first to know about the launch, make sure to join the Waitlist here.

Avoid This Mistake That Can Cost You Thousands

There is one mistake I see aspiring Proposal Planners make time and time again. This is a mistake that can cost you thousands of dollars AND waste weeks or months of your time. That mistake is……signing up for a Wedding Course or Wedding Certificate program.

Now don’t get me wrong, if you are hoping to be a Wedding Planner then these courses might be just what you need. But a Wedding Course will simply NOT teach you how to be a Proposal Planner. Proposal Planning is its own specialty and if you are going to learn how to be a Proposal Planner, you need to learn FROM a Proposal Planner.

Here are the ways that Proposal Planning is very different than Wedding Planning

  1. Completely Different Target Market – Wedding Planners typically target females and brides. You will be targeting males.
  2. Different Marketing Strategy – I have spent 10 years marketing to the proposal client and believe me when I say, marketing to guys is completely different than marketing to a bride.
  3. Each Event Is Different- A Wedding typically follows the same itinerary. There is a ceremony then a reception with cake cutting, dancing, bouquet toss, etc. With proposals, things are always different. One day I am organizing a 50 person flash mob, the next day I am organizing a helicopter landing on a skyscraper, and the next working with the cast of The Nutcracker to create the perfect ballet proposal.

This is why it is CRITICAL that you learn how to be a Proposal Planner from a Proposal Planner. To get started, I have some free resources for you below.

3 Mistakes Wedding Planners Make When Marketing Proposal Planning Services

proposal planning

If you weren’t able to make it to my Facebook Live today, don’t worry, I have you covered. I discussed the 3 Mistakes Wedding Planners Make When Marketing Proposal Planning Services (and how to fix them asap!) Don’t feel like watching the video? Let me recap it for you here.

Now whether you have tried offering Proposal Planning but it hasn’t had any traction OR you haven’t even started offering it yet but you want to make sure you do it the right way, learning from these mistakes will be critical to the success of your marketing strategy. 

And the good news is, they are easy to fix!

Mistake #1: Not Properly Advertising Proposal Planning Services

When I started Proposal Planning Academy and became a Proposal Planning Coach, I interviewed several Wedding Planners and asked them why they were not yet offering Proposal Planning services. Some of their answers truly surprised me because some of them said, “I do already offer it!” But when I asked them WHERE they are advertising the service, some of them said WeddingWire.

Now here is a tip, guys that are looking to plan a marriage proposal are NOT looking on Wedding Wire for a planner. In fact, I challenge you to find 5 guys that are not married that have even heard of Wedding Wire.

You have to be intentional with your decision on how to market your services.

This fix is totally doable right?

Mistake #2: Calling the Proposer the “Groom”  in your messaging

This is actually my pet peeve! A client that is looking to propose literally just made the biggest decision of their life up until this point. They just bought the ring, they are looking for the perfect proposal idea, and you already have them walking down the aisle in a tuxedo!! PUMP THE BRAKES!

These client’s are not ready to see themselves as a groom yet.  They are just taking the first step to finally ask someone to marry them.  They don’t want to be rushed.  You need to meet them where they are.  You should call the person proposing, the Proposer.  

Easy enough right?

Mistake #3: Not knowing where they hangout online

You probably know exactly where a bride hangs out online, right? They are on the Green Wedding Shoes Blog, the Ruffled IG account, and The Knot. But you know what, your target market who is predominately male, is NOT! You need to figure out where he hangs out online if you want to learn more about him.

This is good stuff right?

Do you see how even avoiding these 3 steps can really get you on the right path to attracting Proposal Planning clients?  Imagine what it would feel like if you intimately understood the Proposer and knew EXACTLY how to target them?  Well, if you liked today’s LIVE and blog, I have even more to share with you.  I have a free Masterclass coming up in a few days and you won’t want to miss this.

The free Masterclass is called, “3 Simple Secrets You Need To Know To Effectively Market To The Proposal Planning Client” and I am going to share intimate details about who the Proposer is, what they fear, and what they want to spend money on.

 Plus, I will have more time for some real-time Q&A if you have any questions. Go to www.theheartbanditsacademy.com/masterclass to get all the details… it will be live, so you don’t want to miss it. I hope to see you there!” 

How To Be Inclusive In Your Proposal Planning Marketing

LGBTQ marriage proposal
LGBTQ marriage proposal

June is Pride Month, and it is the perfect opportunity to talk about inclusion. When you plan marriage proposals, the majority of your clients will be men proposing to women. However, you will also have same sex couples asking you for your services and you want to make sure that your messaging feels inclusive to them as well.

One thing that has always made me sad and cringe is when a person asks me, “You are ok with same sex couples right?” It literally hurts my heart that someone has to ASK if I am OK with THEIR choice on who they love. So I really do my best to use gender neutral pronouns in my marketing on my website, The Heart Bandits.

I am not always perfect, but when I am writing copy on my Proposal Planning website, I try to always say “they” instead of “he” or “she.” And I always try to say “partner” instead of “girlfriend.” It doesn’t make any difference to the heterosexual couple, but it makes ALL the difference when someone from the LGBTQ community is reading my messaging and doesn’t feel alienated.

Here is an example of how I do it! Let’s take The Heart Bandit’s Mission Statement for example:

“Our mission is to create a marriage proposal that is as unique as your love story.  We ensure that when your partner experiences their proposal, they know that it was created just for them and more importantly, it was created by you.  To do that, we use a holistic approach in our proposal planning.  We don’t just focus on your partner and what they would like, we also focus on what makes you unique as a couple.  We also take great care to focus on what is unique about you, the Proposer, so that the proposal is truly reflective of your style and persona.

See how easy that is? Just a small change in your marketing can really make a difference for someone else.

If you want to learn more tips on how to market to the proposer, I am actually doing a Facebook Live on Tuesday, June 16th at 10am PST. Here is a link and you can set up a reminder.

My goal is to teach Wedding Planners and Entrepreneurs how to market to the client looking to propose to their partner. I am a Proposal Planning coach that has been planning proposals for a decade and now I am here to help you get started on your Proposal Planning journey. If you are ready to get serious about starting your Proposal Planning company or adding it on as a service, I have created a completely FREE resource for you called, “4 Things You Can Start Doing TODAY To Start Proposal Planning.”

I can’t wait to see what you do with what you learn!