Suppiers....

To be honest Jen, there are so many out there offering the "ultimate contacts" and web presence that I have stopped believeing. If I paid to join all those that claimed to be good, I would be bankrupt.

What does this one offer that is different to the others??

Well looking at it, you pay a £1 to have a box, but there is only 3 spaces per county, per supplier. Thats pretty good

£1 is good.....for hitchers that think I am a skinflint, there are well over 100 websites claiming to be good for your wedding photography business...all usually wanting £25 upwards to be listed with them and they email you constantly. 90% are useless and have little web presence which is vital.

Ironically, although I am listed with several, my biggest source of wedding work is from a free listing....apart from word of mouth.

On average I get one invite a day from either a wedding listing site or a mobile disco listing site. The first thing i do is a google search and see how high they come up in the rankings....most don't even appear on the radar. So if brides can't find them, they have got little value, irrelevant of how good they appear. Apparently, linking to a site with a low page rank can be damaging to your SEO....not sure if this is true.

I usually do the same as Sandysounds... check out the quality of the website (some are appallingly bad!) find out how many other suppliers are listed (sometimes the categories are half empty so not much good really) and do a rough google search to see how visible they are. I would probably say out of all the emails I get sent from various directories, 90% of them aren't worth the effort. In fact, a couple of them that I tried recently, I couldn't even get their website to work properly! I put all my details in with the intention of listing and nothing happened. Even after emailing them to point out that it wasn't possible to list with them because they're website wasn't working properly, I never heard back from them . Personally, I always steer well clear of websites that ask me to pay for leads as I don't really see the point in that when business comes in for free elsewhere! I'm giving Hitched another crack at the whip as some of you may have noticed. I haven't advertised with them for roughly 3 years but the directory has changed quite a bit since last time which is much improved from the previous directory and, at the moment, I'm the only florist listed for my county which obviously is good so I'll see how it goes.

Ditto to the above.

I have advertised with Hitched for 5yrs, I must admit that I don't get much work from the forums or the Directory. 90% of my work is by recommendation or through Venues that I have contracts with. Loking at my stats the Directories are not sending through many leads at all. Hitched is the only one that I pay for.

I have wasted good money on advertising in the past, especially with a certain wedding mag, that shall remain nameless!! I was promised the earth with regard to pushing my business into the spot light but in reality got sod all..

I have to admit though, that from all of the sites online that I have advertised with, I really have found Hitched the best for getting me work but like the rest of you all, word of mouth has been the best.

I work along side a lady who makes wedding dresses (I went to school with her) & as we compliment each others business, I get lots of work this way locally. I also share the cost of a table at wedding fairs with her, we get a larger space between us & share the costs. It also looks nice at the wedding fairs for any b2b to see a dress maker & jewellery maker together as we find we can advise on what goes with what better.

Recommendations are by far the best way for me though.

Debbie

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I do a similar thing Debbie with suppliers in my area. I have a couple of bouquets in bridal salons (not as much as I used to do because I've had 3 shops go bust on me and haven't been able to get either the flowers or the bouquet stands back!) brochures and business cards in photographers' studios, cake shops, menswear hire shops etc and I send their business cards out with my brochure and this works really well particularly for local businesses sort of "i'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" arrangement! Recommendations are also good - I've been going for a fair number of years now so I've done weddings for whole families of daughters, sisters etc! Back to the original point though, a good way to find out which are the best directories to advertise in is to check out bridal magazines and see which sites advertise the most. If directories can afford to pump money into advertising their sites in glossy mags, they are often the most successful at what they do.

Great advice there... thankyou!!

Debbie

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If today is anything to go by there is lots of FREE advertising on here!!

Exactly & have you seen the kind of things they are advertising too.... the mind boggles?

D

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