Growing an event planning company can seem impossible, especially when you have exhausted your network of friends and family. You can’t grow a business relying only on your family and friends; you need a bigger pool of people. Focusing on active customers is the best strategy to grow your business. These types of customers are people looking for solutions to their problems. They are searching for answers to their questions to decide what to do. These types of people are different from those on social media.
What is the difference between active customers and people on social media? Contrary to popular belief, social media isn’t where people go shopping or find service providers. Although the platforms have tried to make social media sites attractive for shopping and research, at the moment, people are not using them primarily for that purpose.
People use social media for entertainment, engagement, and education (on trending topics). Very few purchases start on social media compared to other sources of traffic. Social media conversion rate is lower than Referral, Direct, Organic Search, and Ads traffic. Running ads or posting on social media brings you lots of traffic with little to no conversion; you end up with people looking but not buying or taking action. Because potential customers won’t use social media when needing to make a decision. Usually, they start by searching the internet. These channels help customers filter through the information during the decision-making process. Below are the actions a customer will take to search for services/products and examples of those channels.
- Use a mapping platform to find local services and businesses. (Google Maps, Bing Maps, Here We Go)
- Type keywords in an internet search engine – (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo)
- Search online for directories or use apps on a specific topic. (The Knot.com, Wedding Wire, Pearl by David Bridal, Eventective, The Bash, MeetingPages.com, Next Door App)
- Project-based Website – directory sites where you can list jobs/gigs/projects for businesses to bid on or contact you with pricing. (Guru.com, Thumbtack, Fiveer, Eventective)
- Marketplaces – where you can purchase products/services from multiple companies under one e-commerce website. (Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Etsy, eBay, Posh Mark, Mercari, Groupon, Faire, Creoate, Bulletin, Creative Market, Gumroad, etc.)
All the channels listed above are great places for your business to show up. Those are the types of sites potential customers/clients go to find answers to their questions. Below is a list of things you can do to make sure active customers can find your business.
- Sign up on a mapping platform. You can create a Google Business Profile to show up on Google Maps, Bing Places, DuckDuckGo, and other mapping platforms.
- Create a business website or landing page so people can find you using keywords.
- Sign up for industry-specific directories and project-based sites. I listed a few event planning directories earlier in this post. Start with those. Make sure to continue researching other websites for your industry.
- If you sell any products like party favors and gifts, sign up to sell on online marketplaces. These platforms have millions of visitors a month.
- Develop a direct sales strategy to contact potential customers in person, online, by mail, or by email. A few examples are hosting webinars and workshops, creating a YouTube channel, starting a podcast, direct mail marketing, participating in events as a vendor, pitching for press features with media outlets (digital and print), and collaborating with other businesses and non-profit organizations.
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