Episode 21: How To Profit From Wedding Fairs With Cate Conway
If you’ve ever exhibited at a wedding fair, you know that they can be hit or miss….unless you get strategic about them and then you can really profit from them. Today I’ve got an interview with the co-founder of Quirky Weddings who runs the 2nd largest wedding fair in Northern Ireland and loves to help her exhibitors get the most out of each wedding fair. After listening to this episode you’ll know exactly how to approach your next wedding fair and actually make it profitable. 
Cate Conway is one half of the double-act known as Quirky Weddings. She and Saima Akram run the Alternative Wedding Fair which takes place in Belfast, twice a year. As a laid back person, Cate found wedding marketing too pushy and pressurised when planning her own wedding in 2002 and kept in mind that there was a need for weddings to be sold in another way. After working in marketing for 10 years, Cate left her full time job in 2009 to pursue a career in media and also started Quirky Weddings, which started as a directory listings site and now produces the 2nd largest wedding fair in Northern Ireland.
In this episode we’ll cover:
- How Quirky Weddings sets themselves apart by clearly stating their mission & values
- Why a cold list of attendee emails from a wedding fair is a no-no
- Why you shouldn’t just hand out cards and what you should do instead
- How to make sure your marketing is inclusive so you don’t alienate your potential customers
- How to be approachable at wedding fairs
- The importance of weeding out people you can’t help and how to do that
- Why you need to set goals and targets for the day (X number of bookings, appointments, leads, etc)
- How to set yourself apart from the other exhibitors at a wedding fair
- How Quirky Weddings encourages competitors to work together
- The importance of follow up and how & when to email leads
- The role that customer care plays in your word of mouth marketing
- How to let people get to know you as a person and how to builds trust & makes sales
Resources & Links mentioned in this episode include:
Quirky Weddings
The Quirky Wedding Mantra
Quirky Wedding Blog
The Money Is In The Follow Up
My ebook on making the most of wedding fairs
How & why to build an email list
How being yourself in your marketing will help you make sales
My report that shows you how I schedule my social media posts in just 30 minutes per week
More from Cate:
Website: www.quirkyweddings.co.uk
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Quirkywed
Facebook: www.facebook.com/QuirkyWed
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/quirkyweddings
Did you enjoy this episode? Share the love with your fellow wedding professionals on Twitter by clicking here!
Want more?
To subscribe to the podcast, please use the links below:
Click Here to Subscribe via iTunes (You’ll just need to click the blue “View In iTunes” button and then click the Subscribe button when your iTunes opens.)
Click Here to Subscribe via Stitcher
And please take 2 minutes to leave me an honest rating and review on iTunes by clicking here. It will help the show and its ranking in iTunes immensely! Thank you – I appreciate it! Not sure how? Just watch the video below and I’ll show you!
