A Dotty Christmas
Appealing to the newly engaged at Christmas time.
The holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year for proposals and the newly engaged. Shannon from Dotty Bridal tells us how they plan to attract the attention of these potential customers using social media.
How do you ensure you are engaging with these couples as soon as they are ready to start wedding planning?
It is important to focus on social media all year round, so we are constantly ensuring we are engaging with newly engaged couples daily. We do this by delivering content that is new and fresh and always inspiring. As we do our buying throughout the year, our dresses arrive at different times in the season which ensures we always have newness to shout about. We have stock arriving pretty much every other month at present and this ensures our online content stays fresh. Our followers love to see dresses, so we must always ensure we are providing that content so that we remain relevant and engaging to our potential brides.
Over the Christmas period we put out lots of content that will help newly engaged brides to be such as tips on where to start their wedding shopping journey. We also include supplier spotlights to help promote our industry friends, recently our beautiful Dotty bride and bridal consultant Alex has launched her very own Bride coaching service (Bride in Mind). Alex has had her wedding postponed twice now due to the pandemic. Instead of being down about this, she has remained positive and is now able to offer advice to brides that need help to remain calm in this testing time. Over the Christmas period we will especially be doing lots of cross promotion where Alex can support all our Dotty brides. It is important that we go that extra mile as this industry is not just about selling wedding dresses. This year especially has been about being there for our brides every step of the way and having a way to include this ethos on our social media is paramount to us.
What type of content do you prepare for the Christmas & New Year period?
During the Christmas period we want to make sure everyone viewing our online content goes away feeling super cheerful and happy after watching it. We try our best to keep it light-hearted and fun. As above we put out lots of factual content, Christmas proposal content as well as Christmas wedding ideas. We make sure to include things on our stories and grid that can open up a conversation with our followers. This also allows us to make sure we are giving them what they want to see. This year we have rephotographed all our branded merch items to make them super Christmassy and have shown that they will make the the most perfect gift for any bride to be. We have had such a fab reaction and our followers are loving it. Live content is where it is at now, and we have lots planned over the next few weeks. Recently we just completed our lockdown special of ‘I’m a Dotty stylist get me out of here!’ which was a head to head virtual quiz on our Instagram involving the whole team. Positivity has been our mantra this year and is one of our keys to success. We will definitely continue our positive focus over the Christmas and New Year period despite the unknown times we are currently navigating.
You do a great job at showing your personality on social. Why do you think this is important, especially for newly engaged couples?
The phrase ‘people buy from people’ springs to mind. Being able to show our personality online has been the most important thing over the last year as like most retailers we have had to close shop more than once. I believe personality and a positive mentality is the key to most things in life. Showing your personality on social media is crucial to showing brides what they can expect from your boutique. Through our online presence we can show them what type of service they will receive, and when they come for their appointment it allows them to feel comfortable and at home in the boutique. All of this helps towards gaining a sale and ensures that the bride feels confident in you as a person and a business. As our team has grown, I have learnt the importance of showing our audience the team, as not all brides will get me for a bridal appointment. We try to think of lots of innovative ways to show our audience who our team are, and educate them of their personalities and traits, so that our future brides can relate to them. This then allows them to feel like they have been styled by a friend rather than a sales consultant. Examples of what we have done in the past include ‘getting to know you’ videos and posts, and top tips from our stylists. The brides love this, and it gives them a way of interacting with their stylist prior to their visit.
Do you offer any incentives for brides to be who get engaged over the holiday period?
In previous years we have done lots of different offers over the Christmas period. However, with this year being so strange for us all we have decided to do something a little different. For any brides that have been engaged over the Christmas period, who purchase their gown with us, we will be giving them a little gift. This is going to be one of our super cute, branded merchandise items. We wanted to do something in the way of a gift to share the Christmas cheer, and give our thanks to them for choosing to purchase their gown with us.
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