How bridal brands can use the power of video marketing this Christmas
Alan Howard, former TV producer and founder of Wedding Documentary Company, discusses how to hang your marketing on a ’hook’ and how bridal boutiques can use this to boost their business during the festive season.
I think we can safely say everyone in the wedding industry is looking forward to 2022, and very happy to wave goodbye to the past two years. According to the Telegraph in 2020, three quarters of weddings in the UK were cancelled, and given the only slight easing of restrictions earlier in 2021, many couples opted to postpone until 2022. Next year is already a bumper year for UK weddings, which is all the more reason to make sure you’re front and centre in the minds of Brides and Grooms across the UK.
It’s well known that video is pretty much unbeatable when it comes to consumption on the internet, but video for video’s sake is unlikely to win you many fans. What you need is relevance, a point, or “a hook to hang it on”. Why will people want to watch your video content right now? Why is it timely? Or more importantly, how can you make it timely?
Christmas and new year TV is jam packed with programmes taking a nostalgic look back at the past year, or an excited look forward at the coming one, and doing the same with your business can bump your video up the social media ladder. Another reason that it’s so important to be visible at this time of year is that 40% of proposals in the UK happen between December and February 14th, so wedding bells are very much on the mind of an even larger section of the population than normal this year, and being at the front of the queue for recognition is a very good place to be.
With this in mind, I recently shot a series of videos for the team at Mousetrap Dress Boutique in Hampshire, with Bridal Consultant Rosie Hughes looking back on bridal trends and recommendations from 2021: What was the most popular dress shape? What materials were in fashion? Any new trends to be aware of? These were illustrated by photos of the real weddings, with real brides, and it gives the viewers the chance to hear about the kind of personal customer service they can expect, plus giving a sense of familiarity and connection. We filmed this in their shop, giving viewers the chance to look around and again see themselves in situ.
Bearing in mind the old adage that you need to see an advert 7 times before the message of the ad starts to sink in, we also produced a 2022 preview video, looking at what to expect next year: Who’s big? Who’s trendy? What’s new?
It’s a fairly simple shoot to do and can be as simple or as complex as you’d like, with the simplest version being a straight chat to a camera on your smartphone (but PLEASE turn the camera sideways for landscape shot!). Mousetrap opted for single 4K camera straight interview, with a slightly dreamy filmic look, brought about by vintage lenses and attention to lighting, we included a few references to the service customers can expect which gave us a reason to show the viewers around the shop a little. We could have gone down the route of a catwalk (I’ve filmed many of those) or a fashion shoot, but we chose to focus on simplicity for this video.
Once you have your video, or ideally series of videos, give them a seasonal hook with the name and make sure you feed the videos out one every few days onto your Facebook page, YouTube Channel, or your preferred social media outlet and don’t be afraid to repeat them every couple of weeks. I’d also strongly suggest a small investment in FB advertising.
Learning to hang your marketing efforts on a “hook”, such as Christmas, or finding a way of making them relevant to now is an extremely useful skill to develop. Something as simple as having a title like “Christmas special: our most popular dresses of last year” will yield far better results than “Here’s some nice dresses”, and give your brand a chance to be in the back of the mind of the many new brides looking for products and services to make their wedding day in 2022 a day to truly remember.
Advice from Alan Howard, Founder of Video and TV and Wedding Documentary Company.
With over 25 years producing and editing TV for the likes of ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, MTV, The Discovery Channel and Eurosport, there’s very little Alan’s not covered. He’s written hundreds of scripts, filmed and edited over 200 hours of TV programming, developed many projects from the germ of an idea into fully commissioned TV programmes, and had 2 x of his programmes nominated at The Royal Television Society Awards.
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Alan has generously offered to give all Bridal Buyer readers a 10% discount on his professional video production and editing services. Should you require any video content, such as a promotional video or a series of interview type videos for your marketing, please quote ‘BRIDAL BUYER VIDEO’ before 31.01.22 to qualify for 10% off.
If you would like to have a chat with Alan Howard about having a piece of video content or library of content produced for your wedding business, drop an email to Alan: alan@videoandtv.co.uk
