Candice (00:00.258)

What if your business wasn't tied to just one marketing platform? What if you could diversify where you get your leads? What if you could stop stressing about the algorithm, stop stressing about reels that take you a half hour? And that's being very generous to make. And instead, meet your ideal clients across multiple platforms.

I want to share with you the marketing strategy for wedding pros that I think makes you algorithm proof. You're here to grow a business, but not just any kind of business. You want to grow a profitable business with purpose, a business where you wake up every single day driven to serve your customers and make a difference in your own life. I'm Candace Coppola, published author, business coach,

and your guide to building a profitable business with purpose. Join me here every single week as we explore how to build and grow your business with purpose. Get ready to dig in and have meaningful conversations about the strategies and techniques that will help you build your dream business. This is the power in purpose.

Candice (01:19.426)

Hey there, friend. Welcome back to the Power and Purpose podcast. It's me, your host Candice. And today we're talking about a marketing strategy that will help your business become algorithm proof, which sounds like a great idea, right? I want you to connect with your ideal clients in engagement season, but also just in general throughout the year. I want you to bring in more traffic. I want you to generate more leads. I want you to generate more

quality leads for your business. And I just want you to elevate how you market. And I believe the way to algorithm proof your business and your marketing strategy is to have an omni-channel marketing approach. If you've ever felt limited by just having one, maybe two marketing platforms, or you feel frustrated with all the changes that are constantly happening in social media,

with algorithms, with the way they do things, with the reach of your content, with basically anything that you post. If you're feeling defeated and like you can't get in front of the right people or the platforms aren't giving you the opportunity to do that, I think you're going to really love what I have to share with you today. With Omni-Channel Marketing, we're going to talk about how we can meet your clients exactly where they are.

by diversifying your marketing strategy to focus on more than one platform and create a seamless experience, a seamless brand experience that helps to build trust, recognition, and engagement with your customers so that when they finally reach out to book with you, like you're the only option on their minds. That's what I believe the power of having an omni-channel marketing strategy can do for you.

So let's first talk about what is an omni-channel marketing strategy. Let's set a baseline and then we can go into the strategy itself. Now this is not just a buzzword. You probably have heard this floating around somewhere on the internet. Maybe you've even heard me talk about this before because I've actually shared my marketing strategy on several podcasts related to my type of business. And I've talked about how I've adopted an omni-channel marketing strategy. So it's not just a buzzword. You might've heard this.

Candice (03:45.58)

And it's not just the same content appearing everywhere. So if you're thinking, I record a reel and then I upload it to YouTube shorts and then I upload it to TikTok and then I upload it here, there and everywhere. That's not what I am suggesting. I want you to think of it as being on every marketing channel that makes sense for your business, spreading your message there so that it attracts and reaches your right.

customer. Remember, marketing is simply sharing your message that attracts and reaches the right people. And with an omni-channel marketing strategy, you're going to adopt as many channels as you can to spread your message that it attracts and reaches the right people. So here's an example. I'm going to use my business as an example. Someone finds me on Google. They're searching for a keyword and then they grab one of my freebies.

They get into a nurture sequence by me, and then ultimately they buy from me. So with that strategy, have SEO, probably a bit of blogging in there. We have email marketing as part of my Omni channel strategy. Another example, someone finds me on Instagram. They then head over to my website. They then go check out a YouTube video that I've recently posted on a topic they're really curious about.

In that YouTube video, I give them a call to action. I say, go here and download this great thing. They do that. And then the nurture sequence in my email marketing campaigns kick off and they purchase a solution to their problem when they're ready. That is an omni-channel marketing strategy, harnessing Instagram, my website, maybe my blog, YouTube and email marketing, helping this customer in their journey of finding a solution to buy.

Now you might be thinking, Jesus Christ, do I need to have my YouTube channel and all this stuff? No, that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm just sharing what works in my business and how I've created an omnichannel marketing strategy. In this episode, I will show you ways where you can adopt the same philosophies, but make it work for your unique wedding industry business. So this doesn't need to be a million channels. You don't need to be everywhere. I just want you to

Candice (06:09.03)

be in the right places where your ideal client is searching. Most wedding pros are not prioritizing something like LinkedIn. So you don't need to come here with a huge LinkedIn strategy unless you're doing a lot of corporate work. Then that's another story. But there are things that probably just won't work for you because of the nature of your business. But there are things that will work for you. And if you can adopt having an omni-channel marketing strategy being present in more than one place, you can

not feel so beholden to the algorithm of the one or two places where you do show up. Now, doing this is going to help make your business algorithm proof. That's the promise of this episode. It's also going to help you connect with your customers in more than one place, which is important these days. It's going to increase your brand recognition. I want you to take a look at some of the episodes in our Behind the Brand series where we're revealing

how some of the rising stars in our industry and the most iconic brands came to be and what their secret is behind building a business that's recognized. Being in more than one place helps to build that brand recognition. And if you ever want to be featured inside of our Behind the Brands series, an omni-channel marketing strategy is going to be one of those ways where you build that brand recognition. It's also going to improve the customer experience because

The customers who paid you thousands of dollars, actually like following you. They like seeing what you're up to. They like being a part of your marketing. And so for them, this is actually fun and exciting to follow you in these places, to hear from you and to see your work. There are a lot of benefits to having an omni-channel marketing strategy. The biggest being having an all pervasive brand message that finds people in

all the different nooks and crannies where they're looking for someone like you. Now I had a podcast interview with Taylor Kusak-Hallman from Engie. She's also a marketing strategist in the wedding industry. You probably know Taylor and love her. She's been a guest on the show. I've been a guest on hers. And we talked a lot about marketing over the years and Taylor said something to the effect of, there's this old adage that people need to see you seven times before they buy from you.

Candice (08:32.752)

That has been the case in marketing for decades, generations. Back in the days of Mad Men and when there were ad agencies and ad men out there who were creating these campaigns. These days though, the tides have shifted and it's something like people need to see you 20 or 30 times before they're willing to buy from you. And so we've seen an increase in people needing to see your brand multiple times before it becomes recognizable to them.

And I think that's largely because we're in multiple spaces and places. We're looking at content or consuming entertainment in different spaces. We're also scattered and also short form content has really taken over everything. So we kind of are in this getting short bursts of information from businesses, advertisers, creators, entertainers.

And because we're getting short bursts of information and we're moving on to the next bit of information, it doesn't carry the same weight as it used to. It used to be able to watch a commercial and then you were like, all right, bitch, let me get my Febreze. I'm buying this product. Let me run down to Walmart. Let me get to Target. Let me buy my Febreze. I want this new scent. But now we have to see that Febreze bottle, not just in a commercial, but we have to see it on our...

On our For You page on TikTok, we have to see it in our feed on Instagram. We have to see it in stories. Maybe somebody posts about it on Facebook. We have to hear about it on threads. We have to come across an ad on a YouTube channel, totally unrelated. We have to see it in so many places before we're like, yeah, the Febreze. I want to try that. I remember. Well, I'm going to the grocery store now. Let me go pick it up. And hopefully when we get to the grocery store, we remember. And if we don't, that Febreze is on an end cap just waiting for us to grab it.

So we used to be able to just watch a commercial and be like, yeah, the Febreze. But because so much is fighting for our attention and competing for our attention, it has become so much harder as a marketer to capture the attention of your customers. Now, an omnichannel marketing campaign is going to help you do that. It's going to help you be omnipresent everywhere. So do you see the benefits of adopting this and doing it strategically?

Candice (10:45.958)

I have so much to share with you, but one thing I do want you to realize is in order for this to be effective, you have to be consistent with your branding and your messaging. You don't have to be consistent like posting every hour on the hour in all these places. That's not sustainable unless you have a team. But you need to be consistent in your branding and your messaging. If you are going to be all over the place on the internet and you're going to be all over the place,

with your brand and your message, people are going to easily get confused. You want somebody to see you on YouTube and then connect the dots about a blog post they read from you or that the fact that you're already emailing them. You want somebody to see you on Instagram and be like, yeah, I heard of her from my vendor friends or I saw her work tagged here. You want somebody to receive an email from you and be like, I recognize them. I know this person. So consistency with brand and brand messaging is really important.

This doesn't mean copying and pasting the same content everywhere, but you do need to have visual cohesiveness and you also need to know what your message is. This is like very fundamental stuff. And if you don't know this, well, I'm inviting you to find out, to figure it out. So let's talk about the steps to an omni-channel marketing strategy. Have I piqued your interest? Have I stressed you out? Are you sweating under your brow? Are you thinking Candace? You're crazy.

I could barely post once a week on Instagram and you're asking me to have an omni-channel marketing strategy. Yeah, I am. This is the world we're living in when it comes to marketing and it's not going to change because you don't like it. Unfortunately. I'm sorry. I'm just the messenger. Don't hurt me. I'm just sharing with you the message. This is how business has transitioned. And I'll tell you what, your competition who is really succeeding right now in sales,

They're doing so for several reasons. And one of it is because they're marketing. If you are not getting sales, if you are not happy with your business and the revenue you're making, I can almost guarantee that I can draw a line between your marketing and your money. So if you want to push your boundaries in 2025, you're like, this is it. I'm giving this one big shot this year. I really want

Candice (13:08.85)

elevate my brand, this is one of the things that you need to do. Okay? Hey, friend, hear that noise? That's the sound of HoneyBook depositing cold hard cash into your bank account. HoneyBook is an all-in-one client flow platform that helps you manage your leads, send wedding proposals, and sign more contracts all at the click of a button.

HoneyBook also offers a variety of resources and materials to help you grow your wedding industry business. One of my favorite features of the HoneyBook platform is actually the community of creative entrepreneurs just like you. HoneyBook is offering listeners of the Power and Purpose podcast 35 % off any of their three plans for your first year. 35%. It's an amazing deal. Use the code PURPOSE at checkout or go to CandaceCoppola.com slash HoneyBook to learn more.

That's candiscopla.com slash honeybook. And thanks to HoneyBook for sponsoring this episode of the Power in Purpose podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by our partner, Flowdesk. Flowdesk is an email marketing software used by thousands of creative entrepreneurs just like you to grow their business and their brand. What I love most about Flowdesk is just how easy and simple it is to create stunning and effective email marketing campaigns

in just a few clicks. It's perfect for the wedding industry and for anyone looking to grow their business with email marketing. Go to CandaceCoppola.com slash flow desk to sign up for your free trial where you can start designing beautiful email campaigns while I teach you about marketing here on the podcast. That's CandaceCoppola.com slash flow desk to start your free trial and use the code Candace50 at checkout to save 50 % off

your first year. Check it out and see what's possible. And thanks to Flowdesk for sponsoring this episode of the podcast. Now let's get back to the episode. Step one, I want you to identify which channels you're going to be omnipresent on. Choose where you want to focus. This is obviously a very simple place to begin. And I want you to think, where do you like making content? Where do you enjoy showing up best?

Candice (15:30.79)

And where is your ideal client? We have to find a sweet spot between these two. Where do you enjoy making content? And where is your ideal client hanging out? You might enjoy making content on Substack, but your clients may not be there. So while that's really fun, and I love that you love that, maybe we find something else to do there and not market your wedding planning business or your photography business if your clients aren't over there.

I do recommend choosing just two to three places to start or maybe just one to two more than what you're already doing. The examples I've shared with you about my business have grown over years. So I've been adopting an omni-channel marketing strategy for the last four years. And every year I dig a little bit deeper and I experiment a little bit more. My team also grows. My investment in marketing also grows. I'm making more money. So I'm putting it back in my business.

you're seeing four years worth of adopting this strategy. can't possibly, you cannot possibly get to where I'm at in the next week or in the next month. We're trying to build ourself up. So one to two, in addition to what you're doing, is a great place to start. And I do recommend trying to use a mix of search platforms and social media, which are becoming search platforms. If you're great on video, try Instagram.

and YouTube. If you are a great writer or if you've harnessed the power of writing and chat GPT, look to use search engine optimization and maybe Pinterest. For wedding pros, I've always said that the holy trinity of marketing is Instagram, SEO slash Pinterest and networking. And I'm also seeing a lot of wedding pros right now launching podcasts, which are great for search audio experience, totally different. Also, it creates video content for you.

I think this is super cool, not for everybody, but definitely for some. And email marketing has entered the chat. Our Launch Your List series proved that. So many wedding pros got their lists launched. And I know that during engagement season, their email nurture sequences and their list are going to help them have a better omni-channel marketing strategy. If you missed that series, I will link to it in the show notes. Go and listen to it.

Candice (17:51.5)

easily implement all the steps and launch your list before the new year. Step two, after you've picked one to two additional channels, is to think about your client journey. I want you to map out your customer journey. Once you know where you want to show up, try to think about different customer journey options. I've given you a few examples already. Somebody finds you on Instagram.

and they see your work and then they go to your website, they view your portfolio, they see this great quiz, what's your wedding style say about you? And they're like, that sounds fun. Let me take it. They take the quiz, which means they opt into your email list. And then now they're entered into a nurture sequence based on their results that help them to schedule a consult with you that might share your pricing or your services. And you're kind of pre-selling to them before you jump on a consult.

They follow your instructions in that nurture sequence. feel like they know you already. They're commenting on your Instagram. They're sending you a DM. And before you know it, you see this Calendly link on your calendar. It pops up and it's like, hey, you have a consult with Candace tomorrow at 2 PM for their wedding at one of the places you've dreamed of working at. That is a customer journey through your marketing and into your sales funnel. I want you to think about what are some ideal scenarios that I'd like people to go through when they're

involved with my marketing as they're discovering me and they're not only discovering me, but they're learning from me. They're hearing from me. They're getting inspired by me. What might that look like? I think what could be cool here too, and I'm just kind of riffing here, but thinking about the journey from somebody who might take longer to buy from you, somebody who might be ready to buy, and then somebody who's like ready to just give you their credit card. So we're going from cold to warm to hot.

thinking about what does that journey look like for each person and how could you show up in a way that nurtures? The reality is, is there's not just one journey for people anymore. As Taylor said in some podcast episode, which I will find and link in the show notes, I think it was actually my episode with her on her podcast, Pretty Okay Podcast. I think it was my episode with her where she dropped the stat. So like Taylor said, you have to be in multiple places and people need to see you multiple times.

Candice (20:12.05)

There's not just one customer journey anymore. What does it look like for your ideal customers? And remember, the people who are just discovering you, they need different content than the people who are close to buying. Somebody who's very cold, think about it. They've just been introduced to you. They're not sure if they want to be friends. They're not sure who you really are. So you kind of need to warm them up. You need to help them go through that no like and trust. Step three is to refine your branding.

Omnichannel marketing doesn't work if your brand is a hot mess. Let me repeat that. Omnichannel marketing does not work if your brand is a hot mess. So before you jump into like getting everything launched and doing all this stuff, you need to make sure that you have a consistent brand message and visual identity. You need to make sure like you're not working with 10,000 different Canva templates, refine things, make sure you understand what your visual identity looks like.

And also consider your brand message and even some brand language that can help people identify you. It's more than just fonts and colors, although those are really, really important. What do you want to say in your messaging? Who's your ideal client? What do they value? What do you value? Do you have specific content buckets or themes that you talk about a lot that you can spread across these channels? Really make sure that you refined.

You refine your branding and your messaging. Step four is making sure that you have a content strategy and a cadence for each platform. I want you to commit to a regular schedule. And a regular schedule doesn't have to be, post every hour, every day. That feels a little hard, if I'm being honest. It feels a lot hard. And it's really unattainable and unmanageable, which means you're setting yourself up for failure. A regular schedule is something that's regular for you. And it also

you have to think about what might be regular for the platform. So for instance, it is normal on YouTube to post once a week. Sometimes I do that, sometimes I don't. I don't beat myself up about it. On Instagram, it is normal to post daily in stories and a few times a week in the feed. That's pretty normal. On TikTok, if you want to grow an account, it is pretty normal to post three times a day. Ugh, nightmare. But we can start by just posting once a day.

Candice (22:37.934)

or even once a week to get going. So you need to commit to a regular schedule. And this is going to be what you have the capacity for and what's regular for you. I also like to think of what platforms drives the content for other platforms, almost like a mother platform, something that helps to drive content out into the atmosphere. For me, it's my podcast. It's this right here.

This helps me to create content for so many different spaces and places, even repurposing the video that you might be watching me on right now, repurposing this in other spaces. So I love to think about what's a like a mother piece of content. It could be your podcast, could be a blog, could be something else. These pieces tend to lead when it comes to content and they work their way into other spaces.

Step five, and the final step here, is to use tools to help you get this done. Because I'm not even going to pretend like you can make sense of all of this with just a pen and a piece of paper. You need tools. And tools have been created and built for you to support you in your omni-channel marketing strategy. The first tool I'd love to recommend for you, and this is completely unsponsored, but it is something that I think is going to help you tremendously, is Engie.

Engie can be a great way to keep organized and to have everything all in one place. If you're not familiar with Engie, Engie is a marketing platform tool that helps you create a marketing strategy and then actually deliver that marketing strategy on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis so that you can make more sales, so that you can generate more leads. It has all of the things that you need in order to have an omni-channel marketing strategy.

including an entire section for brand guidelines, making sure your brand is consistent. It has an AI copywriter so you can do everything right in Engie. It's really fast. It's really smart. It has a content scheduler, a KPI tracker. So there's so much baked into this platform that can help you organize your content, help you strategize, even give you suggestions for your strategy. And then it can help you schedule your content across multiple platforms and measure your results. I mean, it literally is.

Candice (24:58.586)

It was created for this very purpose. And we love Engie, so shout out to them. I will link to Engie in the show notes. And because I've partnered with them in the past, you can get a discount on your first two months if you decide to use my special code and my link. So I'll link to it in the show notes. And you can also use things like ChatGPT. ChatGPT has come a long way. And I use it for quite a bit, especially when I need to kind of make sense of some of my ideas or I need it to give me some suggestions.

You can copy and paste the blog you wrote into chat GPT and ask it to make you a carousel for Instagram. That's an example. You can use it to summarize a blog post and give you some suggestions for what you can do for a reel. You can ask it to take a blog post you've written and turn it into a podcast script. I mean, there's so much you can do.

AI is not just about coming up with new things. It's also about taking things that you've poured your heart and soul and resources into and finding ways to repurpose it smartly and just get the ball rolling on repurposing. Now, I do want to end with a few mistakes that I see people making when it comes to omnichannel marketing so that you don't make these mistakes. So we're just going to clear these up now, giving you everything you need.

to be everywhere, girl. I want to see your face popping up all over the place. I want to be like, there she goes again. There they go again. I'm just seeing them everywhere. And I love it. So here are some mistakes that I see people making. We've talked about copying and pasting. And listen, there's a time and a place for this. But remember, each platform is a little bit different. And we need to keep that in mind. Each platform has different types of viewers on it.

And it also asks of you to do different things. TikTok is totally different from YouTube. TikTok is totally different from Pinterest, and even, believe it or not, from Instagram. So if you're going to adopt a new platform in your omni-channel marketing strategy, understand a little bit better how it works, and think about easy ways that you can show up there natively. Also, I will say going too original in each platform is just too much.

Candice (27:11.844)

It's just too much. It's too much to create. It's too much to do. You will literally be running around with a ring light and a tripod all day, leaving absolutely zero time to get anything else worthwhile done. Like you will be marketing, but you will have no time to serve. And that's just not good. So it's okay to turn a blog post into a carousel for Instagram or even a carousel for TikTok, which has become popular.

Or take an idea from an Instagram post and use it for something else. It's okay to find the easiest path of resistance. mean, this is what water does. Water looks for the easiest path of resistance and it just follows it to get where it needs to go. I don't want you to feel like this needs to be hard. In fact, it should get easier and easier for you, not harder and harder. And that leads me into overextending. We have seasons in the wedding industry.

And I think that you need to be conscious of overextending yourself marketing wise and then burning yourself straight out where then you disappear. And we get the proverbial, sorry, I've been MIA for the last four months, guys. I don't want that for you. So again, this all boils down to finding a natural rhythm and pace and channels that you can work with. I also want to say that I see people sometimes ignoring offline touch points.

So you have this omni-channel marketing strategy and you're forgetting that one of your channels should be networking and in-person events connecting with people. And I would challenge you not to wait to get an invitation to one of these things or to wait for somebody to create a networking event for you to attend. In 2025, I would tell you, create the space where you want to be. Create the space that you want to have a voice in. Create the table that you want to sit at.

networking. So don't forget about in-person and how that should be one of your omni-channel marketing strategies. Imagine I'm seeing you on Instagram. I'm seeing you here, there, and everywhere. And then now here you are live and in the flesh at this great event. The final mistake is not paying attention to your analytics. This is really important. You need to know what's working. And if something is not working and you're not enjoying it, that's like the intersection of maybe we shouldn't do this.

Candice (29:31.236)

If it's not working and you're not enjoying it, something's not lining up. And the only way that you'll really know that is if you pay attention to your analytics. It's okay to stop doing things that aren't working, by the way, but you've got to give it a little time. If you're going to adopt my strategy, I want you to give it at least six months. And I know that probably feels so long. You're like, gross. I get it. But listen, it takes time for things to work. And it's also going to take time for you to adopt some new habits and routines around marketing.

You need to give things time to see if it is truly going to work and if it truly isn't going to work, why. So give yourself time, but also make sure you're paying attention to the data points. Let me know if we should do a podcast episode on some data points that you should be paying attention to marketing wise. I can see this playing out in a few different ways. Maybe I talk about it per channel as I see it, or I do an all in one where we talk about different channels and, and data points you should be paying attention to.

some that are actual numbers and then other things that might be not so numerical, like not like how many impressions, things like that, things that are a little deeper or maybe require you to think a little bit harder. But let me know if this is something you'd like to hear. All right. So you've heard me pitch my case about an omnichannel marketing strategy. And unfortunately, I do want to reiterate this. This isn't really a choice anymore. You kind of need to adopt this. So you have a decision to make. Your decision is how am going to show up for my business?

so that I can attract the right clients and my business can make more money in 2025 if that's one of your goals. And what can I do as the owner of the business to level up my marketing? And what are opportunities for me to hire somebody to come in and help me? Whether it's a strategist, a VA, a marketing manager, a social media manager, something of the sort, you may need to actually invest in your marketing. And you may need to actually start

putting some more money into your business for these things to work. I hate to be the bearer of so much bad news today, but it's true. What I'm seeing even in myself is that we all are a little scared to spend money and it's actually costing us our progress. I have a whole episode coming out on this, so stay tuned. I haven't recorded it yet. I haven't scripted it yet, but it's coming out because I'm thinking about it. And if I'm thinking about it, you were eventually going to hear about it. Now remember an Omnichannel

Candice (31:57.946)

Marketing strategy isn't about being everywhere. It's about being where it counts and creating meaningful touch points that encourage couples to take that next step with you. I can't wait to hear how you implement these steps. And I know that if your business can be in more than one place, you are going to algorithm proof your marketing. All right, friend, thanks for listening to today. I want to remind you as always.

There's so much power in your purpose and I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of the Power in Purpose podcast. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and consider leaving a review. Head over to powerinpurposepodcast.com to access all of the resources and links mentioned in today's episode. That's powerinpurposepodcast.com.

See you next time.