In today’s Q & Cake (our own fancy version of Q & A) Elisabeth and Cami discuss several questions from listeners about boosting SEO and generating leads from google, how to use Dubsado like a boss, leveraging  bridal shows as a vendor, and navigating postage with international stationary customers. They’re also weighing in on the significance of listings on wedding sites like The Knot and Wedding Wire. These are questions from fellow artists, calligraphers, designers, stationers, etc. that will hopefully help you in your own biz journey as a creativepreneur! 

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“I have a question about wedding sites – specifically The Knot and Wedding Wire. Do you think it is important to have listings and reviews on those kind of sites?”  

– Crissie of Crissie Vitale

Cami: (03:04)

I exist there. I think it’s to do the free listing. I have some reviews on there from like my first client, but I would not put stock into it to be honest. And I do think there’s been a shift over like the past few years of the industry where these just aren’t as important anymore or these particular sites in general.It’s just not where people are finding their vendors. It’s more like Instagram and referral and it’s just a different landscape for marketing and I don’t think that’s like the one place to find vendors anymore. 

So yeah,  I don’t really think it’s important at all. I’d say get the free listing cause it never hurts to have, your name out there. But I would not purchase any ads or put a ton of time and try to make those things perfect.

“I have Dubsado, per your recommendation and I love it! But I feel like I am not using the software to its fullest potential. Do you have any tips for using Dubsado like a boss? Thank you!”

 – Brooke @sirens_script

Elisabeth: (05:12)

But I would say that some of the biggest ways I’ve gotten help for Dubsato is by going into their Facebook group. So I was searching stationary or calligraphy or wedding invitations because people who do the same things as us have undoubtedly shared their forms or things before the way that they’re doing things. But also they have like a ton of free webinars and great online resources and blogs too. So I would just start reading a ton of that stuff because once you understand the platform better, you can understand how to leverage it to your business. Whether that is stationary, calligraphy, whatever you’re doing to make yourself even better. 

Use code bizbirthdaybash to get 20% off your first month or year when you sign up for Dubsado.

“ Would you ever do an episode on SEO or how to get more clients from Google and social media? I don’t shout out my location often because my services are all online. I don’t feel confident that brides and grooms can find me on the web! Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!!”

 – Anne of @annecallahandesigns

Elisabeth: (10:52)

So yeah, the best thing you can do for yourself if you want, like our straight up SEO advice or I should say Cami’s is that if you have the business sense for creatives bundle I would go back and reference the SEO guide because that was like one of the PDF party favors included and that will totally get you started.

Elisabeth: (11:23)

It’s the SEO cheat sheet and it basically goes over short tail keywords, long tail keywords, how to get found based on location, like where you should be putting your keywords, how to find these keywords and like other derivative keywords from those keywords. Just keywords, keywords, keywords. Okay. And it will definitely help you get found on Google. Cause that was, that’s really huge for us is making sure we’re tied correctly on our websites. And I know Elizabeth, I think you started using keywords that were more location-based because you did want to like target more of the market. 

“Have either of you attended bridal shows as vendors? Do you think they’re worth the investment of the booth rental, decor for your booth, take aways for potential clients, time, etc.? When it comes to weddings, I mainly focus on wooden signs and day of items, but have been playing around with adding invitation design to my services and can’t decide whether this would be a good investment for exposure and potential leads or a waste of time and energy that could be focused someplace else.”

 – Laura of @bloomingtreestudio

Elisabeth: (20:11)

I got super sneaky lately. I attended a bridal show like yes, I’m a vendor but I did not pay. I just went and like schmoozed the other vendors that were there and I kind of wanted to see what they were all about. But I would recommend that if you’re thinking about doing one of these, like let’s say the company that approached you or the bridal show that approached you, does them two times a year. I recommend going to one first and seeing what it’s like and asking the other vendors, how’s it going for you?

Elisabeth: (20:48)

Just go to one first and pay the just the bridal admission, which is usually like 20 bucks and walk around before deciding that you want to commit and do on yourself because then at least you like you understand the layout of the space and you can get ideas of like what other people have done and be like, Oh I really liked what they did in their booth or Oh that didn’t seem to work as well. So doing that and like walking to shows rather recently within the past month or so gave me the confidence that  if I wanted to do one in the future I would kind of know how to go about it. But I think 90% of the battle with these is actually follow up. It’s like not whether or not you do the show and like he adds a lot of money in prep but it’s actually the success lies in the followup. I can’t stress that enough.

Cami: (21:35)

Yeah, I agree with you on that. Like the success definitely lies in the followup and I think it’s going to depend on the type of bridal show. I feel like I just said all this and I don’t know if you guys heard or not, but like some bridal shows are geared more towards like the DIY brides. Some are more high end so you want to just make sure like that the right client that you are looking for is going to be at these bridal shows. And I noticed you talked about you focused on what in science and day of items. And honestly I think those would do great at a bridal show versus invitations. So if I was to do a bridal show I would probably say, Oh I do invitations as well. But I would go all in on one thing which would be my signature drink signs cause I feel like those are an easier price point to sell versus all my custom wedding invitations. 

“If a client has guests from out of the country what kind of postage do you include for the RSVP envelope?”

 – Paige of @paige_bydesign

Elisabeth: (31:41)

I saw another tip on there that was interesting. I think, and I can’t remember what it was, but I want to say that it was a bride, a foreign bride who had a ton of guests in the U S and so what they did was they actually made the return address to a friend in the U S and then used the U S postage, which I was like, Oh, that’s kind of smart too. That’s really nice. They just had their friend. 

So you can get tricky with it. But like my default would be not to do it in most situations because like I feel like for most of the guests I have, if they have people who are abroad, it’s like one family’s in Spain and the other family is in like New Zealand and the other families in Japan. And it’s like all those countries have different postage. So there’s, you know like what do you encounter where there’s just some outliers of people who live out of the country. I would just err on the of like not doing it.