There is always a way to build a better mouse trap. That is another one of my famous cliché’s
that I stole from somebody else. One
issue that was continually cropping up in the area I live in (and other areas
of the country) was the venue ad books.
These are a great idea for advertising your wedding related business
because your name is being put out there at one of the first points of exposure
and contact for a bride. But there are
TWO major downfalls to these publications.
The first downfall is the venues that use this as a form of
strong arming wedding vendors to be on their “preferred vendor list”. This is nothing but a scam and absolutely
ridiculous way to force advertising.
Unfortunately many vendors are at the mercy of the venue if they ever
want a shot at working at that venue.
Personally I feel this is not the way to do business. A true preferred vendor is one based on the
quality of their overall product and not someone that has to dish out money for
your ad book just to be part of your venue’s select.
The second downfall is that the venues would love to be able
to provide their brides with something that shows off the venue; kind of like
an 8 ½” x 11” business card. There is really
nothing wrong with this concept. The
problem lies that there are so many venues that the cost of vendors to
advertise (in each of the books individually) will sky rocket. Unlike the previous example, these venues
will take any vendors ads in their book, because it helps defray the cost of
printing.
The bottom line of all of this is that the publishers get
richer at the expense of the wedding vendors (one day I can expose all of these
costs). The publishers go to each of the
venues with a great deal for a book where the venues can showcase their
establishment and have the printing costs paid for by the advertisers. A pretty good idea except when you saturate a
geographical market with these books and it becomes an unusually high cost for
the advertisers because of the volume of venues.
So now we build the better mouse trap. The venues love the books and the vendors like
to get their business exposed without the major expense of paying to advertise
in 15 or 20 books. And we are doing
just that with Lehigh Valley Wedding – The Magazine. Our first volume will be called the Venue
Edition and will be a high end ad book, not really a magazine. However, the semi annual magazine may soon
be on bookshelves.
Our business model is simple. We build one large ad book, with 15 different
editions. Each edition will be
customized to 14 individual venues, so each edition will look like it was made
specifically for that venue. Each of
the 14 different venues will get 8 pages in the publication including all of
the prime spots (front cover, inside front, back cover, inside back, and
centerfold). The remaining 92 pages of this ad book will all be the same for
all 15 editions (including articles and advertisers). The 15th edition will be a generic
edition, which will be distributed at two major bridal shows and by the
advertisers if they wish. We now have a
win-win for everyone.
The venues now have a customized book to distribute to their
brides that features their place of business (and it does not cost them a dime). The wedding vendors get to advertise in 15
different publications that will be distributed at the 14 Venues and 2 major bridal
shows for one low price. The amount of total
printed publications is a little more than the amount of projected weddings in
the region so that all of the publications are distributed with not a lot of left
over going into the next year. This
also helps with not letting the content become stale.
Let’s take a quick look at some costs (and these are actual real costs from our research). First for the venues, who pay nothing with
only the agreement to distribute the publication. Not a bad deal. For the vendors, instead of paying $750 for a
full page to be distributed at ONE venue
(700 copies), they can pay $600 for a full page to be distributed at 15
different distribution points (6000 copies).
Where the wedding vendors really save is by not paying to advertise
individually.
So how is the reception to all this you ask? The response has been overwhelming. The venues are on board with us and it was an
easy sell. Except for a couple of venues
that are using the preferred vendor scam and a few elitists, we were able to
get 14 venues to sign on quite easily. The wedding vendors absolutely love this
because it gets them maximum exposure without the high costs. The wedding vendor response has been phenomenal.
We are looking to begin distribution on November 1, 2013 and we are really
excited for this challenge. This is our
first attempt at something like this, but we needed to build that better mouse
trap. We are not looking to get rich on this, but instead, provide a better value at a lesser cost for the wedding vendor community. We'll keep you posted on our progress.