Are Wedding Wire and The Knot worth it? WATCH THIS for monthly costs & MORE!

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. The perfect place for bridal hair and makeup professionals to build a book with clients they love. In last week's video, I share with you guys five of my best practices that helped me book over 80 plus weddings just using Instagram. So I know after that video, a lot of you guys may have been thinking, well, does she use Wedding Wire? I heard that I need to use Wedding Wire or the Knot in order to book weddings. And I hear this question a lot. You know, is it worth it to be on Wedding Wire and the knot? Which one is better? How much does it cost to be on Wedding Wire? And then why? In today's video, I'm going to be sharing with you guys three common misconceptions that you're going to want to know before you decide to join up for these sites. This is going to be a juicy video. So before I start, I'm just going to drink some tea before I spill it now, before I dive into those three common misconceptions. When I first started out back in 2016, I knew of Wedding Wire and the not to be these review platforms that I wanted to be on. Now, if you are new to the bridal beauty world and you're like, what the heck is the knot? What is Wedding Wire? I don't even know what these are. They are basically just online advertising pages for wedding vendors. Brides can go on these websites and they can search for wedding vendors locally within their area. So you basically just set up a profile where you can put pictures of your work, you can set up a little bio about your business and services, and you're able to collect reviews on these platforms. So for me, back in 2016, I saw everyone in my space in my industry was on these websites, so I had major fomo. And with that, major FOMO led to me signing up for something without really knowing what I was signing up for or really knowing anything about it, or better alternatives that maybe could have helped me out. I would get major fomo, especially every single year, like at the top of the year, at the end of the year, whichever it is, when everybody was posting their badges of like Couples Choice Award because they had X amount of reviews. I'm not even really sure how those things work anyway, but of course I signed up. So I was on both of those websites, which then led to me having major overwhelm of how am I even going to pay for these every single month? Because they're pretty pricey. And I'll get into that in just a second. And I wasn't really seeing a lot of traffic in the beginning. Which leads me to the first major misconception about these websites, which is that you can increase your traffic and visibility. Yes, of course you can increase your visibility for your business by being on these platforms. However, a huge drawback and misconception if you are someone like me when I started out on these platforms and even now is your visibility. And you're not seeing that traffic on your profile visits for your Wedding Wire page or your not page. You're not seeing that traffic of people looking at your profile, which leads to messages and books. What happens is you cannot switch up your marketing positioning within these platforms to increase your reach unless you pay more on the platform. So let me break that down. So let's just say you're on Wedding Wire. They have three plans available. One is the free plan where you can just collect reviews. The second is a professional plan, and the third one is a split spotlight. So let's just say you go for the professional plan. And let's just say with that plan, you're not really seeing the traffic that you'd wish for. You're not really getting a lot of profile visits on your page, but you have beautiful photos, you have a great bio, you have all the things set in place. Now, if this was happening, what you would want to do is switch your positioning, tweak some things, so that way you're able to increase your visibility to gain more traffic so that people are looking at your page. Right. The only thing on these platforms in order to increase your visibility per month and get more eyeballs on your services is to increase your plan. And instead of having a professional plan, then going to the spotlight plan when you're on these pages is something that's usually encouraged. Because if you're on your dashboard, you can see, they give you a little data with your analytics, and you can see exactly how much traffic you're getting per month. And then it shows you on the side. Like, your color will be, let's just say black. You'll be at the bottom. And then you'll see the other plans. Like if you're the free one, especially even if you're the professional, show you the spotlight visits that you get per month. And it'll be like all the way up here, they're getting hundreds and hundreds of views. Whereas you on the Professional Planner maybe only Getting less than 50 views per month on your services. Something you have to understand with these higher plans, especially a spotlight on Weddingwire, they limit it to Only four businesses for the entire year. So for the entire year they're only highlighting and spotlighting four businesses. So for you, if you wanted to increase your traffic, increase your visibility, get more inquiries, what you would have to do is to upgrade to one of these higher paying plans. If they're only limited to for a year, you would have to then wait an entire year, switch up your marketing positioning to get more eyeballs on your services. Whereas with a platform like Instagram, if you weren't getting the traffic, the visibility, the reach that you needed, you're able to easily go in there and switch up your marketing position and you're able to come up with a better strategy, no extra money required with Instagram, in order to have more reach, more visibility, all those things, all you really need is to show consistently on the platform and have a really good strategy. That is the first common misconception the traffic invisibility on your services comes with a hefty price tag. Second common misconception that you're going to want to know before you sign off for these websites is people believe that it is a set it and forget it platform. Most people will opt in for the wedding wire and the knot route as opposed to Instagram because they believe that you can just go on these sites, you pet a monthly fee and then you set up your profile, do a little bio and then you're done. Something that they don't realize is that did you know that most people who are actually maybe interested in your services on these platforms are actually going to go and travel over and do more research on you and go to your social media, such as your Instagram, they're going to check out your website. So you better hope that those are both set up for success when they hop on your page. Is why the misconception that it is a passive traffic or visibility stream for your business isn't necessarily true because people are always going to be doing your steps, such as checking out your website, looking at your social media, seeing if you're up to date, all those things. They want to learn more about you, more about your services on social media is important for your potential clients and want to get to know you. And some of you guys may be like, okay, cool, Marissa, I get it, social media is important. But how can brides actually find me in my area that are local to me? I got you. There's two things you can start doing today in your posts that are going to help brides in your local area start being able to find you so you're more visible on social media. Those two things are geotagging and hashtag all know that Instagram lacks when it comes to being a search engine. It's not very search friendly, especially for local businesses such as us. Even if you do travel outside of your state lines or whatever it is. So those two things, number one, geotagging is a huge secret that I do all the time. Geotag wedding venues. Whenever you post a photo, that little thing that shows up at the top location, that shows up at the top of your photo. That way when brides are actually searching for those venues, venues, you pop on and you're visible to them. Another thing is hashtags use venue hashtags. Why? Because brides are searching for their venues and you want to be visible to them. If you try any of those strategies, definitely let me know in the comments or send me a DM on Instagram if that's something that works for you too. Third, common misconception is well, you have to pay to get business. Yes and no. Yes, you want to invest within your business, you want to invest in marketing and advertising in order to get that visibility and the word out about your services, of course. But in the beginning, especially if you're just starting out and you're just a newbie, you don't really have a clientele yet. You don't need to spend that amount of money in order to get clients, use other platforms such as Instagram and get traffic organically where pride's already hanging out anyway. So ask yourself, would you rather pay a small car payment each month in order to advertise or would you rather just take a little bit more of your time that you have right now and invest your time into organic marketing with social media on Instagram? Which leads me to the question, how much does it cost to be on Wedding Wire and the Knot? So like I said previously, there are three memberships that you can do. There is a free one where you just get access to having reviews, you are able to have a profile and then the second one is the professional and the third one is the spotlight. So let me break down each of those for you. So with the free plan, are able to have a profile and you are able to have access to collecting reviews. However, if you go on and you do your research and you see. So we're talking about my niche right now, which, which is bridal hair and makeup is different payments for each different type of wedding vendor. In my category alone, there is over about 50 pages of different businesses just in my area in Philadelphia So if you are on the free plan, what happens is you will show up on those pages but you are going to be dead last. And they don't even allow you to show your profile picture. So with the professional plan, it'll cost you around 200 plus a month when I last had it, which was last year, it does change every single year and you are able to either pay monthly, which is a little bit more, or you can pay the annual rate, which is usually like $1500 maybe for the entire year. Something to know about the professional plan is when you have a professional plan, like I just mentioned, there's about 50 pages for people that all have hair and makeup businesses in the Philadelphia area that I am in. There is no way to determine where you're going to show up on any of those pages even if you have a paid plan such as the Professional. Now the last option that they have for memberships is the spotlight. So that one is only four people and they call it their exclusive and it'll run you. About the last time I checked it was like $4,000 for the year and it goes up every single year. So I'm going to assume that it's probably about 5, $6,000 for the entire year and they only limit it to four people with that plan, what it is, it's basically like a top row and it stays on every single one of the pages and they suggest those people ever brides are on there and they're searching within the site, they're always going to suggest those spotlighted people. So you would just have to ask yourself, are you willing to invest that much money when you're first starting out? I really wish I didn't let that FOMO get to me because it is so expensive and I didn't know there was a better way. I know some of you guys are probably wondering, okay, so which one is better? I always hear different viewpoints and different things about Wedding Wire as opposed to some people who are like, I get more traffic and visibility on the not. It's totally different types of brides. In my personal experience, I was on both. If you know they have both merged. So they are basically like one company now. But they still have the two separate websites. And in my opinion they're both the same. For me personally, I didn't see increased visibility on one versus the other. I felt it was both the same. I had a professional plan with both the Knot and the Wedding Wire. I both had a professional plan for them. For me personally, I didn't see a difference being on one versus the other other, I think they're pretty much both the same. Something that no one tells you when you're joining these websites is that if you're a bride and you're on these websites and you're searching for vendors within your local area and you're on their profile, you're looking at their services, you're going through their photos. What no one tells you is that on the sidebar, Wedding Wire and the Knot, they will both actually suggest competitors within your same field in your same area. So as they're viewing your profile, it's showing you other matches that you might be interested in. Not only will you really need to make a great impression with your business with your portfolio, pictures and everything, but you're really going to want to make sure that you have a signature style to stand out amongst the competition. This is why having a signature style or having a signature makeup look is crucial. Standing out within your field. If you're someone who's like Marissa, I don't even know how to find my signature style or my signature makeup look, don't worry because in next week's video I'm going to be sharing with you guys my five top tips on how to find your signature style. So be sure to subscribe so you can get next week's video. I hope these tips helped you guys. I really wish I had a video like this before I wasted thousands and thousands of dollars on Wedding Wire and the not advertising and I saw so much more increased visibility and traffic and my dream brides coming through on Instagram organically. If you found this video helpful, definitely let me know in the comments below. If you want to see more videos like this, forget it is a great day to create something beautiful. I hope you guys have an amazing day.