Contents
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About Us : Misson . Objectives . Aims . Keys to Success Industry Analysis : Research . Focus Groups . Interviews
Competition & Buying Patterns :
Our Services : Inspire . Design . Plan . Style
Unique Elements : DIY . Interviews . Suppliers
Target Market
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Maketing : Analysis Summary . Market Segmentation . Strategy & Implementation Marketing Tools : Website . Blog . Business Cards . Advertisements . Watermark Social Media : Pinterest . Instagram . Twitter
Sales Strategy
SWOT Analysis
Future Plans
Executive Summary
Biblography
Thanks & Acknowledgements
About us “We were just in love and wanted to share our lives together.� Marion
Marion & Claude is a wedding service like
no other. While most wedding services focus on creating a big extravagant wedding, our focus is helping to create a personal wedding that is tailored uniquely to each couple. We cater to both the bride and groom, to encourage the wedding to be about the two of them. To create personal memories and to celebrate love.
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...Home of beautiful, fresh, unique, wedding styling...
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arion & Claude is a fresh wedding service that will be a unique supplement to the existing wedding services in Greater London. While most bridal services focus on weddings with a large scale budget, the focus of Marion & Claude is to provide a service for couples to get married on any budget, in a personal and unique way that is tailored specifically to them. Our core services will include, fresh unique inspiration, DIY alternatives to a wedding, budget saving ideas and exciting elements that have never been seen before by the industry that will specifically to targeted towards the fresh minds of 20 something couples.
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“Back in those days, we didn’t have much to plan and arrange. The wedding was a party, a fun day to celebrate the start of our lives together.� Claude
bit about the real life Marion & Claude :
Marion & Claude are my lovely grandparents and have been happily married for 60 years. Claude was 22 and Marion was 20, they decided to get married when Marion went down to see Claude on his leave from the forces. They went to the beach for the day and while looking over the sea they disscused getting married once Claude was out of the forces. 2 months later on the 14th of August 1954, they got married in their hometown church in Halesowen. It was a very sunny day with their most intimate family and friends. Full of love and memories that they still cherish to this day....
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DESIGN
INSPIRE
Marion and Claude focus is creating fresh, unique and beautiful weddings that every couple with any budget would be able to afford
STYLE
CREATE 7
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How it all started.. Marion & Claude noticed a growing niche within the wedding industry to cater
towards this young influx of 20 something couples who have fell in love, want to spend the rest of their lives together, have got engaged but can’t possibly afford the price of weddings now. We saw a gap in the market to cater specifically to each individual couple’s wishes and to encourage them to plan their day together. Marion and Claude has a strong ethos of touching upon elements of the past, our grandparent’s weddings, traditions and bringing weddings back to the main focus being about bringing people together, creating memories and celebrating love.
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Our Mission Our mission is to provide a unique service that helps young, in love 20
something couples to be able to plan a personal wedding tailored to them on a budget that is realistic. We believe that in providing superior customer service, expert knowledge on the industry, fantastic unique suppliers and advice on budgeting, Marion & Claude’s wedding service will be a pleasurable and enjoyable experience for the bride and groom. We believe in working together and providing a platform for new upcoming boutique suppliers within the industry a chance to shine. These fresh unique services that they provide will help our couples archive totally personal elements to their weddings.
Our Objectives 1. To have vigorous sales in the first twelve months of operations. 2. To be the primary one-stop-shop for young couples who want a unique and personal wedding on a budget. 3. Target is to focus on 3 weddings in the first year of operations, then this to go up to 6 weddings a year-by-year 3 of operations.
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Our keys to success 1. To generate and reserve a reputation of being the one-stop-service for 20 something couples to create a unique fresh wedding. 2. Establish a strong referral network among others in the Bridal industry. 3. Provide stellar customer service. 4. Maintain a fresh mix of inventory. 5. Provide exciting, fresh and modern marketing material.
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Inspire Style Design Create
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Industry Analysis
There are over 250,000 weddings annually in the UK and the
average cost of a first wedding is currently £18,000 - £21,000, a figure that has slowly increased by 4% each year for the past 5 years. 88% of couples in the UK pay for the wedding themselves after saving for an average of 1 year. Wedding planners take on average 12.5% of the client’s budget for their services and in the UK in 2013, 10% used a wedding planning service. This figure is very low compared to the amount of weddings there are every year in the UK. Wedding planners are an expense that most couples simply cannot afford, this is where Marion & Claude fill the gap in the industry, in providing guidance to couples with realistic budgets.
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Research
According to the Office of National
Statistics in 2012, the provisional number of marriages in England and Wales increased by 1.7% to 243,808 in 2011. The greatest number of these marriages were for men and women aged 25 to 29. The male marriage rate remained at 22.0 marriages per thousand unmarried man aged 16 and over. For women the rate decreased to 19.8 per thousand unmarried woman aged 16 and over, from 20.0 in 2011. Civil ceremonies accounted for 70% of all marriages that took place in 2012, an from 64% in 2001.
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According to The Uk Wedding show, 86% of
couples are now living together before they are getting married. This tells Marion & Claude that couples are starting to build their lives together prior to their wedding day. This makes us believe that couples wedding days should be a fun celebration of their love, that is affordable, so it doesn’t hinder the couple building their lives together further.
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Focus Groups
We at Marion & Claude have carried out our own research on our target
market. This research includes questionnaires, focus groups and interviews. In this research we have found that engaged couples between the ages of 18 to 29 think that the 4 most important qualites of a wedding are love, intimacy, personality and loved ones. Out of the 30 couples we asked, these were the most popular answers, which tells Marion & Claude that young couples focus is on creating a unique wedding.
29% of the 30 couples we asked said that their realistic budget would be in between £5000 and £10,000. Which is below half the average wedding budget of £21,000.
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Marion & Claude also held a focus group to discover the thoughts and
opinions of our target market generation. This focus group was made up of 10 females and males aged between 20-28, all participants were not engaged but 6 were in a relationship. This was interesting to discover what thoughts 20+ adults have on marriage, how it should be and how much they cost. Here were some of the key points they highlighted:
“Something that people feel like they have to do to prove their love”
Lana, 24 Student
“A massive memorable milestone in your life! should be full of love and happiness” Charlotte, 27. Student
“Intimacy should be key” Christie, 20. Student
“Should be something for the two of you, not everyone else” Siobhan, 20. Student “Feeling beautiful while you vow to spend the rest of your lives together, should be a partnership” Laura, 21. Student
“Celebration of the two of you, should be unique and personal” Ella, 20. Student “Cute and full of love"
Charlotte 21 student
“There’s pressure to have the best flowers, venue, food but really the important element is the atmosphere” Sam, 21 Student “ I would want to be able to do everything together with my partner. Plan and afford everything. Just us.” Matt, 20 Student
“Weddings are so expensive!” Jack 23. Student
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Interviews Laura & Ryan: Engaged June 2013 “100% we would be married sooner if it wasn’t the fact that it costs so much, we will have to wait until we have found a house to live in first and then save, we’re talking years! Realistically our budget would be £5000 if we had it tomorrow but that it simply not enough!” Ryan, 23. “I think couples would benefit from a service specialising in modern young weddings, as it is difficult for someone young to know where to start with so many things to do”. Laura, 22.
Sophie & Eddy: Engaged November 2013 “I dont think I’d like to splash out on a huge fancy wedding, I’d love a cute smaller scale wedding that would be personalised and taliored to myself and my partner.” Sophie, 21. “It would be very refreshing for a place to go to that was unique and focused purely on the couples personalities rather than selling alot of the same generic wedding flower, dresses ect.” Eddy, 25.
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Shell & Shane: Engaged September 2012 “I do feel the pressure, we’ve been engaged for over a year now, I’d love to get married but I know we just cant afford it” Shell, 20. “Specifically we’d want quite a small wedding with close family and friends, nothing dramatic or over the top. So I think if a intimate wedding could be offered within a cheap package it’d be perfect and we’d be more inclined to get married.” Shane, 22.
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Vassia & Keir: Married June 2013 “I felt the pressure of the cost quite a lot although our wedding was very low key and small. I also noticed that every time I was mentioning the word wedding the cost went up...” “It was stressful to book everything on my own and it would have been much better to have someone to help me with everything because at the end I missed some small details” “I definitely agree about focusing on love and not the dress and everything. At the end of the day it was the happiest day of my life and I didn’t even wear a wedding dress!” Vassia, 26.
Mae & Kaue: Married July 2013 “Money wasn’t such a big issue because of our faith we knew God would provide us with the right amount we needed. People who were friends with my parents gave us money as a blessing towards it. My dad helped a lot financially and mum helped me with decorations, Kaue’s parents helped with the wedding and our honeymoon. We just had what we needed and it turned out great on the day, we did it on £3,000.” Mae, 21.
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“It would be very refreshing for there to be a place to go to that specialises in unique elements and focuses purely on the couple’s personalities” Eddy, 25.
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Our Brand Ethos
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One thing that we at Marion & Claude feel passionately about is creating
beautiful lifetime memories that are cherished year after year. Memories and what we remember about certain events in our lives make up who we are and stay with us through-out our lives. A wedding day is one of these life time events where special memories are made. Marion & Claude researched into this by asking young and old married couples what their favorite wedding memory was. We would like to share these with you, here are a few on these pages........ These memories are so special to Marion & Claude as we aim to create the best memories for our clients, the type of memories that are still cherished even after 50 years of marriage.
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Competition & Buying Patterns
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There are currently over 100 wedding planning companies in Greater
London, however, the primary focus of most of these services are to provide for a larger scale budget that is possible for the minority not majority. Marion & Claude would provide towards the majority of clients that have a realistic budget to spend on their wedding day. Stripping it back and creating a wedding full of love and creating memories surrounded by personal elements, that have been hand designed and created with love, fresh, new, unique weddings with a twist on the traditional ceremony. Establishing a reputation for having an original, creative and inspiring ideas for personal wedding filled with personality and the focus being on the love of the couple and the celebration of the life they are starting together. With the look and feel of the website and promotional material following these company objectives. Statistics show that wedding planning and organising can be an extremely worrying and stressful time for couple, having a one-stop-service where all will be provided for the couple to utilise or if they would desire, us to take over this stress and be able to provide one place where they consume from.
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Our Services Inspire
Marion & Claude will have four different
wedding services packages which will help cater to all couple’s unique needs. Inspiration service: This will include a 3-hour inspiration session where we meet the couple in the very early stages of their engagement. This is to help inspire the couple. As a part of this package couples will receive written up notes from the meeting, a mood board to help them get inspired and suggestions of unique suppliers that we feel will suit the couples personality.
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MOODBOARD
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supplier suggestions
SOPHIE & LIAM
Written up notes Wedding Detials When – June 2015 Where – Countryside, hometown of Halesowen, West Midlands Style/Theme – Spring, fresh, pretty. Venue – Barn/outside/marquee Colour Scheme – pale yellows, greens, coral and grey. Flowers – yellow and cream gerberas Dress – white, short, lace dress Suit – cream with coral tie
Music - Live singers
Budget - £8,000 Size - day 200 - night extra 100
DIY elements - Stationary - Decoration
Ceremony – barn Décor – Flowers down the aisle – Flowers at the front and back of the barn – All white seating – Lite up with fairy lights
Reception Décor - All white tables and seating - Fairy lights and bunting - More flowers displays - Lace Lanterns and paper pom-poms - Drapes - Large balloons for outside the barn, yellow and white. Food/Drinking - Pink lemonade - Freshly made Cocktails - Desert table station - Sit down 3 course meal
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Design
Design service: This service will provide the couple with a fully designed guide to style the whole of their wedding in the theme they desire. This guide will cover all decorative elements and personal touches as well as supplier and product suggestions. This will provide couples with a time saving style guide to the look and feel of their day. This service will save the couple the time and effort of looking for exactly what they want - we provide them with this information to then go ahead with and arrange for their day.
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Reception Sketch
Create Co-ordination service: This service includes our help in the organisation and co-ordination of creating your wedding day. We help with the planning and budgeting of your day so you don’t have to worry. In the final few weeks in the lead up to the wedding, we will make sure that everything is running smoothly and that everything is in check for your day. We will liase with your suppliers, finalise details, confirm timings and ensure nothing is overlooked.
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Timings
BuDgeting
Mock up Time table: 1:30pm: Guests to arrive
2:00pm: Wedding Ceremony 2:30pm: Photos 4:00pm: Wedding breakfast & speeches 6:00pm: Boat ride 7:30pm: Evening guests arrive 8:00pm: First dance 8:30am: Breakfast with newly weds and guests that stayed the night.
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Style
Complete styling and planning service: This service is everything from start to finish. We will help you throughout the entirety of planning your wedding. This will start with an inspiration session, which will then lead to mood board designs for the look and feel of the wedding. We will contact the suppliers, co-ordinate the day, and design and style the aisle and the venue, be there on the day and take care of anything else you desire. This service will be limited on the number of weddings we take on a year, so couples will have to contact us for availability. The prices of these services will greatly vary depending on each client’s needs. Fees for the full complete styling and planning service will generally be based on 10% of the client’s total budget. Minimum fee applies.
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Designing
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Unique Elements
To stand out from our competition within
the Bridal industry, and to be able to provide a new kind of wedding service for young couples; Marion & Claude have got to have unique services that not only fill the gap in the market but are also exciting, new and inspiring. One of these unique elements is DIY. Personalised weddings are becoming more and more popular for 2014 and according to TheKnot.com, 2015 bride and grooms shall continue to weave a personal thread through their weddings, making their style true to who they are. What better way to add truly unique elements to a wedding than making them yourself! Yes, the quality may be a little less but the memories made whilst creating them also add to your day.
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DIY
Marion & Claude’s DIY inspiration will
mainly be featured on the blog part of the website. This will include images and step-by-step instructions of how to create the item. DIY top tips and ideas shall range from food and drink ideas, to decorative and stationary ideas. The blog will act purely as an inspiration for DIY projects. Marion & Claude feel strongly about the DIY part of the company, as we understand that this idea matches not only trends within the Bridal industry for the next year, but also is a very successful way to keep the wedding budget down - which is essentially what Marion & Claude is all about.
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GUESTS Companies within the Wedding industry with the same focus on DIY as
Marion & Claude will be asked to feature on our blog. This will encourage a wider range of DIY ideas and will also open the viewer’s eyes to other DIY possiblities from Style Me Pretty and Wedding Chicks which Marion & Claude would closely work with.
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Unique Elements Another element of Marion & Claude that will be unique to the wedding industry is our Advice and Top Tips section of the website. This page shall be updated weekly with interviews from a range of different industry experts including bloggers, suppliers, planners and stylists. They will all offer advice on lastest wedding trends, how to keep the cost of your wedding down and tips about the do’s and don’ts when planning a wedding.
Interviews and advice will also be uploaded from real weddings and real couples, so that Marion & Claude’s readership can read about couples that have been in the same position as them and what they would advise. We at Marion & Claude feel that this is a great way for our couples to get inspired and learn from others in a fun and personal way.
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INTERVIEWS Here are a few upcoming industry experts to be featured on our interview page in May 2014....
Charley Beard Wedding Planner . Blogger . Stylist
Jac & Katie Supplier
Kristen Butler Wedding Stylist
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Kiki has been working in the event industry for 15 years.
Kiki Boonwaat
Her creative background in photography and illustration has always helped with her keen eye for anything inspiring and unique. Kiki now owns Chosen, a boutique wedding fair company, and puts on wedding shows all over London every season. She has a passion for discovering suppliers within the industry who are creative and a little different to the rest.
Here is an example of what one of the advice interviews shall look like....
1. What advice would you give a young couple who would like a wedding totally unique to them? Kiki Boonwaat Wedding Fair Organiser
I would fully recommend just having a look around to see whats available and what feels right to you. A wedding is a really personal mark in someones life so I believe it’s really important that it should reflect things that really appeal or feel fit well to your personalities. Every wedding should be as unique as you are!
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2. How would you get around 3.Where would you suggest to find wedding inspiration? a limited budget? e.g. DIY things, family and friends help etc..
Getting around a limited budget can be tricky, but as a fan of lists I think it’s best to make a note of all of the factors that you would like to include, and then mark which are more important to you then allocate your budget appropriately. You will be surprised how willing your friends and family may be to help you DIY many factors. One thing I do feel strongly about though is having a good photographer to help you capture those memories.
I’m a really big fan of Pinterest and Instagram! But have a chat with someone! I know it can be rather daunting looking at where to start with so many options around but if you find something you like, contact the maker, they may be able to help you find one item that could guide the whole plan or colour scheme.
4.What would you say is the most useful way to plan a wedding?
I think that’s quite personal - it really depends because some people really arent list makers! If you have the budget hire a wedding planner - they dont have to be expensive, nor do they have to plan the whole wedding, but they can help you keep track of whether everything is in place for the big day. Alternatively, a combination of pins, lists and mum to help seems to work well!
Favourite supplier? - EEP!! too many to choose from! Favourite colour scheme? - Spring colours Favorite theme? - Contemporary vintage 3 words to sum up your wedding day? Fresh, fun, fusion. To always remember? Make memories!
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Mae& Kaue
Mae: 21 Kaue: 23 Date of wedding: 24th August 2013 Style/Theme: Country, Vintage, Handmade Size: 200 intimate Location: Kent, Surrey Budget: £3,000
Amy : What was the style and theme of your wedding? Did you say shabby chic? Mae : Yeh it was like country and vintage together. Kaue wanted country and I was like, well I want vintage, so we mixed it together. Amy : I love that handmade element. That’s what Marion & and Claude will be all about.
Mae : Yeh I realised that there is so many things in the industry that you can make yourself – for so much cheaper than what they charge. I handmade a lot of my wedding. We handmade our invites, we just did them on InDesign and then got them printed, they only cost £50 including the printing. Amy : Ok so for your venue, you had it at the church didn’t you? Mae : Yes, we had both the ceremony, the party and the meal at the church. It was massive so we just did it all there. It was raining on the day so we were grateful that it was in just the one building. Nothing was going to stop me though, I didn’t mind that it was raining I was just having fun. We did want a marquee but they are so expensive so we just stuck with the church.
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“I wanted to get married because I wanted to be with him, yeah I have my faith but if I wanted to build my life with him I wanted to do it the healthy way.” Mae
“Most of my wedding was handmade, it probably looked shabby chic. But my Mum’s really good at crafts so she helped loads” Mae “I also wore my Mum’s wedding dress, It just made sense, because of the sentimental value. And to see my nans face when she saw me walking down the aisle” Mae “Me and Kaue wanted to spend money for the marriage not the wedding” Mae
Amy : What advice would you give a newly engaged couple? Mae : Don’t go into it thinking that it is going to make a relationship better, you’re going to have more arguments, you going to be stressed about money because you are sharing it. But don’t let that be discouraging just know that its not going to fix problems. It makes you stronger together, because you’re one. Amy : What could you have not spent as much on? Mae : Flowers, also I wish I didn’t have to spend so much money on the church, I wish it was cheaper. I wish it was free, but no, we had to pay £500. Decorations too, we made too much. Amy : What could you have spent more on? Mae : There is this beautiful barn conversion by me in my hometown and it’s beautiful with birds and swans. With a carousel fitted in. That would have been my dream wedding venue. It’s gorgeous there. Amy : Finally what 3 things would you say to a young couple like yourselves getting married? - Do it on your terms, don’t do it because your parents want you to or your friends want you to, do it because you both want too and you feel peace in your heart about it. - Do it for the right reasons. Do it out of love, and you feel like it’s the right step for you. - And finally make sure you stick to your own personality and style.
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Vassia& Keir
Vassia: 26 Keir: 23 Date of wedding: 14th June 2013 Style: Small intimate, casual Size: 15 intimate Location: Islington, London Budget: £1,000
Vassia : Our wedding was on the 14th June 2013. We didn’t really have a theme, it was a small intimate wedding, it was very minimum and casual. Very informal. It was in the Islington town hall and then we had a small dinner afterwards at the Angler in London. I think it was around 15 people. That was for both the dinner and ceremony.
And we didn’t really have a budget, the wedding was small so it was manageable so we didn’t really have to plan. I feel like when you have a small wedding you don’t have to plan as much. Amy : When planning your wedding what was the most difficult for you? Vassia : Finding a venue was the most difficult I think, for the dinner, it was hard to find a restaurant that would hold 15 people, because they either didn’t have the space or didn’t take reservations for more than 10 people.
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Amy : Did you feel the pressure to get married soon after you got engaged? “I thought I could manage because it was such a small wedding but I could of done with some help definitely, you miss little things” Vassia
Vassia : I didn’t actually get engaged, everything happened so fast. We decided really quickly, we decided in April and we got married in June. I always thought that if I ever get married it would be like that, I wouldn’t think about it a lot, I would just know.
“I always thought that if I ever get married it would be like that, I would think about it a lot, I would just know.” Vassia
Amy : I like that though there’s no need for the massive run up sometimes.
“Well we didn’t really have one, we didn’t really have one, the wedding was small so it was manageable so we didn’t really have to plan” Vassia
Amy : What could you have not spent as much on?
“We also had a brunch before the wedding at home with friends to help us relax...we were quiet nervous.” Vassia
Vassia : Yeh, we had only been together a year before we got married, I just always knew that was going to happen. It was nice.
Vassia : I’m not sure because we didn’t spend that much money, we could of done the dinner differently, definitely. Amy : What 3 things would you say to a young couple like yourselves getting married? - Take it easy it has to be fun, I got a bit stressed because we didn’t have much time and I regret it now, - I would say to woman not to get frustrated with the men because they don’t want to help with the organising all that much – it’s a common thing. - And stick to your style, your wedding should mirror your personalities, your style, your characters. If it’s different then I think you wouldn’t have fun, you wouldn’t enjoy it.
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Unique Elements In order for us at Marion & Claude to be able to provide unique wedding
services for our couples in helping to create the perfect budget wedding for them, we have a growing team of suppliers that we work closely with. Each of these unique suppliers are fresh to the industry and have the opportunity for couples to place their own personal stamp on. They offer the service for couples to add their own personality and style too. We at Marion & Claude are building up our supplier list to make sure that we are able to provide couples with something that would suit them. All our suppliers believe and support our company ethos and feel as strongly as we do at catering towards young couples with smaller budgets.
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SUPPLIERS
We at Marion & Claude feel strongly in promoting small wedding businesses
that are new to the industry. They are fresh, exciting and are able to supply our couples with something truly unique to the wedding industry. We also look for suppliers that share the same brand ethos as ours, helping to create beautiful, unique and modern weddings that are truly personal to the style of each young couple we work with.
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Market
We at Marion & Claude offer our services to the bride and
Target
groom as a couple. The focus is on the both of them as Marion & Claude is a service specifically catered towards the couple that want a personal unique wedding tailored to them. The company will position itself as an experienced wedding service specialising in fresh, fun, and budget ideas. Unlike most of its competitors, Marion & Claude will be offering a full range of services from inspirational ideas, to creating and designing the whole day for the client. Specifically tailored with the client’s budget in mind. It will be a one-stop-service so this will significantly reduce the customer’s time and effectively make the whole experience more enjoyable. Moreover, by utilising numerous unique supplier contacts that the companies owner has established, Marion & Claude’s clients will be able to pass on discounts to our couples.
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Marketing
Marketing Analysis Summary For the past five years, there has been a significant rise in 20-28 year old females and 25-35 males getting engaged in England and Wales. These figures have increased by 1.7% displaying a significant rise in engagements for this age range. There has also been a significant general decrease in the amount of couples getting married in the past year due to the sheer price of the day. Brides Magazine and The Knot have carried out specific studies that highlight couples worried about how expensive weddings are. Mintel reports also suggest that young couples are intimidated by the wedding industry due to the sheer price of everything. So, it is safe to conclude from these facts that there is a gap in the industry for Marion & Claude to market towards and also a solid customer-base that will increase in the years to come. Marion & Claude unique selling point is that we personally care about the whole experience for the couple, from their engagement to the planning process and then finally their big day. Marion & Claude only focus on a maximum of 3 weddings a year so that our whole attention is on the needs of a specific couple. Our focus isn’t on selling luxury that comes at a price, it is on providing beautiful styling and unique ideas that will create a personal day on any budget.
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MARKET SEGMENTATION There are three major market segments that will be served
by Marion & Claude: bride, groom and their families. It is important to keep in mind that most clients who are using our service are in it for the experience just as much as they are using it to purchase. That means that catering to their desire for ‘fun’ and ‘stress free’, will be just as critical as providing them with desirable wedding planning elements. The growing number of 20-28 year old couples getting engaged creates a sizable market potential for this line of business. A major market segment is represented by the numerous family members and guests that help with and attend the wedding, this will require Marion & Claude to provide a service that will cater too these clients, as well as the main clients being the bride and groom.
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STRATEGY & IMPLEMENTATION SUMMARY Marion & Claude has the distinct advantage of being the wedding service of its kind in its market. Our marketing and sales strategies will emphasise our unique advantages for 20 something couples. •Our bank of unique inspirational ideas for any budget wedding •Our wide range of creative and original suppliers •Our wonderful fresh branding and promotional material Our marketing strategy begins with standard print and online listings in wedding media, and continues through networks of wedding consultants. The suppliers that we work with and suggest to our clients will also market us, so this will generate traffic from over 100 different avenues. Our sales strategy is designed in a way that can be a tailored to each couples budget. Selling the companies service at different levels will enable Marion & Claude to cater to each couple who are on a budget as well as making money ourselves. We will create the atmosphere that makes planning a wedding relaxing and fun. So any worries about budgeting and planning will be relieved from the couple. We will also sell the idea that Marion & Claude is a one-stop-service that will be all the couple needs to plan their big day.
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Marketing Tools
Marion & Claude will use the following mediums for our marketing efforts:
• Website - The Marion & Claude official website (www.marionandclaude.co.uk) shall hold all information about the company, a portfolio, the blog and all links to social media. • Local Wedding Publications – This includes magazines that are used to promote wedding shows and local wedding resource books. • Bridal Consultants – By building relationships with local bridal consultants, we will have a direct referral source. • Social Networks – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pintrest will also act as promotional tools, as social networking is a key part to our target market’s life. This will create interest and also get our name recognised.
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Website Web Plan Summary
MarionandClaude.co.uk will be a home of inspirational ideas, DIY, tips, advice and interviews from an industry professional each week. The website will also include real stories from couples they can relate too. It will act as a promotional tool for Marion & Claude that excites newly engaged couples. The website will also include all information about the company and what we do. All the different services we provide will be on there, how to contact us and also links to our social networking sites.
Website Marketing Strategy The website will be an additional resource for customers who want to be inspired and excited, looking and reading through all the tips, ideas and inspirational talks we will have on there. Visitors to our website will fall into three primary categories: 1. People who want to learn more about our services and what we can do for them. 2. Clients who we are working with. 3. Suppliers that we work with and new suppliers that may want to work with us.
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Blog
One of the main marketing tools for Marion & Claude is the blog which is
located as part of the website. This will be where all DIY projects, inspirational ideas and interviews with industry experts will be. The blog shall be updated every day so that this constant renewal of information shall keep viewers interested and will give them a resason to revisit the blog. Once a blog post is uploaded on to the blog this will automaically send out a Tweet that will notify Marion & Claude social networking users that there is new material. This will promote not only the blog, but the website and the brand itself. Guest blog entries shall be entered every month, this may feature a supplier, an industry expert or a real wedding. This will keep the blog material fresh and exciting as it will be from a different voice to the Marion & Claude team.
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Hello..
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Here are a few examples of the type of blog
posts that shall be published. Each time a blog post is written it is automatically uploaded onto our Twitter feed and the main images from the post shall also be uploaded onto the Marion & Claude Instagram page. This will help publicise the blog so there will more traffic to it. There is also the option for viewers to comment on each of the blog posts so this will also create a forum style section on the blog where viewers can discuss and share ideas also.
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Marketing Material Business Cards :
Marion & Claude ...Home of beautiful, fresh, unique wedding styling...
Business cards for the company shall look like these images to the left. They will be used to help promote the company. These will be given out if Marion & Claude attend a wedding fair or show within the industry; this will help make contacts and also attract potential clients. The business cards shall also be given out to our suppliers so this sets up a direct recommendation service with the suppliers we work with. They will also be placed into client packs that couples receive with all of the wedding services. These will help promote the company to attain clients, contacts and press attention to successfully market Marion & Claude in the Bridal industry.
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Advertisement Postcards : A5 Postcards will also be used to promote Marion & Claude. There will be 3 different variations of the postcard and a little more information about Marion & Claude on the reverse. They will serve the same purpose as the business cards, but shall have a little more information about the company on, as well as contact details. These postcard designs shall also be the design for the print advertisements in local wedding publications.
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Watermark : This smaller watermark of the Marion & Claude logo shall be for supplier’s websites. This smaller design will be easy for the supplier to place on their website without taking over the look of their site. The watermark is eye catching but at the same time subtle. This watermark can also be placed on to adverting on bridal blogs. As these advertisements have to be certain measurements this design should in keep with the requirements of the site. This is just another way for Marion & Claudes to get noticed in the bridal industry.
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Social Media
Pinterest is rapidly becoming one of the most successful and
popular social networking sites. 80-97% of Pinterest users are women, and wedding planning is one of the top uses for Pinterest. Pinterest generates 4x more revenue (per click) than Twitter and 27% more per click than Facebook. With 80% of total Pinterest pins being repinned, the chances of your image being seen by a substantial amount of people is highly likely. Pinterest have also recently introduced a business account where businesses can reep the full benefits of the site. They will offer the option to purchase advertising and sponsor pins to promote your business even more effectively. Pinterest buyers spend more money, more often, on more items than any of the other top 5 social media sites. This makes Pinterest a vital marketing platform for Marion & Claude. It’s perfect in reaching out to our target market and also a brilliant platoform for us to spread our inspiration and creativity.
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Boards shall include: - DIY - Decor - Clothing Inspiration - Themes - Colour Schemes - Table Ideas - Budget Ideas - Seasonal Trends - Family & Friends - Photo Inspiration - Beauty & Hair - Male Grooming - Stationery - Flowers - Favours - Types of Weddings - Venues Marion & Claude’s main focus is to be creative and inspirational when planning a wedding. Pinterest shall be a platform where this shall be mediated towards our target market, shared and loved.
INSTAGRAM Instagram is one of the most popular photo sharing social
networking sites. There are 200 million monthly active users worldwide and a total of 1.6 billion likes and 60 million photos shared every day. Instagram can now calculate your love rate, talk rate and spread rate through Statigram which is very useful for businesses that use Instagram. This unables the user to identify who is liking your images, recently visiting and who is commenting and sharing them. The #hashtag is readily becoming one of the easiest ways to share and promote an image. This instantly groups together all images with the same hashtag as your own so a wider group of people are able to see them.
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Instagram is also introducing new ways in which you can promote your profile, through other social media sites, follow buttons on your website/blog and photo gallery widgets. These all add to the circulation of your Instagram photos and help new people see and interact with them. This makes Instagram a very useful marketing tool for Marion & Claude. It is mainly used by our target market, 20-29 year old female and males, who spend on average 1 hour on the app a day and check their newsfeed at least 5 times a day.
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platforms that Marion & Claude will use. Twitter is a quick efficient way to market to suppliers, clients and possible advertisers. Twitter can also be a way for Marion & Claude to reach out to our target market as this is the generation that use social networking the most. Marion & Claude shall tweet about:
- Recent updates - Inspirational images/ideas/suppliers - When we upload a new blog post - When suppliers have news or new products - Competions or offers
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Twitter shall be one of the main social networking
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Sales Strategy 1. A client will contact Marion & Claude enquiring for our help, we will offer them a consultation time, which will last for 2 hours. This will take place in our London studio. This will be a time for the client to meet us and for us to discuss what it is exactly they need our help with, and what level of service they require. This consultation will require a small fee.
2. Once the clients have chosen which service they require from Marion & Claude a deposit fee will be required before the planing and creating goes ahead. A discussion about their budget will determine how much of a deposit this will be. 3. Marion & Claude will then go ahead with which ever service the client chooses and then when the wedding is complete the company shall take 10% of their budget starting price. 4. Sales goals will be set for each year to be completed.
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Swot analysis
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A strength of Marion & Claude is that it fills a gap in the industry and caters towards young couples wanting to get married that don’t have a large budget. It also provides a platform for new suppliers to grow within the industry. A weakness of Marion & Claude is that it is a new business going into the industry, that has different services. There are a lot of wedding service companies that provide a luxury service that comes at a large price. Whereas, Marion & Claude’s services wouldn’t have the same level of luxury as one of our main focuses is making it affordable for the couple.
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A opportunity for Marion & Claude is to be completely unique in the Bridal industry and to stand out for helping to create unique, personal weddings that are full of love, style and personality. Marion & Claude hold the key to unleash a new style of wedding that the industry has never seen before.
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A threat to the company would be for more esstablished wedding planning services in the industry creating a sister company to their own which would cater to budget weddings. This would be a threat to Marion & Claude as couples would see that they are able to create luxury on any budget.
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Future Plans Initially, Marion & Claude website will be developed with few technical
resources. A log-in feature may then be installed to the website where clients that we are working with are able to log-in, store ideas and write notes that we at Marion & Claude can also see. This would act as a more visual way of us and our clients keeping inspired and in contact. A Marion & Claude supplement shall also be a future development for the company. This shall be released seasonally and will act as an inspirational guide for that specific season. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter editions will be distributed as an added free magazine with Brides Magazine.
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Executive Summary In conclusion Marion & Claude will aim to become the go to wedding service
within the Bridal industry, for 20 something couples who want a unique and personal wedding day. We aim to become known for our beautiful styling that is achieved with any couple’s budget and we will take pride in the fact that we will help celebrate each couple’s unique style and personality. Our unique elements will become the go to place for inspiration and advice on how to create the perfect budget wedding. As well as this, we will hopefully fill the gap in the Bridal industry and cater towards young couples with smaller budgets.
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Biblography The research and statistics that are featured through this book are all from the list of sources below : Page 13/14 - Industry Analysis All statistics and information found on this page is from www.bridesmagazine.co.uk January 2013 ‘Lets talk Money’ article. UK National Statistics Marriages in England & Wales Report 2011. BBC News Feb 2014 ‘Wedding Budget’ article. Page 15/16 - Reaseach All statistics and information found on this page is from UK National Statistics Marriages in England & Wales Report 2011 and TheUKWeddingShow.co.uk, article ‘Wedding Stats’, Nov 2013. Page 17/18 - Focus Group All information on this page is owned and founded by Marion & Claude own primary research. Page 37/38 - Unique Elements DIY All statistics and information found on this page is from www.Theknot.com.
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Page 59/60 - Marketing All statistics and information found on this page is from Mitel reports, 2013/2014. And the UK National Statistics Marriages in England & Wales Report 2011. Page 77/78 - Pinterest All statistics and information found on this page www.marketingland.com, Jan 2014 & www.socialmediatoday.com Oct, 2013. Page 83/34 - Instagram All statistics and information found on this page is from www.instagram.com/press/ & the Instagram Press Pack 2013. Page 85/86 - Twitter All statistics and information found on this page is from www.socialbakers.com 2014.
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Thanks&
We at Marion & Claude would like to personally thank the following for all their help in creating this book :
Acknow
Marion & Claude Faulkner Teresa Havvas - University for the Creative Arts Epsom Isabella Holt - Model in all the featured editorial imagery Siobhan Turner - Photography on the featured editorial imagery Laura & Ryan Sophie & Eddy Michelle & Shane Mae & Kaue Vassia & Keir
}
All engaged couples
} All married couples
We would also like to thank everyone that helped us carry out our primary research, including everyone that took part in both our ‘Budget Wedding Day’ and ‘Your Dream Wedding’ questionnaires. Also everyone that took part in both of our focus groups.
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wledgements Featured Imagery : Marion & Claude Our couples : - Laura & Ryan - Sophie & Eddy - Michelle & Shane - Vassia & Keir - Mae & Kaue
Real Couples : - Kiran & Aman - Isabella & Herbie - Laura & Ryan - Lauren & Josh - Danielle & Shaun
Suppliers : - Eagle Eyed Bride - Peach Blossom - Emma Bunting - Meringue Girls - Flowers by Eve - Elinor Rose - Marshmellow Apothacary Contributors : - Kiki Boonwaat for Chosen Boutique Wedding Fair - The Real Photography - Style Me Pretty - Wedding Chicks
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Designed & Written by Amy Elizabeth Whitehouse