Scrolling TikTok on Company Time! Live Panel Q&A at Coolibah Downs Private Estate

Welcome to Episode 59  of the Wed.Co Podcast. Today, Toga sits down with Mandi from ⁠Ivy and Bleu⁠ and Alina from ⁠Coolibah Downs Private Estate⁠ for a live panel discussion about trends in the Wedding Industry and how we see 2025 evolving.

In this conversation, Mandi discusses the evolution of the Wedding Collective, emphasizing the importance of networking, community building, and adapting to current trends in the wedding industry. We highlight the challenges faced by vendors, particularly in relation to budgeting and client expectations, and stresses the need for cohesive collaboration among wedding professionals.

The discussion also delves into effective social media strategies, particularly the shift towards TikTok, and the significance of branding and marketing in today's competitive landscape.

In this conversation, the speakers discuss the evolving landscape of social media and its impact on the wedding industry, particularly focusing on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. They explore the effectiveness of Meta ads for client acquisition, the importance of Google advertising, and the challenges of balancing retail and event marketing.

The discussion also highlights the significance of outsourcing content creation and the role of education in improving marketing strategies.

Takeaways

• Open days are not just about sales; they're about networking.
• Building relationships with vendors is crucial for success.
• Floral trends are shifting back to more budget-friendly options.
• Venues need to adapt their aesthetics to current trends.
• Collaboration among vendors enhances the overall client experience.
• Social media presence is essential for modern wedding businesses.
• Meta ads can significantly boost visibility and bookings.
• Branding should reflect the unique identity of the business.
• TikTok is becoming an important platform for reaching younger clients.
• Social media habits are changing, especially among younger demographics.
• Intentional content creation is crucial for engagement.
• TikTok serves as a powerful subliminal marketing tool.
• People are more likely to book vendors they feel a connection with.
• Google advertising remains relevant despite the rise of social media.
• Outsourcing can enhance efficiency in content creation.
• Team dynamics play a vital role in successful marketing efforts.
• Prioritizing marketing efforts is essential for business sustainability.

Your support enables us to bring more enriching conversations and insights to both engaged couples and wedding professionals.  

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(00:22):
It might seem small, but it makes a huge difference in helping the podcast grow and meansI can keep bringing on amazing vendors and couples to share their insights with you.
I'm not gonna in too much about wedding collective.
But I do, like some of you were in it, some of you were out of it.
For me, I think having done what I've done for 12 years, I've been a part of Tweed CoastWeddings in particular, since its conception.

(00:46):
The owners are very good friends of mine.
I've also been a part of Scenic Room Bride.
And I've done open days and I've done directories and I've not done open days and I've notdone directories.
And I think for me,
When Lauren originally announced that she was shutting down Wedding Collective, it reallystruck something in me because I see so much of what it could be.

(01:07):
And I think a huge thing, particularly for florists, there's quite a few of us here in theroom, I think it's really hard for, you know, florists, for caterers, for people, venues.
There's huge costs that are associated with these open days and sometimes I think that weget really disheartened because you go to an open day and you think, you know, even just
your time on a Sunday, right?

(01:29):
And you go to these open days and you go, I didn't really make any sales or in a week ortwo weeks or three weeks afterwards.
I didn't, I don't really feel like I got anything from it.
And I think my philosophy has always been from my experience is that it's not necessarilyfirstly, sales are really hard to track unless you're specifically asking every bride,
like a bride
might have seen you on, they might have had a venue recommend you and then they've seenyou at an open day and then they've seen your Instagram come, like your reels come into

(01:56):
their feed.
So you might not necessarily find out exactly where they've pinpointed you, but if you'reconsistently in their view, they're more inclined to be able to actually book you or reach
out and contact you.
So my thing for open days has not been necessarily about tracking the exact sales that I'mgetting for it.
It's actually more for me being about networking, getting to know venues, buildingrelationships with venues.

(02:20):
My strength has always been actually my relationship with vendors.
Like I just, I have built so many amazing friendships and
I've been doing this, that when I'm doing an open day, I'm actually there to network asmuch as I am to actually meet clients and build direct sales.
I'm also there to utilise it as an opportunity to do a styled shoot.

(02:42):
We were talking earlier about styled shoots and for us at Ivy and Blue, have aphotographic bank imagery of about 42,000 photos, like I've been doing this a while.
So we don't really need to do styled shoots anymore, but we do need to consistently beable to
put out to our clients the type of work that we want to do.
So we utilize open days instead of paying money to go and do styled shoots, we use it as anetworking opportunity, we use it as an opportunity to build imagery and we use it as an

(03:12):
opportunity to be able to get to know a venue and a venue to know us.
So I think one of my biggest things when I took over Wedding Collective was to try andbuild a community of people that it's a common goal and if doesn't, if open days don't
work for
that's totally okay.
We are aiming with Wedding Collective, it's going to kind of be a little bit more of afaceless brand, like obviously with Ivy and Blue, it's literally all of our faces all the

(03:39):
time.
With Wedding Collective, I actually want it to be all of your faces.
So that's probably why you haven't really seen me put my face on there a lot.
I don't plan on doing it or putting my voice to it a lot.
If anything, it'll be these girls.
But we basically want to build an opportunity so it's going to be the open day,
we have next weekend.
The next one's booked for the 3rd of August.

(04:00):
We have some beautiful venues coming on board.
But our plan is instead of like most directories where it's basically the open day andthen we go silent for six months, our plan is, that every one of these venues, we will
have my beautiful girls going around doing Q and A's with you guys.
What do you want to see?
What's your trend?

(04:21):
What are you selling lots in 2025?
Who's your ideal customer?
And we're going to use that content for the next six months to be able to build andpromote and sell you guys to your target demographic.
So we're kind of building it to be a brand that's more for you guys to get something outof it.
As an Ivy and Blue, obviously our business is styling flowers, planning, stationary,higher education, whatever the content.

(04:48):
creation in the last 12 months.
Our involvement is actually going to be exactly what it's always been.
We literally will do one or two venues, but we're here to support you guys.
So we're super open for feedback.
The people that are a part of next Sunday, I feel a lot of pressure.
I feel a lot of pressure because most of you are my peers that I've worked with for 10,11, 12 plus years.

(05:12):
And I feel a lot of pressure to be able to make your investment and your time in the dayreally beneficial.
So I'm super open to everyone's feedback, whether it's good, whether it's bad.
I really didn't take this business on for it to necessarily be a profit making business.
I actually brought it on because I do feel that the Gold Coast has a need for this.

(05:32):
It works really, really well on the Tweed Coast.
I've literally built my business from Tweed Coast Weddings, I kid you not.
The support that I have had from them and I think that that's kind of the support that Iwant to give to the Gold Coast community.
So we're super open for feedback and what you guys think would work and you know, if youfeel that you have something that you want to share, that's honestly why we've taken this

(05:53):
on board.
So yeah, if you guys have any questions, I don't want to keep going on about it, but it'ssomething that we hope will bring a lot of value to the Gold Coast wedding community.
yeah.
I'm going to pass it over to Stu.
Claudia is actually Miss Wedding Collective, so a lot of the time, if you're actuallyemailing or out on site, it's not usually me, it's usually beautiful Claudia.

(06:18):
So if you guys have any questions throughout the evening when we're finished, hit one ofus up.
The girls are also pretty well-versed.
If you're looking for a discount, don't ask me, ask Claudia.
But I'm going to hand it over to Steve and yeah, if you guys have any questions, let meknow and we hope that it does become something that's a really, really beneficial source
of, you know, directoring community for you guys.

(06:41):
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you, Mandy.
Honestly, thank you so much for taking over the wedding collective as well.
Like to look, when I spoke to Lauren, you know, over the last couple of years, how muchwork she was putting into it.
Like, I don't know how she had time to do what she was doing.
And then when Lauren announced that, was like, pretty much the next day, I was like, shit,I need to take this over.

(07:02):
And then when I heard that you guys were doing that, I was like, this is the best.
Because I, especially because you've already got the team built out, you've got the peoplein place to be able to help build it.
And where it sounds like you want to go with it is exactly what you're saying.
Like, I think the Gold Coast needs
There's so many just pay to play open days where everyone I speak to they're like, yeah, Ijust pay my 600 bucks and I'll book a wedding and whatever.

(07:26):
I think people are looking for a community and looking, they want to be a part ofsomething that's going to grow together.
So yeah, I just think the kind of the aim and where you're going with it, I think isdefinitely the way to go and you're to have a lot of support behind you.
So thank you very much.
Yeah, so thank you Coolbuff for having us here.

(07:46):
So I think we just wanted to kind of have a little bit of an open more like an opendiscussion here like a panel tonight talking about I guess trends that everyone's seeing
at the moment.
what's working in the market currently, what isn't working in the market, like wherepeople are struggling.
And it's kind of, we definitely wanted to kind of take a lead from what everyone aroundhere was actually wanting to hear.

(08:09):
We don't want to just kind of talk at you and you're like, yeah, awesome.
Like we actually want to get ideas of like, okay, you know, it doesn't have to be superspecific, but like where is everyone at the moment?
We had a panel not long ago and with the podcast, it is cool.
get to speak to a lot of, you know, I get to speak to a lot of venues, which is somethingI've never got to speak to.
and a lot of different vendors and there kind of seems to be the same kind of trendscoming with everyone I speak to and so it'd just be really nice to hear where everyone is,

(08:39):
know, is everyone feeling super positive about 25 and just kind of where everyone'sfeeling for this year coming up I guess.
So I guess like trends and everything, you're definitely more the trend person.
That's not my wheelhouse.
Do you want to talk about trends I guess within like Florist Union
installing and everything.

(09:00):
So now I've got my Ivy and blue hat on.
So I think the huge thing for us and it's again, like I love a chat.
I consistently am talking to everyone all the time.
So one of the biggest things that I'm noticing coming through is cost of living, right?
Like that's something that I really want to be open and we are in a room amongst all ofour peers.

(09:21):
So I really want to be able to have an open and honest discussion because I don't knowabout you guys, but the last year has really hurt me as a business.
I feel like we came out of COVID and we always knew
that we were going to have this influx of know COVID postponements and this rush ofeveryone getting married and everything like that and that kind of like the dust settled
on that and I got to a point where I felt a bit safer and I was like this is the newnormal and then like the second half of last year I was like this is fucked.

(09:51):
I was at Alangum doing a speech last week and I couldn't swear at all.
So I feel like you guys are going to get everything that I didn't swear at last week.
Literally, but it was, been really, really hard, right?
And I feel like also too, through COVID, we lost a lot.
I've just moved on from trends and I'm talking about how fucked it is.
But no, I'm leading into where I'm going.

(10:12):
So we lost a lot of vendors through COVID, right?
Like a lot of people shut down that weren't able to survive.
But then we also have gained this new realm of, my God, I got
and now I'm going to be a wedding planner and yada yada yada, which is fine, but we've gotthis whole new influx.
And it feels like to me, there just doesn't seem to be as much work as there waspreviously.

(10:32):
So I feel like in a lot of the trends that we're seeing from a floral point of view, like2023, like Sarah, Riley, like we were in stalls, everything was in stalls and we were
doing all these crazy things.
for you guys to get an idea of an installation, for example, we make really good profitoff.
something like that.
So as a business, there are things that we don't make profit of and there's things that wemake a really good profit.

(10:57):
So where we're not making profit off specific things like bouquets, we would then make upfor it on installations.
And in the last six to 12 months, all of that, like the trim, right, like the fat on thepiece of steak has completely disappeared.
So I feel like it's really, really important with where the trends are going is we'regoing back to 2017, 2018, where everything was like foliage table runners down the tables.

(11:21):
because that's it, that we could forage it.
It's all people could really afford.
And I feel like we're kind of going back into that era at the moment.
So the trends that we're seeing with all of our bookings and all of our quotations thatwe're doing is we'll see people spend really good money still on like a big statement
piece.
So we're trying to be really, really clever in kind of taking our budgets and going, allright, well, let's invest three, four, five thousand dollars.

(11:46):
I'm not sure if you guys are aware of how much flowers cost.
I think it's really
really important to note that when you see like us do these big floral installations,that's probably four to $5,000, right?
Huge money.
So we're kind of taking a lot of our trends in terms of, rather than focusing on like allof these little beautiful table details, because we can't do installs, let's do a really,

(12:09):
really bougie ceremony.
And then let's repurpose that for the reception.
So that's kind of where we're seeing a lot of like floral and styling.
It's not to say that we don't still have the clients come through that
that are doing really beautiful laden tables and French linen cloths and cutlery and stufflike that.
We are utilising a lot of our trendy weddings, so we'll generally go through and pick,like if we have a really beautiful bride and they've got a relatively good budget and

(12:39):
there's a good photographer on board, there's a good videographer on board, there's a goodvenue, we'll actually go and change the trend to what we want the trend to be and we'll
throw in tablecloths or we'll be like,
and we'll be like, my God, I've got this gorgeous planning client and I think it looks somuch better with gold coloury.
It's not costing us anything.
So we're investing a lot of our time at the moment at looking at like, where do we wantthe trend to be versus where is the trend right now and utilising the weddings that we

(13:06):
have to build imagery.
yeah, trends I think at the moment are very money based is my outtake from that.
It's not necessarily about like the colour palette that's on trend or the style that's ontrend because everyone's taking everything back.
like what do we have the money for the trend to be?
And that's really paired back at the moment.

(13:26):
Yeah, what's your thoughts?
I think similarly as a venue, we've definitely noticed a shift.
We generally try to offer like a base styling package inclusive with our clients, likewhen they book a wedding here.
So generally we tried to just, we had to figure out like, okay, what is it that...

(13:47):
you know, cost of living, what do people want to spend on what they don't want to spendon.
But then also sometimes we do also throw in our suggestion of like, okay, we know this isgoing to look better, but again, we'll throw it in because, know, we'll move things around
or slightly give them a different setup because we know that, you know, we want the trendto be slightly different.
but we try to provide them like the base package of, I guess the basic linens and whatnot.

(14:10):
And obviously we've got amazing stylists around and
lovely vendors where we can say, but if you want the upgrade, this is, you know, whatyou're going to get, and it's going to be completely different look.
And we try to be transparent with that.
And so, but then we have to just make sure our packages again, just geared towards, okay,what is the base minimum as to what you want to create a base look?

(14:30):
And obviously if you want to add onto that, then
go ahead, but again, it is very budget based.
And I find that with venues, we really had to look at how do we diversify, I guess, ourincome a little bit more in terms of like, with our venue, usually people who come to us
will bring a big family because we have the capacity.

(14:52):
So we started looking at, okay, what are different accommodation options and whatnot.
Again, that will, I guess, suit towards the client.
it's just...
giving, building a really good base package for them to build upon and then after thatthey can figure out, okay, what extra can I add to that and if I want to create a really
different look, how do I go about that and that's when we can recommend all these, wellour vendors who are, again, the trend, the trendsetters really and the professionals in

(15:16):
that field and we try to like push that over to stylists and florists that can create thatfor them.
When you decided, so obviously with all the renovations that you've done around Cooler Barat the moment, it's super on trend.
Bar, super on trend, like the whole fountain thing dying, we were like obsessing overbuying one ourselves.

(15:38):
Where did you decide that that's the aesthetic that you were gonna go for?
Like when you rebranded and renovated Cooler Bar, what made you decide that this was thetrend you were gonna go down?
How did you find that?
I think with my venue, was a little bit, with Coolabots, a little bit different becauseI'm not dealing with a complete new build.
So there was a lot of pre-existing structures around, which I'm not going to, you know,lot of architects told me to let's just tear it down side again, which is, I think it's

(16:06):
completely impractical.
So I had to work around with what I had in terms of that kind of the homestead currentlyit's got that.
estate, like old estate feel.
So we had to really play on that.
But then again, we wanted to add something a little bit different.
We looked at multiple different color palettes.
I looked at multiple different styles and ultimately I didn't want to just create a stylethat's going to look good for maybe three to four years.

(16:29):
It needed to fit in with the already the structures that are already round and it's morejust like an add on something slightly different.
So once I played around with the palettes and we kind of went for that neutral
and then set that, okay, we have a lot of timber around, we need to follow with that.
So once we kind of figured out, okay, what do we already have and what's actually workingand what style hasn't changed, like this kind of timber neutral palette really hasn't

(16:55):
changed in the last like 20, 30 years or even more.
So once we figured that out and then we could build upon that of like, okay, what extrafeatures do we want to add?
Brass features or some more texture with the bar, with the cladding and whatnot.
sort of that's kind of how I just built along what we had, what was working and thenfigured out what was not working and then sort of deleted that out of the mix.

(17:18):
Which is kind of exactly how we style a wedding.
We look at, okay, this is what the venue is, this is the furniture that we have, theydon't have the money for furniture, so we literally will base layer up and that's
basically actually how we build a trend is in terms of, okay, what is it that we'redealing with, what's the stock that we have, what's the venue and then you just extend on
that.

(17:39):
So say I can only come from like say a photographer point of view or videographer.
So if someone's going to come here and they're going to, guess everyone's dream here as avendor, it's kind of, guess, venue then kind of trickle down to all the rest of the
vendors.
And so they really want to do right by you and they really want to kind of elevate yourproperty so that they get to do more weddings here.
Would you give them any advice before coming here on the day?

(18:01):
You know, you've got these beautiful new renovations.
like, okay, cool.
We really want to highlight this.
We don't want to so much highlight other parts that were here before.
Do you give them advice?
like that to kind of help elevate your brand in the same time elevate themselves as well?
Yes, definitely I think our team is really good with that because we had a lot ofvideographers and photographers that might have been here maybe three years ago and then

(18:24):
once it's renovated they haven't come so my team is really good at you know saying hey canwe get some more photos of this section maybe try not do this bush because it's not
completely built yet.
So we kind of are able to give them advice of like this corner looks great that corner Idon't know about the shadowing not not a hundred percent there.
So we try but we love it when videographers or photographers and they reach out to us toask us these things because it just makes a lot easier.

(18:51):
Actually that's such a talking point that I actually wanted to
back to wedding collective hat, is this co-collaboration.
So that's another thing that we're hugely driving, because I know we all get involved inour, well, my job is the most important job, and I'm doing such and such a favour by doing
this.
So I think it's super, super important, right?

(19:13):
Like when you're coming into a venue or when you're working with a planner or a stylist ora florist or whatever, like everybody's job is super important, and how can we all work
together to elevate that?
Having done this as long as I have, sometimes there can be really uncohesiverelationships.
Like sometimes when I've reached out to a photographer to be like, my god, like I'm doingthis open day and I'm spending two and a half thousand dollars on flowers and a thousand

(19:38):
dollars on staffing, do you think that you could grab me some imagery?
I've actually had quite a bit of pushback on that before.
Clearly not from Steve, because Steve always shoots my stuff.
But I've had photographers be like, yeah, I'll do it for you for 1200 bucks.
And I'm like...
you motherfucker.
So I think it's super important that like everybody's services like particularly with opendays or you know when we're doing a venue catering is another huge one actually like as a

(20:06):
planner.
Give me your food to try, because I can tell you right now, I'm going to recommend you ifI think your food's really good, if your service is really good.
I've been at venues before where the venue has said, I'd love to try that canapé.
And I've had caterers literally snatch the plate out from underneath them.

(20:26):
And I'm like, mate, you are never working here again.
So I think it's super important, that cohesive relationship in terms of if you're goinginto a venue, if we're going into a new venue, we'll be like, hey,
excited to come and meet you after the wedding.
We're like, hey, like, you know, can we do anything?
Is there anything that we can do to help?
It so lovely to work with you.

(20:47):
It's that cohesive relationship.
And yeah, keeping on that point is like.
trying to remember you are running a business.
Like it's so easy to get in your own head and like, this is what I do.
Like emailing or calling a venue two days before to say that, of course they're gonnaremember who you are.
And even like little things like social media, like so many people will do a reel and justbe like, collaborate, you know, instead of like just like five days out, like, hey, I'm

(21:12):
planning to put this out on Monday.
You know, is there any photos you'd like to have for the front cover of the reel?
And just like running it like a business because then they're gonna be like, yep, cool,Monday morning, 8.30, yes, we'll collaborate.
And then all of your stuff's gonna get shared.
rather than doing some photo in front of the bush they don't want photos of and thenthey're like, of course I'm not gonna put that on my Instagram real.
And that makes like, does.
If you get, in like when I used to work a lot in Melbourne, I used to work at five venuesand they used to pass me five or six weddings every single year.

(21:39):
And it was just because of the relationship that I built with them.
And then they would just, they literally send you work.
And everyone here would know the difference between getting a lead from like a meta adversus a venue.
They're not the same.
You know, like, know, one in two from a venue is gonna book you, one in
10 from a meta ads gonna book you.
So it's like just think about it from a business point of view and I know we're all busy.

(22:00):
I know we've got so much stuff to do especially like everyone running their sole businessbut it's just like just maybe even put those processes in place.
Like two days out we contact the venue, we say we're gonna be there.
Same thing like is there anything you want us to highlight?
And they'll be like they're thinking about our venue, how amazing is that?
So it's just it makes such a big difference.

(22:20):
I think it really builds like rapport of, know, we can see, wow, your work ethic is soamazing.
And naturally as a venue, we meet lots of vendors.
it's like, we do want to, we do want to push them because we can tell like the work ethicis there and they want to know what's going to work with our branding.
And, and likewise, we always want to know what's going to work with your branding.

(22:40):
but once it happens once or twice after that, it's pretty much, I think we kind ofunderstand sort of.
where the palette, the tonal palettes are going and it becomes really easy and if youshare anything, it's really easy because we know it's gonna work and whatnot.
Everyone kind of picks it up pretty quickly.
thing.
the whole actually to lead segue into Instagram would be a really good thing.

(23:03):
Because the whole I reckon we probably get maybe four to five people invite us tocollaborate on a post every week.
am really like how Instagram is is our baby effectively like we spend a lot of time andenergy working on it because we do get so much work from it.
And we do have to decline most of them because they don't fit our grid or like the contentisn't organic or whatever it

(23:28):
So I definitely think that like reaching out and having that discussion in advance wouldbe amazing.
Particularly for some businesses like ours, we do try to go through and like map out oursocial media.
So like on our feed, your Instagram feed is effectively your business card.
And I did, I listened to a podcast and the, not the WEDCO one, but everybody shouldlisten.

(23:49):
But it was no, it was actually about social media marketing.
And it was basically saying that in this day and age when we don't give out business cardsanymore, the people,
The first time that someone finds out your business, they won't go to your website, theywill go to your Instagram.
And they will instantly, within the first three seconds, decide if you are or are nottheir person, their brand, their business.

(24:10):
So we are very, very specific in you need to know when they look at your...
your Instagram grid, love Instagram that just turned the mall to portraits the other dayfrom Squares, that you need to be clearly telling a story of what you do.
So we map out our Instagram and we'll try and do like picture of a couple, picture oftable styling, picture of a bouquet.

(24:31):
Like we try and spread it out so you can really clearly see what we do.
So if we then get like, you know, and we've got like three couples next to each other,that really messes with my autism.
So I have to like, I physically can't accept it, will hurt my soul.
So definitely reaching out and being like, hey, when could we do it?
And making sure that it works for all parties.

(24:51):
So,
I think a big trend would be, I'll kind go down the business kind of realm a little bit.
Talking back to like COVID, know, the mass exodus of older kind of crew that have beenaround for 10 years, a lot of new people coming in.
I feel like for me, everyone I've been speaking to, this is the year of people are goingto do really, really well.

(25:13):
And there's going to be a lot of people that do not great at all.
And so I think it's really, couples are looking the difference between I am the businessmyself and I do everything.
versus like I am a small business and we've got the marketing aspect, we've got the ads,we've got everything kind of, and the client experience as well.
So I think it's really kind of stepping up.

(25:36):
We are kind of competing, actually I hate to do this, but this is like a school thing.
How many people do this full-time versus how, okay, so how many people do this full-timeas a business and this is like their full-time gig?
Cool, awesome.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Ivy and Blue is like half of it.
Cool.
So like the difference between like we do this full time.

(25:58):
And so if you're losing jobs to people that do this as a second job on the side, likeisn't acceptable anymore.
Like we've all got, everyone's busy.
know, everyone's got kids, everyone's got family life, everyone's got things going on.
But you really need to be, you can't be just the photographer anymore.
I take pretty photos that won't get you jobs anymore.
Like coming back to the Instagram thing, like you need to have a marketing

(26:20):
plan in place.
You can't just be like epic photo, post.
Like you can't do that anymore.
You need to actually have like systems in place to be able to work I guess.
And people are looking for like an elevated experience with that, yeah with the clientexperience as well.
can't just, yeah if you get a lead from Instagram or whatever, you can't just send anemail and be like hopefully they come back and book me.

(26:43):
It doesn't work anymore.
Everyone's got enough choice.
So think the trend for this year will be you want to be one of the people that does reallywell because there's going to be a few of them and there's going to be a lot of people
that kind of just go to the wayside because they're not elevating their business to kindof keep up.
I think so.
Maybe just that I fully agree.

(27:04):
And I think to add onto that, you also want to be the person that's going to pop up tostay relevant in the customer's mind.
think I think that's really important because it's not that, you know, what you'recreating is not good.
It's just that you're not coming up enough for them to remember whatever the brand isbecause, you know, they don't know who you are at the end of the day in the very
beginning, only until they meet you, they understand your personality and then they'll.

(27:26):
They'll say you want to be able to present that personality, but also pop up in theirminds all the time.
think that's very important.
This is definitely something.
This is one of our strengths.
have to own the fact that we are content whores.
I forget that we're filming this, so you might need to cut majority of what I say.
But we are very, very specific in terms of we will have like a reel of us, a reel of apretty wedding, a reel of us.

(27:50):
So we pop up in your feeds all the time.
And if we don't, I'm about to annoy the shit out of you all.
So we do that because it's a branding technique of ours and that's because we want peopleto be comfortable with who we are.
I spoke about it a lot last week at the Langham.
and I just find it's not everybody's target strategy, but it's worked really, really,really well for us.

(28:12):
And that is literally just putting a face to our brand or a brand story effectively.
So for anybody that arrived bang on four o'clock this morning or this afternoon, you wouldhave seen me and the girls on the ground filming a TikTok being absolute idiots.
And we are very, very specific in where like we've started.

(28:33):
sharing a lot more on TikTok and I'm going to talk quite a bit about that because I feellike there is a massive, massive, massive shift happening at the moment from Instagram to
TikTok and this is the time to be getting on that train.
Like Alina and I were talking earlier about how you might not be getting much engagementon TikTok at the moment but all of the TikTokers, and I know because I birthed a 15 year

(28:53):
old one, all of the TikTokers that when TikTok first started becoming like a really bigthing were like 15, 16, 17, 18.
all of those girls because we know girls are generally booking in the wedding world.
are now 22, 23, 24, right?
So if you're not starting to invest some really good heavy time into TikTok, in a coupleof years, you're gonna be doing yourself a real disservice.

(29:18):
So we're very, very specific about what we share to Instagram.
We will definitely still share like some of our like polished like dancing or like Emmaand did one rolling on the floor of our warehouse this afternoon, being like, here's your
wedding planner for 2025, versus we're a little bit more unhinged on TikTok.
And that is because, that is because I am putting out to the world that I want that typeof clientele, right?

(29:44):
Like that's the clientele I don't want the necessarily like...
There's a couple of different demographics, right?
We don't brand ourselves to the really, really, really high demographic becauseparticularly in Queensland, there is a very, very small amount of high-end weddings that
we get here.
So we market ourselves to like, you know, middle to top sort of like standard, and I'mmarketing to myself.

(30:09):
I wanna get the type of client that I connect with personally, that my girls connect withpersonally.
So we put a lot of who we are personally out there.
And TikTok, honestly, we're just having a little bit of
What we're doing with our TikTok channel at the moment is we are creating the content thatTikTok wants.
TikTok wants really, really raw, really organic, unfiltered, high quality content ofpeople just being silly.

(30:35):
Instagram, we're in the area where you do want to start putting your face a little bitmore to it, but it's still a little bit more polished, right?
It's professional, it's professional imagery, photography, videography, really wellthought out reels, trending audio.
So they're very, very different what you want to market them
to.
So I think it's really, really important in this day and age, if you don't have a reallystrong specific social media plan that you are posting daily to, and you're posting across

(31:02):
a multitude of platforms, the algorithm is really, really clever.
So if you're not posting to your stories, even though our story engagement has droppedlike we used to get,
10,000 plus viewers on our stories every day, religious.
I think we're probably lucky to have like 500 to two and a half thousand story views atthe moment.

(31:23):
Like it's wildly dropped, but Instagram actually penalizes you if you're not still postingto your stories.
So it's really, really important to have a really strategic social media plan in place andto be posting across like a whole different platform of posting like carousels to your
grid, posting reels, posting to your story.

(31:44):
making sure that you're posting at the right time of day and then Instagram then rewardsyou by making your page more visible to your demographic.
So yeah, that's my social media.
It's something I'm super passionate about because it's done so well for us.
Well, sorry, we've got a question over the back.
Hold on, wait for the mic.

(32:10):
I run our socials and I am finding it just exhausting, right?
Just constantly feeling the need to come up with real ideas, posting consistently, likeposting at the right time, like I don't want to schedule in advance because I want to
collaborate.
And I'm wondering, I see other people that maybe don't have that daily consistency, butthey put money into Instagram ads.

(32:39):
And I'm wondering, for you, have you explored whether for the time and effort involved,maybe you don't have to be this like, I just feel like, it's exhausting.
Like, can't have a week off from Instagram.
then you're talking about TikTok.
And I'm just like, my goodness, it's a whole like we built up Facebook and we got heaps offollowers on there and now it's dead.

(33:03):
So it's like, yeah, Facebook is going to come back.
Really?
Facebook I definitely think so this whole, don't know if everyone watches what's happeninglike in America and everything specifically at the moment.
There is a lot of like this whole meta you will start, I think, I don't know MarkZuckerberg personally, but I think you'll start getting penalised at some point in the

(33:27):
near future if you're not cross-pollinating across both platforms because they're so likethey're trying to keep Facebook alive and they're really struggling at the moment.
So I think there's going to be a lot of
stuff around that.
Firstly, 120%.
I'm exhausted all the time.
used to really enjoy and get a huge kick out of social media.

(33:48):
It is definitely a job for me.
I am very lucky that I have a very ridiculously attractive group of women that are a lotyounger than me that find cool things to do because I'm over it.
However, I'm also super aware of how important it is to my business, so I prioritise it.
And the way that meta ads work specifically, does anyone know much about like posting onInstagram the

(34:14):
versus doing ads through Meta.
Do you guys know much about that?
A couple of you?
Okay.
So if you promote an ad through your Instagram app, you now pay a fee through like Applefor that.
So say for example, if you have a $250 spend, you're actually only getting probably 200 or$210 worth of ads.

(34:35):
You need to be posting directly through Meta to be able to access the full amount of yourfunds, but also they will actually promote your ads better
if you do it through Meta versus if you do it through the Instagram app.
So that's really important to know.
What also happens is when you pay for advertising, want to incur, they will make you thinkthat it's doing really, really well.

(34:57):
And the first one or two that you do organically then afterwards will do really well, butthen it will tank it because it wants you to go, I need to put more money into it.
It's a business, right?
So you are way better to get organic traction overpaid traction.
Does that make sense?
in the long term because otherwise they just want to keep wanting your money.

(35:22):
I'll push back.
I'll say Instagram ads 100%, but don't be wasting your money boosting posts.
That's like you're just throwing money away.
I've built 2025 and 2026 off Instagram ads.
And like I spend at the moment between say the agency and ads, I'm spending three grand amonth, but I'll be booking probably like 40 grand worth of weddings every month.

(35:43):
So for me, it's just like, why would I not be doing that?
I absolutely suck at social media.
So now with that money, I've got like staff in the Philippines.
So they cost me 12 grand a year.
So I think it's like working out for me.
It was like, okay, how am I going to make this profit?
Then now I can pay for a staff member in the Philippines for a whole year.
And then I've gone through and gone to different courses and like people that I reallyrespect and like I love their courses.

(36:09):
And so I bought those and trained up my social media people over there to this is what Iwant to do.
Because still you want to be able to get
the organic jobs because the middle ones aren't your ideal client.
They're going to be a lot more broad and you'll kind of I kind of call you know, you'llhave your work weddings and you'll have your dream weddings as well.
You'll probably get a higher percentage of work weddings than kind of the dream ones thatyou really want to represent everywhere else.

(36:33):
But as far as building a business in the short term,
meta ads for me has been like an absolute game changer.
And just giving me the time and space to be able to put that money into someone else totrain them up and now they're doing all my social media and all my marketing every day
that I don't have to do anymore.
So I think it's like even yet looking, coming back to like running your business as abusiness and being like, okay, for us it costs us say probably 5 % of every job is what it

(37:01):
cost me for advertising.
So I know like, you if I'm gonna book a seven grand wedding, I've got to put about $350worth of ads to book that wedding.
that's okay.
I'll do that every single day.
So I think it's just like kind of thinking that way.
yeah, ads for my business has been life-changing.
it comes down to branding.

(37:22):
Because I say that from an Ivy and Blue point of view, but from a wedding collective pointof view, I've been like every cent that everyone has been investing with us, again, this
is not a profit business for us.
We have been investing for the, because it's not a face brand.
With Ivy and Blue, I have our faces, so we utilize that and we don't have to spend money.

(37:43):
We're busy enough as it is.
But for wedding collective, because our marketing strategy is different, there we havebeen investing in ads.
aiming for a quick turnaround of a high volume of leads works really great.
I think similarly to Steve's point for us meta ads have been a massive game changer.

(38:04):
I think for us we had been working on our rebrand for maybe like two or three years justbecause you know some clients have booked years in advance so we can't fully change the
brand straight away they need to recognize us but we went from essentially a facelessbrand it was more about
what the venue looked like and whatnot to now.
think our team is a lot more, up in front of the camera.

(38:25):
We're getting used to it very, I think we're getting a lot better at it now before it wasa bit awkward, but, I think meta ads has definitely been a huge push.
You'll be able to see a very quick benefit.
Like within probably three months, you'll see a massive, a massive jump.
But with that set, with that being said, I think it's really important prior to, to, toinvesting heavily into meta ads is to work on.

(38:48):
the product.
So depending on if you're a makeup artist or if you're a stylist or a florist, work on theproduct first, get that branding identity down pat, figure out where the differentiation
of other brands are from you to other brands are first before putting that money in.
Because once you put more money into meta ads and whatnot, it'll only just keep going fromthere.
And if you don't have the basis down pat, it's just like, it's just not going to work.

(39:12):
And also, I think
Luckily with us, we had been around for a little bit.
our organic traffic was already there.
So now it's about like, I'd say our leads would be about 45 % would be from the meta ads.
And then the rest of that would be from organic traffic.
That's the kind of split we're looking at currently.

(39:35):
I actually wanted to come back to what Mandy was talking about earlier because I thinkTikTok is an incredibly relevant topic to talk about right now and I think I could
probably give a very different perspective on that.
So I'm actually one of the people that did start a TikTok when it was first released.
I was living in America at the time so I've actually been impacted by the recent changesthat affected all the Americans because my app actually was installed in America.

(40:04):
So I got involved in the band.
Now I don't know if I rejoiced when it came back in 12 hours but something that you guysmay or may not have noticed because you weren't kind of in that blackout period is the
great amount of changes that came with that so it has kind of privately been sold not alot has been talked about it just yet but with that actually came a connect your Facebook

(40:28):
button which I'm sure you've probably noticed so I do agree with you I think Facebook'sgoing to be a
more popular and especially with a lot of changes that happening in Instagram it's justnot creating the same feeds that people want to see and I know for myself I don't sit
there and default to reels I default to TikTok and I think that says a lot about like ourdemographic that we're probably targeting right now you know a lot of people in this room

(40:55):
maybe you know maybe around that age or maybe are a little bit older and that's not theirsocial media habits but for the social media habits of the people that are getting married
like you were saying they're the changes that are happening
right now and right now people are actually angry, really mad about what's happened onTikTok and a lot of people are actually hopping off of that platform just to kind of stand

(41:15):
up against it and say they're not having any of that, that it's bullshit.
Like don't do that.
So I think absolutely Facebook is going to take a big stand on that.
Yeah I'm sure we're going to see a lot of changes.
I've already noticed there's actually a lot of censorship.
Again I don't know if I see a couple of people nodding, there's a lot of censorshipalready on TikTok.
So I think we need to be really intentional with the sort of content that we're puttingout there.

(41:39):
I think we're going to see the same thing happen with Instagram.
And again, with Facebook, it's just going to come into the future of social media ingeneral.
We need to be really, really aware about the content we're creating and pushing out.
And yeah, be intentional.
Don't just put it out because like, yeah, I did a cool photo.
Nice.
It's like, cool.
No one cares.
What's your brand?
My brand as in like the name of it or what my brand is.

(42:03):
Like who?
What's your?
I feel like everyone
when you talk, let's all cross pollinative.
My name is Mandy, I'm from Ivy and Blue.
Yeah, so I'm Shana Ray.
Some of you know me as Shana, some as Ray from Communal Events Co.
I actually don't have a huge following because I kind of took a little bit of a step backin the wedding community.
I used to be a coordinator here.

(42:24):
Hi.
So yeah, and then I jumped back into it.
So I actually have a really different perspective on social media where I do a lot of moreof like the silly content that you guys post.
actually on my tattooing page.
So I am a tattoo artist like on the side.
It funds my pure passions of working in the wedding industry.
But I do experiment a lot with social media on there.

(42:45):
And I have also noticed something that's really interesting and I guess this is why it'sworking so well for you.
Sorry to baffle on, I will almost be done.
Is faces.
Instagram loves when you put a face in a reel and it makes a world of difference.
Flashing a couple of photos versus talking to the camera and being really organic, it willpump it out.
It loves it.

(43:05):
Yes, I will stop rambling.
is no, it's 120 % true.
The girls and I literally test this out on like a weekly basis.
We will be like, what's the best thing that we've done this week?
And we will put out like something that's like the butterfly.
Did you guys say we did candlesticks the other day and we like individually gluedhydrangea iconic, right?
No one's done this crazy.

(43:27):
And then so we posted that and then we posted us being dickheads and we get like maybe ouraverage might
be like a thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand views on like theprettiest thing we do and then we post the girls and I dancing out the front of our
warehouse and we're like the one that we did here six point three million right the amountof followers and actual organic inquiries like I went back through the stats of that week

(43:52):
that that reel went viral and our inquiries were five hundred and seventy percentincreased from the girls and I being nitwits like hey we had a really fun time doing it
but it faces really well
The algorithm really loves faces.
Sorry, I was just gonna build on, I the microphone was coming through, might as well.

(44:15):
Emily, Hive Entertainment, for anyone who doesn't know, live music, DJs and bands andthings.
Steve, I just kind of wanted to build on a little bit of what you're saying and it'sdefinitely all collaborative into the content conversation.
I did write it down because I'm ADHD and I was totally gonna forget by what I was saying.
know, yes, so much.
That's because we're all creatives and we couldn't work nine to five.

(44:39):
Instead we worked 24 seven, yeah.
Yeah, just about you made a comment about sort of meta ads not so much finding your idealclients But more so about visibility on sort of just staying in front of people How do you
sort of find I'm I'm deep diving a little bit into meta at the moment I've back and fortha lot with it, but I'm very much like Diving into it at the moment into the crux of it

(45:06):
most of my bookings up until for the last three years have been word of mouth
collaborations, exposed showcases, and then just general visibility on social media andpeople finding us through there.
How do you find in terms of securing, you said that one in whatever might be your actualideal client, do you find that you're running meta ads more so to actually find ideal

(45:30):
clients or is it the higher budget clients or whatever or is it more just aboutvisibility, staying in people's faces, not so much getting the clients from
the actual lead in the ad, but more so they've seen you pop up three times and then theyfollowed you on Instagram and then they found, know, reached out in your DMs or sent you
an email or filled out a website form or something.

(45:50):
It's more of like multiple channels and just staying in people's faces or it's actuallylike booking through Meta and through those leads.
So for me, booking directly through there, 100%.
Like I've got, since New Year's, I've got 71 leads and 69 were from Meta ads.
Two were organic, like I suck on social media really bad.

(46:13):
I grew my business, I grew up in Melbourne and I shot in the Yarra Valley, it was probablylike nine years.
And I was only like pretty much at COVID when I couldn't go down there anymore.
I like, kind of cut ties with Melbourne.
And so I had to kind of rebuild here.
And so like my big goal for this year was like, I knew how much I needed to makepersonally myself for every wedding.
And I just wanted to be in pretty much the Gold Coast and Byron market and that was it.

(46:36):
And so like every one of my weddings coming up this year are
like literally like an hour from my house, which is the absolute dream.
The coming back to like ideal clients.
Like I just, for me,
before this, like, okay, so I've got the podcast.
I was doing absolutely everything I could to kind of build up an organic reach and try andbook.
And it felt like I put in six months and kind of got nothing because of that.

(46:59):
And so like, it kind of just flipped in my head.
It's like, why don't I just pay money and then I'll get that.
No, but that's seriously what it was.
But 3000 a month is scary.
Like it's like, holy, like, okay, $36,000 a year I'm gonna pay to get clients.
But then to kind of then be like, you know what, I don't have to be a part of any the,apart from

(47:20):
No, but you know what mean?
Like I don't have to kind of do absolutely everything through the whole year and keepmyself on Instagram 40 hours a week and trying to do that.
It all kind of came literally through meta ads.
But coming back to like it wasn't a boosted post.
It was very kind of intentional.
Like if you go back to like a couple other episodes, it's definitely like kind of tryingto work out what your offer is for the client and then kind of putting that forward and

(47:44):
then moving through to like that whole sales page.
Like I don't know if you've kind of delve much into it But it's like if people are goingto go into your website and you watch people where they go on your website They'll kind of
get through a little bit and then they're like, oh cool I have to make dinner or I've gotto make a coffee or something like that and I can't go so it was really kind of setting up
like Alina was saying setting up everything prior to doing the ads so that when youactually did it they would kind of go to a landing page and then they would actually go

(48:10):
through that whole landing page and that sensor or an inquiry and Yes, it's probably oneout of every ten from a meta ad would actually book but probably you know for
are getting on a Zoom call with me.
And so it's just kind of working out the systems prior to paying the money.
Otherwise you're spend a ton of money and not make any more weddings as well.
And then it just kind of doubles down a bad time.

(48:30):
Does that answer?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think as Mandy, as you mentioned earlier, like we definitely saw an influx.
I mean, my business was a bit of a COVID baby.
My husband and I have been musicians for 10 years, down in Melbourne similarly.
And then we moved up when we were allowed to because everything shut down and we werelike, run for the border, go.
Dash.

(48:50):
And so we came up here about four years ago and it's been interesting for us to kind oftry and understand the climate up here.
Obviously down in Melbourne it's very saturated, it's very competitive, it's very similarto Sydney in that sense that like it's there's a lot of amazing entertainment, there's a
lot of amazing brands and then up here we kind of got that sweet spot where we had thisreally beautiful looking brand and sounding brand and it really kind of hit that niche

(49:16):
right and that
like growth period after COVID when it was like that big influx.
But I suppose for us now that things are sort of, as you mentioned about things sort ofstarting to settle, we're sort of going, okay, what is the new normal and where.
is going to be the most productive ways for our like places for us to get our leadsbecause everything's been very like we've been very lucky and that like it.
Well I say it's luck but we worked our asses off to build the brand to make it look reallygood.

(49:39):
But we've been lucky in that like we haven't needed to invest heaps in advertisement andmarketing in that sense that we've managed to get a lot of organic like to build where we
are.
But yeah it's definitely I feel like the landscape is shifting a little bit and so youknow it's just interesting to sort of
as we're diving into like meta a little bit more intentionally now and yeah, sort of justseeing about like just learning a little bit about so how everybody's finding their leads

(50:08):
coming through and where are they getting it from and where are they spending their mostfinding the best investment for, you know, having those consistent bookings and keeping
that flow really consistent, which is I think.
one of the hardest parts about the current climate is, yeah, like we're noticing it.
It just seems to be like it's changing and it's, So, no, but thank you.

(50:29):
That's good.
Hi, I work for Mandy, my name's Mia.
It's a lot more nerve wracking because I can't say, okay, delete, let's do it again.
But I was just going to say something about the TikTok stuff that we notice a lot.
us three like we're in our 20s so Claudia's engaged.

(50:51):
We're hopefully soon we'll get engaged like we're at that age.
So like we're watching that stuff like we're looking out for that stuff.
We're looking at stuff you know obviously we work in it but we're looking at it a lot andwe're on social media a lot like that's our spare time is watching it.
Usually between the hours of nine to five.
So anything we see we'll be sending to each other to save bank it for later.

(51:13):
That's something we do a lot as well.
turning those ideas that we see like random companies doing ways that we can make it in away that relates to our business.
Like the girls did one today, I don't know what it was, you guys saw it, something randomand turned it into like find your wedding planner.

(51:33):
Looking for a real estate agent and then turning that into.
looking for your wedding planner.
But something we noticed as well, I don't know if any of you know who Jazz Handmaid is orRemy by Riley, there's these girls on TikTok.
I don't, so one's a jewelry brand, one's a clothing brand.
I didn't know that for ages.
I just followed them because I loved their stuff until eventually, because I loved them somuch, I followed them and now I love their stuff.

(51:59):
So that's something that I think we try to do.
We like to copy their TikToks because if people love us, they might go, okay, I
them to be a part of our wedding.
I really want them there on the day.
Yeah it's about making them, our method is making them fall in love with us and they'relike, those girls are so cool we really want them there on the day.
What do they actually do?
Let's have a look.

(52:19):
Yeah and then it might be like the third fourth time that they come across one of ourTikToks or one of our reels then they'll actually go onto our page and be like, wow okay
these girls do good work as well and then they'll actually follow us and hopefully bookus.
People book people that they like, people don't book people that they don't like and you
don't want people that don't like you to book you because you're not going to have a niceclient experience.

(52:45):
She's not seeing.
No, she's about to get married.
Okay, so on TikTok then, obviously you can advertise and everything within TikTok.
If ads came across your feed, would you be likely to click on them or would you be likelyto be like, feel grossed out and there's no way on?
Yeah, if it's an ad, I won't click on it.
That's just me.

(53:06):
There is, yeah, same.
I'm like, it'll be something I see in a TikTok and then I'll go to that page because I'mlike, I really want that or I want to hire.
this person, whatever it is, I'll go onto their page.
See, they do heaps of cool stuff or they sell heaps of cool stuff.
And then I'll go from there.
The only times I'll click on ads if it's by accident on TikTok because they trick you andwhatever.

(53:28):
But I mean, also, I'm not, you know, if I'm shopping like Claudia, maybe she's engaged.
So she's going to be actually looking for those things.
So she might click on the ads.
Not on TikTok.
Does the algorithm work similarly to Instagram where if you are looking for engagementrings or dresses or something like that, you're going to get
flooded with that?
Okay.
I would say better than Instagram.

(53:50):
Is it more effective?
Like is it more quicker?
It's quicker yeah.
Like for example I wanted to buy this dress the other day I was like I wonder what thiswould look like on other people so I just searched the name of the dress and there was
hundreds of videos of girls in this dress.
You cannot get that on Instagram.
The way that you have to approach your different social media channels is wildlydifferent.

(54:11):
So Facebook people are there to like oh grandma posted a funny
real right you're there to see what your family and your friends are doing and if an adcomes across amazing that's great Instagram people are going to to buy so people are going
through to look for a service I'm getting married hashtag wedding planner Gold Coast andpeople are still looking at hashtags so they're going there for a specific reason to

(54:35):
purchase to look for a vendor whatever it might be tick-tock they're actually justswitching their brain off and they're just randomly scrolling so when you
look at
I, my autism, I'm super interested in like how the brain works.
It's my thing.
so when you look at the research behind marketing strategies, everything's subliminal.

(54:58):
Did you guys, have you guys watched the Will Smith, Margot Robbie movie when they go to,yeah, they focus and everything's like five, five, five, five, five.
That's what tick tock is.
Tick tock is subliminal marketing that just plants the idea when you think that your brainis switched off and it's, you know, putting someone or something.
in your radar consistently to make you think, my god, I have to book that wedding planner.

(55:22):
Yeah, because I'm sure you guys can say how many times in a day I'll be like, oh, I sawthis thing on TikTok.
I got to show you.
I saw this thing on TikTok.
I'm following people on Instagram because their work's beautiful and maybe saving it forlater.
That's something that, you know, I just love to look at their stuff and then hope likemaybe I'll book something from there.
But I just feel like TikTok, especially like with the younger, you know, with us, we,yeah, well, we're 21.

(55:46):
So if you're having 21 year old brides, but yeah, babies.
I was just gonna ask, I don't know, another platform for us that we find very effective isour Google review page.
We find that we put a lot of effort into, Alcornet's put a lot of effort into making sureeveryone tries to leave a review and whatnot.

(56:11):
And with us, it's really helped with our algorithm, but also it's mainly the brand trustthat we can add, and then it's just another element that we've found.
putting a lot more time into that has really gotten us a lot more customers and whatnot.
Going back to Google, sorry, going back to Google is also not forgetting Google paidadvertising as a relevant form of marketing and advertising.

(56:35):
I was watching a thing with Simon Beard the other day who was the originator, the owner ofCulture Kings.
And I met him in an event afterwards and I was picking his brain and he is a very, verysmart man.
But Google performance advertising, I don't know much about it personally, but that's alsosuper relevant because people are still depending on what your demographic

(56:57):
is people are still I still go to Google and I still type in you know I'm looking forwhatever like a massage therapist in Southport that'd be creepy but like
Happy ending.
So people are still using Google as a way to actually search it and at the moment I thinkIvy and Blue is on the second or third page if you type in wedding planner or wedding

(57:21):
florist gold coast which is devastating to me because I think we're the best.
No I don't.
But definitely not forgetting Google as a, like if we're investing money I think itdropped off for a little while because everything was so Instagram and meta based but I
definitely think that Google is still really relevant.
Sorry, I'm loud, so I was just going to yell.

(57:43):
And again, don't know if this is just my tism, but if something comes up on Google andsays, add, I will purposely boycott it.
I don't know why I have a business and I use ads, but that makes me have trust issues andit makes me angry and I won't click on it.
So the thing that's my trust issues is if someone says Gold Coast best like floral numberone voted or I'm like, by who your mom super relevant, but the Google performance ads are,

(58:13):
it's a, it's hugely different.
So it just, what it actually does instead of it being like a, an ad, it actually justboosts you to the top.
So it's a very very different thing to like Google ads Google Google performance basedadvertising is meant to be different I don't know enough to talk too much I think it's a
little bit more like so you know how there's obviously traditional SEO that you can investin that generally takes a long time to pick up if you haven't been around on Google long

(58:38):
enough It's like a quicker version like you can get your name if they search Gold Coastwedding dresses and you invest more into the oil performance ads it can get you to like
the top 10 listing at a very
quick right?
I'm already in it just saying but it doesn't say add yeah yeah I don't know what it is butthat ad word makes me mad and I will not look at you.

(59:05):
But then I guess also that didn't cost me any money if you didn't click on it you knowwhat I mean?
So it's like meh like you're not my audio client I want someone that's gonna click on it.
No it's only Google I don't know what it is
I just, I'm like, I'm gonna help the little guy out down here and I will happily go belowit.
Yeah, that's just my dream.

(59:27):
I just want to, I'm Sophie and I work for Viana with Flowers Gold Coast.
I just will start by saying we do most of what Viana's done has been retail over the past.
She started a retail business in her garage five years ago, built it up, la da da.
Now we're exploring into the weddings and events and the difference in marketing forretail compared to weddings and events is crazy.

(59:49):
And trying to kind of, even just seeing the generational difference in marketing tosomething that is retail based, which people are gonna buy from Facebook ads because it's
a...
Don't hate me, 65 year old guy buying flowers for someone online.
Like it's not the person that's gonna be getting married.
Or they could, but maybe not with us.

(01:00:12):
Like then coming to the generational difference that I think TikTok, Instagram, socialmedia has, where we are now looking into more of is kind of.
We, and I know we all struggle for time.
We struggle for time because it's, where do we go with retail all of sudden?
Everyone's doing their events at this time of the year and we're like, no, hang on,Valentine's Day comes first.

(01:00:34):
We struggle to know where we.
Honestly, it gets to end of the day and the last thing we do is social media.
Or we just don't even do it.
And then we're like, for me, I'm trying to grow the event side, but I know that withoutsocial media, that's not gonna happen because my ideal, whoever's having a bridal shower
or a hen's party or a wedding, anything, they are finding things on TikTok.

(01:00:56):
And I know that because people my age are finding that.
But where do you find the time to let go and outsource that or to be like, hang on aminute, this is more important than what I'm doing here?
Or if we do, just go find someone else and go, actually, Jeff is really good at this.
Jeff, come and do this for me.
We time block, because like the same, right?

(01:01:18):
We get super busy and 50 million other things come up and I want to go to lunch or thegirls want to go to the tropic and we wag and we do other more important things.
But no, we specifically block out the first hour of every Wednesday and.
We do content about whether...
Spunode!
No, we time block.
So we will prioritise because we won't have a business in 6, 12, 24 months if we don'tprioritise it now.

(01:01:43):
So it's always a juggle of finding the balance of, we have a priority listing.
It is weddings.
So if we have a wedding on that day, the next day, that is the priority.
Money is my next priority because ultimately, at end of the day, I'm a business.
So if we have like, consults coming in or quotes or people wanting to pay us money,content.
So on a Wednesday morning, we block out from nine till 10, 10.30.

(01:02:07):
We will have like when we're just personally perusing social media, we will have a wholebunch of things parked that we'll save.
So we have like a group chat and we'll be like, this is a cool idea.
This is a cool idea.
And so we'll have five reels that are saved.
We'll smash them out in half an hour, an hour.
And then we don't think about it for the rest of the week.
I think we're similar.
also block out, we have a certain schedule of like how many posts you want to get out perweek and therefore the time that you need to do that in.

(01:02:34):
But also I've got an amazing team that for example, Letitia, she does a lot of our posts.
She's really amazing at editing it.
It's something she enjoys as well.
But I mean, if you can find a Jeff that also has those skills, I think that's really, ifthere's no Jeff in your team that's going to give you those skills, I think it's time to
look for a Jeff or...

(01:02:54):
Love Jeff, or just outsource that once again.
But I do find when it's in-house, it's a lot more effective and it's just a lot morequicker and you can make changes to things a lot quicker.
You can check them, you can see if it's right or not and also Jeff can eventually learnwhat type of stuff you like as well.
Is there any content creators here tonight?

(01:03:16):
Yeah, we have so many amazing content creators, like once a week, like can you come overfor an hour or two?
Moments by Kate.
Get Moments by Kate in.
one hour a fortnight.
Her job is to come in with these are the reels that would suit your branding.

(01:03:39):
Girls, quick, let's smash them out.
She'll edit them, put them in a drop box, done.
I guess...
All I was going say was, being a small business, I can't afford to hire an Australianfull-time.
Like, can't afford it.
And so that's why I've kind of gone overseas.
But before I did, I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what I wanted before I wentoverseas.

(01:04:04):
So that's why I hired agencies to kind of come up and work with me to kind of figure outwhat exactly I wanted to do.
And then I kind of took that overseas.
And it takes time.
takes two or three times more time to train someone overseas than what it does here, butit can be done.
And it's kind of learning, okay, cool, well everything, I just get on Loom and I recordabsolutely every single thing that I do.

(01:04:28):
And so it's essentially like recording your screen and I'm just talking to the camera.
then, so I have an SOP for every different part of my business now.
So after I upload, say, photos to Pick Time Gallery, I'll get them to come in and theykind of put it into sections like Bride Prep, Groom Prep, all that kind of stuff.
And then I'll go and create a slide show.
after that and then they'll create a wedding album and so for every step of that way Ikind of created a video and it takes way less time than you think.

(01:04:53):
Like I'm gonna sit there I'm gonna make an album for 45 minutes and I'm gonna record itthe whole time and then I'm gonna send that to them and be like okay you need to watch
this and try and do it with no other knowledge apart from this video and then they comeback to me with questions and I kind of keep updating that until that's done and that's
that for me like now my wedding videos I'll kind of at the end of a wedding day I'll kindof give a rundown on the way home on

(01:05:15):
talking about this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened and I kind ofgive that to the editor and then they'll go away and they'll kind of choose those parts
and they'll give it back to me like 80 % done and I'll be like okay cool change this,this, this, this.
But without them I wasn't booking weddings because I already knew I had 30 and I can onlylike edit 30 a year.
Whereas now every single wedding I get I know cool it cost me maybe 300 bucks for theeditor to edit this so I can just keep getting more and more weddings.

(01:05:40):
Like I don't care shooting, shooting is awesome that's the best part ever.
But editing is
the worst.
like there is you can outsource so definitely think about that as an option.
You need to be a certain kind of person to be able to sit at your computer and actuallyintentionally train them.
Because they will do things that like you'll do things and you're like, how can they notunderstand this, you know, and they do it completely wrong.

(01:06:05):
And you're like, okay, cool, start again and just kind of keep building up, it'll taketime.
But that's the way that I've done it.
Because I just don't earn enough money to be able to as bad as it sounds to hire a fulltime Australian.
I can't afford it.
That's yeah, I guess something else I just touch on like I obviously understand We're allhere as an events industry or wedding industry I don't know if anyone else what everyone's

(01:06:26):
kind of if this is their full-time thing or whatever But for us because we have the retailside for example Say we have six girls and on a day that would sound like okay You can
definitely take an hour out of someone's time to make a real But when you're waiting foryour coffee at a coffee shop that coffee needs to be there right there where that person's
there.
That's kind of
what it's like for us with the bouquets going out.

(01:06:46):
So trying to juggle that with also juggling Vianna and I doing everything else and thenVianna doing the extra everything else when she's meant to be not working is just
outrageous.
And so that's where I think it's like, okay, sure I have.
a gif that works for us that is really good at this content.
But they actually have to make the bouquets to go out so that we can be here at the sametime.

(01:07:08):
And then we're just going back and forth going, what, like, where are we losing time ormissing time or where are we?
I don't even know what I'm asking, but it's just wild.
The juggle is really, really, really, really hard.
And I 100 % have been through that as well.
It's OK, everyone needs to, you need to, you need more staffing time.
You need that's effectively the answer is if you're not doing it in the hours that youhave, you need

(01:07:32):
more staffing time, you need an external person, everybody's going to come in half an hourearlier, an hour earlier.
And it is hard.
Like, if I think right, like my, to use our business as an example, that's five wages,that's five hour wages.
That's a couple of hundred bucks, right?
So, I mean, we do it because we enjoy it, but you could invest that couple hundred dollarsin someone to actually do it that's a professional that might be less time.

(01:07:58):
The reason why we do it how we do it is because it's also about
staff satisfaction.
We actually get a kick out of it.
We do it on a Wednesday because it's midweek.
You were mortified then, it's fine.
We do it mid-week because it's kind of like we stop, we reset, we reconnect with eachother as a team.

(01:08:22):
So yes, it is costing me a couple of hundred dollars to film these reels, but it'sactually the benefits for me from a staff mental health point of view and connecting my
team is actually wild in an industry that's so busy is just as important to me.
And I feel like we would
talking about it earlier.
Staff retention in this industry, in this business is very, very hard.

(01:08:46):
These girls have been with me for years.
Like, and I think it's an attribute to the fact that because we do do those silly things,my girls, think are really happy in their jobs.
And we have longevity, which is better brand recognition, which is like there's so manyflow on effects that it's worth that, you know, a couple hundred dollars on a Wednesday.

(01:09:07):
Yeah, come in earlier, stay later, lunch break.
I think to add to that as well, think, for example, the Jeff you were saying that's gotthose talents.
You need to figure out obviously every staff member has their own talents and what they'regood at and what they enjoy doing.
So obviously if Jeff is really good at doing all these reels and creating this content,then you you need to split Jeff's responsibility ups.

(01:09:28):
Jeff is coming up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leticia is our Jeff.
So for example, like.
I wouldn't be on the weekdays when we don't have that many events.
There has to be specified time for her to be able to edit.
It needs to be, rather than saying from nine to a certain amount of, like the whole dayyou're gonna be doing customer emails and whatnot, I have to give you that half a day or a

(01:09:54):
couple hours of time block to be able to do that and to make it possible.
Otherwise, Jeff will be very overwhelmed.
Sorry, this is the last thing I'll speak on.
I know I'm rambling, but I...
Jeff's in the room.
Do you come up with those ideas in your, like, do you sit down and have time during workwhere you think about this?

(01:10:15):
Or is it like ideas you pull from?
I'm answering that.
Yeah, they do.
Okay.
So it's like schedule time during work to sit there and figure out what, because obviouslywe can find the half an hour to film the content, but I don't know what content I'm
filming.
Sometimes like you know everyone goes through periods of being inspired and not inspiredWe usually like to do if we're gonna do filming we have a filming day So once a month

(01:10:41):
we'll film a bunch of different things and we'll have a schedule agenda and then afterthat's editing but then the weekly post where it's more like low effort things if if
Leticia or Jeff sees a really cool meme or whatnot and just you know puts in that videolike the low effort posts but things that require team engagement requires time and again,
I found that
you know, because we are wedding coordinating essentially for them as well.

(01:11:03):
Our customers already know their faces when they come for a venue tour.
So I think it's been really good for out for the girls as well to be recognized and to belike, I think I saw you on the post.
think I know who you are.
I think I can trust you a lot more immediately with just my wedding, essentially.
We all spend we are all social media people in my business.

(01:11:23):
We live and breathe wedding shit.
Like this is all of our lives.
We spend, like we do spend a lot of time in our personal time.
Like we'll be at home and I'm very, I try to be very, very respectful of boundaries interms of I don't expect my girls to be sitting at home finding this shit.
They do it cause they love it.

(01:11:44):
know, and we'll be at home doing bath and bed routine or whatever.
And then I can tell she's laying down relaxing cause she'll send me 10 reels.
So we do, we do find a lot of stuff that we all love and connect with in our personaltime.
We probably do spend like, make a joke about doing it at
we all do it, I do it the worst.
But that is part of our job and we have to treat that is literally in most businesses somepeople's actual job role is to create, take, edit content.

(01:12:12):
So it's hard in a small business because we don't have as much money and time but it'sdefinitely about prioritizing getting it because it is super super important.
I was just going to add to that when I'm sitting down editing like a TikTok or somethingor we're sitting there looking for stuff.
I feel so guilty.
Like I'm like, my God, this is not work.

(01:12:33):
Are you saying this to me directly?
Yeah, I do.
I feel guilty because I'm like, this doesn't feel like work, but it is.
It is like a part of it.
And yeah, we're definitely all on TikTok a lot.
So we definitely see stuff in our own time as well.
And letting go as well.
Like the girls have Claudia has our Instagram login.
Mia has
our TikTok login.

(01:12:54):
That's a huge thing as a business owner is to actually so obviously I have like we haveall but we are a family so that's no problems for me.
But the girls know our brand message.
So even if I'm wagging work and I'm not coming in for the day the girls know what they canand cannot post and they have full authority to go and make their own content and post

(01:13:15):
their own content to TikTok whatever.
So sometimes it's also about letting go.
Right.
It doesn't all have to be you.
It can't
all beat you, can't all beat me.
We've all had a Jim's Mowing, now we need Jeff's in the industry.

(01:13:35):
Jeff's here.
No, I just wanted to add to that, for me personally,
Education is a big part of efficiency in the workplace.
There's great resources that are targeted to business owners generally and just generalprofessional development that really help with time efficiency and how to set aside time
to do those things.
The four hour work week, if you have not read or listened to that audio book, it is thebomb.

(01:14:00):
about teaching how to get rid of all the stuff that you feel keeps you busy but reallyisn't adding value to your business or your brand or reaching out to your target market.
So that's a great resource.
yeah, books, audio books, professional development really helps, was help me, you know,improve time and find time to do things.

(01:14:21):
I'm Cameron from Sunlit Studios.
My wife, Alana, she does all our social media.
I find it quite difficult because she will look to me and say, come up with ideas for usto post because I'm running out of ideas and I hate it.
And I'm just like, I have no idea.
We've got two daughters, they're young, six and nine.
you know, I'm...

(01:14:42):
we're quite intentional and careful with how much screen time our girls get.
So I'm actually anti addiction to social media.
I'm trying to avoid TikTok.
I know it's terrible.
I should be in there.
It sounds really inspiring what you're doing, Ivy and Blue, but I do come from thatmindset of I need to avoid TikTok.
I don't want my girls to know what TikTok is for as long as possible.

(01:15:05):
But the reality is it's our industry.
It's the business we're in weddings.
It's what our target market is or will become.
So I do personally find that hard balance.
I 100 % agree.
Quick hint, I don't know if anyone knows creator search insights.
Is anyone a fan of that?
So TikTok specifically, a really good way to cut down your time, because I do spend a lotof time on there, but I notice it affects my mental health as well.

(01:15:28):
I 100 % validate that.
And as a mother of a teenager, I also try to cut that down as much as possible.
On TikTok specifically, there is a really amazing tool.
If you literally go to the search bar and you type in creator search insights, it willactually come up with the topics that are trending for you to create content for.

(01:15:50):
click so you go creator search insights and then you go content gap and then you look forthe things that are increasing and if you target your marketing it will massively reduce
your time spent on the app and actually tell you what people are wanting to see and what'strending really well.
Awesome.
I don't know nothing about TikTok, but yeah, also even like repurposing.

(01:16:11):
Um, I did a course by engage creative.
had them on the podcast a while ago.
Um, and it is even like, I think I've talked about it where I was just like, he is anInstagram post, but then like repurposing it knowing like, okay, here's my email marketing
letter.
Like, how can that go into that and how can that go to Facebook and how can I repurposethis?
So like trying to, and coming back to like that, we kind of break it down to like a threemonthly planner for our marketing efforts now and kind of knowing ahead of time.

(01:16:33):
Like if you, it's actually really.
easy for us.
Like I can look through as bad as sounds like I can look through 10 photographers that Ilove or videographers that I love and I can like look at their feed and it's very easy to
kind of break down.
Okay, cool.
They have like they'll have a travel photo.
They'll have like a slow shutter photo.
They'll have this and kind of to create a beautifully like aesthetic feed.

(01:16:54):
It actually isn't that hard to do.
It's just like takes a little bit of analytics to kind of work it out and then then I canliterally pass that onto my staff and like this is kind of the idea of where we're going.
But I think that kind of comes back to having the plan in place.
to be able to create all that time and not, because it's so hard, like on the moment, likeI need to do something for Instagram.
It's so hard to kind of think of something.
And then you just kind of throw something away and you're like, photo dancing.

(01:17:15):
It's like nothing.
Yeah.
All right.
Is there any other questions that you guys want to talk about here?
Yeah, yeah.
Cool.
Happy to wrap it up about there, guys.
Yeah, beautiful.
Well, thank you so much for coming down, everyone.
Really appreciate it.
And yeah, Alina and Maddie, for putting this on.
Thank you very much.

(01:17:37):
Excited for the Open Day?
Excited with a little Open Day plug.
We've had over 500 people register.
total people coming through and you've also got to remember when a client is like a leadis coming up to you, it's not just about just that person, their sister, like their mum

(01:17:58):
could be on their third marriage, whatever.
Like the amount of business that we actually pick up from open days that is actually notjust the person that's there that's engaged and making sure that you're marketing yourself
correctly on the day.
So I know it's really hard if you're not a confident person to actually get out there andspeak to people, but making sure that you're speaking, making sure that you're getting

(01:18:18):
lead
generation, so you have something to write people's stuff down.
I don't believe in sending out everyone like a database of everyone that's registered forthe open day because I don't want to spam people with like.
people that they aren't interested with.
It's overwhelming enough as it is on the day.
So making sure if you're having those really good chats, you know, if you have like a chatand they're talking about like they're going to have their dog walking down the aisle,

(01:18:40):
like their name, you know, they're going to have their dog walking down the aisle.
Send them a really genuine, not like a blast email after the fact.
And if you have any questions, like we're super here to support you for those that aregoing to be there next Sunday.
Most of the venues will have actually one of us girls there as a wedding collectiverepresentative.
So we want to make sure that you
guys are super supported during the setup process and we're going to be coming around andwe're going to be doing like some Q &A's, we're going to be doing like photos and videos

(01:19:08):
of everyone's setups on the day so if you see us please come up and say hi, we will put alittle microphone in your face at some point but we want to give you guys a voice so yeah
I look forward to seeing you all, let's hope it's not raining.
Thanks for tuning in to the Wet Co Podcast.
If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe, follow and share it with yourfriends.
We'd love to hear your thoughts, so leave a review or connect with us on social media.

(01:19:31):
New episodes drop every week, so be sure to join us next time for more weddinginspiration, tips and stories.
Until then, happy planning and we'll see you soon.