What does it really mean to “stay visible” in 2026? When search, social, and AI are changing by the month?

In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin Dennis sits down with Krista Chapman, Founder and Lead Strategist of Path & Compass, to unpack the digital shifts event pros can’t afford to ignore. Krista explains how couples are searching differently (voice, image, social, and AI search), why trust is harder to earn in an era of decision fatigue, and how being clear about what makes you different helps the right clients find you faster.

They also dive into why referrals alone aren’t enough for long-term growth, what a sustainable marketing strategy actually looks like, and the underutilized channels that still drive strong results—like email marketing, SEO, and blogging. Plus, Krista shares actionable advice on reviews and small tweaks that can improve your visibility as AI continues to reshape how people discover vendors.

Highlights:

1. What “visibility” really means in 2026 and why search is the biggest shift
2. How AI is changing the way couples find and filter vendors
3. Why referrals alone can limit growth and how to widen your marketing net
4. The role of clarity + differentiation in standing out online
5. Why email marketing still converts and often outperforms social media
6. How blogging + SEO builds a longer-term digital footprint
7. The importance of consistent, recent reviews and how they impact AI search
8. What a sustainable digital presence looks like without being everywhere

Connect with Krista:

Website

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Krista's 2026 Marketing Guidebook for Event Pros: The Shifts to Make Now to Stay Visible and Booked

Connect with Kevin:

Wedding IQ

Fantasy Sound

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LinkedIn

All right, welcome to 2026, everyone. And we're our first episode of 2026. And we're here with Kirsta Chapman. She is from Path and Compass. And she is going to be talking to us today about staying visible in 2026, digital trends that every event pro should know, which I think we all need to learn something new when it comes to tech and digital. So Kirsta, tell us a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today.

Yeah, thanks Kevin. No, I appreciate the opportunity to share some info and just chat and yes, happy new year for sure. So 2026 already, how crazy. ⁓ It's been crazy stretch. But yeah, so I am the founder and owner of Path & Compass. We are a digital marketing agency that works with event pros. So wedding and event businesses and helping them expand their digital presence and ⁓

do it in a way that is strategic and sustainable. Cause I think one of the things about the digital marketing world is it's like, it's changing all the time. It's never ending. And so we're really here to help you think about ways that you can determine a strategy and the actions you need to take that will get you to your actual goals, not necessarily the goals that the world says you should have ⁓ and can maintain it that way. So I've been doing this for about 15 years. ⁓

Prior to that, I was a wedding event planner. So I've been in the business. I know the industry really well, worked in hospitality and catering and venue management, all the things for a long, time. And then I shifted ⁓ into the marketing side of things after I worked in marketing and sales for a venue ⁓ with the social media wave.

So when that was all happening and everyone was kind of like, how do we do all this content marketing and how do we manage all this? And should we, what does this mean? I stepped into that space. And so now we're in wave, big wave number two, in my opinion, which is AI and how, search is really changing. And so the things that we need to be kind of doing as businesses, at least in my opinion, in a, a, in a more proactive way, ⁓

Hmm.

Mm.

because this is happening so much faster and it's awesome and that really is going to impact the way that your business is findable ⁓ and invisible online. And of course that will impact whether not you're looking business. And so yeah, that's sort of my background. have a small team and we work with companies all across the United States and help them. Yeah, just kind of manage all the marketing stuff.

All right,

professionals.

So from my perspective, there is a couple key areas that I think it's really important for people to be looking at. ⁓ Search is really the biggest one. ⁓ There is a lot of changes that are happening in regards to search right now. ⁓ And AI is a big part of that. But it's not just AI, it's the way that users are searching, the types of platform they're searching and the ways that they're searching. And so while SEO and

Mm.

Google and keywords are still the foundation of that. We now are really seeing increases in image search, in voice search, in social search, where people are searching on, within the Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest platforms themselves, because frankly, it's just more fun to search there. And then AI, and those being really important tools.

Mmm.

Yeah, true.

that generations, especially younger generations, are using to search for vendors and find the professionals that are going to help them plan their wedding. So that to me is a really key foundation because we need to be making changes to within our content strategy and our SEO strategy to widen the net a bit or just sort of adjust the net a little bit to these new search behaviors.

⁓ The other big thing that we're seeing, I know people are talking about this, this has been said on your podcast before, but just the real erosion of trust ⁓ and how people really are very skeptical, or maybe skeptical isn't the right word, but they need a lot of reassurance. And their reassurance is coming from endless researching to a point of decision fatigue, to a point of analysis paralysis. And that's what's of like linked me

Mmm, yeah.

Yeah.

the engagement season. And then it's like they contact you, they ghost you, and then suddenly they like need a wedding in six weeks. It's because they researched so much, they got so overwhelmed, they just kind of like, forget it. I'm just not going to do this. And then they come back to it when they have to. So it's like changing the whole timeline process. But that research piece ⁓ really is predicated on trust. And so the need for businesses to be really ⁓ clear.

Mm-hmm

and concise about what truly makes them unique and what makes them stand out in the market is important. ⁓ One of the things we're also seeing with this, and this comes through the AI portals, is the idea of subtractive shopping. So users are essentially going through and they're kind of filtering down ⁓ all the different pieces and saying, are they in my location? How much do they cost?

Hmm.

super, super big, being transparent with pricing. ⁓ What are their policies? What are the things I can and can't do at that venue? What are the different return or rental timeframes, ⁓ those types of things? Who owns the company? What does this company stand for? What do they believe in? Those are the different types of things that you're really seeing from a subtractive shopping where they're going through and filtering down and AI really helps them do that. So it...

⁓

From a vendor standpoint, you need to make sure that all that information is really clear and online and repeated throughout different places. And so those are kind some of the key areas that we're seeing. I mean, I can keep talking on this, but I'm gonna kick it back to you.

No, yeah, keep going. No, I was going to say

keep going. Well, I was going to say, when you were talking about subtractive shopping, as they go through, it's getting harder and harder to be found, I guess.

Yeah, I think, you you could say that it's getting harder and harder to find you. also you the reason why they're doing this is because they're wanting to find the right fit. And so it's like if I'm looking for, you know, something because they have all this endless research and they have found all these different ideas, they'll start to kind of, you know, look for the vendors in their markets that can do this stuff. The vendors that, you know, have those different types of chairs that they were looking for.

Hmm.

that know how to do this kind of draping or the different things that are trending. And so it really is less about like being harder to find and it's more about making sure that you're aligning with the right person and with the right vendors. And so it's like owning what you are really unique and known for and good at, and versus just kind of being everything for everybody. The ⁓ specificity that you can add to

Hmm.

your positioning statement and what makes you truly different or unique, think really is super helpful in regards to being found online and standing out. Because from marketing perspective, we audit websites and marketing for clients all over the country. And they look the same. They sound the same. They are using the same keywords. They're using the same descriptors about memorable events and seamless planning.

And so those things become really repetitive to a Gen Z-er that's spending six hours a week researching. She's just seeing the same thing over and over again versus someone who's just said something different. And so that's why there are subtracted shoppings are trying to find the differentiators and they can be really specific. How big is the venue? How many people can it hold? What are the policies about outside vendors? And so having all that information available to them, it's more likely to get them to contact you.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So you can't necessarily look at it like, they're not gonna find you or they're not gonna choose you. It's like the right people are going to choose you when you're more honest about this stuff.

Which is probably in the end the best for everyone because sometimes you're working a wedding and you're like, why did they pick me? I don't mesh or I don't connect with this couple. And you're having a hard time figuring out how you even connect with them. So, right. So Krista, so long in the wedding industry. Everything was about referrals and about getting referrals from other vendors. So why is relying on referrals no longer enough for even an established business?

Yeah.

You know, I think that really comes down to what your goals are in your business. And I do think that smaller solopreneurs or independent businesses can oftentimes rely on referrals. ⁓ I do though think that if you have plans or desires to scale or grow your company, know, referrals only take you so far. And there comes a point when you do have to, you know,

Mm.

add some fuel to the fire and expand your marketing net. ⁓ Referrals can also be of inconsistent. you're depending on a planner ⁓ as your main resource of referrals and she retires or they retire, then what's the game plan to replace all that stuff? So it's kind of a one trick pony when it comes to a marketing strategy. I would never recommend that someone only do digital marketing. That would be a mistake in itself.

think more comprehensive of all the different pieces and how they work together. Referrals are definitely one of them. But having them be the only thing I think can be a little bit limiting. And ⁓ the other thing too that can sometimes happen with referrals is that you will evolve in your business or you will evolve in the type of clients that you want to serve. And your people are still referring to you the types of clients you used to serve.

And so it's not even really aligned anymore. then that will create the need to create some more clear marketing as to like, here's actually what I do now, or here's actually who I'm looking to serve.

Mmm.

It's kind of funny when you said, ⁓ you know, like how the referrals will change. I get so stressed out, you know, like about the plan of retiring. It's like, it's also when like at the venue that you work at all the time, now all of a sudden that staff member has moved on to a new venue or something like that. I've had it work in my favor and had it work against me because then the new person comes in and they're bringing the people that they've worked with at the previous venue they worked at.

soon.

then I've also had someone move on to a new venue that we have never really worked at before. And they're like, hey, I'm now at this venue. I want you to come learn and get more about that venue. So I could see how that really is changing as we go through the years. And you can't rely on that anymore. It just, you got to continue to do that mix. So, all right. So the way couples have searched and vetted for has changed. And I heard someone said if you were doing business,

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

the way you were doing it two, three years ago, you're gonna become irrelevant. So staying up with all the way to search and now with AI, like, is it inevitable that if you don't keep up with this, you're gonna be irrelevant or, you know, what are your thoughts on that?

I don't like to say that yes, that's probably true. But yes, it's probably true. No, I mean, I think the thing about relevancy is, mean, like that to me is such a existential crisis as humans and our need to be relevant, things like that. But from, you know, the standpoint of being unwilling to adapt to new tech, I think is, you cannot do it.

Okay.

But eventually, you're going to be in a space of obsolescence. And it's just not going to work anymore. And I look at the previous two major tech waves that we had, at least when it comes to marketing and things that have applied to ⁓ the space, social media. And a lot of people were really didn't get on that train right away. You didn't really have to. But now, if you don't have social media, it really...

Mmm.

It's kind of a big deal. Mobily responsive sites were the second thing that were people were slow to get on that and were like, okay, well, we'll get to that. And, know, there's still websites out there. They're not mobile responsive. But Google really started to ding people and that really started to affect things. so, you know, you eventually it's like now if you're not, if you're building a new site, it's not mobile responsive. It's like, it's AI.

⁓ boy, I remember that one.

aren't they building

them backwards now? Like they build them, like if you're doing it right, you build it mobile friendly and then it'll go the other, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I just heard that at a wedding MBA.

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, yeah,

I mean, it's that we can, we can talk about all that stuff, but yes, that definitely want to make sure that you're mobile first in your site and that it, you know, it works both spaces. The third thing or the third space that we're in now is AI. The difference with AI is the ⁓ adoption curve or like the time is, is months, not years.

Mm-hmm.

It's changing so fast and it is adjusting things so quickly that if you wait, if you defer this maintenance, it's really going to impact your business much more quickly. And so I think that, you know, now is not the time to say, we'll do that next year. We'll just get, cause that's what we've been doing from it. And it's been okay to kind of defer or figure out budgets or move things around.

Mm-hmm.

I think it's going to be a much smarter strategy to at least get started with it, to at least start making some of these changes to how you're creating content, to adjust it so that you are being conscious of image search and including alt tags and getting yourself on Pinterest consistently. You are being considered of AI search and voice search so that the content that you're creating is more conversational. There's more FAQs on your site to question and answer because that's

Hmm.

the kind of stuff that AI will pull from. AI pulls from all kinds of different spaces, but they live more in the area of human interaction. So the interactions that are happening on social sites, the interactions that are happening in your reviews, reviews are really important for AI. They love lists and they love ⁓ the conversational piece. And so just kind of adjusting your content to that space can be enough for now.

Mmm.

You don't need to do full adoptions and full scrapes and things like that, but there's just some small changes because we are already seeing Gemini, Chat2BT, Clog, drive traffic to websites. people are already using that. I have booked clients in my own business that have come from those platforms. And so it's definitely something that people are using.

Mm-hmm.

Because it's essentially a search assistant. It allows you to filter down very specifically to go back to the idea of subtractive shopping. That's how they're researching. So, you know, they've gotten so many ideas. Now they're like, okay, these are the ideas I want. Like who can actually do this? And you can give this very long prompt and it will give you that back.

Even in my everyday work life, find that I'm using ⁓ chat. I named my chat tbt hey girl hey so that's our relationship and that's how we talk because I found out that that's a cool thing to do but anyway I use that more in the last six months and I you know like I just find that I'm finding more and more ways to use it and then I've ever ever ever done before so I think like you said that adoption is if you're not doing it.

going but can people ⁓ no go ahead

Yeah, I mean, it's something that I think

can feel really overwhelming to people or can at least feel like, I know there's also, know, the other thing about it too is there's sort of the ethics of it from a perspective of, you know, hear a lot of, and rightfully so, a lot of artists who are like, this is not ethical, this is, you know, taking artists jobs, is this gonna, you know, replace our work? And that is all valid and very true. And I agree with it 100%. I also know that,

Every time we use these tools in a way that is more thoughtful and more ethical, we are training these tools to exist in that way. And we're not just handing over the entire future of how these things are going to exist in our world to people who aren't in our space or who don't live the way that, you know, with the kind of way that we want to. So I think that that's why it's also important to be using these, you know, for the creatives and for the artists to use them because we're able to, you know, add that.

Mm-hmm.

into the ingredients of the database and how these things will evolve over time.

that crazy like total side note but I just had my first best man speech that used AI generated photos as part of his speech so he like had had to rent a projector and screen set it all up and at first when he was telling me all about this I'm like this is gonna be silly and ridiculous he got a standing ovation like from the crap like I've never seen a best man get a standing ovation for his speech it was very I'm like and then in my head I'm like this is the future like people are gonna be doing

This is the new trend.

Younger younger generation really

like do not see, they don't approach this with any sort of apprehension or fear or anything like that. I mean, they're digital natives. And so this is, only know this world. I was at wedding MBA back in November. It kind of reminded me of, because I hadn't been in many years, but I kind of went again. when I was last there, we were all.

crying about the millennials and how they were gonna destroy everything. And now the Gen Zs are coming in, they're changing everything. I'm like, yeah, that's what's gonna happen and continue to happen. And my best advice is that if this is not your jam, hire someone that it is your jam. If you're creative and you're not interested in the money part, you have a CPA. You don't wanna do all this tech stuff and I'll keep up with this. No enough so that it doesn't get, you're not completely blind to it, but.

Yeah.

Partner with somebody who does love doing this. I think that that's a better way to approach it.

Yeah.

Well, and even how things are changing. I just recently talked to sales person at one of the venues we work at all the time. they said a lot of the people that she's touring are more interested in mocktails than they are in cocktails and all that. ⁓ just how everything is continuing to evolve. And you've got to keep up with it to the point where she said they met together as a team and they created a bunch of fun mocktails. And they're starting to now serve the mocktails on the tour for that very reason. So yeah.

Yes.

I mean,

especially in an industry that is ⁓ trending. The wedding industry is evolving all the time. Event trends are evolving all the time. And the more that you can stay up to date on that kind of stuff, not only from the perspective of what are the new draping or table trends or all the different things that people are doing from the event design part, but also from

Mm-hmm.

the interaction with your business and the technology that you're using to garner leads, to interact with users, the way that you're able to respond to them. All of that kind of tech stuff is also trendy. And so those are the different kind of evolutions that your clients are expecting and will reward you with because they're like, this person again gets me because they can speak to me in my language.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I love it. All right, so we talked a lot about where event pros are actually being discovered right now, but is there a place where they should stop over-investing or stop? Is there a platform that they're putting too much effort into?

You know, I think that really just, I look at platforms like tools and I ultimately feel like, first of all, you need to know what you're building. You need to know where you want your business to go and how big you want it to get and the types of people that you're wanting to serve and where they live. know, and so I think that when where they live, mean by like what platforms are on and things like that. if, and then I think if you're the one who's actually doing the marketing, if you're the one who's managing that,

Okay.

I want you to like that tool. I don't want you to force yourself to use a tool that you're like, it's just not my thing. I hate it. won't, you I don't like using it because if you don't like using it, you won't use it. And consistency is the most important thing when it comes to marketing. So not only is it important that you are transparent and that you tell people who you are and how unique you are and like truly unique, but you say it over and over and over and over again because

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

There's so much information out there that it's really important that you just keep hitting the same points over and over again so people understand what it is that makes you different and what it is, what you should be known for. And I think that if you don't like that marketing tool, you're just not going to do that. And so that's why I wouldn't say that there's any tools that you should not use. I would say my favorite tools right now.

Mm.

Email marketing.

really like Pinterest ⁓ and I do like you know blogging and SEO and I know all those things are a little bit kind of boring and passive and none of them include social media and I say this as I don't really like social media personally and I think social media can be a really hard thing to keep up with because it just changes the algorithm and now we got to do this they change the grid and I got to re-change all my graphics and so it can be a lot of work especially for you know smaller business ⁓ but

Mm-hmm.

Pinterest email marketing and website SEO type stuff from my perspective builds a deeper and longer relationship and has a longer life cycle. It just exists longer on the web from a search perspective and so that's why I like that. But if I had to, know, the two platforms I think that are necessary for ⁓ or that I would put my most emphasis into are Instagram and TikTok for this industry.

Mm.

wow.

Someone's, I recently had someone tell me Pinterest, because it's kind of untapped right now, that they should really be...

Pinterest

is my favorite. Pinterest is not a social media platform. Pinterest is a search platform. It's just a visual platform. And they should be treating it like that and have, and really frankly, you be treating all these platforms like search platforms now because they're all using them that way. And so anytime you're creating a caption, anytime that you're commenting, you want to weave your keywords into that stuff because that is a way that you could be found in those spaces.

⁓ that's true.

Yeah.

And then you mentioned blogging and I'm just kind of, cause I felt like blogging was, I don't know, maybe 12, 13, maybe 10, whatever I could have my numbers wrong. But a while ago it was like, that's all you got to blog, you got to blog, you got to blog. And then it kind of fell to the wayside. Do you feel like with the new AI and every, you know, tools out there that blogging is really important again?

Yeah.

thought blogging is important. And we've seen it with clients that we've worked with, because we've had clients we've worked with for 15, 10 years. The ones that have really consistent ⁓ blogging does it just builds a larger online digital footprint, online net or web. And the ones that have been investing in that were not as deeply impacted by COVID. Because they just were, I mean, there was, it obviously depended a little bit

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

under type, but they were just, they had more reach. They had more ways to pivot. They had captured all these other keywords and things like that. And so what little tiny business there was, or even when, things reopened, they were much more quickly to get on top of that. And so that was some of the things that we had noticed. And I think that blogging is one of those things that's annoying and tedious. And a lot of people don't like doing it. AI can be really helpful for it, but you want to be careful.

because AI also can, you you just, everyone creates the same AI blogs, then they kind of cannibalize each other. So you do again, need to go back to your unique, true perspective, use it as like a helper, but not as a replacement. And I really, think that it can be helpful in, it is feeding the bots and those bots now are AI bots instead of Google bots. And so even if you're blogging once a month, twice a month, you don't need to be doing it.

Yeah.

Mm.

every week or every day. can be very minimal just to maintain. And the beauty of it is that that should then be creating content for your social feeds, for your email. If you are really smart, you're creating video blogs and then you're transcribing those. And so this content absolutely should be repurposed. You should not be thinking of blogs as, gotta do this blog and then I gotta do this social post and I gotta do this email. We have one...

and then we disperse to all the different platforms as a way to manage our sanity and to repeat ourselves over and over and over again. Because again, we want to say the same thing, so let's actually do that.

you

Yeah, and I'm glad you touched on how frequently because I was going to ask how frequently we should be doing it because it was always I remember when it all came out you had to do it least twice a week and there was all kinds of things so I'm glad you said even just once a month makes a difference so that's really helpful.

Yeah, most of our clients,

we will post, you know, twice a month, maybe four times a month if we're being aggressive. But any more than that, I think I would be looking at other tools ⁓ and what you can do. It's still powerful. It isn't something that like, I think that, you know, it's not something that is going to immediately generate and drive leads. It is a longer term strategy. You know, ads.

to be using. All right. So how?

are where you're going to more immediately drive leads. If you're like, need leads in the door faster, you know, want to look at the platforms that are going to do that. you having kind of this ongoing long term foundation building ⁓ is what your future self will thank you for.

Yeah.

I love it. All right, so, Krista, how should ⁓ SEO content and social media be working together instead of feeling like separate jobs?

So one the things that we do and that I think is really key is to create an editorial calendar. And so when you have an editorial calendar, you basically can map out all the topics that you're going to just that you want to be covering and go to your clients for that. What are the things that they're at or your prospects and whatnot? What are they asking for? What are they confused about? What are the trends that you're seeing? Start there.

and then map out the different seasonal things that you wanna be pushing or promoting and map that out. And then you can map it to the different areas of how that's going to then turn into an email, how that's gonna turn into a blog post and things like that. So that's one of the things I think I like to do the best and then obviously social media as well. ⁓ I think that's, yeah, that's what I would say for that.

All right, perfect. All right, so I'm very curious about your answer to this one. So what is one trend that people are overreacting to and one that they're underestimating?

What are they overreacting to? That is a really good question.

was going to, if you would have asked me this three or four or five months ago, I would have said TikTok. I think that is wrong. do think that, and I think because I really am, and again, my team knew this, but when you're sort of like sometimes on the top of your business, you're not in the trenches. They're searching on TikTok. And I was like, really? they? Because I don't personally use it. And that again, speaks to a lot of us who own these businesses. We're in a little bit older generation. So we're like, I'm not on TikTok. I'm like, but

Okay.

You

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah.

But

it actually, I think that is a really key place because of how people are using it to search. The one thing though that I think is most overlooked is email. And I think it's because it's just a pain to do it. And people, ⁓ they'll kind of get started, they sort of over commit the plan and make it too big. And then you burn out. It's a little bit of a New Year's resolution type thing where it's like, I'm gonna do an email, know, twice a month and we're

all this stuff and I'm gonna build this list. I do think though it's really key and the reason why I think email gets overlooked a lot is because of how much higher the conversion rates are in email. Because if you have a list, especially in a business like this where a good portion of your contacts and your vendors and your connections are referrals, or not even referrals, repeat business. You you think about the company that comes in and does their annual stuff all the time or the vendor, the venue you're working with all the time.

Mm.

I mean, staying in contact with them, that's point of your email is to kind of maintain that top of mind piece. So I think, ⁓ but we will oftentimes see conversion rates, open rates 30, 40%. You're not getting anywhere near that on social media. And you also own your list and it's a much more intimate space that someone has to deal with.

Mm.

You know, you can just scroll or you can completely disengage from social media and see nothing on there. But your email is not something that people disengage with as much. And so that's where I think taking the time to recognize that ⁓ this is more intimate space. And so you do want to be providing value and being thoughtful of like, you know, what you are sending people and not spamming people or anything like that. But then also consistently, you know, emailing people. think that's one of my

my most favorite platforms right now. The other thing that I'm going to mention too that isn't really a platform, but it gets overlooked all the time is reviews. There are some businesses that excel at reviews and they do stellar jobs and they have hundreds of amazing reviews. And there's other businesses that like kind of forgot about it and don't realize how much it's actually hurting their business. That's it's the one area that I will say that if you ignore reviews, is hurting your business.

Mm.

Mm.

Anytime you were less than a four and really less than like a four and a half, that's no good. You need to be doing everything you can be doing to get those numbers and those rankings back up and making sure that these reviews are newer. You don't want the last review to be eight months ago or two years ago. doesn't matter to somebody. So you want to be getting consistent, new quality reviews all the time into your business. ⁓ And also watch out for Yelp.

you

Hmm.

Because Yelp is the sneaky platform where people don't claim it. They don't pay attention to it. And that's where you've got your, you 1.0 review sitting. And when someone is searching you, it comes up. They will see it. And if it's just sitting there as this like kind of albatross, like, what is this? That, that hurts your business. And so, ⁓ it's, it is an easy space that I think people can quickly make traction in. ⁓

And so while it's not really a platform, it's just one of those areas, those gardens that you need to make sure that you are tending to and not forgetting about.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, and Yelp, feel like we can do a whole episode on just Yelp because they drive me nuts with like literally get weekly. Yeah.

It's not a space I would advertise. Like we've tried, invested advertising on that space. It really doesn't, it's much better for like restaurants and like impulse and like shorter kind of, know, tourist type things. But when it comes to, you know, we're building relationships and these are longer buying cycles. And so it's just a little bit different, but I can't tell you how many businesses will have like two dead, horrible reviews just sitting over there because they, this person who was really mad, put them everywhere.

No.

and you caught the ones on Google, but you didn't catch that.

Yeah.

Yeah, the Yelp salespeople are aggressive and mean and we could say all the, like they just, yeah, the guy like basically insults me every time he calls it. It's ridiculous. we have, as a company, we ignored Google for a long time for reviews and we got told that we need to start focusing a little bit more on Google because Google likes, you know, Google reviews. And so we have noticed, yeah, we've noticed a big kind of uptick.

you

It does.

in in our ⁓ you know like inquiries and stuff because we're Asking clients to review us on Google now, so it's been a

It's not just the Google search, it's the AI search. The AI search very much likes reviews. So yeah, it's a key area that they look at ⁓ because it essentially gives them a person telling them about the business. ⁓ And that's why it can be a helpful space.

⁓ I didn't even realize that.

All right, right, Krista. So many wedding pros feel pressure to be everywhere. So what does a sustainable digital presence actually look like?

you

I it comes down first to being really honest about what you want to build and what kind of lifestyle you want to have and how big you want your business to be. And once you determine that, then it's sort of reverse engineering the least amount of work to get there and the least amount of spend to get there. Again, I prefer

Mm.

slower, steady, longer term things. Once you kind of get that initial, you know, you've gotten through the initial couple of years of launch and you've sort of built some awareness in the market, you you've built a little bit of a social media presence, maybe you initially ran some ads to kind of get some stuff going. But then, you know, once you kind of get to sort of over that first plateau, if your desire isn't to keep jumping plateaus, you can start to kind of coast. And so,

Go.

I do think that the most important thing is to have a strategy because it businesses a lot of time, know, everyone's doing marketing. You're seeing marketing everywhere. Everyone's posting, but there's just no plan behind it. And without that plan, you're doing a lot of work that isn't, you know, necessarily going to be effective. And so I think for me, the most important thing is to really sit down and figure out, what is it that I want? How much revenue do I want?

Mm.

How many leads do I need to get to get that revenue? So then how many prospects like reverse engineer that back and then that's gonna tell you how much marketing you need to do to make that happen. And then you need to ask your question, can I alone do that marketing or do I need to bring in support and help? Is that help a freelancer? Is that help of agency? Again, an agency is gonna help you more with the actual strategy building, whereas a freelancer is gonna need your guidance and whatnot.

So, know, I think that's what I, and I really very much like the system, the systemizing of things where we again are like, here's one thing, how can it then go to all these different things? So we're repurposing and getting the most value out of anything that we're creating. And so it's not just, you know, this kind of constant churn, which I feel like is what happens. And it's why people get burnt out because they just are like,

I gotta post something, okay, here's what I'm gonna post. Or I'd say, I gotta get something done. There's just not stop and make the plan first. And I get that that's not everybody's cup of tea. That's for Virgos, go find yourself a Virgo and they will make a plan for you. that space is really important, I think for just avoiding the kind of trap that I see so many creatives get caught in.

Mm.

And you know, it's that constant like, because it is constantly evolving. And so it does feel like it's forever ⁓ this kind of treadmill that you're on. And so at some point you have to step off and say, what is it I want here? And so I think intentionality to me is like one of the most important pieces.

Yeah.

I was going to ask how often do you need to be

updating that plan? Because it feels like in today's world, it's probably something that needs to be updated kind of regularly.

Yeah, I mean, we meet with clients at least once a year to talk to them about stuff. ⁓ But I try to do it more quarterly. I think quarterly is a good space to review ⁓ and see if things are changing. And again, what you're reviewing quarterly are your larger goals. And so here's what I personally do. I personally map out a plan for the year and I have a

Mm.

I don't set goals, I set focuses. So what are my focuses for the year? And I never do more than three, because I think we create way too many goals and it just becomes unsustainable. Exactly, so instead I will do a couple of focuses. And so if one of your focuses is to say increase sales, what are the...

Mm.

You

Comes noise. Yeah.

you know, what are the ways in which you want to increase sales? What are the tangible, you know, kind of milestones of success? And then what are the actions that you think you need to take? And then you start to kind of winnow those down and map those out. And then I will then check in monthly, did we take actions every month to work towards those goals? And I'll check in quarterly and say, is that still the same focus I want? Have I achieved that already? And I need to come up with something new.

Mm.

Do I need to expand it or adjust it because the market has totally changed or because something is happening in the world? And then again, so it's an annual, a quarterly, a monthly is sort of how I approach it. And these are things that I have scheduled and it's a task on my And so it's something like when I have to go in and like do my books or like get my CPA, the stuff for my books, like it's that same kind of check process that I have.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah, I love that. All right, so, Chris, we live in like a realistic, you know, we want instantaneous gratification in everything we do in the world that we live in today. how long should business owners realistically expect their digital efforts to take before they start seeing results?

think it depends on where you are in business. think if you are, we have businesses come to us from in one of two places. They're brand new, just starting out, and in that space, you're building a brand, you're building a website, you're starting from the very base. That can take more time unless you are a networking go-getter.

and you want to get out there and proactively reach out to and connect with people that will kind of speed up the process. Marketing's not going to do that. Sales is going to do that. Let's keep these two things separate. They work together, but marketing does not, is not sales and sales is not marketing. And too often businesses will sort of dump everything on marketing and be like, well, that didn't work. And it's like, well, what did you do to actually pitch and sell to people? So make sure you're doing that.

Those businesses though, if you're just to kind of get some traction and some going, ⁓ I usually like to give us at least six months to do that. And it's not so much to get traction, it's more to figure out how to find your little corner of the internet. And make sure that we can align you not only with leads, but the right leads. And so that's why it takes a little bit more time, is because there's some testing and there's some guessing there and there's some, hey, maybe...

⁓ Okay.

I thought I wanted to work with this person, but I do not. And we have to adjust accordingly, or we didn't realize there was this opportunity in the market until we got a little bit further into it. So six, maybe nine-ish months to kind of fine tune is how I like to look.

Businesses alternatively will come to us and they will have been established in their community through word of mouth. They'll have been around for a while, but they'll have neglected their online footprint. They usually come to us with a little bit larger budget and a little, cause they're ready to go. They're like, we've kind of exhausted what we can here. We're looking to kind of make that next plateau jump. Those businesses we can make pretty quick traction with ⁓ because

Mmm.

They've already established themselves within their community and they have the sort of trust and oftentimes will have reviews or have the operational side of their business all kind of smoothed out. They're a well-oiled machine. They just need some gas on the fire. And marketing gives them the gas on the fire to then reach more people and just get the leads into the business that they then have the processes to manage and to convert. Because they've got the sales teams and things like that.

Those businesses, we can sometimes see pretty significant traction within a month or three, just again, depending on how aggressive you want to be. So ⁓ I think it's important, and this goes back to the strategy, to talk to somebody about that and figure out what makes sense for you and what makes sense for your budget and what makes sense for how fast you want to go, because it's really easy to spend a lot of money.

wow.

and waste a lot of Because you have everybody like, you need to have a not listing and now you need to have this listing and now you need to like be here and now you need to get involved in this community organization and you'll just start and you need this tool and this tool and this tool and you'll just start spending all this money. And I think sometimes that can, you can get a little bit too ahead of your skis in that space and not be, you start to lose the strategy there and you start to be more

⁓

Mm.

reactive to the market versus what is it you want to do and create? Well, paying attention to this market and knowing that that absolutely is something that you need to be engaged with, but you're not reacting to it, I think is an important piece.

All right, good stuff. All right, so Krista, we're gonna wrap up here, but I'm gonna put you on the spot. So if listeners remember just one thing about staying visible in 2026, what should it be?

god, only one thing.

We can do two

if you want, but.

Okay, so I think the number one thing, I'm gonna say that the one thing that's probably the easiest, go check reviews. Make sure that you have quality reviews, you have a high ranking on Google, check that Yelp, and that you're responding to those reviews. And then when you're responding to those reviews, throw some keywords in there to kind of bolster visibility. Okay, so that to me would be the easy takeaway thing that I would focus on. a number one A ⁓ would be to

Okay.

OK.

get into AI. Understand AI search in particular, not necessarily the tools and that piece. That's a whole other thing that can have huge ramifications or changes in your business, but just understanding how AI is changing search and what you might need to be doing to your current content strategy. Because that to me also kind of ties a little bit into the keywords in your views.

Okay.

Yeah, and I feel like this year for in the wedding industry, the keyword or just searching or being AI searchable is going to be a big deal. If you're not, you're going to probably be a little bit irrelevant.

It's

going to happen so quickly that I think, you know, it was interesting because again, being at wedding and be a November and it everyone was kind of talking about AI search, AI search. And I'm like, guys, by the time we're back here next year, it's going to be a totally different world, totally different world. you know, and it is not something that I think that they said something like AI doubles its capacity and by capacity, it's like intelligence. It's like every six months, it's essentially double.

Yeah.

wow.

Holy cow.

And so, yeah,

Yeah, that's insane. ⁓

As a business owner, you are defining the future of your life, the future of your employees lives and the future of your business. And so this is the future. And participating in it, knowing about it is gonna make your future a little bit less challenging, I think.

Yeah.

Well, now

that you say that, since June of last year, I have quadrupled my usage. So I'm using it four times more than I've ever used it before. I find that I'm using it multiple. I would use it a couple times a week back in the day, and now I'm using it multiple times in a day. Now it's just like I find more and more stuff to use it for and do things with.

Yeah, and

search your business in those tools. Like what's coming up.

Well, it's funny. It's funny you say that my

my daughter's favorite thing to do is ask Alexa who the best wedding planner or the wedding people are in in our city and we don't pop up yet. And so I'm like, well, we're obviously doing something wrong because we are one of the better ones in the city. So I'm like, we need to.

One

of the things you can do is to create a page on your website. It have to be public. It can just be kind of an internal page, a page that lists all the best of your vendor type. And then put yourself at the top, but create a list with your competitors and with your alternative server providers, because they are just going to pull that list. Yeah.

Oh, I love that. Good advice.

That's a good little nugget to leave us with. right. All right. So Christo, where can people connect with you and learn more about your work at Path and Compass?

Yeah, path and compass calm all spelled out is our website ⁓ We actually have our brand new 2026 marketing guidebook has just been released and so that is Dives deeper into what we're kind of talking about here today in ways that event pros We're sharing some of the latest event trends and then also the different marketing actions to be taking this year And steps to do that. It's free and available. So again path and compass calm is our main website

Hmm.

and compass.com forward slash 2026 marketing guide book all spelled out or it'll pop up on the website as well. You can grab a copy of that as well. So, but, and then you can find find them through the website as well. If you want, I'm always happy to chat with people directly and you know, get your emails and things like

All right.

Well, old school like a millennial, old school like an email. not gen hacks, but email.

This is the time of year where a lot of wedding pros start working on their business. And I think everyone needs to make it a priority to get our digital footprint a little bit bigger and better as we go through. All right. Christa, can't thank you enough for being here today. I enjoyed our conversation. So thank you for being here.

Thank you so much.

All right, folks, we'll see you next time on another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business.