Standing out in the wedding industry can feel harder than ever, especially when couples have so many options competing for their attention. In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin sits down with wedding business marketing expert Becca Pountney to rethink the traditional marketing funnel and explore a new way to approach the customer journey.

Becca breaks down her “marketing theme park” approach and SCREAM framework, sharing how wedding pros can stand out, create better experiences, generate recommendations, and give potential clients more ways to connect with their business.

Becca is the UK’s leading wedding business marketing expert. With a background in film and production, she has scaled her consultancy business to help and develop other wedding pros. Becca has also written a book and hosts a successful, award-winning podcast that allows her to further share her expertise with the wedding industry and help wedding pros grow.

Highlights:

• Why the traditional marketing funnel doesn’t always reflect how today’s couples make booking decisions
• How the “marketing theme park” offers a different way to think about the customer journey
• The SCREAM framework and how wedding pros can apply it to their marketing
• Why transparent pricing, recommendations, and client experience matter
• How personality can help your business stand out in an increasingly AI-driven marketing landscape
• Why your inquiry and booking data can help you understand what’s actually working

Connect with Becca:

Website

Instagram

LinkedIn

Podcast

Connect with Kevin:

Wedding IQ

Fantasy Sound

Instagram

YouTube

TikTok

LinkedIn

All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. I'm here with Becca Poutney. Did I say it right? Because we practice.

You s you said it perfectly.

see, that's why we practice behind the scenes. So and Becca is here today to talk about how to stand out in the marketing theme park world. And I'm excited because I think that's an excellent topic. So before we jump in, Becca, tell us a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today.

Well, my name's Becca Poutney, as you so beautifully said, and I'm sure people can tell from my

Ha ha ha.

accent, I'm based in the UK. I'm known here in the UK as the UK's leading wedding industry marketing expert, and I help wedding business owners from the UK and all over the world get more visible and stand out in their marketing. I do that through my coaching, my strategy, my podcast, and I even wrote a book, which is not for the faint-hearted.

Well, I was gonna ask you, how did you become the leading number one marketing educator in the wedding industry? But I think you answered that question.

Well, yeah, I think I I did all of the things, but my background was in marketing before I ever entered in the wedding industry. I worked in television and radio marketing and so I

okay.

had a foundation in marketing. Then, long story short, I had children and decided to start a wedding videography business, which was how I started in the wedding industry, and the two worlds collided in two thousand and sixteen and I shut down the wedding videography business a year later, and the rest is history, a decade on.

Here I am still leading the charge and talking all things marketing.

I love it. And then now you're probably home on the weekends with your kids instead of working weddings.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

wow.

started small and it was very localized. And as the children have grown and I've been able to be freer and travel more, the business has got bigger. So I've grown a business and children at the same time.

That's

that's a good thing. All right. So, Becca, why do so many wedding pros struggle to stand out in today's marketing landscape, even when they're doing all the things they're told to do?

Okay, so I think there's a few things here. The first thing is I think just for the dawn of time, wedding pros have struggled to stand out and struggled with their marketing. And I think it comes down to the fact that they're not marketers. You know, so many people go into this industry because they're incredible at what they do. So they're amazing florists, or they're amazing at baking cakes, or they're amazing at taking photos, or being a DJ, and they do it because they have a passion.

But they don't necessarily know very much about business and they haven't necessarily got a marketing background. So I think despite the age we're living in, which we'll come on to, I think just in general, the starting point is it's okay if you struggle with this stuff because you may never have done it. And you probably didn't expect when you started this business, being a photographer, being a florist, that you were gonna have to do all the things as well as doing that. So I think that's one of the big things, and that's why I love what I do, because I can help those people stop being the best kept secret.

And actually assist them in their marketing because trust me, Kevin, I cannot bake a cake, I cannot build a bouquet of flowers, I can't really take a very good photo. But I do know about marketing. So I think people are hard on themselves, and that's where I want to start to just say if you're listening to this and you're thinking, why can't I do this? It's because you may have never learned how to do it. You may not have any experience in it, and you're all learning as you go along. And I think the second part is, and I guess it was the episode title.

Around the marketing theme park world is that the marketing landscape is shifting incredibly fast right now. And it's really difficult for people to keep up. So I

Yeah.

did some research about 18 months ago into the marketing funnel. Now I'm sure you've heard of the marketing funnel, Kevin. It's taught all over the world, all over

Yep. Yep.

the place, in university, college. And I was like, I wonder where this came from. And I discovered the marketing funnel was actually invented in 1904.

wow.

By a

man called Frank. And I thought to myself, why

Frank.

are we still learning about marketing from a guy called Frank from 1904 when our world couldn't look more different to the year 1904? Like there were barely even cars on the road, let alone iPhones. And so I kind

Well yeah.

of went down this rabbit hole of like, we need a new thing. Like, we can't keep talking about the marketing funnel that it is not like that anymore. And so I came up with this concept of.

Us actually, we're not in a marketing funnel world anymore. We're living in the age of the marketing theme park. It's loud, it's noisy, it's overwhelming, the lights are flashing, people are shouting at you at every single direction, and it feels like you're in the middle of a theme park, and both your customers and you are in that theme park trying to work out what on earth to do next.

That well and that's true. And it's crazy that to think that we've been following something from 1904 and it like I mean they didn't even have like it was newspapers that I you know what I'm saying? Like what was around in 1904 that this man could come up with it? I don't know. I just try to think back. It's like it's crazy to think about.

Well, exactly. And that's why I went down this rabbit hole, because I'm thinking we're all just blindly saying we're, you know, we need to follow a marketing funnel. But actually, you know, it shifted. And Google had seen that it shifted. Google put out a graphic as well,

Yeah.

talking about how we're in this messy middle. And so, you know, it's not a simple route anymore from A to Z. It's not that a customer

No.

just learns about us and then they go ahead and they book us. Now, you know, there's so much chaos that can happen before that point.

And I think it's really important that we recognize that. And actually, even more so, probably in the last 12 months, the speed in which things are changing, the speed in which consumer behavior is shifting, it's just getting faster and faster. And so, as business owners, it's difficult for us to keep up. But I think that's where we need to start. You need to understand the landscape you find your wedding business in. It is noisy. You know,

even if we go back five years, right? We go back five years.

Yeah.

That's that's recent history. But

Still then people were generally booking the wedding pro that lived in their neighborhood. Whereas now someone goes on to social media, they go onto TikTok and they can see every DJ, every photographer, every venue from all over the world. And you're no longer just competing with a person down the road, you're competing with everyone.

It's so true. just you know, I'm in California in the US and in Northern California, and you know, California's so big that you could probably slice us in the middle and create at least two or three different states. But a lot of the Northern California couples are bringing up photographers from Southern California, Seattle, bringing them in from all over. Like it's a big trend now where it's not just

the local guys, but the local guys then hence are getting on airplanes and going to shoot weddings other place. And I I see it more in the photography market than other markets, but it's true. you're competing with so many other people.

And they're also seeing ideas from all over the world too. So

Mm-hmm.

when they're looking on social media, they're looking on websites, they are not just seeing what you have to offer, they are seeing ideas and inspiration from everywhere. And so it's no wonder that our couples find themselves overwhelmed. I have this stage talk that I do sometimes where I start the talk by saying, telling this story about this couple, they've just got engaged and she's so excited, and she sits down the next morning with a cup of coffee and she thinks, I'm just gonna start wedding planning.

And as she turns on her phone, she's bombarded. Ten ways to plan your wedding. Here's what not to do with your wedding. Three ways to outsource your wedding.

Ha ha ha.

And like within 10 seconds, she's gone from this blissful happy state to being absolutely bombarded with messaging and marketing about weddings. And so when we start saying, Well, why do couples not respond to us? Why do couples ignore us? Why are we getting ghosted? We actually need to put ourselves in their shoes for a moment and realize it's really overwhelming to plan a wedding in two thousand twenty six.

Yeah, that's why I always the ones that have created a Google email like you know, Jane and Bob at you know, the wedding or whatever, it's some generic email address at gmail dot com. I always laugh because I'm like, They're smart 'cause when it the wedding's over they can delete that email address and we're all gone, all of us. So

Yeah, exactly. But I just yeah, I think it's really interesting to understand how the landscape has changed. But once we understand how it's changed, we don't want to leave people in that pit of despair thinking, well, great, Becca you've told us that it's chaos out there. We need to make sure we now tell them how to fix it.

Well, yeah, and that's a good point. So how how do we fix it? I guess would be the next question.

Okay, so as part of my marketing theme park, I came up

Okay.

with an acronym to try and help us think about okay, how can we take this understanding and realize what what can we as wedding professionals do to stand out and get noticed in this market? And the acronym that I have is the word scream. Because what

do you do when you go to a theme park? Well, if you're me, you scream. Okay. So do you want me to just walk you briefly through the letters of scream?

you scream. Yes. I

was gonna ask. I'm like I don't even wanna guess because I'll butcher it.

Okay, so the first one is S then, and S stands for stand out. So in a marketing

Okay.

theme park world, as a wedding business owner, as a wedding professional, you have to find a way to stand out. And when we take it back to the theme park analogy, I want you to imagine you're going to Disney World for the day, my happiest place on earth, and we're standing at the edge of the theme park and it's rope drop, and we all walk through the doors together. In that moment, everyone in that crowd has going to go to a different place.

Uh-huh.

So some

people are gonna go to the biggest ride, some people are gonna go to the fastest ride, some people are gonna go to the newest ride, some people are gonna go right to the back of the park to try and avoid the queues, some people are gonna go right to the front, and some people are gonna stop and get a coffee. And everyone's making

Ha ha ha ha.

a different decision based on what's important to them as people, right?

And the people that stop to get a coffee are doing it wrong. That's right.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm the one right at the back of the park. I'm- no one stopping for photos until we're on that ride. But

the point is that there's something in that theme park that has to stand out to us as individuals to make us go there first. And so

Yeah. Okay.

people listening, if you're a photographer, if you're a DJ, if you're a florist, if you're a venue, as people enter that wedding planning, marketing landscape, they have choices. And so you've got to have something to hang your hat on. And it doesn't need to be the same as everyone else, and it doesn't need to be for everyone.

But you

huh.

need to know what makes you different, what makes you stand out? Is it that you've been in business a really long time and therefore you've got a lot of experience? Is it that you're brand new? So you've got a lot of creativity. Is it price? What is it that's making you stand out? And so that's the first letter I want everyone to be thinking about: okay, what makes me stand out in this crazy

Mm-hmm.

theme park world?

I love it.

Should move on to C?

I was gonna say I would have never guessed S, but okay, yes, let's go on to C.

Well, if you couldn't guess S, you're not gonna guess C. So C

stands for customized and transparent pricing.

Yeah, but never gotta

So in the marketing theme park world, I think, and I will hang my hat on this fact, we have to be transparent about pricing. And anyone

Yeah.

who's still living in a world that thinks we should hide our pricing, not share our pricing until we speak to them on the phone, like that did work a decade ago for some people, but it it

Okay.

just isn't working anymore.

And when I say customized and transparent, yes, we need to be transparent with our pricing, but we also don't need a one-size-fits-all pricing. So go back to your theme park again for a moment, Kevin. And when you go and buy a ticket at theme park now, you don't just buy one price, right? You have one price, which is the door price, the ticket price. But you can also pay more to have better experiences. So we have our standard ticket price, but we also have

A price where we can skip the lines faster. So we pay a premium

Mm-hmm.

and we skip the lines faster, we have a better experience. Now, if we have even more money than that, we can go even better and we can buy the VIP package and have some tour guide take us around the theme park and treat us like royalty. Now,

Mm-hmm.

what we're doing there is we're showing that there's different levels if people want to spend more money, but we're still being transparent about it. So I know when I go to the theme park, I can't afford to go VIP, but I know how much it costs if I do want to go there.

And I think the mistake we make when it comes to pricing, we always think people are going for the lowest price. But actually when you show something of a higher value, if you've got a higher expensive offer, there are people out there that have money and want the best option. So make sure you're not just having a one-size-fits-all. Have add-ons, have extra things that they can buy, have more expensive VIP experiences.

Well it's kind funny too you say that because my son turned twenty-one and we did the VIP tour through Disneyland and once you do it you're broken forever because you're you're walking around the theme park and you see the people walking around in the plaid giving someone a tour and you're like, man

Well, exactly. And it's exactly

the same if you ever upgrade on a flight. Like I've never

Yeah.

flown business transatlantic, but I've flown premium. And

Yeah.

my goodness, me, it was so good. I even got my cup of tea in a China mug. But we but so we can have different prices and people will pay those different prices and people will pay a premium, but there has they have to be getting something for it. So I think

Yeah.

sometimes we think too much about pricing about, you know, racing to the bottom.

But actually, when you're transparent with your pricing, it's not necessarily that people are looking for cheap. They're just looking for what they can afford with the budget they've set aside. So, you know, if I've saved up fifty thousand pounds to go to Disneyland, well, then I can use my whole fifty thousand pounds and probably get the VIP tour. But if I've only saved up one thousand pounds, I'm gonna have to have a lesser experience. That doesn't mean I'm cheap. It's just the budget that I have, but I need to know

Yeah. Yeah.

those numbers to make the decision.

Yeah. And you don't know what you don't know. Yeah.

Absolutely. So

if if you take nothing else away from this, please, if you're listening, make sure you've got price transparency, have prices, have a starting point, have something on your website. Because otherwise I guarantee you're losing customers because people don't want to ask the price. They don't want to get embarrassed. They don't want to find out they can't afford you. So just give them a jumping off point, even if it means they can't afford you, right? That's

Ranges or Yeah.

a good thing. Then they're they're not gonna waste your time. I saw a contact form the other day when I was doing a marketing review.

And at the bottom of the contact form it it said, if you don't have at least six thousand pounds to spend with me, don't submit the form. And I thought, well

Nuh-uh.

I was like, well, it's brazen, but at least it's filtering out the people that are not right.

Yeah, that's true. Wow.

So there we go. That's that's C for you. Right, should we move on to R?

You let's go.

Okay, so R stands for recommendations. So

okay.

in a marketing theme park world when it's noisy, I think the whispers speak the loudest. Now, what do

Okay.

I mean by that? Well I mean by that is, you know, when the whole of TikTok is shouting at you, what your friend says to you is way more powerful.

So, a word of mouth recommendation in this crazy world we're living in is worth its weight in gold. And people

Yeah.

don't think of that as a marketing technique, but word of mouth is one of the most powerful forms of marketing that we can have. And people don't realize that. So, you know, if again, let's go back to our theme park. You know, you're going to Disney soon and you've never been before, and you start watching TikTok videos about the best places to eat in Magic Kingdom, and you start

Going down a rabbit hole, maybe you're watching blog posts and you just don't know what to do. And then me and you just happen to chat on a podcast, and I say, This is where you have to eat. You've got to have breakfast in Cinderella's castle. It's the most amazing experience I've ever had. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, you're much more likely to do what I tell you than what any of those blog posts and TikToks tell you. And it's the same for our couples. So

I agree. Yeah.

we have

to work on recommendation. And I think when people don't trust anymore what they see on the internet when they're they've got too much information, their friend or another supplier or a venue or, you know, someone recommending you is is the fastest way for you to convert into a sale.

And I think that's been ever since Frank has been around, that's probably been that been the case.

Yeah, absolutely. But I think we've lost sight of it. I think people

Yeah.

are so excited by the shiny and the big numbers and the, you know, the hits and all that kind of thing. But actually, having five venues that recommend you on a weekly basis is way more powerful than five thousand views on TikTok because it's actually

Yeah, I agree.

converting into real booking. So the R is recommendation. Don't forget recommendation is a powerful form of marketing. E, shall we move on?

Yeah, let's go.

Okay, so the E in Scream stands for Experience Era. Because

in the marketing theme park world, we are absolutely living in what I'm dubbing the experience era. I don't know about in the States, but here in the UK, we are constantly right now having experiences popping up all over London. Like you can go and do the Traitors Live experience, you can do the Downton Abbey or the Bridgerton experience, the Squid Games experience, and they're really successful.

And I think

Yeah.

people right now want an experience. And I think what we forget is that when couples are now planning our wedding, they're not planning a wedding, they're planning their wedding day experience, their guests'

Yeah.

experience. Like the whole idea of what my guests are going to experience, how are they going to capture it? How are they going to touch it, feel it, smell it, see it? You know, it's they're not just booking a DJ, they're booking the experience you give the guests. And I think in this marketing theme park world,

We mustn't lose sight of that. People don't just want to see, you know, I'll turn up with three speakers and 500 choices of songs. They want to see what you're gonna give them. What's the experience their guests are gonna get? Why is it gonna be unforgettable? Why is it gonna be better than all of the other DJs in the area? Maybe you've got that great video footage of people like dancing with flashing lights and having the time of their lives. That's what people are looking for. They're looking for an experience. And even in the planning process.

You know, we're seeing couples are documenting their planning experience. They're talking about it on the internet. They're, you know, going for a cake tasting is all part of the experience. And so

Yeah.

we need to see those sales conversations as experiences. We're giving them an experience as part of the wedding planning. And if we don't give them an experience in the sales part, they're not gonna book us. Cause if we can't do it in the sales part, why are we gonna do it on the day?

No, and that's a that's a really good point. And I I always harp on the weddings that are the most successful is the couples that spent the time looking at making sure their guests have the time of their lives. And that is some of the best wedding memories. And the people are gonna talk about it. So if it's raining outside, bring your wedding in. If it's hot, you know, like it is for you right now, bring your wedding, you know, in, you know, like make it good for the guests.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think as vendors, we need to remember that for these people, it's probably a once-in-a-lifetime wedding planning experience that they're going

Yeah.

through. And I think sometimes we think of them as numbers on a page and we forget. You know, I

You really? Yeah, I agree.

don't there was a survey that came out in the UK, I think it was two years ago. I can't remember the exact stat, but it was something like the couple said 70% of them felt like their vendors treated them as a number. And that really shocked me. It I couldn't believe how

wow. Yeah.

high it was.

that they didn't feel like their vendors treated like treated them as individuals. They just felt like a number. And I think sometimes we do fall into that because we're like, we got this couple this weekend and this couple next weekend and this but actually what other things that we can be doing to make sure they're getting the maximum experience and not feeling just like another couple?

Yeah. A number.

Yeah. I like that. All

right.

Okay, that

takes us on to A. Now, I again I'm not gonna make you guess because you're never gonna get it. A stands

Yeah.

for attention economy. So 2026,

Okay, yep, i would've never got that.

we are living in an attention economy. And what I mean by that is none of us have a very long attention span. Okay.

No.

Whilst listening to this episode, people will have started scrolling something else on their phone. Maybe they've paused it and forgot that they were listening to it. You know, they're we

Ha ha ha.

can't keep attention. And we know.

That even as human beings, when we're watching TV in an evening, most of us are also scrolling on a second device. So we're watching something

Yeah.

on Netflix while also texting on our phone. And so it's really hard for us to keep attention. And so again, our couples have really short attention spans. And I think this is actually speeding up even more in the last 12 months. We're so used to instant messaging, short messaging.

People are not reading long emails. Your couples do not need you to send them a long, huge email when they inquire. Like no one cares, right?

Yeah, four pages and PDFs and yeah, yeah.

Your emails now need to be like four sentences. And I was talking to some of my clients just today about email marketing. So even going back what, three years probably, I used to talk about email marketing and how you need to tell stories in your emails and give value in your emails. And I'm seeing that go out the window.

Like we don't even have time to read stories or have value in emails anymore.

Yeah.

I every day I speak to Claude, my AI. I say to him in the morning, just before I get in the shower, I type in my phone daily briefing. I leave my phone on the side, I get in the shower. When I come out the shower, my AI has looked at my calendar, it's looked at my emails, it's looked at my notion, which has all of my like big goals on my to-do list, and it tells me a recommended agenda for the day. And as part of that,

It looks in my email inbox and tells me what emails to look at and which ones to ignore. And it also summarizes them into one sentence. So

Wow.

that's where we're going. Like I know that lots of people aren't there yet, but I can see that's where we're going. And I think it's interesting for us because if you can't summarize this email you're sending to a couple in one sentence, AI's probably just gonna be like, nah, another, another email from Kevin just trying to market to you.

Yeah. Sale.

Yeah. Well and now even the Apple is is segmenting out just the regular mail now. You can, you know, hit a button and it takes all the you know, like sales stuff and you know, it just really is broken it down.

Absolutely. But we have their attention for a really short period of time. So when a couple

So so real quick, it used to be eight seconds,

wasn't it eight seconds? And now it's like four or three or something. It it's yeah.

Yeah, it's it's going down and down and down

and down. And so we have their attention for a really short time and at the highest amount when they fill out the inquiry form, right? So when

Uh-huh.

a couple fills out your inquiry form, or alternatively sends you a text or sends you a direct message on Instagram, that is the moment you have their attention. They've clearly been doing their research, they've been spending some time looking at you, and now they've decided you are worthy of sending a message to you, right?

No.

They are at peak excitement level.

Right there, right then. If you reply to them 24 hours later, 48 hours later, they are back in the world and they have less attention on you. So we

need to make the most as much as we can of automation, of auto-responses, of getting something back to them to give them the dopamine hit that we're all used to getting with instant replies. And we need to have a really clear message. We don't need a flowery message. Whatever you want them to do next, just make it super clear in a couple of sentences. So if your sales strategy is

They inquire and then I get them on a call or I get them on a tour. Right. The whole aim of that email should be really short and to the point. And the call to action is book a tour or

Yeah.

book a call. Here's one click link that you can book your time slot in, and that's when you've got their attention. Right. After that, the follow-ups are gonna have to be short and sweet. They're gonna have to be like, hey, did you s I don't know if you had a chance to look at this. Don't forget to book your tour. Like they don't need five reasons to book you anymore. They're not reading

Uh-huh.

it. So

Keep it short and sweet.

Now now is it always still good? Like back in the day they were telling us that you should end your email with a question. Is that still a thing or no?

I mean, maybe like I don't think there's a wrong thing because people are interested in that back and forth, but you've got to have a really good reason to be asking the question and it needs to be something that's gonna get them back. You know how you

Yeah, not something stupid. Yeah. Yeah.

look at emails, I know how I look at emails, our attentions are really short. If I open an email and it's long, quite honestly I'm like, really? I'll flag that, come back And yet

That's like kinda I have yeah. I'm the same way. I'm like, oh really come on. Like I don't have time for this.

as business owners sometimes we send super long emails. So if

And there's a place for long emails, but you've got to know why you're doing it. And if someone's just inquired with you, they're not looking for a long email. Now, if they've inquired with you and three or four other people at the same time, and you're all getting back to them really slow with super long emails, like the chance of you actually moving that forward is really low. And that's when they ghost you. That's when they disappear because they

Yeah.

think I'll I'll flag that to read it later.

And then some other DJ sends them a text on their WhatsApp or whatever it is, and they get back to that, and all of a sudden they're in a sales call with them and your email's still flagged. They haven't had a chance to read it yet. So we just need to understand

Yeah, it makes sense. All right.

attention economy. We got to get back to people fast. We need to be short and to the point. And if we're feeling like that's overwhelming, we need to find systems, automations, things that can make that easier for us. And you know, we can combine the automation and the personal.

So one of the pushbacks people say to me is like, I don't want to be automating. I want to reply personally. And I say, well, do both. Like get the automation to hit them right there, right then in that second with what you want to do next. And then when you've got five minutes, send a more personalized email being like, Hey, we saw your inquiry came in. Hopefully you got our thing that told you to book a tour. But, you know, I'm Becca. I'm the business owner. It's great to meet you if you want to chat. You know, so you can do both, but

Yeah.

Don't not do one because you're worried about it. Like the automated email has to be part of the process.

Yeah. And there's so many different systems out there now that it's har it's hard not to be part of the automation world. So No, no.

Yeah, and it doesn't need to be expensive either. You know, you can do

it for a low cost, but you know, if you are still someone that is either replying manually to every single contact, or if you're doing wedding shows and then typing in email addresses and replying manually to every single one, please stop doing that. There is better usage of your time. Like your time is worth the $15 a month or whatever it is to get the automated email sent out to you. Please.

Like just use your time on better things, use your time on the personal touch, on the customer experience, on the sales call. Like put more time into that and get some stuff automated.

Becca, I've been around so long that I used to get a monthly list of all the couple's names and I would handwrite them on my brochure, fold it, and mail it. So that's how long I've been doing.

You know

what's funny though, Kevin, is I feel like we've gone full circle and I feel like if you started mailing brochures to people again now, people would be like, Wow, this is so cool. Someone sent

It probably

me some actual mail with my name on it. Because you know, actually now mail is a really good way to show customer service, to show that personalized touch. You know, I I'm a big advocate for people having postcards that they write and send to their couples about how excited they are at their wedding because

We get so little mail that is personalized and is like that. People feel

Yeah.

like they've won the lottery when it comes.

Yeah, my fourteen year old likes to go to garage sales and look for vintage tech is what she calls it. So basically all the stuff I grew up on. And I'm like, it's crazy because I've like either donated or got rid of it, but it's the same kind of thing. It's all what's old is new and cool again.

So Yep.

That's it. It's all coming full circle, which brings us

to our final letter in our Scream acronym, which is M And I'm not gonna make you guess because again, you won't guess. M stands for multiple routes. So in our

okay.

marketing theme park world, there are multiple routes through the theme park. So, you know, this takes us full circle back to the fact that the funnel is basically dead. Because in 2026, every single one of your couples is gonna take a different route.

To you. Some of them are

Mm-hmm.

gonna find you on Instagram, then go to your website, then fill in an inquiry form. Other people are gonna find you on AI search, then go to your website, then go to Instagram and send you a direct message. Other people are gonna see you at a show, watch you on TikTok for 10 days, then go to Instagram and send you a message. Like people are coming from everywhere and all over

Yeah.

the place. There is not one set route, and we have to meet people where they're at. The worst

Mm-hmm.

thing, and people still do this, and it

I'm sure there's people listening that still do this, is if someone sends you a message on Instagram, do not have an auto-reply that says, I don't check my messages here. Please go and fill in this contact form.

Mm-hmm.

Like you've lost them. Like you have lost them. Like we're not living in like a hundred years ago. If someone takes the time to message you on Instagram, you know, it takes you like three seconds to check your Instagram once a day if that's all you can do. And reply to them where they're at. And once they reply to you, don't try and take them to email.

Yeah.

Like I

feel like we, you know, I had it even today. I was chatting to someone on WhatsApp about coming on my podcast. And at the end of the conversation, we were going back and forth. She said, Do you wanna chat about it on email? And I just went, Not really. Like we're we're chatting

No.

about it right now. I was like, I'll just put the link right in this chat. But there's something about us that feels like the formality of like taking something back to email is an important thing. But couples don't like it. Couples don't

All check their emails, you know. I've got

Yeah.

friends who are in their early 20s, and I don't know about your kids, Kevin. They're like emails are so old school, we don't email anyone.

No. Well I have a twenty two year old and a fourteen and and a twelve. And my twenty two year old should have some kind of email you know, like discipline, I guess, and zero. Text me, Dad. Text me. I don't I don't I'm like, Did you see that email

Yeah, they don't do it.

I sent you about? You know, like I'll forward him like some kind of concert or something that's happening. He's like, No, Dad, text it to me. So

Yeah,

I don't check my email. And that's a that's a common thing I hear from that age group. I don't even check my email. Why do I check my email? Just send me a screenshot. And so

Yeah. Yeah.

again, we've got to get into the mind of these couples and think, well, why why are we forcing them to do what we feel comfortable with? If they are actively having a conversation with you on WhatsApp, on text, on Instagram, like do the conversation right there. You don't need to take them to email, get the information. You can still send them the links for book a call. I mean, you can even do the call.

on FaceTime if you want to, like we don't even need to send them to Zoom necessarily, but we

Yeah.

just need to meet people where they're at. And I guarantee you you will get a better conversion rate. You will get a better amount of people responding to you if you do that rather than trying to force them to email. And quite honestly, like you just said, your emails will probably end up in their junk or they'll just flag them to read later. So if you can text them or you can find a way to instant message them some way, that's much

Yeah.

more likely to get a response.

Well and I'm guilty of the Zoom thing because I just thought about it while you were talking about it. It was on Saturday I had a groom that I was meeting on Zoom, but the groom's like, I've never used Zoom before and I was he was like I'm like in my head I'm like, What? You know, like I feel like And I was just like Yeah.

But exactly, but why do we

feel again, like why do we think we have to have meetings on Zoom? Right? It's because we did for a while in

Yeah.

COVID and and actually it's no different to f like it yes, if we're recording a podcast or something high quality, but if we're just having a chat, I can FaceTime you, I can WhatsApp video call you, I you I can chat to you wherever you feel comfortable. We can give them the choice if if we have the facility, but

You know, they may feel more comfortable doing that because they might think Zoom, I don't know how to do that, I don't know how to log on, I don't know how I get the app. You know, we assume everyone knows what we know and they don't.

Yeah. Well, all right. Do we need to recap it or we think we got it?

I'll whiz through it very fast. So Scream stands for S in this marketing theme park world. Stand out. C customized transparent pricing. R recommendations. E experience era. A attention economy. And multiple routes through the theme park.

I love it. I love it. So one of the questions I was gonna ask that I thought of is like, so we one of them was you know, scream, or the whole thing is scream. So it's like, what's the difference between standing out or simply just being louder? Like, you know, so you gotta do the difference. So I could scream

Yes.

at you, or I'm just loud, obnoxious over here, you know.

Absolutely. So I think that it depends, right? So we need to scream. I think a lot of us whisper too much. We're not very

Yeah, we do.

good at shouting about how good we are. We're not very good at telling people about our business. And we assume people know about our business when often they don't. Again, I used to have a workshop I did and I used to do this exercise where I would like draw concentric circles and I would start with the middle one. I'd say, right, just think about your immediate family. Like what percentage of your immediate family could tell me.

What you do and what your business is about and what makes it special. And people are like

pretty high, like 95%, 99%, 100%. Then I'm like, right, now let's

No, I would say the opposite.

now let's go out to friends. Okay, can they tell me about it? And we just keep on going out the circle. Okay, now think about the town where you live in. What percentage of people in the town where you live, where you are based, would be able to tell me about what your business does, why it's great, you know, what makes it stand out, and then go out to your state and then go out to your country, and all of a sudden.

When you may have thought I'm super visible in my business, I'm a nine out of ten. I shout about it to everyone. Suddenly you realize actually I'm quite small. Like there's a lot more people I could be telling about my business. Like even the people that live down the street don't necessarily know about it. So I think that's the first thing. I think we don't actually shout about it anywhere near enough. And

Mm-hmm.

I think the second thing is, of course, we don't want to be obnoxious about it, but we need to think about who we're shouting it to. Like who are we trying to attract? Who are we trying to talk to?

What is our messaging? Because we want to attract the people that we want to attract. And so in our marketing, if we know clearly, right, this is the kind of couples, this is where they hang out, this is the media they're consuming, this is the kind of venues they're at, this is the places I need to be. And this is what I know are their pain points. This is what they want from their wedding. I know they want this kind of experience. I know they want this customer service. Well, now when you're shouting those messages, they're landing and they're going, Yeah, that's me, that's me, that's me.

But, and here's a really important one, we need to be talking to them and not about them. You know, one of the biggest mistakes I see on websites is people just constantly saying couples, couples, couples. We should be saying, you. Do you want the best wedding of the year? Do you want this? But so often we forget to talk to them. So, you know, if there's one change people can make, go read the front page of your website and ask yourself, are you talking to the individual or are you talking generically?

And is there more about you and your experience on the homepage of your website than there is about the couple you're trying to sell to?

That's great advice. All right. Where do you see wedding pros unintentionally blending in when they think they're differentiating themselves?

Well, I'm gonna get on my high horse now. But right

I love it.

now, as we record this, the place where I'm seeing people blending in is using AI in the wrong ways way too much. Okay,

wow, okay.

because I think AI is the new like sage green wedding scheme. You know, when we went through that phase, it was like every wedding looked exactly the same.

Yep.

And then we were like, no, we need to stand out and be different. And what's happening in this AI world is people are starting to blend again.

Like everyone's posters are starting to look the same. People are making AI logos. People are using AI images. And what's happening is everything's kind of merging again. And people sound the same. The emails people are sending. Right. I did a competitor analysis for a venue for a marketing review. And as part of that, I I review their competitors and I mystery shopped them. And I got five email responses back. And three of the email responses I can almost guarantee were written with ChatGPT and they all sounded the same.

wow.

And they all think they're being different. I'm just gonna get AI to help me with this. I'm gonna come up with a really cool, trendy way to email back. But what's happening is they're losing their voice because they sound like Chat GPT. Now, there's loads of great ways you can use AI. I talked about them earlier in terms of me and my schedule. But I think when it comes to marketing, it's making people blend in because you all think you're being cool, like putting a cartoon AI image of yourself in your profile picture, but so's everyone else. And so

In an AI world when everyone is looking the same, the best thing you can do is be yourself. Have your own personality. Write your emails in your own voice. Stop thinking that the robot's gonna write it better than you. Stop losing

Yeah.

your confidence in how to write a great email because all that's happening is it's just getting really bland. And everyone's captions and everyone's email marketing, everything, website copy is starting to blend and look the same. And we're gonna go back to that Sage Green wedding era, but just from marketing. We're all gonna look the same.

Well and it's funny because the next question I was gonna ask you is what does personality play in marketing today? And I think it's get off of AI. Like let let your voice come out is w yeah. No, no, no, no. Claude seems like he does a lot for you in the morning. So

Yeah, and I think, you know, I'm not hating on AI because there is some incredible things, right? There's some incredible things with AI. Exactly.

And I think the the problem is we're all using it kind of like how people were using it three years ago still. We haven't realized that it's catching up with us. And I think your personality plays the biggest role because the really the only thing that differentiates us from everyone else doing the same as us is the person that's doing it, you know, and at a wedding

Yeah.

You play such a big role in that person's day. Most of us are there on the day, they're in the lead up to the day. You know, you're the makeup artist. You're taking the photos. Again, I used to say on a stage talk about how the photographer often spends more time with the couple than most of the guests do. Right? So th

Yep. Or even the

even like if it's a if it's a heterosexual wedding, like I think the photographer spends more time with the bride on the day of the wedding than the groom. Than the bride spends with the groom. Yeah, anyway.

Absolutely, exactly. Absolutely,

exactly. And so, you know, personality is a big part of our industry, and we need to not be afraid to showcase it. And and sometimes it does mean that we're going to be a bit marmite. And that's okay. We're not, do you have marmite? It's kind of this thing in the

No.

UK. Okay, Marmite is this thing in the UK where like half of the UK love it and half of the UK hate it. Okay. And

how funny.

so our phrase, you're gonna be a bit like Marmite means that if your show your personality, some people will love it.

And some people will hate it and that's okay because we don't need to serve everyone. And the people that love it will love it, right? And so

No, that's true. Yeah.

when you lean into your personality and you lean into who you are and what you do, the people that like that will like it more. But if you just look bland and boring and like everyone else, people will decide on price. They'll just choose the cheapest. Cause if everything's identical,

Yeah.

why wouldn't you just choose the cheapest one?

Yeah. All right. And then Becca, do you think any marketing channels or strategies right now are currently underestimated?

Yeah, the word of mouth marketing for sure that we talked about

Okay.

earlier. And the other thing I think people are really leaving behind is Google and website. Right? People are so excited about social media. People are so excited about AI search. And AI search is growing and we have to pay attention to it, but it's still a very small percentage compared to organic Google search. And there's lots of clients that I work with that don't even show up.

on a Google search or their website's really out of date because they're like, yeah, but

my images are amazing on Instagram. Well, that's great. But your website, I'm coming to that too, and it it looks dated. So I think people are sometimes neglecting the, you know, the foundations, the old fashioned

Yeah.

style of marketing. They're looking for the new and shiny, but those things are still crucial. A great website, turning up in Google search and networking, like don't neglect those things. They're still getting people a lot of bookings.

Yeah, relationships are big. And then like you said, you never know. Someone might find you on Instagram and then boom, they go to your website or they'll search for you. You know, and then if it's like you're amazing here and then wah, wah, wah over here, it's not gonna be you're you'll probably lose them along the process.

Yeah, and I speak to a lot of people, and again, I bet there's people listening thinking this and they'll say to me, like, hey Becca, can you take a look at my business? And they'll show me their Instagram and they'll go, Please don't look at my website. I'm like, Well, you can't say that to a couple. They're looking anyway. You know, if you're embarrassed or ashamed and you don't want me to see your website, that's probably a sign that it's time to refresh it, get it redone, update it. You shouldn't have it like as

Yeah.

this kind of corner of shame, because actually we know that couples are looking at it. They are stalking you everywhere, they are looking at every channel.

And so everything has to look consistent. You can't just leave it in the back porch getting dusty because it will be losing you sales.

I just met someone at a at a networking event and they handed me their card and they're like, But don't go to my website yet. It's still a work in progress. And I'm like, What the hell do you even have it on you know, like you like get that and then be then you should come to an event because that's like one of the first like Instagram or website, if someone hands me a card, that's the first place I go to look and check out. So

And still

and I guess there's people probably listening to this as well. Sometimes I'll be like, Hey, can I follow you on Instagram? And they're like, I'm still only on Facebook. I'm like, Okay, well, I don't I I have

Yeah.

nothing to say to you if you don't even have an Instagram account. Like if you wanna be where the people are, you know, Instagram, TikTok, they're there.

Well, I know

I've I'm like I'm old and I'm like big on I love Instagram and I feel like I'm behind because I don't have all the other you know, I have Facebook but I barely go there. Everyone's like, Did I posted something to you on Facebook? I'm like, Okay, I'll go look. You know, the guy's like Yeah. Exactly. Yes, yes.

Just like your twenty-two-year-old is doing with emails, right? It's old fashioned. I'm not there anymore.

Come find me on the Snapchat or wherever they're hanging out or the TikTok. But, you know, and I think sometimes we can get overwhelmed and we, you know, we joke about age. And it is overwhelming to keep up with these new platforms and find the places. And so I guess my message is as well, like we're all in this marketing theme park too, and we're overwhelmed. And you don't have to do all of the things.

But if something's not if you're not getting clients, you've got to change something. But if you've

Yeah.

got clients coming in and your channels that you're marketing and are doing well, you can still double down on those channels. You don't have to do everything.

Uh-huh.

you know, you you can say no to TikTok, you can say no to Instagram. I'll judge you for it, but you can say no to Instagram, you can say no to email marketing, you can say no to wedding shows, you can say no to directories, but you know, you have to know why you're saying no. But

You know, I'd rather you were doing some things really well than being a busy fool and just letting everything fall apart.

Yeah, do you think there's l like a a marketing habit or a mindset that wedding pros should leave behind?

Or leave behind.

Yeah.

I think, yeah, that's that's a that's a good question. What should they leave behind? I think they should leave behind number one, the mindset that I've got to get them on the call to make the sale. That's the big, biggest one. People

okay. That's a good one. Yeah.

say that to me still all the time, and I say to them it's changed. By the time they come on the call, they're already like 95% of the way to booking you. Like they're

Yeah, okay.

not wasting their time on a call.

if they're not 95% of the way. You know, I don't make calls if I'm twenty percent certain I want something. Like I'm only leaving

No.

my house going on a call if I'm really certain I want to have that call. And so if you're waiting to sell yourself on the call, it's too late. So yes, you might be great on a call, but you've got to get that kind of pre-bit better in order to get them on the call in the first place. Otherwise you're probably losing them.

Yeah, I love that. All right, we're coming up on time, but I wanted to ask you, like if for someone that feels invisible in the marketing world right now, what's the first thing they should focus on changing?

Okay, so the first thing I would say is f do some self-reflection, which isn't

Okay.

the normal thing that someone says. But if someone comes to me and they say, Becca, I it's not working for me. I need a marketing strategy, I need to be more visible. I'm gonna ask them a ton of questions because I want to actually identify what the problem is. So my question number one would be: Okay, is it that no inquiries are coming into your inbox? Is it zero? Or

Mm-hmm.

Is it that inquiries are coming into your inbox, but then they're not converting, or they're the wrong

Mm.

inquiries types that they haven't got the right money? Or is it that you're getting them on the sales call and they're not converting? So we need to work out what the actual issue is and whether it actually is an issue. Because I don't know if you've ever met these people, Kevin, but I have people come to me and they're like, Becca, I just feel like everything's falling apart. And then I start asking them questions. They're like, I need 15 weddings for next year, and right now I only have 14.

No.

Well then you don't have a problem, right?

You know, what what what is the problem here? You know, yeah, but I just feel like I should be doing more. I'm like, well, if you only want 15 and you've got 14 and you've got six months, like you know, you're fine. And so

Fourteen. You're pretty damn close. It's like

sometimes there's not actually an issue there. People are just comparing themselves to others on the internet and feeling like they should be better.

Mm.

So, first of all, identify the problem. If it's a complete lack of visibility, like no one's inquiring.

Then I'm gonna go back to my concentric circles again and say, okay, well, where are you talking to people? Like no one's gonna inquire if they don't know you exist. So if I

Yeah.

search for your name or your vendor type and your town on Google, do you show up in the first five results? Yes or no? Right? No? Okay, well, there we go. There's one thing we can do. We can try and improve that. You know, if I search on social media, are you putting stuff out there? no, I only post once a month. Okay, well, that's why no one's finding you.

Sometimes it's the simple things people just are like, well, I just thought people would ring me. They don't. And you

Yeah.

know, going way back when I worked at the radio station, I used to work in the marketing team, but there was a sales team right across from me. And, you know, they didn't just sit there all day waiting for the phone to ring. They had

Yeah.

to go out there. They had to prospect. They had to talk to people. And if they were low, if they didn't have people, you know, in the pipeline, they'd have to go in the sales director's office and answer to it.

And tell that sales director what they'd been doing, which had led to nothing coming into the pipeline. Yet as business owners, we forget that we are the sales director, right? We don't

Mm-hmm.

ask ourselves those questions. We just sat there thinking, why is no one inquiring? Okay, well, tell me what what 10 pieces of work have you done in the last 30 days to try and attract new inqueries? What events have you been to? Who have you reached out to? What content have you created? What work have you done on your SEO? And if the answer is nothing, well, let's start with just.

Doing something.

Yeah, makes sense. Well, and that's good advice because I think i it is funny that you use the analogy because someone recently I was talking to at a networking event was complaining how slow it was, but then comparing their business to the last year, they're about the same. but then last year they were telling me how busy they were. And I'm just like, Wait, you know, like like quit inventing problems. And which I think we're all good at in this wedding industry.

So it's it's yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And

and you know, to finish, I'm a big advocate for data. Get your data written down so that you are

Yeah.

not comparing to feelings, you're comparing to facts. Like this time last year, can you tell me how many bookings you had in the diary? Like, are we up or down on last year? Are we up or down on last year financially? You know, look at

Mm-hmm.

facts rather than feelings. Just because it feels

Yeah.

slower, it might not be slower. Or it might be that your processes have become more efficient, so you're not being so busy.

No, and you're you're a hundred percent right because that's exactly what it is. it's data, numbers don't lie. I don't know if you know Tom from the Knot, but he's big on that and he you I think aren't you going to Florida coming up? You'll

Yes, I am.

you'll meet Tom there, but Tom Tom will be at at that. But he when he speaks, he's big on you know, like the same thing. People will tell him this whole sob story and then he's like, Well, let's look at the numbers and then the numbers are they don't look so bad. It's like well then what are what's the what's the problem if the numbers are not bad?

So yeah, data

Exactly.

But a lot of people aren't looking at their numbers and so that's

No.

a great place to start as well.

Yeah, I agree. All right. Becca, thank you. You were fabulous. But before we let you go, where can listeners learn more from you and connect with you?

Well, you can find me in all of the places @BeccaPountney on Instagram. Come and send me a DM or have a listen to my podcast. Kevin was recently a guest on there, so you come and hear us having a similar conversation, but

Mm-hmm.

from the other side, from a different perspective. And that's called Wedding Pros Who Are Ready to Grow. And you can find that by searching my name in your favorite podcast app.

Okay, and we will be sure to have all her information and the link to her podcast in the email blast that goes out this week. So folks, thank you for or folks, that folks, Becca, thank you for being on the podcast. I don't know where I got folks

Thank you for having me.

from. So just one of those things that just kinda came out of my mouth. No, really appreciate you having me and I look forward to seeing you in August when we're in Orlando.

I can't wait. See you there.

Yeah. All right.

Folks, thank you for listening to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. We'll see you next time. Bye.