Weddingsonline.ie enquiries for suppliers

skb57894

Hello there internet world,

I'm an experience wedding photographer and sometime ago started advertising with weddingsonline.ie

I've very suspicious about the enquiries I'm getting sent by the company <snip>

For example I never got an enquiry outside business hours monday to friday 9-5pm, I also never got an enquiry on the weekends either from weddingsonline.ie.

Whenever I replied to an enquiry I would rarely receive a reply back (this is not how a genuine enquiry works!)...and my google analytic website data never tied up with the enquiries from weddingsonline.ie i.e. Sometimes I would get a few enquires one week but I would never get a referred hit from weddingsonline.ie on my website.

I could talk about it for a long time as there are plenty of other suspicions I have as well.

I would just ask if there are any other suppliers out there (cakes, wedding dresses, wedding boutiques etc) who advertise with weddingsonline.ie what do you think yourself? Whats your experience?

TY!

Peterdalkey

Very interesting post. Your use of Google Analytics has put you in a very knowledgable position to ascertain the source and quality of your online responses. Without wishing to jump to conclusions here, I too would be extremely dubious that I may have been sold a "bill of Goods", as the yanks like to call it.

If you have an affiliate monitor facility on your CMS, consider listing the vendor on there!

Will watch your progress with interest

ifah

I can look into the email headers for you if you like - pm me if you want and i'll send you an email address.

CinSoots

Unfortunately when you get a referral lead through WOL it is also going to about 80 other suppliers most of which will also contact the lead. So imagine you are a bride and you get 80 odd emails from photographers then you can see why you may not be replied to.

I am a supplier on WOL also and I did get a reply a few times from leads but never managed to book any of them!! So at the very least this proves that some of the leads are real!! I doubt WOL would be bothered making up leads anyway, what would be the benefit of it to them if nobody was getting replies?

Peterdalkey

If suppliers don't list, the site has no user credibility. If users don't buy, how has the site got any cred at all! Why are you there at all?

CinSoots

There are lots of different ways to interact and market to brides on the site so it serves a purpose. However its over saturated with some kinds of suppliers so you really need to be wary of your spend on the site as well as tracking all traffic that comes from there.

I get quite a bit of traffic from it to my website but its increasingly difficult to turn this traffic into bookings

Peterdalkey

It is a bit like any advertising so. When the cost outweighs the benefit, the spend vaporises and the medium dies. Directory sites were early to the internet sales game, but they are mostly on the way out....even the better ones!

blue4ever

Ok – I’m not jumping on this – just contributing to the overall debate.
Firstly I’m not sure what your stumping up for the listing but you should be looking at the ROI at this point.
How are people getting your email address? If they are being referred from the weddings site then this will show in your analytics in the referrer section and then this should be the basis of your conversion/ROI perhaps – as the transaction is happening ‘offline’.
Back to the email and perhaps on to raise and throw more confusion: I tried numerous of the “contact details” links for photographers where you have to ‘click here’ for the email address to appear. To a band playing (excuse the wedding pun) the email address failed to materialise only resulting in a “error” instead of the email address.
I don’t know how long that has been like that, but as of this morning, it’s certainly playing up for me (using chrome). The web link does work.
All for the individual suppliers pages it looks as if all the outbound links are tagged by the site so they can track outgoing links – perhaps they can supply some information?

If I had caught you before this point I’d have suggested (aka insisted!) that the email address supplied to that directory site was a unique one – not found anywhere else bar that site – at least that would begin to narrow the possibilities.

Emails 9-5. To be honest, when I was getting cash n’ carried – most, if not all, internet searches for the joint items (venue, photo, catering etc) were done mostly jointly and the vast majority of them when we were together – ie outside work hours.

I don’t know what to suggest to you really – but maybe the above will give you some ammo!

miju

skb57894 wrote: »

Whenever I replied to an enquiry I would rarely receive a reply back (this is not how a genuine enquiry works!)...and my google analytic website data never tied up with the enquiries from weddingsonline.ie i.e. Sometimes I would get a few enquires one week but I would never get a referred hit from weddingsonline.ie on my website.

Personally speaking I booked our wedding photographer through WOL. I made the shortlist through WOL without looking at any of the photographers full websites. In fact the only photographer websites I visited were the ones on which I was borderline on shortlisting for contacting or not and in the end I didnt shortlist them.

Dare I say that maybe the reason your not getting many replies (and I'm not casting any aspersions here) is that your pricing point is too high versus the percieved quality of your images or that you lack a variable competitive price package.

I say the above because ironically I found some of the worst quality wedding photographers (that anyone untrained / experienced could genuinely take) charging silly amounts in excess for €2,000 that you would laugh at and not reply. When on the reverse you have internationally awarded, published, artistic and highly experienced photographers charging well below that price threshold with a very flexible pricing package also.

CinSoots

skb57894 wrote: »

For example I never got an enquiry outside business hours monday to friday 9-5pm, I also never got an enquiry on the weekends either from weddingsonline.ie.

You could be onto something here - I just checked all the enquiries I received through the WOL Leads service for the last 6 months and every single one of them (bar just one) were sent Monday - Friday and during office hours!! That's very very very strange I must admit as a large majority of enquiries I normally get through Google and other forums etc are in the evenings.

I know another photographer on WOL and I will ask him to check when he gets all his enquiries and see what he has to say. I'll be back

skb57894

Thanks for all your comments everyone. Maybe I am looking into it too much, but I think there is something flawed with the won model. Stay in touch everyone and lets see what happens

farfallaa

I would stop paying them for the leads actually if the leads don't have phone numbers. Another advice for you would be to make your own website and hire a good SEO consultant. You could get leads of your own and there would be no more doubts. Good Luck

skb57894

ifah wrote: »

I can look into the email headers for you if you like - pm me if you want and i'll send you an email address.

Hi thanks for your message...just wondering what your mean and how does what you suggested work? What info would it tell me?!

Thanks again

Graham

skb57894 wrote: »

Hi thanks for your message...just wondering what your mean and how does what you suggested work? What info would it tell me?!

Thanks again

If the emails come from the WOL site directly, the headers won't tell you anything useful.

Peterdalkey

I would wonder if site visitors are actually "reverse showrooming"! They visit the site and get an idea of what they can get for the budget and then use this information to negotiate/buy from someone they know/know of/did the sisters wedding etc etc etc.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2013/05/08/reverse-showrooming-amazon-best-buy-and-customer-service-in-the-age-of-internet-sales-taxes/

ifah

skb57894 wrote: »

Hi thanks for your message...just wondering what your mean and how does what you suggested work? What info would it tell me?!

Thanks again

Every email header contains some information about when and where it originated from. If these emails are being generated from multiple email addresses but from the same IP address then that may be worth looking into if you are suspicious about where these leads are coming from.

tipptom

Peterdalkey wrote: »

I would wonder if site visitors are actually "reverse showrooming"! They visit the site and get an idea of what they can get for the budget and then use this information to negotiate/buy from someone they know/know of/did the sisters wedding etc etc etc.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2013/05/08/reverse-showrooming-amazon-best-buy-and-customer-service-in-the-age-of-internet-sales-taxes/[/QUOTE]
So that's what they call it when you go in to a store and try on a pair of brand shoes for size and then go home and order them online ?

Peterdalkey

tipptom wrote: »

Peterdalkey wrote: »

I would wonder if site visitors are actually "reverse showrooming"! They visit the site and get an idea of what they can get for the budget and then use this information to negotiate/buy from someone they know/know of/did the sisters wedding etc etc etc.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2013/05/08/reverse-showrooming-amazon-best-buy-and-customer-service-in-the-age-of-internet-sales-taxes/[/QUOTE]
So that's what they call it when you go in to a store and try on a pair of brand shoes for size and then go home and order them online ?

Indeed it is and reverse showrooming is when it is done the other way around!!

thecommander

CinSoots wrote: »

I just checked all the enquiries I received through the WOL Leads service for the last 6 months and every single one of them (bar just one) were sent Monday - Friday and during office hours!! That's very very very strange I must admit as a large majority of enquiries I normally get through Google and other forums etc are in the evenings.

Would they be vetting the posts before sending them on? So even if someone emails at 10pm, a staff member looks over it during office hours to see if it's spam or the likes?

Peterdalkey

every photographer I clicked on at weedingsonline had a direct email hyperlink to send an email directly from me to them. Unless they are just spamming out the details of all wedding people who register on the site?

havana

From a brides perspective I've used the service/supplier finder in WOL and booked two suppliers from the emails I received back so genuine enquiries are presumably being sent out by WOL (no idea how they work it once I've out my details on the site)!

Graham

Peterdalkey wrote: »

every photographer I clicked on at weedingsonline had a direct email hyperlink to send an email directly from me to them. Unless they are just spamming out the details of all wedding people who register on the site?

In that case, ifah is correct. It is worth looking at the headers as the emails will originate from the enquirer rather than weddings online.

Farfallaa, what email client/service do you use?

Peterdalkey

It seems to me that there are 2 ways in which you could get an email enquiry from this site. either the querist clicks on your email link in your listing, in which case you will get a direct email from their private email address OR they register on the site and WOL just send out a mass mailing to all vendors who cover their geographic location. In the latter case it would be from WOL and is not an enquiry just a prospecting lead.

Looks like a handy money generating site to me, depending on how much it costs to get listed!! I would question what kind of cost/benefit ROI anaysis advertisers are doing to justify their spend.

skb57894

Yep Peter...thanks for your comments...at the moment its a waste of money!

skb57894

Anyone know how to delete this thread?! I don't want it to be traceable !

Peterdalkey

To be fair to them, the email addresses are most likely genuine, just the buyers that you contact have no interest/have already selected a service. The emails you are getting are just prospects not necessarily interested in even getting a quote from you. That would explain the low to zero conversion to sales ratios!

skb57894

I reckon you're right Peter!

Graham

skb57894 wrote: »

Anyone know how to delete this thread?! I don't want it to be traceable !

Send a PM to one of the mods listed at the bottom of the Entrepreneurial & Business Management forum page.

highlandseoghan

I know 3 people in the wedding industry, 1 photographer, 1 videographer and a card maker. We all discussed this one night about 2 years ago because all 3 had at some stage been members of weddingsonline and we came to the conclusion that the price of advertising didnt justify the business you would get from it. All 3 stayed for the year but not 1 returned for a second year.

We didnt believe there were fake emails coming thru but rather the people that signed up to the site were signing up more for the discussions on the website rather than the suppliers. This would then be how the suppliers get real brides / grooms emails but wouldnt get any response because the bride / groom is only there for the discussions side of the site.

We also thought that when lets say supplier X and Y are being talked about in the disscussions then some brides / grooms will send these suppliers a email just out of noseness to see what that supplier is like rather than a genuine interest.

The other thing is there is so many suppliers on the site in each section I feel the ones that have been there the longest that have the best reviews are the ones that keep getting the business. I also think a lot of them sites are ussed for prices and whats on offer rather than genuine enquires.

If you email yourself thru the site from a different email address you can then see how long it takes for that email to get to you. If it arrives 9 - 5 you but you send it at 10pm you know then that they are being monitored and sent thru office hours.

Buttercake

A friend of mine has a wedding DJ business who also advertises on that site (and others) he always jests that January is he busiest time answering other DJs sending in fake enquiries! He says it's funny as the prices are on his site so doesn't understand it.

What he does is, gets the enquiry and calls the customer back to speak on the phone - if they don't put a phone number he emails to ask for it to discuss XYZ before he can give a price. It adds a personal touch and If they don't want to give at least a phone number well there's not much chance they'll be hiring you

jgb

Folks,

I read the thread with a huge amount of curiosity because I am the sales manager at www.weddingsonline.ie, it is always interesting to see how you are perceived in the market place.

There are a few issues that I would like to address, hopefully this will shed some light on what we do & remove these misconceptions.

Email Enquiries through Sophies Service / Finder - The Service Findersare usually sent during office hours, this is because they are checked before hand to ensure that there is no spam and sometimes we need to go back to the couples to ask for a little more info.
We encourage people to send enquiries to our client suppliers, these are usually couples in the info gathering stage, planning their wedding & not always at the point where they are ready to book. I would always encourage clients to treat these enquiries very differently to direct enquiries, we are happy to look over your communications and provide advice to help you secure more business.

We have actaully held a couple of free seminars to help clients convert more business, if you have been unable to attend I would suggest that you contact your account manager on 01 883 9270 and they would pleased to help you. Our next seminar is on the 10th Feb at Clontarf Castle Hotel.

Making up enquiries - We wouldnt be the market leader and have 14 years online marketing experience for weddings in Ireland if we went down that route, our business model is all about a return on investment and it works very well.

Google Analytics, you will see traffic on Google Analytics, but you must look in the campaign section as we add an appended code that tracks clearly the clicks. We can also forward you a a comprehensive report on your campaign to date, if that would be useful?
Be careful with Google Analytics, because whilst it is an excellent tool it is not 100% accurate, if you Google "How Reliable is Google Analytics" you will find out some useful info.

With regards to lots of suppliers, there are indeed a lot of suppliers but also we have a huge amount of people using the site, over 200K uniques per month and over 1000 couples registering with us every month, bear in mind this is in a market place of approx 20,000 weddings per year. We have a database of over 40,000 couples that have opted into our email marketing. The trick is to differentiate yourself & try to improve conversions by taking the advice freely available. You could be the best photographer, but are you the best sales person? how do you bridge the gap? There is plenty of business to go around - 20,000 weddings per year in Ireland - 100 photographers promoted on Weddingsonline.

Thanks for your comments, please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Jonathan Bryans 01 883 9270