Everyone has been affected by the pandemic and everyone is continuously finding ways to overcome the challenges it has brought. Before Happily Ever Expo celebrated one year in business, we were hit with the challenge of trying to find new avenues of revenue and new ways to stay relevant. Now we are continuing to do that into the new year.
Since the pandemic started, we have been showcasing brands on our Instagram and blog just to give them some visibility to brides and grooms planning their weddings. We just wanted to offer our platform to our brands since getting in front of potential clients in person was pretty non-existent at that point. Of course, we also went the virtual route and launched a virtual wedding expo on our website that is on-demand style. Brides and grooms log in safely from the comfort of their home and are able to watch videos and read through listings of local wedding professionals they can hire for their weddings.
The way the event numbers went where we are located in Massachusetts, we were lucky enough to change one of our wedding expos to an outdoor tented venue back in October. It was a major success! This spring, we intend to do at least one more, maybe two more, outdoor expos to continue to connect local wedding pros with brides and grooms. Intimate tented outdoor expos just may be our business model going forwards if it continues to work!
In addition, we are working on our first “mini-magazine” that will go out to all of our brides and grooms with wedding dates through 2023. This just felt like the right move, given the circumstances. People might say print advertising is a thing of the past, but we are offering reasonable price points for local businesses to get in front of hundreds of potential clients in their target market. At the same time, we are offering something fun for engaged couples to take advantage of while being stuck at home. We even did a cover search contest! If there was ever a time to think outside the box, it is now!
With all of the avenues we have been going down, there was still another opportunity we just couldn’t miss. We are launching Happily Ever Education, which is a virtual workshop for wedding planners and wedding professionals. ORO is hosting a seminar and there will be many other workshops on-demand style. With registration, participants can log in at their convenience and watch the workshops on their own schedule, as many times as they need. We will be announcing speakers and more information on our website! ORO readers can use promo code OROBLOG10 for a $10 discount!
Here is a link to sign up: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/happily-ever-education-tickets-130045721253
I think throughout 2021, a lot of planners will continue to set their sights on driving revenue in ways they never thought they would. It is going to be all about adding in new twists within their businesses to continue to stay afloat and thrive during the pandemic. In 2020, where things were just completely shut down for so long, and many people and businesses didn’t know what the future held, it was just difficult to do anything at all let alone plan ahead with all of the variables. Different than in 2020, we now have more insight, and guidance, on how we can produce events. With the vaccine out now things are about to really change. Things may not look exactly the same as they have in the past, but event planners and producers are resilient and will continue to make their event businesses work!
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