KEEPING UP WITH wedding trends in the era of TikTok wedding planning could mean the difference between a bride that can’t wait to come back to your store for, well, everything, and a bride who never shows up on your doorstep.
The easiest way to understand why this matters is to consider your bridal trend savvy relative to a typical bride’s customer journey.
The beginning of any customer journey is the awareness phase. Social media (primarily Instagram and TikTok), organic search, wedding sites like The Knot or Wedding Wire, or any one of a plethora of wedding bloggers all cater to the awareness phase of nascent brides. You want to get on a bride’s radar at this point before the engagement ring is purchased. What content are you putting on your website or sharing on social media to grab the attention of a future bride? If you’re not following current wedding trends, you won’t have the language or graphics to signal that your business is relevant. For example, if you’re following bridal news, you are aware lavish earrings have taken center stage in 2022 bridal wear. Show a Harper’s Bazaar-worthy Instagram carousel of wedding day earrings and set yourself apart.
The next phase of the bridal customer journey is evaluation. Brides do an intense amount of research. During the evaluation phase, you probably won’t even know you’re on a bride’s radar, so you have to depend on your website and social media to do the work for you. Think about every question you’ve ever been asked by a prospective client who was trying to decide between your business and a competitor and find interesting ways to put those answers on your website. You also need a web page of reviews specifically from bridal customers, explainer pages that talk about how your custom design works, and guides to help brides and grooms plan everything from engagement rings to wedding bands to wedding party gifts.
If you’ve done a good job to this point, the next stage of the bridal journey is intent, which is the moment when that bride is likely to walk through your door. Make it easy for her to plan by putting an online booking link on your website and all your social media channels.
Most retail jewelers really shine in the next phase of the bridal journey, which is the in-store experience. Being up to date on current bridal trends and fashions will make it easier for you to relate to her bridal journey and even offer ideas or share fun stories that are relevant, interesting and timely. This is the relationship building that ultimately leads to the final phase of the journey, which is retention. Not only do you want your bride to turn into a lifelong customer, you also want her to tell all her friends about her experience.
If it’s been a while since you paid attention to wedding trends, put it back on your radar. Make bridal trends a topic of future sales meetings. Keep a few bridal magazines on subscription. Because when your next new bride-to-be walks through your door with her wedding binder, you need to be ready to engage in her favorite topic and become a fellow traveler on her bridal journey.