WeddingWire Is A Dead End (1/3)

The morphine drip that no business wants to be on.

Oct 13, 2020

Hi photographers 👋,

It's a dead end of the worst kind because it makes you believe that everything is okay and that your business is growing. It can be the morphine drip that no business wants to be on.

Pay-to-Play: The Vicious Cycle

WeddingWire, like The Knot, creates its own problem and sells you the solution. Before WeddingWire, you weren't stressed out that you weren't showing up as one of the top three results on WeddingWire. The nature of this type of "jobs board" is that it creates a bidding war and a race to the bottom - the bottom being the bottom of your wallet.

It's pay to play.

The more you pay, the more you can play in the WeddingWire space.

And the more coins you put into the slot machine, the times you get to pull the lever.

The Pay-to-Play environment works like this:

You pay for tiers to be listed in your location or niche. The higher tiers are listed in the top slot, or the top 3 slots. As the tiers go lower, you fall lower on the list.

The vicious cycle happens when you get a client through WeddingWire.

This was the original goal - to get more clients. And you've paid WeddingWire to gain exposure.

So now what? Well, now let's get some more clients. You look back to WeddingWire to get you more clients.

You pull out your wallet and pay to play.

The cycle begins to pick up speed.

Now the only way for you to get clients is to get them through WeddingWire. Now the success of your business, your marketing strategy, your referral network all centers around your membership of WeddingWire.

You start to think, “If I drop my WeddingWire membership, then my clients will dry up. I better pay for a higher tier.”

Even if you budgeted WeddingWire into your projects, you are still trapped in the loop.

You don't work for yourself - you work for WeddingWire.