Fresh from a trip addressing the Reno-Tahoe Chapter of NACE, Andy Ebon heads North again to speak to Association for Wedding Professionals International.

The AFWPI 1-day conference will feature a host of seminars and breakouts on Tuesday, June 2nd at the Sunrise Event Center in Rancho Cordova. Andy will be giving a blogging seminar, Blogging Your To Business Success. He also is giving the conference keynote address: Marketing and Selling to the 21st Century Bride.

An AFWPI mixer follows the conference sessions.

Both members and non-members are welcome to attend the AFWPI Regional conference. Visit their site for details.

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: AFWPI, associations, blog, blogging, bride, California, keynote, marketing, NACE, selling, seminar, wedding, weddings

… is probably the wrong question.

I must admit I been infused with a heavy dose of Seth Godin logic. It comes with reading his books and blog, and understanding his perspective. His angle is consistent. Ask different question. Suggest to his readers that they ask different questions.

So when one of my business friends posted the title, “To Blog, Or Not To Blog” on a private message board, I could help but suggest, “Perhaps that’s the wrong question?”

Just because blogging is almost free, in terms of hard dollars, doesn’t mean it’s easy. If you are not a natural writer, you may spend more time per post or have challenges with subject matter. At a lecture last week, I invoked the quotation: “Anything worth doing well, is worth doing badly at first.” (Ben Franklin, I think).

FACT: A well-crafted, well-maintained Wordpress blog, that lives on your website server is perhaps the greatest search engine optimization tool, around, today.

The benefits of engaging customers, prospects, industry peers and media are tangible and incalculable. Actually, not entirely incalculable.

Another FACT: The longer you wait to blog, the more run-up time you give to your competitors.

One of the most important facts of life is: Don’t kid yourself.  As my friend likes to say: “It’s a no-brainer.”

The answer to the question: “To blog, or not to blog?” (as part of my wedding marketing plan) is, indeed, a no-brainer. There are other good question to ask, but from where I sit, this isn’t one of them.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, benefits, blog, blogging, marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, time, wedding marketing

The current generation of brides have grown up on the cell phone. In fact, many of them don’t have a separate land line telephone at home.

As well, cell phones do far more than facilitate phone calls these days. An incredibly high percentage of people use them for texting, checking email, and browsing the internet.

On this blog, and other blogs I develop and manage, I’ve added the benefit of easy viewing via cell phone. It’s easy to install, and it’s free. Did I say free? Yes I did.

There are several plug-in widgets that offer cell-phone optimization, may favorite is Mippin.

The graphic in this post (upper right), shows samples of how a blog would look in a half-dozen different cell phones. It’s amazingly clean.

In the upper left corner of this blog, there is a box, titled: Mobile Version. Simply click on the animated logo, to visit the Mippin site and see what your options.

A huge part of marketing is making your information available in the greatest variety of formats that a prospect might view.

You might never look at a blog or website on a cell phone. That’s not important. What’s important is what a 27-year old bride does.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, blog, blogging, bride, cell phone compatible, mobile version, wedding marketing