How CreaSwitch uses Social Media Marketing to scale small businesses in the wedding industry ?

“Sales are the core of any business and I am pretty sure most people can sell, I respect that, but do you know what branding is? If sale is king, marketing is queen; one can’t be without the other. Guess what, when you bought your Iphone X , chances are it wasn’t because of a cold call or a fancy pitch , it’s THE why , THE story, THE mission = THE BRAND “ says Alexis Gilli ,  C.E.O and co-founder of CreaSwitch .

Indeed, most small businesses are usually family owned and aren’t revenue oriented. Yet, 50% of all U.S.A based businesses break even or lose money.   I had the chance to chat with Alexis about how small businesses, making less than 2.5M a year could stand from the crowd and make a decent living. Here is a summary of our short interview. Thanks for reading!

What’s the one thing you wish more businesses in the wedding nice understood?

“I wish they understood how their customer actually think. Weddings are incredible for a lot of reasons from a marketing stand point. First of all it’s one of the only time in their life that they will be ready to spend ludicrous amount of money on your services or products. They are making decisions based on their emotions. “

Why should businesses outsource their marketing to a company like CreaSwitch ?

“As funny as this sounds, I recommend small businesses to do their marketing internally, it’s cheaper and more practical than to work with an agency. However, if you are losing money, believe me, that’s not a “Facebook “ problem, that’s a “you” problem.  In 2018, having a website and social media accounts on as many platforms as possible is a must, yet executing properly on these platform is the variable to the success of your company. Will the end consumer be thinking about your pizza truck when they want to eat because of your “brand” ? Or will they buy from the first website they find online? That’s for you to decide.

With very restricted budget where should small businesses be spending their cash?

“Facebook ads are under-priced, influencer marketing is very under-rated . These are the 2 core pillars of the social media “low-expense” formula, yet here are some of the challenges you may face.

The way facebook works is comparable to the Television, they show your ad to people. The creative is the variable, will your ad be efficient? It depends on the content you show to the consumer. Overall, video is better than anything else as Facebook wants to crush Youtube .

Influencer Marketing also can be incredible. Yet you can be scammed by fake influencers who bought followers or you can simply fail to produce appealing content which will result in poor results.

That sounds quite complicated, is there any simple formula ?

“If you don’t know what you are doing , try setting up a Geo-localised Facebook Ad with your Phone Number and a strong CTA “

Aside from Marketing & Sales what are some important things that often are under-rated in the business world?

“Great question ! 99.99% of the time business owner don’t realize how important beautiful visuals are. Having a beautiful logo, great designs and incredible photographs literally change everything.

Don’t worry about quantity, worry about quality. If you hand me a business card that cost you 2$ to design and 5$ to produce , I will see right thought it and chances are I won’t take you seriously.“

How about Search Advertising ?

“ Back in the days where I was working as a wedding photographer , I have 95% margens on 3000$ packages so I wasn’t too worried about my customer acquisition cost . If you have a similar business model you can try setting up a Google Adwords Campaign but please , please , please , do not waste your money on Youtube Pre-rolls , Banner ads or Pop-ups . This type of intrusive advertising will indeed produce incredible results in terms of impressions and clicks but did you ever click on this type of ad on purpose ? So did anyone else . “

After spending a few hours chatting with Gilli and CreaSwitch’s Chief Creativity Officier Marcus Bryan I was blown away by how creative and resourceful they were, thanks for your time guys!