EP|2 Trend Forecasting for Wedding Pros
Let’s talk trends! I love looking at current wedding industry trends, but more than that I love trend forecasting. Are you familiar with what trend forecasting is and how you can use that information to help grow or refine your wedding business? In today’s episode I want to share with you how this tool can be a powerful asset to your business along with some of the recent top wedding industry trend predictions for 2022 and maybe a few of my own. Let’s get started!
Have you heard the phrase ‘trend forecasting’? I have to admit I hadn’t until quite a few years into running my wedding business. But, the funny thing was, I was doing a version of it already - I just had no idea there was an official term for it. I didn’t go to business school and I relied on a lot of instinct in running my business, but once I found out that a version of what I was doing was a proven business strategy, I doubled down on it - and it has been a huge factor in my companies long term success. So what exactly is ‘trend forecasting’?
Well, at its most basic, it is simply predicting trends. But, I am not just talking about color trends or the decor “must-have” of the season. This is information that can give you insight into what offers and packages to create for your couples, how to price your services, what language to use in your marketing, how to improve client satisfaction, what couples are going to be looking for in the future and so much more.
According to job site Indeed;
“Trend forecasting is the process of using market research and consumer data to create predictions about customers' future buying habits and preferences. Forecasters research cultural and environmental changes in order to determine how these factors may impact consumer behavior and priorities”.
Now, don’t tune out here because that sounded a lot like “corporate speak”! I am going to break down for you simple ways in which you can use this in your own business that doesn’t include charts or becoming an expert on this.
In essence, trend forecasting is studying your clients, the wedding industry and what is going on more broadly in society, to help you as a business owner determine what services your couples are going to want and how weddings will look in the near future.
We all put so much time and effort into the services we offer, the pricing of our services, the marketing we do, our websites, but a lot of the time we are either just guessing that our couples are going to want what we are putting together or looking to the other businesses in our market and doing what they are doing.
There is a better way.
Trend forecasting is a tool that you can use to understand what your clients are going to want to purchase from you, so you are not just guessing or looking at what everyone else is doing.
There are two types of forecasting; long term and short term forecasting.
Long-term forecasting: Also called macro trends, long-term forecasts look at broad indications of societal shifts that may impact consumer's lifestyles and daily routines.
Short-term forecasting: Short-term forecasts, also called seasonal forecasts, focus on specific time frames, and typically provide an overview of customers' potential purchasing habits for the next six months to one year.
This information can help you determine what services to offer to your couples and make a prediction that they are going to sell.
A great example to demonstrate what this looks like in the wedding industry is elopements.
In the short term elopements and small weddings are not only trending, but still continuing to trend because of the pandemic. This is a direct result of an environmental change that hugely affected the wedding industry. We now have many vendors offering small wedding services that they wouldn’t have otherwise introduced or thought there was a market for, but because of major environmental factors they adjusted their businesses to accommodate current market trends.
In the long term, back in 2014 trend forecasters, like myself, were predicting that elopements would be a trend and something our couples would want, so we developed packages and offers to serve them before there was a huge market for it. We were already well positioned for the big uptick in elopements in 2020 because we had been paying attention to longer term societal shifts and consumer behavior.
This is a clear example of how paying attention to trends, or trend forecasting yourself, can help you grow, refine, adjust or pivot your business in response to the wedding market.
So, how can you use trend forecasting in your business and what are the current trend predictions for 2022 that you should know about?
Great businesses are flexible. The market fluctuates and our couples decide they want new things, there is always going to be new technology to adopt and new tools to use that we can better serve our clients with. So, paying attention to market trends is a way to stay ahead of what your couples want and to ensure that you are staying relevant and competitive in the wedding industry.
Now, by no means am I saying that you should be adopting every wedding trend that comes around or making huge decisions for your business solely based on some else’s predictions. That is not the point or how to best use trend forecasting. Understanding trends and keeping informed of what is currently going on in the wedding industry will help you make the best decisions for your business by providing you with additional information and context. There are many things that won’t be relevant to what type of services you want to provide or the type of couples you want to attract, you can choose what trends you want to pay attention to and make predictions of your own.
Here are some ways that you can begin trend forecasting in your own business;
Through conversations with couples who inquire about your services. There is such a treasure trove of information in speaking with all couples who may want to book you - especially those who don’t end up booking with you! Because you can get more information from them on what types of services they are looking for, what they are wanting to pay or what their budgets are, what they may need that you are not yet providing and the type of experience that they are looking for. Not only is this so helpful for you to use to continue to grow and refine your services, but if you keep track of this information you will start to see trends of what couples are requesting or price points that are popular.
For example in my business, I began to notice that more and more couples were requesting smaller weddings in our inquiries, so when we decided to offer elopements it was not just because it was a trend that other wedding pros were seeing, it was also because we were paying attention and seeing that in our own data.
Collecting data from your current couples. You probably have a lot of great information from your couples on the package they booked, what their budgets were, how they found you or what is most important to them about their wedding day - tracking this type of information is a great way to begin to see trends or shifts in client behavior. You can also build into your workflow some subtle touch points to help you collect this information or consider doing a post-wedding survey. Client information is so valuable because they will generally be more upfront and have the ability to elaborate on things that are important to them - this can be a huge indicator of upcoming shifts or trends.
Share information with fellow wedding pros. Having fellow vendors or wedding pros that you can talk to about what you are seeing in the industry and with your clients is one of the best ways to stay informed and to see if your experiences are isolated to your own company or part of a larger industry-wide shift. Whether you are part of a community membership like Elopement Wedding Pros or a local vendor Facebook group or a more formal networking group like WIPPA or NACE - sharing information on trends, industry changes and what you are experiencing in your business is one of the best ways to collect valuable and relevant information on market trends.
Pay attention to wedding news. There are many wedding publications that I am sure you already follow, but there are also wedding stories happening every week in the news that are not in wedding publications. I have a filter on my news app that captures wedding news, so I see headlines from around the world about weddings and it helps me to see when trends are starting to happen by seeing similar stories, images or headlines again and again. Media is a huge indicator of wedding trends and it is also a great way to stay informed of larger societal or environmental factors that will one day likely start to affect the wedding market.
Keep up to date on trend forecasting for the wedding industry. There are great resources that collect actual data and survey wedding couples that you can use to help you stay informed. The Knot does an annual wedding survey each year of over 15,000 couples and compiles a full industry report - they have just released their 2021 report and I have linked it for you HERE. The Wedding Report also puts out annual stats on wedding couples and I particularly find their 2021 COVID-19 graph to be particularly interesting - I have also linked that for you HERE.
So now that we know how to start trend forecasting in our own businesses, what are the top wedding industry trend forecasters predicting for 2022? Well, I don’t have time to go over all of them, but here are a few I found very interesting from The Knot;
#1 : More incorporation of ethnicity, religion and/or culture into couple’s wedding days.
This trend is a reflection of what is going on in society because as The Knot quotes; “Gen Z is known as the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in US history, which translates into one in five people marry someone with a different background.” Meaning that this wedding practice is trending because our society is changing and how couples want to celebrate and acknowledge that is changing.
This trend didn’t come out of thin air or because The Knot decided to report it, it is a reflection of actual data that is affecting couples behavior. Does this help you see how trend forecasting really can help validate shifts in the wedding industry? Not all trends come from societal or environmental factors, but the ones that do are often times much easier to predict and will have a more long term effect on your business.
I would predict this trend has a lot of staying power and will continue to grow and start defining and changing different parts of the wedding industry.
#2: An increased focus on sustainability and eco-friendly weddings or wedding day elements.
This trend is clearly an example of an environmental factor and has actually been a long term trend in the wedding industry for awhile. However, recently it has been gaining popularity and that is a direct reflection of how this is becoming a larger issue in the media and has now become a larger issue for every day citizens. So, couples are now choosing to make this an important focus on their wedding day because it matters to them.
This is another trend I believe has a lot of staying power and it is worth taking note of because many couples make decisions on what they purchase based on their values and if your values as a wedding vendor lie in this area, there are likely couples who would book you for that alone.
#3 Customized and unique food and drink options with an emphasis on desserts and signature cocktails.
This is most likely what the majority of wedding vendors would think of as a wedding trend. Something that is popular for right now for couples that doesn’t have any bearing on your business, maybe just your next year of weddings. This is an example of short term forecasting and is just buyer behavior. This is the type of trend that is not going to affect your business, but you could use to highlight in your social media or offer to your couples as a caterer or planner if you wanted to.
I hope this gives you another perspective on wedding industry trends and solid strategies on how you can use trend forecasting in your business.
I would love to hear your thoughts, so please click on over to my Instagram @morganmchilds and leave me a comment on this post or direct message me and let me know what you think.
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