Wedding Business Solutions

Should you include planning tips in your follow-up emails?

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Should you include planning tips in your follow-up emails?

When is the right time to start sharing helpful advice with prospective clients? Could offering planning tips too soon be hurting your response rate, or does it add value and set you apart? In this episode, I dive into how to balance giving value with keeping your follow-ups focused and effective, plus ways to make your content truly helpful—without coming off as salesy or overwhelming.

Listen to this new 7-minute episode for practical strategies to make your follow-ups more engaging, add genuine value, and strike the right balance between being helpful and closing the sale.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Should you include weekly tips on planning in your follow ups? This is an Ask Me Anything. Listen to this episode. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. This is another Ask Me Anything this time from Justin. Thank you, Justin. And the question was when you're doing your follow ups, if you're, I think the question that, that they were asking was the follow ups and you haven't had a conversation yet, should you be including things like planning tips in your emails to them? And for me it opens up a bigger question, which is what is the content of your follow ups at different points, right. From initial inquiry until you get the conversation, from conversation till you get the meeting, the call, the zoom, the tour, whatever it is, and then even after that, and then after the sale, what are your follow ups or are you doing anything between there and the event? So there's a bunch of different parts to this, Justin, that you kind of opened up this Pandora's box for me.

So thank you very much. So let's talk about the first one. Between when they made an inquiry and you get them to a conversation, meaning they reply to you at all. Right. So you respond to them, you haven't heard back, you're sending more messages out. So are you including or should you include planning tips at that point in the beginning? I would say no. I think that's a little bit too early. You can put some of that stuff on your website.

Certainly a blog is a good place to put that. But I think at the point of the inquiry, you want to be talking to them about them, their results, their wedding, their event, their mitzvah, the corporate event, their kinsey, the fundraiser, whatever it is. A little bit later, if you're still getting ghosted and you want to put them into a drip campaign and you want to add value that way, I think that's fine. But I would be going probably five, six, seven, maybe even eight messages before I would start just sending them information that way for those longer term ones. And we've seen that in our secret shopping sometimes and I think it could be effective. Where I think the ones that we've seen have gone awry is that very often they're too long, right? So. Or there's too many things about the message. It's not just about here's a tip, but then there's also like two more pages on a smartphone worth of information about the company, which I, I think is just too much at that point.

You want to add value. Add value. You want to start that article or whatever you want to call it and then have them click through to your blog or someplace for it. I think that's fine. You want to again, you want to keep it short, maybe tease them. Here's three things you can, you know, five ways you can. Three things you should know. Seven things you can do or don't do this until you've, you know, done these four things.

And then you could maybe list the four and say if you want the full version, click here, send them over to another page. PDFs I think are a problem at this point because if people are reading on their phone, the PDFs aren't really formatted for that. So I would also try to make them helpful. But if you can tie them into your business, type your category right. So if you're a caterer, then it's about the food. If you're a DJ or a band or something, it's about the music. If you're a photographer or video, it could be, you know, best places to take photos or you know, six things you should know about having a wedding film made for your before you choose your wedding videographer or something. Just things that will help them.

The way you write them is also important. I remember reading a book that they talked about how if you make the test, you always get 100 right? So you always get an A if you make the test. So seven things you should ask, you know. No, seven things you should ask every or before you choose your fill in the blank. Well, obviously you're a good answer to all those seven things, so. But do make it helpful. Don't make it just about you because people will see through that. I was reading something the other day and it said that Gen Z has really, really keen BS detectors.

Make it really useful information. And it's often said that, you know, if you give away some of the best of what you have, people will want more as opposed to giving away the cheap stuff. And then how do they even know you have better stuff? So I guess that's kind of like the podcast, right? I just give it all away here and if you want to know more, you reach out to me, that's fine. And a lot of you have. Thank you. So Justin, what you, you incorporate in these and you said weekly emails. Well, the timing of that also maybe it's weekly, maybe it's not in the beginning. I think it's much closer than that as you get later.

It could be further than that. I have some automations that are. It's two days between this one and the next one. Then it's three days on the next one, but then it's seven days on the one after that. But then it's only three days on the one after that. Then it might be another seven, there might be 14 and then it might be 30. Right. So is it weekly? I don't know.

But you want to add information there. So if you can come up with a series of evergreen documents, pages, things like that, I don't mind you having a PDF for a download from a mobile responsive webpage. Give them the choice. I do that at my events. People get the freebie that I'm offering on a webpage and you can click to download it if you want it. You know, on a PDF that would be fine. So what is the information that when I say evergreen information, that's not going to go bad, it's not going to go stale, it's not going to get out of date quickly. And if there are certain things, things that will make sure you update them and don't keep sending those out.

So Matt campbell has my weddingsong.com my weddingsong.com has great information and great lists about music. So if you're a band or a DJ or whatever, it could be the top 20, fill in the blank. Country, hip hop, whatever, songs for weddings or first dance songs or whatever. So things like that, where you could also share third party information, I think that's also another great way to, to be adding value to people. So I would try to keep it close to what you do so that there's a connection. Right. As opposed to if you know, you're the, I don't know, you're the cake baker and you're giving them information about favors. Okay, well what does it have to do with cakes? It doesn't Right now if you have a tie in with them where they're going to offer a discount to your people, you're going to offer to theirs. 

Okay, maybe cross promotion. I don't mind cross promotions. I think that's fine. But in general I love the idea, Justin, of adding value. Just make sure that it works for the format that they're going to read it, make it quick and easy and let them look back on you as being helpful as opposed to salesy every time. So that's one way to add value every time you every touch point. So I think that's great. So this is again another ask me anything this time from Justin.

Thank you so much. If you haven't asked me anything, go to podcast.alanberg.com There's a button there that says Ask me anything. Click and send that in. Be happy to take look at it. And if we haven't covered it, I'd love to do that. And again, if you haven't subscribed already, please do that. And if you're on Apple or a platform that lets you post a review, recent reviews are the most important. We look forward to yours.

Thanks.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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