Co-presented with Brian Lawrence - How the wedding industry has changed from the 20th to 21st century and how wedding professionals need to respond. What are the attributes of the successful wedding professional.

The power of narrowcasting involves aiming customized messaging and storytelling to engage your target audience. Niche marketing is essential when designing your communications strategy. Enjoy the advantages of audio and video podcast content creation to effectively market your business, enhance your brand and position yourself as an authority online.

Robert Allen is an Innovation Specialist successfully reaching today's tech savvy consumer through the use of podcasts, blogs, online video, and social media. He is Co-Founder and Executive Producer of Wedding Podcast Network (WPN). He develops and produces strategic Internet marketing campaigns for his New Media Connection clients. For more than two decades, he has been an award-winning event videojournalist. Robert was inducted into the WEVA Hall of Fame in 2002, received the prestigious Bob LeBar Vision Award, a multi-year International Creative Excellence Award winner and for two years in a row was named to the Event DV 25 who are considered to be the most influential videographers in the field. He is a featured speaker who custom designs new and social media presentations that help individuals and businesses increase brand awareness and get noticed on the web.

Most wedding professionals are too close to the situation to objectively look at their website to improve it. Alan will share some of the wisest, yet simplest site improvements to significantly improve response and sales while also pointing out common mistakes that hinder the success of a site.

Love it or hate it sales is an integral part of your wedding business. This session tackles one of the most requested topics from wedding pros across the country - the art of closing the sale. If you don’t close the sale there’s no food to cook, dresses to sew, images to capture, flowers to arrange, music to play, weddings to coordinate... you get the idea. Learn when to ask for the sale, how to ask for the sale, plus reveal the number one skill you need to close more sales.

With more than 20 years wedding-related sales and marketing, Alan Berg is uniquely qualified to help local wedding professionals achieve their goals. He is the founder of The Wedding Industry Leaders Conference, an organization dedicated to the educating and consulting of highly motivated individuals and businesses. Alan is the author of the new book "If Your Website Was An Employee, Would You Fire It?" published by Left of Center Marketing & Publishing... ideas for when business isn't right. He is a professional speaker and a member of the National Speakers Association, the leading organization for professional speakers. He speaks to thousands of local business professionals every year through monthly webinars and live presentations.

If images speak a thousand words, what are yours saying? If you’re going to represent yourself as a professional and want to be taken seriously, photography is a major factor in creating desire for your products and communicating the benefits of your services. It’s important that your website and social media outreach are full of images unique to you and your brand, and photographed in a way that communicates what you want to convey. While stock photography may be useful for a quick fix for a blog post, your website should be rich with original content that is only available through you.

Phil Cantor is one of the most respected names in photography in the New Jersey-New York area. A professional photographer for over 20 years, Phil is known for his ability to capture the essence of an event while remaining unobtrusive. "Weddings are such a milestone," he says, "and for the photographer it is a combination of intimate moments and grand gestures." He specializes in artistic, creative, & contemporary wedding and family portrait photography. He was one of the first studios offering the wedding photojournalism style of photography in New Jersey. Phil has the largest studio in Montclair, NJ and can accommodate anything from a single headshot to a group of 40 people.

Use a creative blogging approach to attract and engage customers. Learn how to define your direction, find inspiration for blog post ideas, and ways to repurpose your blog content across Twitter, Facebook, and email to grow a loyal readership. Maximize lead generation potential with various techniques including the use of offers, calls to action, links, and landing pages. You'll also learn how to use an editorial calendar to manage your blogging time.

Anne Chertoff has earned her reputation as a wedding authority over the course of her 10 years in the bridal industry. She is the author of the popular bridal blog, From "I Will" to "I Do" and Editor-in-Chief of aisledash.com, AOL's wedding planning website that helps brides plan their weddings through informational blog posts and galleries. Both blog posts and inspirational galleries show brides the products and services they need, why they need them, how and where to get them and what it will really cost them. The site features traditional wedding planning 101 articles, real weddings, inspiration boards, the latest trends, the hottest and most talented vendors, and where to score the best deals on everything from invitations to favors. aisledash posts 5-7 new items every weekday so brides get their wedding fix every few hours.

As the overseer of WedAlert.com's day-to-day operations, David began his professional career as a restaurant manager, eventually becoming an executive chef. After 13 years of being in the food service and catering industry, David became the Director of Sales at 9 Net Avenue, a web hosting company and, just two years later, he started and founded WedAlert.com, a free online wedding planning directory. David's passion for music (WedAlert.com has the largest wedding song library on the Internet), photography and videography, coupled with his extensive knowledge of catering and a savvy sales and management background, contribute to the company's continued success story.

There are very tactical (and free) things that you can do to help your wedding business. Robert Allen will interview Christine on the new rules of wedding marketing online in order to be influential. You will be enlightened by Christine's expert advice, tips and favorite strategies to build trust and satisfy the emotional and rational needs of brides.

Christine Dyer has led the way in using social media to effectively transform the wedding industry. Christine is the founder of BridalTweet.com, the wedding community that connects over 20,000 wedding professionals, brides and wedding bloggers each month. At BridalTweet, Christine shares free wedding business advice with wedding professionals through her weekly blog and covers topics such as social media, PR, email marketing, advertising, sales, branding, pricing and more. BridalTweet is also a place where brides can find free planning advice, ideas, giveaways and more. As a testament to Christine's social media expertise, WeFollow.com has ranked BridalTweet as the most influential wedding brand on Twitter with its 18,000 followers. Christine Dyer also spent the last six years working at American Express and most recently was their Director of Social Media Marketing. In this role, Christine led the development and growth of Facebook fan pages, which include Small Business Saturday (1.4 million fans) and American Express OPEN (79,000 fans). Christine holds a B.S. and M.B.A from Fordham University.

Getting the most from Facebook investments continues to be a leading business concern. In this session, you will learn specific strategy and techniques to develop your personal relationships to benefit your business, what makes for effective and ineffective status updates, and understanding the line between your business and personal presence. Learn how and why implementing a combination of tools including personal pages, business pages, groups, and Facebook advertising will achieve the greatest impact and optimal user experience.

Andy Ebon lives and breathes wedding marketing. His core talents are the ability to observe and assimilate the strengths and weaknesses of businesses, help them clarify their objectives, and to provide strategies and tactics to help them achieve greater success. In 2007, EBS Virtual Communications spawned The Wedding Marketing Network to focus directly on businesses that sell to the bride and groom. Andy's experience in wedding marketing is, in part, drawn from two stints as owner-operator of mobile DJ companies, as well as many of his clients for the past three decades. His vision for the growth of the Internet was ahead of his time and was one of the first wedding gurus to speak about the web in the nineties. His dynamic and easy to understand presentation style has propelled him to be one of the most sought wedding industry speakers in the world. He published an eBook, 99 Marketing Tips and 10 Things You Should Never Do, released a 3-hour seminar on DVD: Building A Social Media Strategy and is a co-author to the first two books in the Power of the Platform Series, contributing chapters on Blogging and Social Media. He serves on the Board of Directors of BSPI (Bridal Show Producers International) and Wish Upon A Wedding.

Your contract is the beginning of your working relationship with your bride. It's a mutual promise you and your bride make to each other. In this session, you'll discover how to create meaningful contract terms that protect you; develop a process to customize your contract fast; and set firm expectations with your bride for a hassle-free experience.

Dina Eisenberg is an attorney, mediator, marketing coach and business mentor for wedding and event professionals. The marriage of Dina's passions and varied career experience join together in perfect partnership to serve clients who are eager to take their seat at the Positively Wed table to profit from her perspectives, solutions, and support. Together, they journey forward to achieve the "happily ever after" they seek in life and in business. Dina recently launched Speak Up Powerfully, which teaches entrepreneurs how to ask for what they want and say what matters in a positive way to get amazing results. Over the years, Dina's expertise has been honored with notable accolades including: Forty under 40 awarded by the Boston Business Journal, Peacemaker award from the Cambridge Dispute Settlement Center, Lifetime Achievement award from the Society of Dispute Resolution Professionals, Commendation from Gov. William Weld for her conflict work. Her articles and perspectives have been featured in Entrepreneur, Inc. and Wedlock magazines. Dina speaks regularly to students at Harvard University and Harvard Law School.

Holli Ehrlich is Co-Founder, Marketing Director and Producer of Wedding Podcast Network (WPN), an online bridal media source for couples planning their wedding and wedding professionals dedicated to their craft. She creates original programming and develops innovative podcasting concepts for companies that want to give voice to their brand. Holli has been involved in the wedding industry for more than 18 years. Prior to Wedding Podcast Network, Holli was a executive in both publishing and high-end retail management.

Want your clients to fall in love with your business? Lovemarks is Saatchi & Saatchi's unique approach to communication, and it works for small businesses, as well as giant corporations. You will find out how to get - and keep - the attention of a bride-to-be, stand out from the competition, and access powerful ideas to transform your brand, product or service into a Lovemark. Lovemarks are defined by their ability to inspire loyalty beyond reason and help you grow beyond normal expectations.

Tiffany has spent the last 12 years at Saatchi & Saatchi - The Lovemarks Company - building iconic brands such as Pillsbury, Pampers, Miller High Life and JCPenney. As part of Saatchi's strategic planning team, she brings cultural insight to the realities of business - to ensure the brand and consumer are speaking the same language. She believes brands that make emotional connections to the people they serve are the brands that will create loyalty beyond reason. And she's quite familiar with the world of the modern bride, having pulled off her own wedding in 2010.

Today’s search engine optimization takes expertise and knowledge of the changing algorithms search engines use to rank sites. Not only does a top ten position on Google, Yahoo!, or Bing/MSN results page drive more high-quality traffic to your website, but top rankings lead people to believe you are a leader in your category of services and products. You will learn the most important search engine friendly strategies that need to be implemented to increase bridal traffic to achieve more inquiries and sales.

When it comes to marketing to brides online, Chris Jaeger's experience and expertise is second-to-none. His clients include some of the top ranked sites you see on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Despite the economy and ever growing competition, his clients are increasing sales and their profits thanks to a well-planned, well-executed Internet Marketing Strategy. Chris published one of the first wedding planning magazines on the Internet in 1996. Today he is one of the most sought after Internet marketing experts in the wedding industry.

Get out there and be seen. People do business with people they know. You will learn how to comfortably interact, develop meaningful connections, build relationships and increase your business network. Find out which parties and conventions to attend; groups and organizations to join. What are the right questions to ask? The importance of appreciation, help and follow through plus savvy ways to effectively use social media in conjunction with your networking efforts to make more money.

NJWedding.com, an wedding planning directory serving all of New Jersey and parts of NY and PA, was founded by New Jersey couple Erik and Beth Kent on February 14, 1997 to help wedding professionals promote their services and directly connect with future brides and grooms. The website is a results-oriented online company with a specialty in Internet marketing, advertising and publishing. The commitment to their clients is based on long-term relationships formed through dedicated service, value creation and loyalty. Erik regularly uses social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn to connect with members of the wedding industry, as well as brides and grooms-to-be.

Enhance your website without starting over using ideas to modernize it. Learn an easy solution for mobile web, generating more appointments, adding specialized landing pages to improve your ad response and how to incorporate secondary descriptive domain names to maximize your response and web traffic even further.

Gain the understanding of your marketing choices with this informative road map of what you really need to maximize your online presence for local customers or nationally. Marketing that “requires a toll” and those that “take a toll” on your time.

Brian Lawrence is a 30 year veteran of the wedding industry, pioneering the wedding center concept of one-stop-shopping in the early 1980's and expanding to multiple locations in three states. In 1996, he left retail to serve 14 years as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for wedding invitation brand Encore Studios. Drawing from his vast background, he authored "The Wedding Expert's Guide to Sales and Marketing" and "The Invitation Business Report". In 2008, he established Local Traffic Builder, a wedding and event industry specific web design, marketing and consulting company. He has presented numerous seminars including Wedding MBA 2009 and 2010.

When a bride recognizes you as a trusted expert, booking the wedding is EASY. Learn strategies for the power pre-sell, rapport building questions to ask potential clients, and how to quickly demonstrate your expert status as a valued wedding vendor. Come away with specific, actionable steps that will leave your competition in the dust!

Stephanie and Jeff Padovani, a husband-wife power business duo, started a wedding entertainment company in 2000 and in only four years, built a six figure wedding business, leaving their corporate jobs behind. They created BookMoreBrides.com to fight the evils of expensive advertising and share cost effective marketing solutions that work for the wedding industry.

Vanessa has more than 25 years experience in graphic design and marketing for well-known names such as Nabisco, Johnson & Johnson, ADP, Perillo Tours, Encore Studios and Chesebrough Ponds. In 2008 she co-founded Local Traffic Builder, a firm dedicated to the creative marketing needs of the bridal industry. She blends her corporate knowledge of branding, design and marketing with practical, creative solutions and technologies that help small wedding businesses attract local brides. Vanessa believes that aesthetics are especially crucial in the bridal industry, and can often be the great differentiator in credilibility. Equally important is being found online amongst all the clutter and offering compelling reasons why a bride should place her trust in you. Vanessa's work has been featured and recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Artists (AIGA), Print Magazine, and Communication Arts. She is a graduate of Parsons School of Design, and lives in Nyack, New York.

Learn how to capture the attention of today’s bride & groom via print messaging that best depict your business and set it apart from your competition. Professionalism and quality counts when creating customized, branded marketing campaigns. Learn the advantages of direct mail versus other advertising methods, why direct mail often fails, and how to make direct mail work to improve ROI.

Tom Quiner is President of Breakthrough Marketing. They develop marketing campaigns for wedding professionals, specializing in high-end, industry-specific brochures, postcard campaigns, content-managed websites, and bridal show banners. Professional marketing is often the missing ingredient in small, entrepreneurial businesses. And yet it is marketing that "makes the company". Tom Quiner believes the American Dream awaits most businesses who master the art and science of marketing.

Reports from across the nation indicate that brides are booking key services closer to their wedding dates than ever before. Do bridal shows present an opportunity to reach brides in all stages of wedding planning? YES! Learn what brides like and dislike about bridal shows, vendors’ past show successes and challenges, and why they should be part of your marketing mix.

Kenneth Rabasco - aka Bosco - has had a very diverse career in advertising, marketing and the media. He started as Regional Sales Manager for Gruner and Jahr USA magazines including Family Circle, McCall's, Parents, Child, Fitness, American HomeStyle and YM. He was promoted to National Marketing Director. Leveraging his expertise in marketing to women of all ages, in 1997 he founded Bosco's Bridal Fashion Show & Expo in the Metro New York/Connecticut market (16 shows a year). He is a member of the Bridal Show Producers International and the Association of Bridal Consultants.

Best ways to integrate video on your website and social media platforms. Include video to enhance your current website and take advantage of enhanced search exposure to get your company’s message out there. Understand the power of a customer testimonial as a third party endorsement.

Tim Ryan provides cinematography, photography and entertainment services that tell a couple's unique story in an innovative manner. Treasured Memories was born out of a desire to reflect the richness of the traditional world, while showcasing the creativity of today's contemporary experience. Tim is a multi-time LIVA Award Winner and President Emeritus of LIVA - Long Island Videographers Association. He was the Director of Education at The 4EVER Group and WEVA Expo and Town Meeting Tour Director at WEVA International.

Today we are dealing with a new generation of brides. They know that if they can dream it, someone can help make it happen. What does a bride want? need? have to have? What turns brides off when working with a vendor? What's the most effective advertising medium that attracts the 21st century bride? What one thing does a vendor need to do to attract today's bride? These burning questions are answered so you can better understand the wedding consumer and win her over.

Amy Wilkins is responsible for overseeing and setting the advertising sales strategy for Martha Stewart Weddings magazine and managing the advertising sales team. In addition, she is charged with driving strategy, new business development and revenue across platforms for MSLO's Weddings franchise, an important growth area for the company. A talented sales and marketing executive, Ms. Wilkins was previously Publisher of Country Home and Better Homes and Gardens magazines. She was also Publisher of Smithsonian and Biography magazines, and President of Petersen Youth Group. Ms. Wilkins spent seven years at Time Inc. before becoming Publisher of Health magazine.