Revolutionising the wedding industry. A tool saving couples time and stress when planning their big day.
Business overview
| Location | London, United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Social media | |
| Website | www.weddingplanner.co.uk |
| Sectors | Home & Personal Mixed Digital/Non-Digital B2C |
| Company number | 08012857 |
| Incorporation date | 30 Mar 2012 |
Idea
Introduction
Wedding Planner aims to offer a new approach to wedding planning for couples, based on the successful model of the “comparison site” tailored to the wedding industry.
Wedding Planner is the only wedding platform currently partnered with John Lewis.
Focused around ease of use and transparency, the site has 3 key components. Our free, fully customisable online planning tools provide couples with tools they need to plan their wedding. We publish fresh content and inspiration, including expert advice and latest tips and trends. Our smart supplier search functionality enables couples to find suppliers and see their prices and availability along with reviews and locations.
Wedding Planner is the only tech platform in the world, as far as we are aware, offering this quality of search functionality. All 3 elements combined ensure this site is particularly attractive for couples, as it is completely free for them to use.
Intended impact
Technology has dramatically changed the way consumers react with service providers, but we've found that the wedding industry has been slow to embrace the change. Most couples planning their weddings are looking for ways to save time, find information and get answers with ease at the click of a button and on the move.
Given the fragmentation of the wedding supplier industry, it is hard for couples to see the range of available services and suppliers, and to compare based on values that are important to them, be it price, availability, location, style or previous recommendation.
For suppliers, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd and to present their services in the best way. With marketing budgets often tight, the site helps suppliers manage their marketing budget more effectively.
Wedding Planner is designed to provide a complete platform from discovery to booking, saving time and stress for couples.
Substantial accomplishments to date
Substantial accomplishments in last 12 months:
25,000+ visitors to the website every month.
15,000+ registered couples on the Wedding Planner platform.
15,000+ engaged social media followers.
2,500+ revenue generating actions (clicks and enquiries) per month.
1,250+ registered suppliers across Great Britain.
Successful acquisition and integration of WeddingPlanner.co.uk and successful rebranding to "Wedding Planner" from "World of Wedmin".
Subsequent to selection as 1 of the 5 JLab Accelerator 2016 cadre, John Lewis Group has confirmed that it wishes to continue to work with WeddingPlanner.
Wedding Planner has raised +/-£190,000 in equity on and off Seedrs in three funding rounds in the last 20 months.
Successful acquisition and integration of WeddingPlanner.co.uk and successful rebranding from ‘World of Wedmin’.
Partnership with John Lewis & John Lewis Gift List.
Monetisation strategy
Suppliers (other than venues) are currently charged an average of £4.50 for every valid enquiry they receive and £0.99 for every URL click-through.
Venues are charged, typically, £150 a year for their profile. The number of venues per county is carefully monitored to ensure we promote those venues we feel are particularly special in each county.
Wedding Planner also generates revenue through advertising on our popular "Inspiration Section".
We anticipate income from Gift List sign-ups through Wedding Planner, as well as commission from Gift List sales.
The proposed new booking system is expected to deliver substantial additional revenue in the mid-term by significantly enhancing the pull through of the site from first viewings through to enquiries and transactions. It will ultimately enable the business to move towards a model whereby it takes a percentage of the final booking revenues.
Use of proceeds
• Preliminary product development – Booking system
• Mobile – Enhance mobile offering
• Investment in our SEO to improve our search engine ranking
• Preliminary development of CRM and workflow tool for Suppliers
• Wedding Planner App for planning/booking on-the-go
• Investment in our branding – to ensure we are the leading wedding platform in the UK
• Investment in our Pay-per-click advertising to increase both our couples’ and supplier bases
• Increasing our advertising and PR footprint
• Extension of key skills within the team to include in-house SEO, Design and Product Development.
• Hiring staff to support product development, supplier sign up, marketing & customer service
Market
Target market
The UK wedding market is estimated at £10bn per annum and growing. The market can be further subdivided into the "user" (couple) and the “supplier” (provider of wedding services). For the platform to be a success, it requires both sides to be engaged with the website.
Weddings are increasingly permeating popular culture as demonstrated by the increased coverage of celebrity weddings via mainstream publications such as OK! and Hello!. The rise in popularity too of wedding focused reality TV shows such as Don't Tell The Bride and Four Weddings firmly entrenches weddings in public consciousness.
Characteristics of target market
The UK wedding industry is a sizeable and growing market. In 2012, the provisional number of marriages in England and Wales increased by 5.3% to 262,240, from 249,133 in 2011. The greatest number of marriages was for men and women aged 25 to 29. The market size in the UK was estimated at approximately £10bn in 2011.
According to MoneySavingExpert, the average UK wedding spend (by the wedding couple) = £20,500.
We estimate that a typical wedding couple may contract with between 10-20 suppliers across varying categories.
Marketing strategy
Wedding Planner aims to bring the wedding planning journey to life and ensure the online planning experience is just as fun, enjoyable and hopefully as seamless as the actual wedding day. The platform reaches its target audience though the free, customisable planning tools. Ranked highly on Google for key search terms including “wedding planner” and “wedding planning,” Wedding Planner receives over 40 new users signing up every day to plan their weddings. In this way, we are able to engage with these couples right at the start of their journey and guide them through the whole planning process with the online tools they need, expert advice, tips and inspiration, and smart supplier recommendations.
Other than our strong search rankings in certain categories, our recent partnership with John Lewis plays a key role in helping us reach our target audience and adds a known brand to our platform. We plan to develop this partnership further by aligning the Wedding Planner and John Lewis gift list user journeys for registered customers to provide an enhanced customer experience.
We also acquire new users through focused Google Adwords campaigns, by building our brand and community on social media, and through PR. We have been featured in The Telegraph, The Sun, The Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan to name a few.
Competition strategy
Unique search capability based on price and availability, in addition to the recommendation engine and leading planning tools, differentiates Wedding Planner from traditional wedding directories in our opinion.
For suppliers, we believe we offer a more attractive payment model compared to the traditional monthly/annual subscription of our competitors.
We are partnered with John Lewis, and partnering with one of the largest brands in the Gift List space adds reassurance and trust to the Wedding Planner brand.
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