Today, I wanted to show you how you can get wedding catering leads for just under $30 each. If you do wedding catering, you know these leads can be quite expensive.
For example, one of our clients is currently spending about $250 per closed wedding lead from various sources like WeddingWire or The Knot. These platforms require significant monthly investments to be listed at the top in their area.
We wanted to see if we could beat that cost. This post will walk you through the front end of our test, showing you how you can get leads for your restaurant or catering service.
Setting Up the Facebook Campaign For Wedding Catering Leads
We are using Facebook ads for this test. Love it or hate it, Facebook has extensive data on a vast portion of the country, making it an excellent platform for targeting your audience. Here’s how we set up our campaign:
- Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO): Although I usually prefer ad set budget optimization, for this test, we used CBO. This means Facebook will allocate the budget across different ad sets and ads where it thinks they will perform best.
- Ad Sets: We created three different ad sets targeting different audiences:
- Top of the Funnel: This ad set is to generate awareness. We excluded people who have visited our website or engaged with our Facebook ads. We targeted three cities within a two-hour driving radius, offering a free tasting to attract new leads.
- Middle of the Funnel: This ad set targets people who have visited our website or engaged with our ads but didn’t convert. We added a small discount to the free tasting offer to entice them further.
- Bottom of the Funnel: This ad set targets those who visited our landing page or filled out the form but didn’t schedule a tasting. We offered strong incentives like a free beef upgrade or a free rehearsal dinner to encourage conversion.
Ad Creative and Performance
We used a mix of static images and videos in our ads, formatted in both 1:1 and 9:16 ratios to cater to different viewing devices. Facebook’s algorithm helped us determine the best-performing ads. We achieved leads for around $25 each, with the top-of-the-funnel ad performing the best, converting leads at about $27 each.
Building the Landing Page with GoHighLevel
We used GoHighLevel to build a simple, effective landing page with the following elements:
- Clear Call to Action: The landing page’s main goal was to get visitors to schedule a tasting by filling out a form with their contact information.
- Compelling Content: We included reasons to choose us, real testimonials from WeddingWire, and relevant pictures.
- Detailed Questionnaire: After filling out the initial form, visitors were prompted to complete a detailed questionnaire about their wedding, including colors, menu preferences, venue location, and bartending needs.
Automations and Follow-Ups
GoHighLevel allowed us to automate follow-up communications via email and text. If a visitor filled out the initial form but didn’t complete the questionnaire, the system automatically sent reminders.
Our team also made phone calls to ensure completion. The software’s pipelines helped us track progress from initial contact to scheduling tastings and closing deals.
Results and Insights
From our initial test, we received 45 leads, with 25 completing the questionnaire. We closed at least one wedding and scheduled several tastings. The true results of this test will unfold over the next few weeks, but we see significant potential.
Conclusion
This method of using Facebook ads and GoHighLevel for wedding catering leads can be adapted for other types of catering throughout the year. You’ll just need to adjust the images and copy on the landing pages to fit the occasion.
Thanks for reading!
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