Welcome to the Summer Welsh Bride Newsletter - August 2008

The purpose of this newsletter is to keep all advertisers and wedding fayre organisers up to date with news, website development and advertising opportunities. Since our official launch two years ago, we have been working on a number
of projects which many of you may not know about. Therefore, we have put together this newsletter to let you know
what we have been up to since last year's edition:

Here is a list of what we will be covering:

1. Wedding Fayres
2. Fayre Gallery
3. Hannah's Story
4. Win a Wedding ITV
5. Chepstow Racecourse
6. Wedding Forum
7. Sponsorships Update
8. Vertical Banners
9. Advertising Feature Listing
10. Audio Adverts
11. Promotions
12. Recommend a Friend
13. Website Optimization
14. Statistics & Searches
15. Credit / Debit Card Transactions
16. A Personal Message

 1) Wedding Fayres

As you are all probably aware Welsh Bride has formed great relationships with some of the biggest wedding fayre organisers around the country since 2006. Promoting Welsh Bride at these events is one of the most effective ways of getting visitors onto the website, through marketing distribution. This year, we will promote over 100 wedding fayres across the principality and strive to get more on the site every month.

We have reciprocal arrangements in place with organisers and they distribute our marketing literature at the registration point or in their goody bags. We will work with any wedding fayre organiser for the benefit of all parties, and most importantly to promote our advertisers on Welsh Bride. We would like to thank all the wedding fayre organisers we have worked with to
date for their committment in promoting the Welsh Bride website.

2) Fayre Gallery

In February 2008, Emma and myself decided to introduce the Fayre Gallery. This all came about from Emma buying me a digital camera for my birthday (by the way, I am not up to the standards of the Welsh Bride photographers who advertise
on the website!). The Fayre Gallery is a way of recording the day at the wedding fayres we attend. We also ask engaged couples to feature in the photographs so they can return to the website and see images of themselves at the fayre(s)
they attend. This particular page has now become extremely popular and there is a long list of fayres to view.

3) Hannah's Story

BBC Radio Presenter Dave Barrett deals with all sorts of problems, but when seven-year old Hannah phoned, the team were faced with a very unusual challenge. Hannah, had one wish, to be a bridesmaid. No one in her family was getting married, so she wrote to Father Christmas to see what he could do. Sure enough, on Christmas morning a bridesmaid dress arrived, but no sign of a ceremony. Hannah's dad's last resort was to phone BBC Radio and ask if they could help and within hours of the call, the wheels were in motion...

Welsh Bride rang Dave Barrett and invited Hannah to be a catwalk model at the Chepstow Racecourse Wedding Fayre on
17th February 2008. Hannah performed so well that we will be asking her back for the Autumn wedding fayre season.
You can see pictures of the day and listen to her radio interviews following this link - Hannah's Story

4) Win a Wedding - Love is in the Air on ITV

In February 2008, we were contacted by Dianne Roberts from Wedding Belles, based in North Wales to promote the Win a Wedding Competition. To celebrate a wonderful and successful 10 years in business, Diane Roberts and her team from Wedding Belles in Llanfairpwll & Llandudno, in conjunction with Emphasis Events, brought together a fantastic selection of quality handpicked wedding services and suppliers from across North Wales. Together they were offering one deserving couple the chance to win a complete wedding package worth in excess of £20,000. The competition was advertised across
the whole of Wales and we were asked to promote the ultimate wedding prize at all the fayres we attended.

The Cwmni Da camera crews followed us to the Liberty Stadium and filmed Emma and myself in action asking engaged couples to enter the competition. The programme went to air on 31 July 2008 and Welsh Bride featured in the first episode. You can see this on the ITV website at the time of writing this newsletter by using the following link Love is in the Air. I am sure you will agree that we both look like true television natural's?. It was great fun though and once again gave us some national coverage...

5) Chepstow Racecourse

In October 2007, you should have all received an email bulletin advising you of the Chepstow Racecourse Sponsorship campaign promoting Welsh Bride. We are now official sponsors of the racecourse and have a great presence at the
finishing line. All wedding related marketing includes the Welsh Bride logo & we are very pleased to be working with
the great staff at Chepstow. A special mention must go out to Louise Rea, Jonathan Poyner and Simon Lee, the
excutive director at the racecourse for their continued support. Thank you for trusting www.welshbride.co.uk

6) Wedding Forum

In mid April, we decided to re-introduce the Wedding Forum giving engaged couples the chance to chat with each other and discuss their wedding plans. We will be heavily promoting this feature at all wedding fayres in the Autumn. Unfortunately
we have had to enforce a members only service as we were receiving some very strange posts - say no more. There is
also a section for all Welsh Bride advertisers to promote their services, so feel free to use this section only to promote
your company. We hope that this time around the forum will gather interest even with its members only restriction.

7) Sponsorships Update
 
As you all probably know, we introduced additional advertising opportunities in the form of sponsorships last year.

We have now given advertisers the opportunity to sponsor the new Fayre Gallery page and the Wedding Guide page.

The following pages can now be sponsored:-

a) The Home Page
b) Regional Home Pages
c) Wedding Fayres Page
d) Wedding Guide Page
e) Fayre Galley Page

All sponsorships are available on a 6 monthly basis running from May to November and November to May. As you can imagine, there is already a waiting list for the most popular areas. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please let us know and we will add you to the waiting list for your preferred sponsorship. Of course all current sponsors have first refusal
at renewal. Peter Mitchell from “Photo Mitchell” sponsors the Wedding Fayres page and the Home Regional page for Cardiff.

This is what he recently said about his sponsorship's. “Being the sponsor of these pages does give my business that extra exposure on the website and certainly compliments my normal advertising campaign on Welsh Bride - in a nutshell, it's all about getting name awareness, and being a Welsh Bride sponsor helps me to achieve that goal".

8) Vertical Banners

Many of you already use our banner advertising on the website. However, for those who are unaware of this option, banner adverts are always available as pages get further developed. When a certain category gets more populated, banner space appears of the left hand side of the page. Many of our advertisers use banners to promote their services outside their most local region and use different business categories to get more coverage around the website.

9) Advertising Feature Listing

The most popular advertisement on the website is still our enhanced listing, 1 photograph, a marketing profile, contact
details, email and website link. However the feature listing is becoming more and more popular and gives your company
the opportunity to use upto 3 images. If anyone is interested in a feature listing, please get in touch. Here is a screen
shot of what a feature listing can look like. The example is promoting a long term advertiser - Photo Evolution.

10) Audio Adverts

Welsh Bride still work with a number of professional voiceovers and a production company who create the ads for us.
If you are interested in having an audio feature, please contact us to discuss ”your script & musical ideas”. You will be
very surprised how reasonably priced they are. This just a one off fee, meaning you can use this advert indefinitely
for your own advertising. Once the audio has been produced, you own the audio, not Welsh Bride.

11) Promotions

Our biggest and still the most effective way of promoting Welsh Bride is having a big presence at
the wedding fayres across the country, which works really well using our marketing postcards:

Our Google Adwords Campaign is something which will continue to run to promote Welsh Bride.

12) Recommend a Friend

On the 1st August 2008, we introduced our "Recommend a Friend" campaign to reward any existing Welsh Bride advertiser.
If an existing advertiser recommends Welsh Bride to a friend or business associate they will receive one free extra advert to compliment their existing advertising campaign. To receive this reward, please ensure any new enquiry quotes your company name so we can contact you and thank you for your support. We can then add the free advert to the area of your choice.

13) Website Optimization

Over the next few months, a Website Optimization initiative will be ongoing to boost our search engine presence. This will
be done over a period of time to ensure we get the improved results we are looking for. This will also ensure we do not jeapordise any existing results from the major search engines. This initiative is being outsourced and changes will be
carried out region by region. This means that Emma and myself can monitor the changes & results thoroughly.

14) Statistics & Searches

Welsh Bride now receives an average of 350 unique visitors each day, which increases to an average of 460 unique
visits each day during the Wedding Fayre Seasons. Of course, we are not able to provide you with every result for
every wedding related search on the 2 major search engines, Yahoo and of course Google. We would be here forever
writing this newsletter. However, we have listed below a few searches which shows that our website has a good overall presence. It is worth mentioning that Welsh Bride covers 24 wedding categories and 22 regions, so we never get too downhearted if we are not on the first page for every wedding related search, but always remember what else we
do to promote the website.

If we are not on the first page for a search say “Wedding Cakes”, we maybe for “Wedding Balloons”. Therefore, individual companies should not be too concerned, as our aim is to get visitors onto the website and view all categories of business thereafter. In view of the easy structure and navigation of Welsh Bride it is inevitable that the user will click away and
still find your company!

JUST A FEW YAHOO EXAMPLES

wedding services cardiff = First page

wedding cakes swansea = First page

wedding cars caerphilly = First page

wedding dvd newport = First page

welsh photographers = First page

wedding stationery wrexham = First page

wedding entertainment carmarthenshire = First page

bridalwear conwy = First page

menswear monmouthshire = First page

wedding fayres swansea  = First page

JUST A FEW GOOGLE EXAMPLES

wedding dvd swansea = First page

wedding balloons denbighshire = First page

wedding fayres newport = First page

wedding fayres wrexham = First page

wedding favours vale of glamorgan = First page

bridalwear monmouthshire = First page

wedding dvd conwy = First page

wedding services cardiff = First page

wedding dvd & photographers cardiff = First page

wedding cars & carriages swansea= First page

15) Credit / Debit Card Transactions

Within the next month or two, we will have a Credit / Debit Card facility for all you late payers! (only joking guys - you know who you are!) On a more serious note, this will improve the invoicing process at our end and make it easier for you guys to settle payment. Around 65% of you are now asking to pay by card, which is why this is being introduced. Of course, if you
would still prefer to pay using cheque by post, this is not a problem.

16) A Personal Message

Emma and myself would like to say a few words to end this newsletter. We would like to thank all of you for supporting the website and hope you will continue to advertise your business going forward. Our retention rate is now around 80% for renewals, so it looks like we are providing you with the business you are looking for.

August 2007 Newsletter - Click here