If you’re a wedding professional, chances are you’re already familiar with WeddingWire and The Knot. They are by far the most popular sites for wedding pros to book more brides or wedding leads.
But ultimately, which one is better?
In this post were going to look at the facts: WeddingWire Vs The Knot.
We took a deep dive into the in’s and out’s of these two platforms and interviewed over 50 wedding businesses to find out once and for all which is better: WeddingWire or The Knot
Our final conclusion may surprise you!
WeddingWire Pros and Cons
Why WeddingWire’s Great
The most user-friendly wedding directory
Most experts praise WeddingWire for both its navigation and its robust notification system.
Sam from Sam’s Notary said, “I get email notifications quickly, the award program is very well managed!”
Mike Robinson Photography wrote, “It is a nice clean website that is easy to navigate and set up your page.”
Having an accessible platform to market your wedding business is the first step in achieving success.
One of the most popular weddings sites with brides
WeddingWire is a household name. When Brides begin to plan their weddings, WeddingWire is usually their go-to tool for finding vendors.
Getting to piggyback off a widely recognized brand can be extremely valuable for your business.
Online sales tools for wedding vendors
WeddingWire offers a variety of tools for wedding vendors including digital contracts, social media design and management, questionnaires, lead management, and an appointment scheduler.
For businesses looking to maximize their online exposure, these tools can be invaluable for growing their customer base.
Reviews and helpful analytics about site traffic
It’s 2021 and let’s face it: reviews are the new referral.
Brides frequently consult reviews as the most reliable resource when choosing which vendors to hire. The more reviews you have, the more professional and dependable your business seems.
Wedding Officiant Jon Turino wrote, “Lots of couples use (WeddingWire). It’s fairly easy for clients to provide reviews; Couples Choice badges help with inquiries.”
Angela Wolf from Midwest Selfies wrote, “They have analytics that shows traffic to your page and click through to your site.”
WeddingWire also tracks your traffic from your reviews as well, letting you know how your reviews are affecting your sales!
Why WeddingWire Sucks
WeddingWire is full of low-quality leads and budget-shoppers
WeddingWire makes it incredibly easy for its users to contact vendors.
The unfortunate side effect of this is that users contact a lot of different vendors without feeling much of an emotional connection to any of them.
This makes it harder to turn these leads into sales because you’re directly competing with every other vendor in your area.
So ultimately, even though the leads are cheap, advertisers waste their time and budgets on low quality/low-interest customers.
WeddingWire’s 12-month contract is super rigid
Unlike The Knot, WeddingWire creates strict contracts hidden within their terms of use. Often advertisers will overlook this section, and become locked into a 12-month commitment to the WeddingWire services.
There is little to no flexibility with cancellations after 6 months which leaves unsatisfied customers trapped paying for a service that may not be working for them.
Inaccurate and Fraudulent Reviews are Difficult to Impossible to Remove
WeddingWire’s review policy is much more structured and rigid than other promotional sites.
Often it takes an excessive amount of effort to take down phony or overly negative reviews from advertisers pages, and in the end – some remain unsuccessfully removed entirely.
The High Cost of Premium Features
WeddingWire has often been accused of nickel-&-diming its members for premium services.
While advertisers are able to use WeddingWire as a free service, reviews and other essential features are virtually invisible to potential customers.
Experts constantly complain that premium services and applications offered by WeddingWire are ‘useless.’
Even though premium users get access to tools to send contracts, questionnaires, invoices, and create videos.
Find Out How We Can Help Grow Your Business
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The Knot Pros and Cons
Why The Knot Is Great
The most visited wedding site
The Knot’s site boasts of the most traffic of any wedding site in the US, with millions of visits each month.
BookMoreBrides.com wrote in their WeddingWire vs. The Knot Advertising comparison piece that The Knot recorded 11 million visitors in June of 2017.
Millions of visitors mean millions of potential leads
The Knot’s mobile application is easy to use
Since many wedding professionals have hectic schedules, mobile lead management is crucial to staying competitive in local markets.
Weddings By CPE wrote, “The app is amazing and makes responding to leads and clients a breeze.”
Simplifying and streamlining mobile efficiency has been something vendors have loved.
Professional customer service is friendly and helpful
Sometimes there’s a problem you can’t fix alone. Having a team of professionals available to vendors is yet another resource to help boost vendor sales.
Many of the experts agreed – Celebrate Two Wedding Officiant wrote, “The salespeople are very helpful and patient [when fixing problems].”
Most recognizable wedding brand
Similar to WeddingWire, the Knot is a top-tier hub for wedding vendors. Many wedding businesses have achieved success and thrived on The Knot.
Ryan from Non-Stop Entertainment raved, “Totally changed my business and helped me go full time. Leads are qualified and respond! I also like that they give you the client’s real email address.”
Why The Knot Sucks
More Traffic = More Vendors
While The Knot boasts its popularity as the most visited wedding planning site, it comes with a catch…
More customers mean more competition.
Not only does The Knot list a higher number of competitors, but it also immediately sends recommendations for leads to those competitors after a successful customer inquiry.
That means leads are lower quality and tougher to land.
Expensive Pricing
Many vendors look to cover entire state regions rather than distinct regions but find the price hike to be too much.
The same is true regarding signing a full-year membership contract, which makes it tough for many small businesses and potential advertisers.
Higher Prices ≠ Higher Leads
Over the last few years, the Knot’s increasing prices aren’t leading to increasing results for vendors.
While it might have been worth the investment initially, advertisers are finding it more and more of a stretch.
Decreasing Access to Customer Service
While The Knot is often praised publicly for its customer service, experts have found recently (over the last 18 months) access to customer service is becoming more and more difficult.
We Asked The Experts – Was It Worth It?
Here’s Our Top 5:
- Statesville Country Club: “YES. Worth every penny. Upgraded my plan after the first year.”
- Midwest Selfies: “1 person landed on my profile. It was not worth it at all. I heavily recommend my colleagues AWAY from this site.”
- Wedding Officiant Jon Turino: “I got $200 in verifiable bookings for each $200 spent in 2018, so I barely broke even with my first year paying for The Knot. Will have to see about 2019.”
- Weddings By CPE: “For the first year, I made more in bookings than the yearly membership so it was worth it. Now, it’s slightly more expensive and I’m getting less leads – so I’m unsure of what 2019 looks like.”
- All Faiths Wedding Officiants of the Triad: “No – we paid for a few years and did not see any real increase in actual booking. A lot of tire kickers and couples who then ghosted us.”
Final Comparisons
WeddingWire and The Knot are pretty comparable overall. Still, remember, they represent just two of the many wedding websites you can advertise your business on. You can find a list of 74 websites to get FREE advertisement for your wedding business
The Knot has more traffic and seems to be more efficient for smaller wedding vendors and businesses such as photographers, officiants, DJs, and planners.
WeddingWire seems to work better for larger venues and catering companies looking to spend more on larger-scale services.
Find Out How We Can Help Grow Your Business
Let’s discuss your marketing needs, and we’ll help you put together a digital marketing strategy that will generate more leads and save you time.
More Please!
Alternatively, there is another way all wedding vendors, regardless of size or service, can advertise and pile up leads!
Google is the first place customers head to find… anything and everything! Advertisers find that AdWords has most of the pros and none of the cons from both WeddingWire and The Knot. It’s a great platform business use to advertise.
Here are the top reasons to choose AdWords
Advertise where they advertise
WeddingWire and The Knot both advertise using Google AdWord, try beating them at their own game! Both companies bring in their traffic using Google.
If you’re looking for your first step, try following the Ultimate Guide to Local SEO
Find Out How We Can Help Grow Your Business
Let’s discuss your marketing needs, and we’ll help you put together a digital marketing strategy that will generate more leads and save you time.
Stand out and send leads straight to your site
Instead of having an identical page to all your competitors, customize your page by creating a unique website that really gets your business noticed.
High-quality leads
Ever had someone reach out asking for a royal wedding, with a $1,000 budget? Users who visit your site tend to be searching for venues specifically rather than “tire kickers”
Pay per click instead of pay per year
Don’t get locked into a 12-month contract, set your own budget and cancel anytime. Spend what you want to get as many leads as you want!
If you loved this post you might also like our article: Wedding Venue Marketing Plan: 7 Fool-Proof Wedding Venue Marketing Strategies [2021]
Conclusion
WeddingWire and The Knot are just two of many websites experts use to promote their businesses. Whichever route you take to promote your business, make sure you rigorously research all your available options and resources. Be considerate of your ROI and the capital you’re putting up front.
Finding the right marketing platform can be a difficult thing to do! For more marketing resources, check out this blog here
