Vendor stuff....what do you give?

[BWDPhoto]

As I'm sitting here today getting myself reorganized from a bridal show yesterday...I got to thinking about one of my goals for this year: do a better job of maximizing referrals from wedding vendors. so with that, i got to thinking, for those of you who shoot weddings - what (if anything) do you send to other wedding vendors who worked on the same wedding with you (florist/baker, etc)? Do you send pictures, if so what size? do you send some pix on a disk?? do you get more creative and do something different like a small, simple album w/ their products shown (and your logo of course)

I live is a small big town - 150K or so w/ lots of rural areas surrounding us. in our smallish big town, there are about 15 wedding photographers - most are new. I myself have been in business for only about 3.5 years now. i want to make sure that my studio sets itself apart. we have only one bridal shop in town and they work EXCLUSIVELY with only one photog in town. won't even bother with anyone else. which is their choice. we have one table/chair/linen rental type place in town and he only referrs to certain people (overhead him yesterday say he won't referr to any other florsit in town other than xyz floral). now, i'm not looking to get on anyone's 'exclusive' list necessarily, that would be nice, but...i'll aim a bit lower at first.

what do you do???

[bondarnes]

Each time I worked an event with a vendor I would ask if they would like to have images of their products. If the answer is yes, why not create a 10X10 or a 10X20 framed collage of the couple and the vendors products. Call and invite them to lunch and present it to them with a stack of your business cards. Be ready to find a spot in their business to put it on the wall. Hang it for them. Make sure to bring a business card holder and extra cards.

Tell them how much you enjoyed working with them and ask for a few of their cards to pass out to your brides. Ask them if they have any other ideas of ways the two of you could market together. At one time we had a group of six non-competing vendors that got together for dinner every two or three months to brainstorm co-op marketing.