Evolving motivations driving consumers’ choices, along with a shifting business environment thanks in part to a lasting pandemic, have led to three key types of customers looking to make major purchases in 2021. For wedding vendors, this means you’ll be seeing essentially three core segments of potential clients. In this article, we’ll cover what’s unique about each and how to reach and serve them accordingly.
3 Types of Clients — or Couples — Wedding Pros Will Be Seeing This Year
1. The Stabilizers
The Stabilizer is the first type of client we’re talking about. They prioritize stability — as their name implies. Chronic uncertainty and the general sense of desynchronization of life caused by COVID has them looking for stability in every area of their life.
When it comes to brands and businesses they choose to interact with, they like reassuring relationships and are looking for simplified experiences (think Calm Commerce).
Typically, Stabilizers are Millennial or Gen X’ers. They are stepping out of the “cult of productivity” and optimization, according to WGSN trend forecasters.
The Stabilizer’s Traits—
- Time-Pressed
- Overwhelmed
- Burnt Out
The Stabilizer’s Core Motivations —
- Acceptance Advocates
- Self-Improvers
- Zen Seekers
Forecasters are seeing the pattern of over-optimization in response to anxiety, depression, and burnout.
“With the growing reaction to burnout being optimization, asking how we can optimize our careers, personal lives, bodies, and time is now the norm across the globe and generations — and it’s driving big business. Whether it’s life coaches, self-help audio books, or optimization apps, the self-improvement market is booming,” WGSN says.
The antidote, they say, will be “radical acceptance.”
” Radical acceptance blends the paradox between self-improvement and self-acceptance.”
What does this mean? Instead of optimizing everything, they can more accurately identify where they should truly improve and learn to allocate their time and resources accordingly.
How Wedding Pros Can Reach Stabilizer Clients
- Keep things simple. Declutter your online store or your physical brick-and-mortar. Save them time and decision-fatigue.
- Create a Calm Commerce experience. Experts at WGSN say that businesses need to take note of the fact that consumers are looking for “moments of calm.”
- Keep the customer experience seamless. The Create Tomorrow report says that “unified commerce equals unified communications.” That means demographic and especially psychographic segmentation will be important. You’ll want to also consider adding a feedback loop into your customer funnel.
2. The Settlers
Settlers are looking to put down roots in a community and are bringing about a revitalized sense of “localism” according to WGSN trend reports. While they are looking to get planted in a location, they are not looking to settle in their career life.
This customer group is overall balanced, supportive, and conscious. They are wanting to redefine the global cycle of “hustle hard.” Settlers are primarily Millennials and Gen X’ers who want to plant roots, but do it without sacrificing their entire career. Ultimately, they are bringing localism back en vogue.
The Settler’s Traits —
- Career-driven
- Urban Expats
- Hustlers
The Settlers’s Core Motivations —
- Community-Invested
- Localists
- Environmentalists
Settlers are nearly singlehandedly driving localism and when in positions of leadership, they are moving work-life balance and boundaries into a place of priority. These boundaries are focused on a new work cycle that allows for fewer work hours and more time at home.
Ultimately, they feel these new boundaries are better for people, better for the planet — and better for profits.
How Wedding Pros Can Reach Settler Clients
- Utilize resale and sustainable services/products. Settlers don’t prioritize newness over community-driven and sustainability. Talk about the resale or sustainable features of your current products or partnerships.
- Go Hyper-Localised with your commerce. Settlers want to support local and be highly involved in building their community. Make this front and center in your marketing. Even items where a portion goes back into the community will be popular with these clients.
- Look for gaps in the marketplace to supply local clients quickly. Are there micro-communities that aren’t being served by your competitors? Transition new efforts away from oversaturated markets and consider testing the waters in a smaller or underserved area. This is where local businesses can beat out the bigger-box stores or Amazon-style companies as well.
3. The New Optimists
New Optimists are considered the most varied group of the three types of clients wedding pros will encounter. They range from Gen Z to Boomers, but even so, they have a lot in common.
In a nutshell, New Optimists are of all ages, activists at heart, and hyper-connected. They have an appetite for joy! They care about the big issues and are involved activists, but they take a more hopeful — or should we say — optimistic approach.
The New Optimists Traits —
- Highly Social
- On-the-Go
- Pack Mentality
The New Optimists’s Core Motivations —
- Adventurous
- Joyous
- Self-Assured
This joyful approach is seen in both the young and old of this group. Aging has been rebranded from ageism to ableism. They are focused on age equality. This is a great example of this group’s desire to redefine things and get people to see them/the situation in a new light.
This group has fully embraced — “celebrationism” which, according to WGSN forecasters, “is a system that extols and exalts celebration as a core focus of society.” New Optimists are down for celebrating accomplishments both big and small.
Think experiential dining, pop-up events, festivals and more.
How Wedding Pros Can Reach New Optimist Clients
- Live and create shopping opportunities in your livestream. Livestreaming is a dominant shopping option for New Optimists because it’s social and they are able to shop virtually no matter where they are. (This group loves bargains and limited-editions.)
- On-Demand content, products, or “adventures” are key. Make your purchasing process have as few steps as possible. This is where hyper-local deliveries and conveniences can help you win clients — even as a wedding pro.
- Consider group deals to encourage this pack-mentality client to purchase. Group deals and bundle buys are a hot ticket for these people. WGSN projects that retailers who embrace the gifting and giving mindset of New Optimists are in a position to win a better market share.
THE FIVE WAYS TO WIN WITH THESE CLIENTS
We’ve covered a lot about the three types of clients wedding pros are going to see in the near future and how to you can win them over.
Let’s keep it simple and leave you with the fiveways the trend forecasters at WGSN say can help retailers win.
- Keep it simple. (Consumers feel overwhelmed, so declutter your selections.)
- Live in your live stream — and get into conversational commerce. (Consider branded live stream shopping events.)
- Join the on-demand evolution. (Group ordering and hyper-local deliveries can help retailers win.)
- Lean into unified communications. (Double down on unified commerce with psychographic segmentation to ensure your communications are consistent.)
- Create group deals and bundle buys. (There is power in the pack. Focus on regional targeting and limited-edition offers as well as group savings.)
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Written by Corrie McGee
