Novus Digital × Eclective · Weddings — Value-Led Plan
In peak season, the search auction for "wedding venue Dublin" belongs to national advertisers. This plan doesn't fight them for the last click. It reaches couples months earlier, earns the relationship with real value, and guides it to a booked wedding.
01The strategy
Most couples researching a wedding aren't ready to enquire. A transactional campaign pays peak-season prices for the small share who are; a value-led campaign captures the far larger share still planning — Ireland's biggest pool of engaged couples — and holds them until they're ready.
Proven for high-consideration purchases: content-led programmes generate roughly 3× the leads of outbound at ~62% lower cost (DemandMetric). A wedding is a months-long decision — the journey in §04 is built for it.
02Positioning
The lead message is the building, its history and its setting — the assets no competitor can copy. Everything else supports.
03Segments & value assets — for sign-off
Primary intent — direct venue searches — is handled by Search and the landing pages. Secondary intent is the research that never mentions a venue: to-dos, timelines, logistics. Capturing it earns the relationship early — and the celebrations around the wedding compound it: an engagement-party lead is a wedding lead 18–24 months before venue shortlisting; a hen booking is fourteen covers of weekend brunch. Every row below is a proposal until Eclective signs it off.
| Audience segment | Secondary-intent research (to-dos, not venue searches) | Proposed value asset | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| The wedding day | |||
| Recently engaged / early planners | "just got engaged, what to do first", "wedding planning timeline", "wedding checklist pdf" | The Irish Wedding Planning Checklist — anchored on the legal timeline (3-month notice, registrar waits) | Proposed |
| City-centre, no-logistics couples | "wedding guest accommodation dublin", "getting guests around the city", "wedding transport" | City-Centre Wedding & Guest-Travel Guide | Proposed |
| Civil-ceremony couples | "how to book the dublin registry office", "what to do after a civil ceremony" | Registry Office Wedding Guide + 'After City Hall' Reception Guide — civil is now Ireland's #1 ceremony type | Proposed |
| Intimate weddings (10–70) | "how to plan a small wedding", "micro-wedding ideas ireland", "wedding venues ireland 20 guests" | The Intimate Wedding Planner — 65% of venues demand 100+ on Saturdays; the 10-guest floor is the wedge | Proposed |
| Large celebrations (up to 350) | "wedding venues ireland 100 guests", "wedding seating plan for 200", "large wedding checklist" | Guest-band pages — "a wedding for 100 / 250 in Dublin" (couples search by headcount before style) | Proposed |
| LGBTQ+ couples | "gay friendly wedding venues ireland", "who walks down the aisle same sex wedding", "humanist wedding ireland saturday" | 'The Saturday Ceremony' — legal pathway + ceremony-redesign guide. 73.5% of same-sex couples marry civil, humanist or spiritualist — exactly what the venue can host on Saturdays; Dublin is the #1 county and no venue owns this content | Proposed |
| Food-led couples | "wedding menu ideas", "what to expect at a wedding tasting" | Menu & Tasting Guide (uses live sample menus) | Proposed |
| Around the wedding — the celebration lifecycle (per the sales brief) | |||
| About to propose | "places to propose in dublin", "restaurant proposal private table" | 'Proposing on St Stephen's Green' guide + bookable proposal package — the Green is a nationally ranked proposal spot; no restaurant claims it | Proposed |
| Engagement parties | "how to plan an engagement party", "who hosts the engagement party", "engagement party venues dublin" | The Dublin Engagement Party Planner — no Irish planning guide exists; peaks Jan–Mar after December proposals | Proposed |
| Hen parties (the organiser, not the bride) | "hen party ideas dublin", "maid of honour checklist", "hen party spreadsheet template" | The Dublin Hen Planner — budget, dietary & payment trackers, three brunch-anchored itineraries (incl. sober-friendly), WhatsApp templates | Proposed |
| Day-two celebrations | "day two wedding ideas ireland", "day after wedding celebrations", "second day venues dublin" | The Day Two Playbook (Ireland edition) — a real Irish institution; no Dublin venue owns it | Proposed |
| Welcome & rehearsal dinners (international couples) | "rehearsal dinner dublin", "wedding welcome dinner ireland", "ireland destination wedding guide" | The Dublin Welcome Dinner Guide — 10.8% of Irish marriages are non-resident couples; the current SERP is thin | Proposed |
Anniversary dinners — deliberately not a paid segment. Milestone dinners (25th, 40th, 50th — usually planned by the couple's adult children) get an ungated private-dining page targeting "anniversary party venue Dublin", a search no Dublin venue owns. Promoted to a full segment only if enquiry volume earns it.
04The journey
One system, two speeds. Ready-to-book couples go straight through — search, landing page, enquiry. The journey below exists for everyone else: the majority.
05Channels
06Competitive landscape
City-centre and heritage-led. Every rival concedes at least one of the two.
07Budget & measurement
€6,000 per month is the baseline, not the ceiling — an indicative Google/Meta split, rebalanced through the month on cost per outcome. The plan is built to scale: as enquiries land and cost per booking proves out, budget follows the evidence upward.
* Published 2025–26 Irish data puts average search CPC at €1–€3, with competitive wedding-venue terms materially higher — broad peak-season terms commonly €10–€20. These are planning benchmarks, not the venue's live auction data. Targets for cost per lead and cost per booking are locked on the account's first 30 days of live data, then reported against every month.
08Launch plan
09What we need from Eclective
Assets
The two biggest assets — both briefed by Eclective's sales team — are built and landing now.