Goodbye

[surround sounds]

How much does your SEO cost? Who do you use?

I'll be lucky if I can get advertising below £2000. I have only managed to get it that low once.

My advertising for the next 12months ought to be....

£200 Scottish Wedding Directory
£300 Edinburgh Corn Exchange Wedding Fair
£600 Promotional pens
£200 Other promotional material (posters, post cards, business cards, mugs etc)
£200 Website and domains.
£300 google adwords
£200 other listings on websites

Lee

Same as Dave really.
Advertising cost may be only around £400 a year maxium as most of my work comes through my websites and as dave said good websites with good seo are always the best. Never needed to use adwords or pens etc. £2000 Is still a lot of money

[lazersounds]

I must confess other than my website I do little advertising.

A lot of my work comes from word of mouth, indeed in the last 3 weeks I have taken 8 bookings from word of mouth, 5 for the autumn and 3 for early next year. I gave my price and was no hestation in booking me.

Thats better than advertising and its free

[WWDJ]

How much does your SEO cost? Who do you use?

I just use myself. I read up a bit on it and as my site is in Wordpress it's not rocket science.

As I say though, it brings in enough gigs for me, but if I needed to do more I would do this by probably having more sites and lots and lots of networking. £2000 off the bottom line would be too much for me to stand for advertising.

[leelive]

I just use myself. I read up a bit on it and as my site is in Wordpress it's not rocket science.

As I say though, it brings in enough gigs for me, but if I needed to do more I would do this by probably having more sites and lots and lots of networking. £2000 off the bottom line would be too much for me to stand for advertising.

I can live with spending £2000. It is only 7% of income (or just over £25 per gig).

Lee

[huggy]

couldnt agree more with some of these lee especially yell.com what a total waste of time they are .better throwing your money out the car window defo more fun .at least you can see it go quickly

[jk74]

I can live with spending £2000. It is only 7% of income (or just over £25 per gig).

Lee

I think advertising is all relevant if I said if you spend £10,000 on advertising this year you will get £50,000 more business what would you do?
Lee does weddings which are much more lucrative than the run of the mill party gigs certainly in my area anyway. Sadly brides don't often pick up the yellow pages or go to a disco site and book you just like that.

[leelive]

I think advertising is all relevant if I said if you spend £10,000 on advertising this year you will get £50,000 more business what would you do?
Lee does weddings which are much more lucrative than the run of the mill party gigs certainly in my area anyway. Sadly brides don't often pick up the yellow pages or go to a disco site and book you just like that.

I'd turn it down. I think 20% on advertising is too much.
I review my advertising each year.... if something is above 15% then it really has to go.

Weddings pay an average of £350. But then after all allowable expenses, travel, pension contributions, etc... I only have £100 profit. per gig. (on paper at least)

Lee

[jk74]

I think sometimes people don't see the woods for the trees when it comes to advertising. I never commit big money to anything in business without testing it at a manageable level if it works for me and it's making more money than it's costing, as some of my clients have been with me for over 10 years so sometimes I don't mind paying a large percentage if it is a corporate client or a venue that I would not usually get through conventional advertising. Again only my opinion but I agree high costs for one off gigs such as weddings does not make sense.

[yourdj]

I can live with spending £2000. It is only 7% of income (or just over £25 per gig).

Lee

You can Lee-Live with spending that much.

it depends on your turnover and method of business.
£4000 may seem like a lot to some but quite insignificant to others with larger turnovers.
Also some people have to advertise lots due to the nature of thier business and some people don't have to at all.

Pretty obvious really but worth saying.

[ukpartydj]

I think spending lots of money on advertising should only really be done if you don't have a lot of time on your hands.

Learn how to SEO your website.
Spend time networking.
Advertising at your gigs, use free advertising / clever less obvious advertising.

Directories and adwords are the obvious choices for all DJ's hence their price.

When I started full time I struggled quite a lot during my first 6 months with very little money so I spent ages flyering, posting letters to venues & adding my details to every imaginable directory and talking to as many agents as I could find... most of these things cost me nothing/ a few pence and by the end of the year I felt I was earning a reasonable amount. Won't work for everybody but if you're not getting enough gigs - use your time to get work and not your money!