Advice

[mbp]

Hi guys,

I started my dj career back in the late 70's and worked quite regular up to the early 2000's when I was diagnosed with Cancer.

The diagnosis changed by life and outlook...

Post treatment, I entered the world of fundraising race nights - where I have been since.

Race nights are great BUT I have always craved the excitement of the dj/mobile disco business again...

Equipment & lighting wise, I'm ok with.....its the work side and software i'm unsure of.

How do you guys get work nowadays, what with everyone "knowing someone who does disco's cheap".

Tried promoting to existing race night customers but they seem to just see us as race night 'people'...

Interested in your thoughts..

Please don't mention Facebook as never been a fan of the thing..

[ckpr2]

I got most of my work through Yellow Pages and Yell.com.

I haven't tried google ads for a disco but did for my software business and the results were pretty useless.

I also tried knocking on pub doors for work and got mixed results.
I got quite a few gigs from one pub.

[mbp]

Thanks, I think the days of Yellow Pages and Yell etc are gone now......never had a good response from them either.

Google Ads are a bit of a rip off and can become quite expensive. (anyone ever had results from these???)

It does also seem a little difficult to get your foot through the door of local pubs/clubs etc as some fall for the 'cheaper dj/disco' option...

Not as easy as I thought...

[ppentertainments]

Do a 'free' disco for an hour after your Race Night. You need nothing fancy (I actually pop an old acme firebird light under the screen and turn the music up).

It is surprising how many enquiries I get through this. I only really do weddings, so they are a bit slim (although must still get 5/6 a year out of it) but I get inundated with presentation nights, birthdays, anniversaries etc purely from seeing me DJ the last hour.

Going forward this is going to be an additional service as I have struggled to increase my fees for Race Nights, but so far for next year around 80% have booked an hours disco at the end.

For what it's worth I would do a Race Night over a disco any day - unfortunately as they are predominantly fundraising events it is difficult to match the fees for my DJ services.

[mbp]

Will offer that option, I think.....thank you.

The only issue I could see is that our race night shows normally finish around 11.15/11.30pm from an 8.00/8.15pm start and the majority of the events are in community centres - so they have to be out by midnight at the latest.

It is a really good idea and might attract other race night customers who, in turn, might see the disco's potential.

On another point.....do the majority of people use VDJ for music software??

[Sapphire Disco]

A good website , add yourself to free sites & google , postcards newsagents window.

[Imagine]

A good website , add yourself to free sites & google , postcards newsagents window.

I started back up 4 years ago after an 18 year break...it was hard work (a LOT harder than I imagined if I'm honest).
Back in the late 80s/early 90s you put an ad in Yellow Pages and waited for the phone to ring.

Now, it's all very much about your web presence. It's the modern generation, innit

A good website is key, and get the SEO (search engine stuff) right so that you get found. I also back this up with social media channels such as the book of faeces and twatter....and don't forget Goooooooogle+ as well (extra brownie points on their search ranking). Your domain name also has to have a little bit of age to gain any authority as well (don't ask).

A good tip as well...venue pages on said website (many of them). It doesn't have to be much....just a couple of hundred words about what you've done at each venue back up with photo and preferably video....it really does work.

My main market over the past year has very much slewed towards weddings. Get friendly with the venues. I did to the extent that most of my weddings next year are in my favourite venue. In fact I'm going into 2017 with more already booked gigs than ever before (17 as opposed to 2)...result.

The other really big one is word of mouth. People that attend your parties when you get them will also at some point need a party......'nuff said . Make friends with your customers - they're your biggest asset and will recommend you if you do a good job for them (I have repeat customers who recommend me all over the place...it's flattering and profitable).

And then there's lead generation sites such as Vectis's needadisco.com and Sandy Sound's AmpDJ. I don't rely on these nowadays (I only did something like 4 Nad and 6 AMPDJ gigs in 2016 mainly because I'm now too expensive for most of the leads), but...they're valuable if for no other reason than SEO backlinks (as indeed is this here forum).

- - - Updated - - -

A good website , add yourself to free sites & google , postcards newsagents window.

I started back up 4 years ago after an 18 year break...it was hard work (a LOT harder than I imagined if I'm honest).
Back in the late 80s/early 90s you put an ad in Yellow Pages and waited for the phone to ring.

Now, it's all very much about your web presence. It's the modern generation, innit

A good website is key, and get the SEO (search engine stuff) right so that you get found. I also back this up with social media channels such as the book of faeces and twatter....and don't forget Goooooooogle+ as well (extra brownie points on their search ranking). Your domain name also has to have a little bit of age to gain any authority as well (don't ask).

A good tip as well...venue pages on said website (many of them). It doesn't have to be much....just a couple of hundred words about what you've done at each venue back up with photo and preferably video....it really does work.

My main market over the past year has very much slewed towards weddings. Get friendly with the venues. I did to the extent that most of my weddings next year are in my favourite venue. In fact I'm going into 2017 with more already booked gigs than ever before (17 as opposed to 2)...result.

The other really big one is word of mouth. People that attend your parties when you get them will also at some point need a party......'nuff said . Make friends with your customers - they're your biggest asset and will recommend you if you do a good job for them (I have repeat customers who recommend me all over the place...it's flattering and profitable).

And then there's lead generation sites such as Vectis's needadisco.com and Sandy Sound's AmpDJ. I don't rely on these nowadays (I only did something like 4 Nad and 6 AMPDJ gigs in 2016 mainly because I'm now too expensive for most of the leads), but...they're valuable if for no other reason than SEO backlinks (as indeed is this here forum).

[mbp]

Lots of good ideas and plenty to think about over the next few weeks (and months).

Member of AMP DJ already and, upto now, the majority of booking enquiries havn't resulted in much - probs due to lack of proper website presence...

Tried Add To Events but they don't seem to have any good leads - most of their enquiries are from people wanting YOU to pay them to turn up at their events!!

Had a comment, from a friend that said I should specialise in 'retro style' disco's (70's/80's/90's etc) as that's my background and have 'new' retro style lighting etc.

Thoughts on this one, anyone???

[Imagine]

Member of AMP DJ already and, upto now, the majority of booking enquiries havn't resulted in much - probs due to lack of proper website presence...

Once you get a web site in place - have a word with the lovely Sandy Sounds (one of the founders of AmpDJ). She'll be able to help you with this (in fact, she'll even produce the entire website for a reasonable fee). She'll also be able to critique your email responses to quotes if you ask her.

Had a comment, from a friend that said I should specialise in 'retro style' disco's (70's/80's/90's etc) as that's my background and have 'new' retro style lighting etc.

Thoughts on this one, anyone???

It'll never work <cough>

[mbp]

Ahh...nice one..

What's the enquiries like for it??