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ARTICLE
You Gotta Get Yourself Connected
When I wrote my book ‘Wedding Marketing for DJs’, back in 2011, the mobile DJ marketplace seemed quite a simple and straight-forward concept. Today that marketplace has developed, changed, evolved and morphed into a totally different beast. These days word of mouth, wedding fayres, physical networking groups, business cards and flyers have been dwarfed by the expansion of social media and the virtual world.

Don’t get me wrong, the traditional methods of marketing yourself and your business are still important, but ignore social media at your peril. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter (to name but a few) are changing the way potential customers are searching for, and connecting with, service providers.

Gone are the days when people read lengthy advertisements or descriptions of products or services. Welcome to the age of Snapchat, YouTube and instant messaging. I remember actually writing letters, before they were superseded by email. Today rumour has it that the days of email are numbered, especially as it’s increasingly more difficult to guarantee that a message is received, viewed and read by the recipient.

The world around us is changing. More and more TV is being watched on demand. People no longer read newspapers; they prefer to search Twitter by hashtag or look for live streaming feeds. We live in an instant age, which means that your marketing needs to feed this demand for immediate information. If you have a Facebook page you will have noticed that visitors are advised as to how quickly you respond to a message. The speed of your response may well be the difference between you winning or losing a booking!

Websites are changing too. When was the last time you updated your site? Most of us were forced to review our websites when google decided to penalise those that were not responsive to smart phones and tablets. Did you know that a similar situation is on the horizon for sites that do not have SSL Certification? Have you noticed the increasing trend of web browsers displaying warning messages for ‘insecure’ sites? You could soon be missing out if potential clients decide not to connect to your site because the https is missing from your domain name URL.

Did you also know that the average time spent on a website landing page before the viewer clicks away has reduced from eight seconds to less than five seconds? This means that the smart web designers are now creating web pages that have a very attractive ‘Click Here’ button located in the top quarter of the page. In our case, ‘Click Here’ may well read ‘Check Availability’, ‘Get a Quote’ or ‘Pricing’. If people are in a habit of browsing and clicking, it's logical that you do your best to get them to click into your website rather than clicking away. Long descriptive blocks of text on your landing pages will no longer be read and will work against you.

Ideally your website landing page should consist of great high-quality images and a short video. These should be accompanied by short descriptive blocks of text that include your key words and describe what you do. Your phone number should not be simple text but setup as a ‘click-to-call’ link, so that visitors viewing your site on their mobile can call you easily. I would also highly recommend some form of plug-in or App that provides an instant messaging option. These days people are becoming less and less responsive to lengthy contact forms. To engage a visitor to your website give them the option to say “Hi” and ask a question in order to initiate a conversation. Your instant messaging can also be installed on your smartphone so that you can reply to a question when away from your office. Once again, speed of response is vital if you are going to convert the enquiry into a booking.

As a DJ in 2017, you either need to get yourself connected – making use of new technology and communicating with prospective customers on their terms – or run the risk of being left behind. So, based on these significant recent changes to the marketplace, I’m sure that it will come as no surprise, dear reader, that I have decided that now is the time to revise ‘Wedding Marketing for DJs’. I have recently written five new chapters so that DJs will be able to benefit from both the traditional and modern concepts for marketing their DJ services.

In the book, I share detailed tips and advice gleaned from my extensive collaboration with leading successful wedding DJs in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. All of the advice on offer has been tested and proven by individual DJs that I have helped in my one-on-one mentor program. This is not just theory; it is a series of practical ideas and methods designed to help you find and communicate with a constantly changing demographic of Brides and Grooms.

I am delighted to announce that the updated version of the book will be officially launched at the BPM | PRO show in Birmingham this October. I shall be in attendance on both days to meet friends old and new, so please come along and say hello. I will be presenting a new seminar (more information in the panel below) and it will also be my pleasure to answer any questions you may have regarding anything relating to performance, marketing or running your DJ business.
The full review can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 85, Pages 62-64.
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BY DAVID ABBOTT

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