Looking for DJ marketing ideas? Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place!
In 2018, the total revenue of the global music industry amounted to 53.77 billion U.S. dollars.
The figure is considered to constantly increase each year and exceed 65 billion U.S. dollars by 2023, indicating significant growth of the industry and need for intelligent DJ marketing for establishing a strong foothold in the market.
Being proficient in your craft and still not being recognized by the people can be a little demotivating.
However, now you don’t need to worry about promoting yourself as I have the perfect tips to help you out. It’s high time you become the exclusive DJ for the club nights and gig events and showcase your spark to the world.
Just being talented is not enough for you to stand out in the music industry these days. Talent coupled with viable and substantial marketing strategies can bring forth your presence to the prominence.
All the famous DJs worldwide have made it big through the application of the right marketing ideas and so do you need to!
Here are a few DJ marketing ideas that can be helpful for both established and aspiring DJs in ensuring a long-term professional career.
#1. Develop your brand name
So the first step in promoting yourself as a DJ is to brand yourself.
Start off with choosing a suitable name that you can take along as your brand name in the future.
You need to be far-sighted enough to understand if the brand name and logo you keep will work for you in the future as well.
You cannot keep changing your brand particulars so try coming up with a name that you think you will carry on with for the rest of your career without any trouble!
Establish your identity by getting the right logo designed for the brand that depicts who you are. Get it done wisely as it will continue to be your exclusive brand trademark.
Moreover, make sure to get professional and high-resolution photographs of you as a DJ that can be displayed on all the advertising platforms such as flyers, business cards, social media, etc.
Talking about the photographs, consider the image you want to portray of yourself. Your pictures must be in coherence with your music style that people can identify with easily.
Look at the examples of the famous DJ’s to find out how they’ve branded themselves successfully.
For example, Alan Walker, a famous British-Norwegian DJ is best known for mixing electronic dance music genres and has his logo derived from his initials.
In 2019, he was ranked number 27 on DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs list.
#2. Networking with people
Connecting with different people who are already in the business can pave the way for your long-term successful career building.
The obvious people you would want to be in contact with include club promoters, other DJs, DJ agency owners, venue owners, and other people who can be of any help in this regard.
But when it comes to networking, anybody you meet can become a substantial contact and you never know how you gradually become known through word of the mouth promotion tools.
Make sure you are socializing well in your surroundings for letting people keep abreast of what you are up to!
That random clubber who asked you for a song request could be a source of opening new avenues for kicking off your career.
Such people could be your greatest advocates, referring to your name for the new gigs taking place, at some point in time.
All you need is to be friendly and forthcoming with everyone you come across. You never know where the next gig or recommendation could come from.
#3. DJ promoters can be great marketers
Apart from self-promotion techniques, you can also promote yourself through different advertising methods like DJ promoters can be your great marketers.
Try keeping in touch with the known DJ promoters while showing them the glimpses of your work frequently. Promoters can surely be the game-changers!
Promoters need DJs and vice versa. After all, promoters have a lot in their hands when it comes to events like club nights and gigs in most big cities and towns.
So if you want to consistently land gigs with these promoters, you need to get yourself noticed in the first place!
Make yourself irresistible for the promoters so much so that they are compelled to book you repeatedly. All they are looking for is an energetic and skilled performer, capable of evoking a considerable response in the audience.
You need to be careful about a few things if you want to be the top pick of these promoters.
Make yourself promotable by having an up to date and impressive electronic press kit. Add your basic information including bio, links to your social media accounts, your DJ mixes, and put them all together in an attractive manner.
For example Mark.it, a known music marketing company provides services for DJ marketing as well.
#4. SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is that one strategy that no business wants to skip, given the convenience and promising outcomes attached to it.
All it takes is a few taps of your fingers and TADA, you are there on the mobile screens of millions of people out there! Isn’t that amazing?
The easiest way to reach out to the masses is to send them texts and the rest follows!
People are addicted to their phones like anything these days and the best part is that the message gets read and responded to instantly.
SMS can actually be a great way for gauging people’s response towards your work.
SMS providers like express text can do it all at an affordable price along with excellent customer service. So you must give marketing SMS a shot as 95% of the messages get responded to within 3 minutes of delivery!
#5. Use social media capabilities to the fullest
Well everybody is familiar with the power of social media when it comes to promoting a brand.
Today nearly all brands and celebrities have social media accounts where they can interact with their followers and fans effectively.
For example, a famous Scottish DJ Calvin Harris, has a huge fan base on Instagram. Thus, social media is a good platform for providing fans an insight into what you are up to.
Similarly, you should also employ appropriate social media marketing ideas. There is no denying that it is an extremely potent and accessible tool.
Create Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages respectively if you still haven’t and just get started with posting about yourself and your work.
All your details and music mixes should be up there on all the social media platforms. Keep your followers engaged with your interesting content.
Make sure to keep your social media sites active, always providing something new and intriguing to the audience to indulge in.
You can also make use of the Facebook sponsored ads and consider it as an opportunity to present your talent to the world.
You never know a DJ promoter could come across your profile through social media wanting you to take over the next gig they are organizing. Social media can truly change your destiny so leverage its power fully!
If we look at the example of wedding DJs for instance, using Facebook they can put forth ads in front of the people who have their Facebook relationship statuses set to “engaged”.
Likewise, if there is a particular music type that you play, you can customize the options to make your music mix posts appear in front of people who like that very genre of music.
#6. Upload your music mixes online
Any DJ promoter or club will only be willing to take you once they’ve heard your skills on the decks enough.
Today, reaching out to the masses is no big deal, thanks to the technology and established digital world.
You can take advantage of online music streaming websites such as Soundcloud, MixCloud, and Youtube for uploading your music mixes.
That way people will be able to stream and listen to your music online easily.
You can also add links of the music mixes into your DJ bio and press pack.
All these platforms are simple and easy to use and will help you to promote yourself as a DJ to a wider audience.
This will naturally increase the public access to you even more with higher chances of an event promoter approaching you online as well!
#7. Establish your DJ website
Additionally, you can also establish a DJ website like all the biggest DJs in the world have.
The benefits of having your own DJ website is that you can collect all of your DJ marketing assets at a single place.
Moreover, you have control over it solely with nobody else having access to it.
Having a website also saves you from the trouble people may get to face in case of suspended social media accounts.
Have a look at the official website of a famous DJ Martin Garixx to get an idea of how it works.
#8. Create an email list
Create an email list of the contacts you want to reach out to. Send them emails about your upcoming local events or the music mixes that you create often.
Email marketing has significantly lost popularity that it once had due to the tremendous growth of social media, however, it is not considered redundant anyway and a lot of businesses use it as a marketing tool.
Despite having a relatively lower opening rate as compared to the SMS, it is still used as a preferred marketing strategy by various successful businesses.
Gather email addresses at any opportunity and import them into a free email system such as MailChimp.
MailChimp grants you the opportunity to have up to 2,000 email addresses and send 12,000 emails a month before they start charging you for sending, so should be a workable option for most aspiring DJs.
It is better not to send out more than 1 or 2 emails each month containing all the latest news, your music mixes, updates, or gig availability.
Unlike social media, your email list exclusively belongs to you and nobody can ever take it away.
You own and control it, and it is a captive audience of people who are interested in what you have to offer.
#9. Make sure to have business cards
Imagine being at an event where you have a chance to introduce yourself to a club owner or DJ promoter.
You can of course acquaint yourself with them in person but it is unlikely that they are going to remember that in the long run, given how occupied such people are with their work.
That is where the need for having a personal business card looms.
You can instantly hand over your business cards to the people who you think can potentially bring you business, to significantly increase the probability of them approaching you in the future.
Keeping business cards is a great branded marketing asset that instantly allows you to introduce yourself to the new people you meet.
They are great for corporate and wedding DJs as they can be left at venues.
Club DJs tend to print them less but they are a great tool for DJ marketing anyway!
Conclusion:
It is never easy to make yourself stand out in a room full of people but with the right promotional strategies, you can certainly achieve that.
Undoubtedly, a lot of effort and hard work goes into making yourself reach a point where people begin to recognize and applaud your talent.
With the immense growth of the competitive music industry globally, it has become difficult for aspiring DJs to make their way up to stardom.
However, there is nothing to be anxious about as long as you are confident in your talent and are stuck to the right marketing strategies.
Hopefully, these DJ marketing ideas will give you valuable insight into how you can promote and market yourself better as a DJ.
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