DJGold

Dan Zynda, Mobile Music · Joined: August 31st, 2004 Posts: 198 Location: Darien, GA

The biz has kinda painted itself into a corner. We book early on the hot dates for clients that need lights, multiple zone coverage or the wedding and reception combined. The amount of dates we're booking in the wedding market is down, about one per month on average. The amount of phone calls and emails is also lower too.

It looks like we're not getting as many referrals from some of the hotels for several reasons;

1. We're on the top of the ladder pay-wise and some may think we charge too much.
2. We're not available on certain dates when their brides call so the hotels aren't bothering to recommend us.
3. Although we are certainly service oriented, some hotels may see us as the wedding production company and may be recommending the basic DJ at a lower price so there's more money on the table for food, drink and other amenities.
4. The hotels have their favorites.

Last year we lost our foothold at the facility we played at the most in 2002, 2003 and part of 2004. Simply put, staff changes hurt our presence there and although we are still on the list, we don't get the verbal recommendations anymore.

Currently, we are nearly the house DJs for another location but I want to make sure that we keep things going at other places as a precaution. Don't want all the eggs in one basket. Even with the bookings at this one facility, we aren't catering to the brides looking for a basic service.

I realize that not everyone is our client, but it looks like we're loosing marketshare. That could be disastrious.

djdonny · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 12:14 pm Post subject:

Two questions...

1.
Quote: some may think we charge too much

Ask them. "I realize that we've received less referrals from you recently. Is this due mostly to our price, quality of service, or just that you have less clients who need DJ services?" If it's price, offer to lower your price (perhaps) just for these hotels' clients. The hotel manager could tell clients that they have personally "arranged" a x% discount off your regular DJ price just for their own clients.

2.
How often do you refer clients to these hotels? Networking is a two-way street. I realize that many of your clients already have their venue booked when they come to you, but some may not. Place links to these hotels on your web site. Offer to meet them at the hotel and let the hotel manager show them around after your initial meeting at the site (with the hotel's permission of course). Let the hotel staff see that you're trying to reciprocate the business leads.

djmc

I'm going to take this thread in a DIFFERENT direction!

Dan, did it ever occur to you that your WEB SITE isn't doing its job?

In particular, here are a few suggestions to improve your website performance:

1) Your title tags lack GEOGRAPHIC place names. It should read "DJ in xxxxxxx, Georgia GA"

putting the place into the title tags improves your searchability in Google/Yahoo/MSN.

2) Too many META KEY WORDS......if your meta words exceeds a certain amount, Google will penalize your site in the rankings.

3) AVAILABILITY CHECKER: this is a very important tool that many DJs fail to use. Its part of the WeDJ Silver & Gold package. Put the availability checker prominently on your main page, BEFORE the bios!

Dan Zynda, Mobile Music · Joined: August 31st, 2004 Posts: 198 Location: Darien, GA

Matt, very good information on your views of my website.

So far, nearly everyone that has called or emailed us that has been to the website has also checked our availability. I do like the idea of putting the availability checker directly on the home page.

Our placing is great for Jekyll Island. That's where we haven't been to as much lately. It's harder to place on St. Simons Island and I think it's due to spelling differences but that where we're playing at the most. There's Saint Simons, St Simons, St. Simons and not placing well there has been a thorn in my side.

I'll see somebody about changing the title words.

Donny,

I can't really place a finger on which hotels aren't sending enough referrals. That's one bad thing about not every bride calling. I do refer hotels whenever possible and some actually have referred brides to our site to see what the facility looks like!

Dan Zynda, Mobile Music · Joined: August 31st, 2004 Posts: 198 Location: Darien, GA

Dan Zynda, Mobile Music wrote: We book early on the hot dates for clients that need lights, multiple zone coverage or the wedding and reception combined.

Even with the bookings at this one facility, we aren't catering to the brides looking for a basic service.

I realize that not everyone is our client, but it looks like we're loosing marketshare. That could be disastrious.

Here's a question. Is it time to create a basic service? My belief is that two basic rigs would increase our presence at the hotels, increase our revenue and trigger an increase in referrals.

I doubt that we would be competing against ourselves, there's too many differences between what everyone else offers and what we bring to the table as a husband and wife team.

dokai

Dan Zynda, Mobile Music wrote: Here's a question. Is it time to create a basic service? My belief is that two basic rigs would increase our presence at the hotels, increase our revenue and trigger an increase in referrals.

That was my first thought when I read your original post. I know a local DJ that does this VERY well (Hi Dave!) and he almost never leaves anything "on the table". A lot of us use the "package" approach to accomplish the same thing: "The secondary audio system for use at the ceremony is not available with our Bronze and Silver packages, but is available with our Gold package and included at no additional charge in our Platinum package." Structure and price your packages correctly and they'll almost upsell themselves.

I also like the aspect of the two basic rigs acting as marketing tools. The more people that come in looking for the basic package, the more people you can potentially upsell to the premium packages. A concern here would be if you get too many basic bookings and have no dates available for your premium bookings. Time to start training an assistant or two?

Quote: I doubt that we would be competing against ourselves, there's too many differences between what everyone else offers and what we bring to the table as a husband and wife team.

Don't underestimate the danger of competing against yourself. Not only will you have to manage your client's expectations precisely to avoid disappointments, you also don't want to de-value yourself in the eyes of your high-end clients. It sounds like you've put a lot of work into getting yourself to the top of the compensation ladder, and I imagine you want to stay there!

Personally, I'd first try to boost the high-end sales by increasing my communication with the venues, for destination brides, or arranging some PR by being featured in a bridal magazine, newspaper article, or similar for the local brides. Then, if that didn't work, I'd consider adding the basic systems and/or packages.

Just my two cents. Good luck!

djmc · Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:34 am Post subject:

Dan,

I am positive you will achieve success with the Basic Rig.

When I was selling at the "Magic $599" (just 3 short years ago) it was very easy to sell the gigs. That was back when I had a SMALLER FUNNEL and there were fewer prospects.

At the wedding, I would upsell the ceremony rig for $150.

Used this sales tactic for a long time.

THEN I increased the size of my prospect funnel (Internet sources). Spent an extra $500 on well-placed internet directories. Tweeked my Googlization with hundreds of links to my DJ-MC site. RESULT: I'm swimming in leads and I can sift thru 10-12 prospects (for each date) to find the ones who are willing to pay my almost $1k average.

NOW I'm selling the brides at $975 to $1188 on a complete ceremony/reception package that includes even the lapel mic for the minister at the ceremony.

But if my prospect "Funnel" were to get cut off, I'd go back to the "OLD" way of selling, offering a $699 package to get the gig booked, then upsell the ceremony for $299.

YOUR problem is that your Funnel is not big enough.

FIX YOUR SITE, put the "Coastal Georgia" and "Southeastern GA" into the HTML "Title Meta-Tags"......watch the number of prospects skyrocket.

Dan Zynda, Mobile Music · Joined: August 31st, 2004 Posts: 198 Location: Darien, GA

I'd want to have 2 basic systems out there with 3-4 trained people to run them. Gotta cover for illness, time off, quitting.

I've inquired at the radio stations that I've worked at without any luck. I've got an ex-drummer that is interested in coming on board. I think that we could probably bring a couple more into the basic service without too much trouble.

Do we have the equipment for the first basic system? Almost. Two sets of passive speakers, one cased amp (our monitor system, actually), one extra Mackie 1202 (still in the box) and one Denon dual deck. Need a combo case, wireless mic, set of stands. Of course, need another music library.