You have to know what you’re selling to sell it effectively
When I first began my own Mobile DJ business in July of 1994, I had no experience in marketing and so I took out a 2” by 4” white-backed ad in the Yellow Pages. Their artists designed the layout. You can see the phrases “24 HOUR HOTLINE” and “Short Notice Not a Problem,” which we all know really translate to, “I’m new at this and I don’t have any bookings yet!”
This ad, my first attempt at marketing, cost me $1,200 for the year (a figure that would eventually carry a lot more meaning for me). It resulted in only a few phone calls but absolutely no bookings. Spending money I didn’t have, to reap no real results was frustrating to say the least, but it also inspired me to begin learning as much as I could about creating effective marketing strategies.
Learning the universals
As I struggled to build my business, the first several years were spent holding down “real jobs” to provide for my family until my DJ business could fully support us. One of those short-term “real jobs” was with a real estate marketing firm. My job involved booking appointments for field reps to promote an upcoming local marketing seminar put on by the firm. To better understand their service, the firm flew me out to Salt Lake City to see one of their real estate marketing seminars first hand.
During the seminar, several of the other trainees were obviously bored beyond belief. But I was captivated by the principles of marketing that were being taught. Even though they were focused on real estate marketing, the principles were universal and applied directly to my Mobile DJ business. Likewise, many of the marketing principles I will be exploring in this column, although they deal with wedding marketing, are also universal and may be applied to other branches of your service.
What is marketing?
Here’s a textbook definition:
“The process or technique of selling, promoting or distributing a product or service.”
Since disc jockeys don’t really offer distribution or sell a product, the definition that will best serve our purposes should read like this:
“The process or technique of selling or promoting a service.”
Some of us may believe that we actually do provide a product as well as a service, but by the time I finish this series of articles, I believe you will come to accept that we are primarily service providers.
So what are the services Mobile DJs generally provide for their wedding clients?
• Reception planning
• Reception event coordination
• Master of Ceremonies
• Disc Jockey
• Musical variety
• Qualified referrals
Not all Mobile DJs provide each of these services for their wedding clients, but more and more wedding disc jockeys are expanding the services they offer in an effort to create wedding receptions that flow smoothly and are well planned. The obvious benefits of offering such expanded services include an increase in quality referrals and an improved general perception about the success and skill of your overall performance.
Planning: Whether you provide very little advanced planning or more in-depth planning for your wedding clients, this element is a necessary part of preparing for a successful wedding reception. It’s been said that failing to plan is the same as planning to fail.
Coordination: None of us really want to be “coordinators,” but the job of pacing the reception is best handled by the person with the most entertainment experience. If you try to find out what your wedding client’s first dance song will be in advance, you are coordinating that detail so that particular part of their reception will flow smoothly. How much or how little you choose to coordinate in advance and behind the scenes at your receptions will have a direct impact on how well your receptions will flow.
Master of Ceremonies: This service is generally accepted as a regular part of a wedding disc jockey’s service, but not all DJs actually deliver “MC” service. I’ve heard stories of DJs who refused to make announcements of any kind and forced family members or wedding party members to fulfill this role instead. So why did they even bother to bring a microphone?
Disc Jockey: This is the part of our job that attracted most of us to do weddings in the first place. Playing just the right song at just the right moment and motivating a crowd of strangers to get up and dance can be an exhilarating experience. We know from experience and client feedback, that not just anyone can perform this role. The necessary skills and abilities required to “make the party happen” are hard to come by and can take years of practice to develop and perfect.
Musical variety: It doesn’t matter how talented a disc jockey is at mixing and programming if his music library is severely limited and his music knowledge can be defined by tuning in just one radio station. Musical variety is an essential ingredient for wedding reception entertainment because the guests so often vary in age and musical tastes.
Quality referrals: This segment of our services is commonly overlooked, even though many of our clients depend heavily on our years of experience when they need suggestions and guidance in choosing other wedding vendors. We have all worked with quality vendors and we have also encountered vendors that we wouldn’t refer to our worst enemy.
In order to achieve truly effective marketing, we will need to clearly communicate the services we provide in a way that will entice wedding clients to contact us for that all-important first appointment.
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It’s hard for masters of gab, but...if you want to really sell, ask and listen before you tell!
If you want your wedding marketing to attract clients to your services, then it is crucial that you put the primary focus on your client’s wants and needs before communicating why they should hire you. The sixth and final key in developing effective, service-focused wedding marketing is in recognizing who is being served. Service is about your clients—not about YOU!
Listening Before Selling
Too often we fall into the trap of giving them all the reasons why we are the best-qualified candidate, thinking that they won’t be able to resist hiring us. But that leads to a presentation without a proper consultation first.
A presentation is an important factor in successful sales, but without a proper consultation, which focuses on a potential client’s needs and wants, you are very likely to give the impression that it’s really all about you. “Here’s why you should hire ME…because my clients love ME…and you need ME…don’t you want to hire ME?” You may not be saying it this way, but if your marketing and sales meetings are all presentation with no consultation, then that is the impression you may be creating in your clients’ minds.
Talk About Your Dreams, Talk About Your Schemes
As a first step, it is much more effective to get them to ask themselves some pointed questions to better understand what they want and help them uncover the type and amount of services they really need before launching into any form of a presentation. Open-ended questions can be very powerful. For example:
• Who will make sure my guests don’t get bored at my wedding?
• How can I make sure my reception will flow smoothly?
• Will the person on the microphone at my wedding be a total stranger?
Questions like these can be used in your marketing materials to get your clients thinking about these issues in ways they might not have considered before. They can also create enough interest in your services for them to want to meet with you to discuss these issues in more detail. And since you raised the questions, they will automatically assume that you know all the right answers as well.
When you meet with prospective clients, ask them what they want…and then listen to their answers. Take notes and try to keep the focus on them and their vision for their wedding reception for at least 15 minutes before telling them one word about why they should consider your services.
This can be challenging for us because we are used to talking and giving presentations. It takes practice to develop good consultation skills. But it will pay off handsomely when you are able to clearly show the clients how you can deliver exactly what they’ve described—because you took the time to ask and listen before presenting. You may be tempted to jump ahead to the presentation when the client mentions a need they have that you already effectively provide for in your service. Instead, just make a note so you can refer back to it later. If you fail to properly identify the client’s wants and needs, your presentation may send them packing because “what you do” doesn’t match “what they want and need.”
By properly addressing their wishes instead of focusing on your accomplishments, you have a much better chance at making the necessary connection to turn a prospective client into a signed client who is thrilled to be using your services.
Love Me Do
In his book Selling the Invisible (Warner Books, 1997, p. 52) Harry Beckwith asserts that service clients tend to choose whom they will hire based on “High School Rules instead of College Rules:”
“The competent and likable solo consultant will attract far more business than the brilliant but socially deficient expert. In a large part, service marketing is a popularity contest.”
So your clients are more likely to choose your service based primarily on whether or not they like you. Which leads to the question: “How can I be more likable?”
I used to answer that question by charging practically nothing for my services. I didn’t want to risk rejection, so I set my prices too low. But now I believe in making a living as a DJ, so I set my prices accordingly. Then I refocused on doing what I can to attract clients who will like me enough to pay more than the average for my unique services. Randy Bartlett said it best when he pointed out that “The clients who like me the best are usually the ones for which I have done the most.”
Finally, you must ask yourself this question: “How can I best serve my clients?” If a client has a need, find it and fill it. For example, I identified a need in my area for solid information on wedding planning from the entertainment perspective. I filled that need by offering free wedding planning seminars. After I provided 90 minutes packed with ideas and advice for making a wedding fun and memorable, not only did the attendees comment that they learned a lot, but they also began to perceive me as an expert on making weddings fun. So when they began choosing their wedding entertainment, a large percentage of them didn’t bother shopping around—they just hired me. You have information, skills and experience that prospective clients in your area need. Find a way to supply what they need (even if they are currently unaware of what it really is) and you will see dramatic results.
Coming up next time, we will recap how giving your marketing materials a service focus can greatly enhance the effectiveness of your wedding marketing. We will showcase readers who have taken these principles and applied them to their current marketing materials, with a look back at the way they used to market themselves for a clear “before and after” demonstration. Feedback will be given we will find out how effective these changes have been.
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