If you can’t unroll an in depth resume down to the floor, like most of us, you have to start by ‘dressing to the nines’.  Shine in ways that don’t require experience, in ways that the small-time DJ can actually afford. Here I’ll go through how you can put together respectable marketing material that you can start leveraging for gigs even if you have no experience or materials to start with!

I mention Fiverr, but any freelance online marketplace will do really. You can find over eighty five here on JobMob.

Let’s get started.

Logo & Business Card Design

I wax and wane at length about the importance of business cards in a previous post here in addition to providing a sample design to get you off and running. Maybe you want something a little more custom and don’t have the aptitude or desire to learn photoshop or shell out the hundreds of dollars the dam thing costs.

You’ll eventually need a logo once gigs begin to roll in, you don’t want to be in an awkward position when the promoter asks for one  to throw on their flyer and… you aint got shit.

Create Custom DJ Business Cards in 5 minutes

Laptop Wrap

 I  only just got my own laptop wrap and on top of the benefits it’s pretty cool. It completely transformed my MacBook and now everyone who sees me with it knows I’m a DJ, not to mention exactly how to find me on the interwebs. It’s in one of the best possible locations to display at gigs and they don’t cost much. The print will run about $25 plus whatever you pay to have a design made. Laptop wraps/skins won’t be listed as a specific job on these marketplaces, instead reach out to logo designers who have job listings for logos and they’ll be happy to accommodate your request. In my request  sent over a link to the print service I’d be using and they quickly got to work.

The Benefits of Laptop Wraps

Promo video

Using stock footage you can actually have your own promo video made up. Select the scenes, the vibe for your background music and overlay some text. Boom. Now you have your own 30 second clip to post on your website and gigmasters page for clients to look at. Have testimonials? What a better place to feature the best! Even these can be found for $20 and under.

Voiceovers

Voiceovers make you come across more professional. People will think you shelled out a decent chunk of change for what you spent $5 on! Not to mention the additional impressions you’ll make, everyone will actually know who you are. Drop your DJ id every hour or so and you can bet your name will get out there. But be careful about where and when, it can definitely be over-done. You don’t want to be ‘that guy’.

Sample IDs:

  1. This is Dj Dan Moran
  2. This is the sound of Dan Moran
  3. In the mix with Dan Moran
  4. Now in the mix with Dan Moran
  5. You’re in the mix with Dan Moran
  6. Rockin now with DJ Dan Moran
  7. We’re rockin now with DJ Dan Moran
  8. Kickin it with Dj Dan Moran

Between a monitor wrap and voiceovers, you bet your ass everyone will know exactly who was playing that night. So often I’d have people compliment me on their way out without any clue who I was! Maybe they’re not regular partiers but if they see your name advertised for other venues they now have a reason to go. Not everyone will come up and ask for a card, in fact most won’t. With screen wraps and voiceovers they don’t have to. These are great and subtle ways of telling everyone who you are non-intrusively.

Issues and Warts

One of the primary issues that come up hiring online is the communication barrier. Sellers are scattered around the world and quite often English is not their primary language. This can be a problem when trying to get on the same page for designs. Even filtering for ‘English’ doesn’t mean they’re fluent. You have to go a level deeper and click on their profile, usually here you can see what country they are based out of. You can also look for clues in their profile descriptions as to how good their English is. If their primary landing page has grammatical errors in it you can be sure their conversational skills are going to be worse. It’s also a good idea to strike up a conversation with the seller before buying. How they respond will tell you if working together will be an issue.

Sometimes the quality of work is just not adequate. I usually push through up three design revisions, beyond that I cut bait and try to find a different vendor. If you have to go back and forth that many times and you’re still not close to the desired outcome, it’s clear they are not skilled enough to give you what you want. Instead of trying to walk them through it find someone who can take your ideas and run with them. “But that’s wasteful”. Perhaps, but given how cheap Fiverr gigs are you’re still ahead of the game even if a quarter of your gigs yield poor results. My average Fiverr gig cost me $20, so at $100 I had a slew of marketing material that would have cost me 10x that anywhere else.

Forest from the trees

If you’ve read my post utilizing Gigmasters to get more gigs doing private parties you know you need a decent profile. People are judging your talent and professionalism by that one page, regardless of how well you actually DJ. If you’re bootstrapping your DJ career you don’t have much to spend. With a Benjamin and a few hours you can have a decent online brand to start picking up cold leads for gigs in less than one week.

Looking and acting like a professional means you’ll get treated like a professional, at least initially. Sometimes that’s all you need to get your foot in the door and prove yourself. You’ll have more leeway than the person who rolls in looking like they do this a few times a year. In a cut throat business the slightest edge goes a long way to put you on top. Nail the easy things like being on time with good customer service and your ‘upscale’ marketing materials make it look like you do this full time. And who do you think clients want to hire, the weekend hobbyist or a polished professional?

That’s what I thought.