Laura Smith
Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
Laura Smith
ParticipantDJ Vintage — Yeah, that was the direction I headed after reading some more of the marketing & promotion articles. Just downloaded a bunch of new music and I’m trying to use going through it all to keep me motivated. (Cleaning out my library to make sure it’s absolute musical gold.) I’m thinking with youth groups and campus clubs starting to plan their calendar for the new school year, having the option of a great party DJ to work with will work to mutual advantage. They get to reach out to students and young professionals with a real alternative to the club and party scene…and I’ll get paid. At least, I hope that’s how it’ll work…
ParticipantHuh…I guess this is my ‘never mind’, on a couple of levels…
Okay, Terry_42: thank you. Pointing me to the D-Jam article was exactly what I needed to hear. The article on “Build A Scene And DJing Success Will Follow…” (I’m posting the title of the article directly in case Michael Tosatto comes back and reads this thread) just inspired me and reminded me of where I need to market — and that now is the time to get my behind in gear and get to work. When I first launched, my original idea was to market to youth pastors and (especially) campus ministries. I thought my church’s campus ministry was going to be the launch point — but due to some ministry changes at my church (and the fact that they’re a much smaller and spread out group than I thought they were), I’ve got to polish up my marketing materials and get them out to more of the area churches. Church youth groups are, and I’m quoting here, dead when school’s not in session. They’re just starting to come out of hibernation and prep for the new school year.
My next gig is a church youth group thing that I’m volunteering for through another organization I’m a part of. This might be a good warm-up…just need to figure out how to make the event one that other churches will get inspired by…
Thanks!
Participantdjrizki: while I respect your friend’s experience, I’m not sure it really applies here. I *am* multi-format, I’m just restricting myself to a specific sub-pool of artists to fit what I’ve seen as a need in the Christian religious community. The problem I’m running into is finding the niche that actually *sees* this as a need. Either people just don’t notice the music I’m playing (standard lounge DJ problem, if I remember the master class correctly) or the people who *are* noticing the music don’t have a need to hire a DJ.
To a degree, I have a feeling this is a variation on the standard problem most mobile DJs have. The club scene isn’t really an option for me to market myself, and I’m looking for ideas of how to stretch my marketing to get my foot in a door that will, eventually, lead to getting paid. Guess I might have just answered my own question…
Terry_42: Point taken. 🙂 I did do a search for “audience” before I posted, but had trouble navigating the site to get to information that would help me. Having a couple more search terms (especially D-Jam) does help, thanks!
As for building a following…I suppose that’s the crux of the question. When I play, I’ve had people come up to me who ‘get it’ and appreciate what I do and what I’m trying to do. They take my card…and I don’t hear from them again because they’re not looking to hire. I think I’m building a small following from the church gig, but it’s kind of hard to tell. I hear “build a following” all the time, and I understand that’s what I need to do. So how do you know when you *have* a following? And how do you build on it?
I know I’m in an uphill battle where I not only have to prove myself as a DJ, I have to make a niche for the pool of music that I’m working with. I see the need on a ‘theoretical’ level, and the more I listen to the music I’m listening to I know that what I’m trying to do is the solution to that need. But how do I find the people I need to convince of that to get work?
-
AuthorPosts