Advertising ROI and knot vs ??

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What do YOU search for online?

Info...sure, but price too.

So a bride with a budget will be researching..and click on everything until she finds what she's looking for. I bet price is one of those things.

Try adding a page to your website for the ads to land on when the click with 'feb wedding special'..'our most popular package - $999 for 6 hours!' or something like that - just as a test - and see if your phone lights up more.

the only reason they keep clicking and not contacting is they're not finding what they're looking for so they keep on looking...
 
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IceBurghDJ said:
What do YOU search for online?

Info...sure, but price too.

So a bride with a budget will be researching..and click on everything until she finds what she's looking for. I bet price is one of those things.

Try adding a page to your website for the ads to land on when the click with 'feb wedding special'..'our most popular package - $999 for 6 hours!' or something like that - just as a test - and see if your phone lights up more.

the only reason they keep clicking and not contacting is they're not finding what they're looking for so they keep on looking...
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I run a special every month. Right now I am running a Party Special of $525 for 4 hours. It's right on the google adword advertisement. About half of my clicks are for party dj related keywords, and the other half is for Wedding DJ.

Right now I'm running a 30% Discount on Weddings booked by Feb. 26th. No one has asked about the discount yet. Been running it since Feb 1st. This is my biggest discount I will offer for the year to attract clientele. If the special interests them they should be inquiring for a price quote. So far I had one email inquiry, and a phone call this month from the ad. The email inquiry went silent after I gave him a price for a 2.5 hour wedding reception (2nd marriage).

In January I did $100 off wedding bookings which is much less of a discount than 30% off. I booked one wedding from it.
 
DJ Ricky B said:
I run a special every month. Right now I am running a Party Special of $525 for 4 hours. It's right on the google adword advertisement. About half of my clicks are for party dj related keywords, and the other half is for Wedding DJ.

Right now I'm running a 30% Discount on Weddings booked by Feb. 26th. No one has asked about the discount yet. Been running it since Feb 1st. This is my biggest discount I will offer for the year to attract clientele. If the special interests them they should be inquiring for a price quote. So far I had one email inquiry, and a phone call this month from the ad. The email inquiry went silent after I gave him a price for a 2.5 hour wedding reception (2nd marriage).

In January I did $100 off wedding bookings which is much less of a discount than 30% off. I booked one wedding from it.
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If it's always on sale .. can it ever be considered to be not?

When I was younger and Sears was the gold standard for hardware, I never bought something at full price .. it, or something similar was ALWAYS on sale within a few ad cycles. I swear they had several product numbers for the same item just so they could advertise 1 of them each week in the Sunday flyer.
 
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steve149 said:
If it's always on sale .. can it ever be considered to be not?
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Nope, there's always going to be some kind of "special" going on. In my own case, I just inflate the "regular price", then offer a discount, which ends up getting me the money I wanted to begin with. It doesn't work if you do unbelievable, "50% OFF" deals but a $100-$200 discount is just irresistible to the 20-something female. It's a powerful motivator.
 
steve149 said:
If it's always on sale .. can it ever be considered to be not?

When I was younger and Sears was the gold standard for hardware, I never bought something at full price .. it, or something similar was ALWAYS on sale within a few ad cycles. I swear they had several product numbers for the same item just so they could advertise 1 of them each week in the Sunday flyer.
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My biggest competitor who went Belly Up in June was a Multi Op in business since 1975. His tag line was "Where Quality Meets Value". He ran ads on TV and Radio for years, then started doing Google adwords probably like 8 or 9 years ago. He was like a furniture store. He would inflate the "regular prices" of his DJs, and claim the regular price for a 4 hour wedding was $1500. He always ran ads that said "50% OFF on Wedding DJs if booked by this Friday". or another ad he would put up would say "Book by this Friday and receive a 40% discount and free up lights!"

He would have a guy who handled the google campaign change the ad every week. On his agreements it would state the regular cost on a a regular DJ is $1500, and a "Ultimate Top 6 DJ" is $1,800 for 4 hours. He would often book his lower quality DJs for $539 on a Wedding Special, then offer a "Free Up Grade" to a higher caliber DJ to seal the deal and get them to book. ...It never mattered what prices he booked at. All of his DJs were paid $150 for 4 hours, and got $50 for each extra hour. He only had 3 top tier DJs that got $350 for 4 hours, and $50 each extra hour LOL. He actually made more profit on booking his "lower" caliber DJs.

Anyway, he is 77 years old, and out of business now. He stole a bunch of brides money when he went out of business as well.

My point is that he ran 50% off Specials all the time to attract clients. He was so use to it that his business was always selling DJs at "HALF PRICE" ....He attracted a certain type of clientele. However, it worked for him for well over 20 years. He didn't advertise that way back in the 80s and early 90s. When a lot of other mobile DJs entered the market in the mid to late 90s is when he started with the Big DJ Sales to attract clients.
 
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DJ Ricky B said:
My biggest competitor who went Belly Up in June was a Multi Op in business since 1975. His tag line was "Where Quality Meets Value". He ran ads on TV and Radio for years, then started doing Google adwords probably like 8 or 9 years ago. He was like a furniture store. He would inflate the "regular prices" of his DJs, and claim the regular price for a 4 hour wedding was $1500. He always ran ads that said "50% OFF on Wedding DJs if booked by this Friday". or another ad he would put up would say "Book by this Friday and receive a 40% discount and free up lights!"

He would have a guy who handled the google campaign change the ad every week. On his agreements it would state the regular cost on a a regular DJ is $1500, and a "Ultimate Top 6 DJ" is $1,800 for 4 hours. He would often book his lower quality DJs for $539 on a Wedding Special, then offer a "Free Up Grade" to a higher caliber DJ to seal the deal and get them to book. ...It never mattered what prices he booked at. All of his DJs were paid $150 for 4 hours, and got $50 for each extra hour. He only had 3 top tier DJs that got $350 for 4 hours, and $50 each extra hour LOL. He actually made more profit on booking his "lower" caliber DJs.

Anyway, he is 77 years old, and out of business now. He stole a bunch of brides money when he went out of business as well.

My point is that he ran 50% off Specials all the time to attract clients. He was so use to it that his business was always selling DJs at "HALF PRICE" ....He attracted a certain type of clientele. However, it worked for him for well over 20 years. He didn't advertise that way back in the 80s and early 90s. When a lot of other mobile DJs entered the market in the mid to late 90s is when he started with the Big DJ Sales to attract clients.
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But that's not a recipe to get over the $1K hump, IMO. The guys that bring in $1500+ on a wedding aren't advertising themselves as $3000 DJs on sale today.

It might get your name out there, and will get you $750 DJ gigs, but IMO, it will be a hindrance in moving up the ladder. If it works in your area and you can bolt-on photobooths and uplights to clear the hump .. fine. But I think those should be targeted .. and limited to have the best effect.
 
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steve149 said:
But that's not a recipe to get over the $1K hump, IMO. The guys that bring in $1500+ on a wedding aren't advertising themselves as $3000 DJs on sale today.

It might get your name out there, and will get you $750 DJ gigs, but IMO, it will be a hindrance in moving up the ladder. If it works in your area and you can bolt-on photobooths and uplights to clear the hump .. fine. But I think those should be targeted .. and limited to have the best effect.
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Working up to those premium-tier rates, my opinion, can only be done one way..........slow and steady. You can be booking at $500 then just suddenly decide, "Hey, I'm going to book $1500". You'll go to zero bookings, quickly. Now you can book cheap(ish), get the book partially filled up, then start gouging for the remaining dates. If you're successful at selling the higher-priced dates, by next season you'll have more confidence to jump the rates north.
 
rickryan.com said:
Working up to those premium-tier rates, my opinion, can only be done one way..........slow and steady. You can be booking at $500 then just suddenly decide, "Hey, I'm going to book $1500". You'll go to zero bookings, quickly. Now you can book cheap(ish), get the book partially filled up, then start gouging for the remaining dates. If you're successful at selling the higher-priced dates, by next season you'll have more confidence to jump the rates north.
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Fully agree .. but one way is to start weaning off of the continuous heavy discounts .. especially advertised ones.
 
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If you're selling to the same folks over and over then yes, a sale price/promo can hurt you as people will wait till it's on sale. Sears was famous for this and you see it today with 'white sales', memorial day sales, end of year car sales, end of month is often a good time to get a car deal, etc.

But marketing 101 is a call to action - 'Call NOW!' - "offer expires FRIDAY"

also if you email/advertise or even blog you need something to say - and a monthly special gives you an excuse to contact the customer again.

If everyone else is running a 'sale' and you're not, is that bad or good for you?

steve149 said:
If it's always on sale .. can it ever be considered to be not?

When I was younger and Sears was the gold standard for hardware, I never bought something at full price .. it, or something similar was ALWAYS on sale within a few ad cycles. I swear they had several product numbers for the same item just so they could advertise 1 of them each week in the Sunday flyer.
Click to expand...
 
IceBurghDJ said:
But marketing 101 is a call to action - 'Call NOW!' - "offer expires FRIDAY"

also if you email/advertise or even blog you need something to say - and a monthly special gives you an excuse to contact the customer again.

If everyone else is running a 'sale' and you're not, is that bad or good for you?
Click to expand...

For a commodity item .. yes .. You don't see Hermes or Prada with "operator standing by " sales.

I agree you need to have something to get some recognition .. and maybe discounts are a starting point if you don't have an exclusive differentiality .. but at some point the draw needs to be your value (however you frame it) .. otherwise it's nearly impossible to move up the ladder.

Apple doesn't put products on sale very often and it hasn't hurt their campaigns.
 
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the biggest HVAC outfit here runs a $99 special every other month.

Yes, there is a difference between product and service, high end and low end.

But what motivates people to buy, and how they shop, isn't all that different excluding both extremes - those that are so rich as to not care or so poor as to not be able to buy.

now you can pick your point in the your marketplace - MAYbe. We are a service and while there are high end and price-focused hair care places, when it comes to car repair you get minimal service or quality service, with a plumber is there a high end/low end choice? Landscaping and grass cutting? Roofers?
 
IceBurghDJ said:
the biggest HVAC outfit here runs a $99 special every other month.

Yes, there is a difference between product and service, high end and low end.

But what motivates people to buy, and how they shop, isn't all that different excluding both extremes - those that are so rich as to not care or so poor as to not be able to buy.

now you can pick your point in the your marketplace - MAYbe. We are a service and while there are high end and price-focused hair care places, when it comes to car repair you get minimal service or quality service, with a plumber is there a high end/low end choice? Landscaping and grass cutting? Roofers?
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If the Kia dealer was offering $5K discounts all the time .. still wouldn't motivate me to check them out.

If you sell on VALUE (instead of price) then discounts shouldn't be the only option. I'm not saying they don't have their place, but aren't there other facets to your value that you could play up instead?
 
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steve149 said:
Fully agree .. but one way is to start weaning off of the continuous heavy discounts .. especially advertised ones.
Click to expand...

The discount gigs come from ad channels (facebook, google, ww, TK). These are prospects who are new to me and my services and it's going to take something strong to bring them to my door. Once you get rolling and start getting referrals from venues, the game changes and special deals aren't necessary to close, at least on those deals.
 
steve149 said:
If the Kia dealer was offering $5K discounts all the time .. still wouldn't motivate me to check them out.

If you sell on VALUE (instead of price) then discounts shouldn't be the only option. I'm not saying they don't have their place, but aren't there other facets to your value that you could play up instead?
Click to expand...

You can't sell value in a snap-decision medium, such as google or facebook. It doesn't turn heads.
 
rickryan.com said:
You can't sell value in a snap-decision medium, such as google or facebook. It doesn't turn heads.
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Agree .. so how do you get away from mass market lead generation to value-oriented ones? I don't have the answer, but again, I don't see value and brand leaders peppering FB. Not saying it's wrong .. just asking if there are other, more up-stream channels.
 
steve149 said:
Agree .. so how do you get away from mass market lead generation to value-oriented ones? I don't have the answer, but again, I don't see value and brand leaders peppering FB. Not saying it's wrong .. just asking if there are other, more up-stream channels.
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I don't know any more than you (probably less) but it seems to me that you use the ad routes to fill in dates on the books. Over time, you develop a reputation and a following (past clients, vendor referrals, etc). The latter is where you get the chance to start raising your rates. I know also that publicly posting my prices limits me from being able to test the waters. Before posting I could get 2-3 dates booked in a given month, then on subsequent leads for the remaining dates, I could start padding. It's how I went from the bottom-feeder rates to more mainstream. I think there are phases of evolution and we've got to be ready to re-invent ourselves constantly.
 
Wanted to report in on some FB ad results lately. I used Randy's approach (which he got fabulous results on) and ran a 3-week ad. 7,053 impressions with 163 engagements for a total cost of $75. Yesterday I started running another that started with "FREE UPLIGHTING! Booking our Photographer + DJ and get free uplighting". In less than 24 hours I'm showing 2,152 impressions with 175 post engagements, at a cost of $8.45. That's more engagements at about 1/10 the price. I'm not taking a swing at Randy's mush-mush post. It worked (in spades) for him. The weird part is how I got such different results.
 
Free! always sells well LOL
I"m running a print as in the catholic magazine that will be given to all brides to be in the diocese, offering $200 off photobooth with DJ. Won't come out for about 6 weeks and is good for a year. I'm curious to see the results.

Last ad I ran never had a spicific reference but the proportion of catholic weddings doubled (it was for photography).

May try a wall at the mall - not a great mall, but the wall is cheap and at the foodcourt so the busiest part of the mall. Mostly for photography but I'll be able to change it to whatever...
 
I had a phone call off of google ad again yesterday. A mid aged man...My guess is maybe around 50 years old got married in November. They are having an afternoon reception at a Lodge for 50 to 60 guests. I told him I'd give him a call back today after confirming availability. Called him back and left a price quote through voice mail. We will see if he calls back. Since it's a open March date I offered my party special and I didn't charge for mileage, or tolls to get there. I figure I can make a trip out of doing the gig and visit my parents who live only 20 minutes from OC. It's a 145 mile drive for me. We will see what happens this time around.
 
Didn't you just turn down an OC job because it was too far and that you would need a room?

edit: I stand corrected, it was about the distance, the fee and the room.
 
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