Weddings Websites & Pricing: To Post or Not To Post- That IS the question!

[IceBurghDJ]

Many of the people that call us have no clue what a DJ costs. They need educated. Perhaps they have an idea from a friend or hearsay or something that just stuck in their mind for whatever reason, or feel 'that a guy playing a stereo isn't worth $100/hour'.

I see it in photography all the time, usually they ask 'how much' because they don't know what (else) to ask.

think tires - perhaps you are a tire expert, but many people are not. A tire is a tire and cheap works just as good. Or maybe they have complaint about their current tire. And many tire shops cater to these folks offering cooper or hankook or similar mid grade tires. You want pirelli or michelin? Gotta order it. You want e play or v rated? Gotta order that. Nobody asks and they don't push the better/specialty tires.

My truck is coming up on needing tires - 35k miles on the factory rubber. I want more mileage than that, and am still tossing about d (if i can find them) or e rated tires over the 4 ply P ones that came on it. I'm thinking michelin..and I know I"m gonna pay 25-30% more for them, but everything I've ever heard says they're worth that premium.

But how is the average consumer to know? Which mattress is best? Some are $300 and i saw on TV one that is $108,000. yes, a hundred grand for a mattress. In stores i've seen some pushing 3k. If I was rich maybe, but like most of us I have limited fund and (nearly) unlimited needs and desires.

So after a bit of shopping I'll find a tire runs $125 give or take...a matterss $800-1200 for something decent. THEN i'm willing to make a buying decision.

Now if i'm thinking a DJ is $800 and your website says $500 am I gonna keep looking? At this point it may depend on your website. If you don't post prices you have the possibility of taking a $500 gig this week and an $800 one next week and the consumer is none the wiser. I personally can't sleep if I do that.

 

[Proformance]

Many of the people that call us have no clue what a DJ costs. They need educated.

I don't agree with that at all.
No one has ever called me and indicated they had no idea how much a DJ costs. They were all well aware that prices varied dramatically, and their question was: "how much would I cost?"

 

[bombdhell89]

I don't see fielding phone calls from tire-kickers as (necessarily) a waste of time, but in my own case, it was more a need to insulate myself from the un-wanted abuse. When Wes finally convinced me to post pricing, I was pricing at $500 and had just gone through a long string of really rude, mean prospects who seemed to be taking immense pleasure at berating me for being "too expensive". I raised my price $100 and posted it and all that abuse just stopped cold and I started booking most of the inquiries coming in.

Is this maybe indicative of where you're advertising? That's bizarre!

 

[DJ Ricky B]

If you owned a car repair place, would you not bother to talk to people,
just because you think they can't afford you?

I am not constantly on the phone negotiating rates for gigs...
so talking to ANY potential customer is NOT a waste of time.
Whether 30% or 70% turn out to be good customers is irrelevant.
How do you know they cannot afford you if you never talk to them?

I agree. A phone conversation let's you build rapport with the prospect. It also says that they are investing time actually giving you attention to talk with you instead of sending out emails, and viewing the response to their email on their own time when they feel like it.

I would be happy if my phone was ringing once a day Monday thru Friday with a serious prospect calling. If that was the case, I know I would be booking at least 3 to 4 clients a week minimum. Instead most people use email, phone calls occur way less often.

 

[rickryan.com]

Is this maybe indicative of where you're advertising? That's bizarre!

It's likely geographical. We have a lot of low-income brides who want a champagne wedding on a beer budget and when they realize you're more expensive than what they imagined, they're not timid about beating on you. If I were doing this FT, I'd do meetings and pitch high-end pricing but under my current situation I'm just not mentally up to the challenge. I'd rather use the web to filter out the tire-kickers and get it down to just people who are serious and who already know (and have accepted) my pricing.

 

[IceBurghDJ]

You get an inquiry and you give a price and they respond "OMG! That's too much" - an indication they have no idea what a DJ costs.
or you get a request off gigmasters or thumbtack "5 hour wedding, budget $250"... uhuh, "100 guests for dinner, budget $1500" is just as wrong. It may sound reasonable that you can buy a meal for $15/person but call around and ask and see what they tell you.

 

[rickryan.com]

You get an inquiry and you give a price and they respond "OMG! That's too much" - an indication they have no idea what a DJ costs.
or you get a request off gigmasters or thumbtack "5 hour wedding, budget $250"... uhuh, "100 guests for dinner, budget $1500" is just as wrong. It may sound reasonable that you can buy a meal for $15/person but call around and ask and see what they tell you.

No. I think what I was seeing is the brides would call a few $300 guys off craigslist, not care for what they were seeing (quality-wise) and thought they'd try to call a better grade of DJ, but try to use the $300 guys to beat me down on my price. It's tiresome and I don't have a thick enough skin nor the extra time to spend on them. Posting prices fixed my problem.

 

[DJ Ricky B]

This year Gig Masters is proving to be less beneficial than ever before. I am noticing that more DJs have either dropped prices, or there are literally more low priced DJs quoting on everything suturing the playing field. OR it might be that the most leads are VERY Cold, and might not be responding to any one giving them a quote on there.

I am starting to work the GM leads less and less as time goes by because I am having less success even getting a response out of them after an email, and phone call follow up to my quote. I do get notifications most of the time saying the prospect did view my quote in the system...in that case if they are not responding at all, either we don't fit what they are looking for in a DJ, or the price is simply too high.

I use to be able to book like 1 in 20 leads through there...Now it is like 1 in 80, and going long periods of time between bookings.

 

[rickryan.com]

I use to be able to book like 1 in 20 leads through there...Now it is like 1 in 80, and going long periods of time between bookings.

I'm seeing an erosion of my percentages as well so don't think it's just you. I'm not quite sure if other DJs have lowered their prices or whether it's the fact that my site primarily pitches photo with DJ as a secondary. I'm starting to wonder, since I'm now going after higher dollar amount bookings, if I don't need to just go after a face-to-face meeting instead of pitching online. I know my bookings sure have slowed in the past few months, seemingly more than just the normal cycles.

 

[rickryan.com]

Hey Ricky B, your input has me thinking to get off my duff and experiment with some changes. To this end, I've changed my call-to-action button to go to a general contact form instead of the insta-quote thing I was doing. I think I'm going to more actively start asking for a F2F meeting instead of just doing online booking. I'm seriously wondering if the DJ service, and it's under $1k price tag didn't put it more in the commodity category where these bundled service packages are more premium in nature. I know my face-time pitches booking in the high-90s. Incidentally, I also setup the form using a premium app plug-in on Wix. The big difference of a freebie is it will send the inquiry to multiple emails and send me a text message. I've noticed a trend that if I call immediately, it often freaks them out and I've won them over at that point, just from a fast response. Will keep you informed.

 

[DJ Ricky B]

Hey Ricky B, your input has me thinking to get off my duff and experiment with some changes. To this end, I've changed my call-to-action button to go to a general contact form instead of the insta-quote thing I was doing. I think I'm going to more actively start asking for a F2F meeting instead of just doing online booking. I'm seriously wondering if the DJ service, and it's under $1k price tag didn't put it more in the commodity category where these bundled service packages are more premium in nature. I know my face-time pitches booking in the high-90s. Incidentally, I also setup the form using a premium app plug-in on Wix. The big difference of a freebie is it will send the inquiry to multiple emails and send me a text message. I've noticed a trend that if I call immediately, it often freaks them out and I've won them over at that point, just from a fast response. Will keep you informed.

Let me know how it works out over time. I was looking at my bookings for 2015, and THE ONLY reason I am keeping up overall with 2014 numbers is because I have more bookings from the talent agency, and I accepted 5 weddings from another DJ Company that sub contracted to me.

I also don't have a single 2016 Booking yet. Usually I have at least 3 or so on the calendar by the time August comes around for the next year.

I also have it in the back of my mind that 2016 might be a weird year because it's an election year where we obviously are getting a new president (not like 2012), and we are due for another recession. Last major election year (2008) was absolutely terrible (My worst year as a DJ ever as I lost near 40% of my DJ income that year from 2007). So While I'm enjoying the $$ I have this year, I really worry 2016 will be an OFF year.

 

[rickryan.com]

Let me know how it works out over time. I was looking at my bookings for 2015, and THE ONLY reason I am keeping up overall with 2014 numbers is because I have more bookings from the talent agency, and I accepted 5 weddings from another DJ Company that sub contracted to me.

I also don't have a single 2016 Booking yet. Usually I have at least 3 or so on the calendar by the time August comes around for the next year.

I also have it in the back of my mind that 2016 might be a weird year because it's an election year where we obviously are getting a new president (not like 2012), and we are due for another recession. Last major election year (2008) was absolutely terrible (My worst year as a DJ ever as I lost near 40% of my DJ income that year from 2007). So While I'm enjoying the $$ I have this year, I really worry 2016 will be an OFF year.

For 2016, I have 19 inquiries and 6 bookings at this point, along with 1 corp. that's on verbal for June. Two of those are repeat proms. We'll have to see what happens with next year.

 

[bombdhell89]

For 2016, I have 19 inquiries and 6 bookings at this point, along with 1 corp. that's on verbal for June. Two of those are repeat proms. We'll have to see what happens with next year.

Damn.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Jas]

I don't do as many events as either of the Ricks. I have one strong lead for next year, one that's warm and several from gigmasters that I haven't even pursued. I'm attempting to raise my rates quite a bit for next year so I may end up with even less bookings. That's OK, I can only handle so many physically and mentally. I prefer not to do two weddings per weekend because I'm usually exhasted and recuperating the day after just one.

 

[Randy A]

2016 is shaping up quite nicely. I'm a little behind bookings, but I expected that with my price increase. I've still got 5 weddings (my focus) on the books, averaging $1800 per.

Not sure how many inquiries that equated to, but I've also passed along another 10 to two other companies that fit better with the clients needs.

 

[IceBurghDJ]

2015 has been my best year in a long time.
2016 I've got more booked that i'm used to having by now, and seeing a lot of inquries on thumbtack..been sorta ignoring them but I guess I should go after them. It's just I can make more photographing a wedding than as DJ so hate to book a prime saturday for 1/3 of what I might get.

 

[Randy A]

2015 has been my best year in a long time.
2016 I've got more booked that i'm used to having by now, and seeing a lot of inquries on thumbtack..been sorta ignoring them but I guess I should go after them. It's just I can make more photographing a wedding than as DJ so hate to book a prime saturday for 1/3 of what I might get.

Good friends (Kirby& Coreen Ball) used to frequent this board prior to their retirement, but they had an excellent business model of offering a mega-package that included DJ & Photography. Saved a few bucks from having to go with separate vendors and made a very nice payday for themselves; a long day, but a profitable one.

 

[DJ Ricky B]

I just had a repeat client who is a Lawyer that used me for a party in June, and a after wedding mingling party at her house just last week. She now wants me back for her, and sister in law's joint birthday party at her house again. That inquiry came from google, and has turned into 3 paying gigs!

Unfortunately, this next party is on the 9th, and after deejaying the 7th and 8th, I want a day off before going to the DJ Expo on the 10th, so I am putting my brother on it. He can use the money anyway, and I think it will be good for her guests and her to see another DJ from my company.

 

[IceBurghDJ]

Several challenges to that - I work alone (no partner, wife or employes in the biz) so when I need help I have to find it. Usually that's not an issue, but at times it can be.

I could have booked photo and dj for aug 8 but couldn't get enough help on either side. Aug 15 I am doing both...nice payday but I have to work 10 am (min) to 11 pm and pay 3 people to help which cuts into the net profit a bit. And my main DJ guy can't make it (hence my super long day).

I've had brides at meetings seem surprised 'how do you do both?' - they'll trust and hire me for either, but many as soon as i say 'i have a guy...' they get gunshy. No doubt my sales presentation needs some work on that. But it's risky for me to book 8 months out when I have no idea if I'll be able to get that other body. Wiht 10 years shooting weddings and upselling a second photog I've experienced the last minute scramble to find anyone to assist even if all they do is look like a second phtoog!

Good friends (Kirby& Coreen Ball) used to frequent this board prior to their retirement, but they had an excellent business model of offering a mega-package that included DJ & Photography. Saved a few bucks from having to go with separate vendors and made a very nice payday for themselves; a long day, but a profitable one.

 

[rickryan.com]

Several challenges to that - I work alone (no partner, wife or employes in the biz) so when I need help I have to find it. Usually that's not an issue, but at times it can be.

I could have booked photo and dj for aug 8 but couldn't get enough help on either side. Aug 15 I am doing both...nice payday but I have to work 10 am (min) to 11 pm and pay 3 people to help which cuts into the net profit a bit. And my main DJ guy can't make it (hence my super long day).

I've had brides at meetings seem surprised 'how do you do both?' - they'll trust and hire me for either, but many as soon as i say 'i have a guy...' they get gunshy. No doubt my sales presentation needs some work on that. But it's risky for me to book 8 months out when I have no idea if I'll be able to get that other body. Wiht 10 years shooting weddings and upselling a second photog I've experienced the last minute scramble to find anyone to assist even if all they do is look like a second phtoog!

Suggestion. Change "I have a guy" to "My team". And as for extra people cutting into your profit, they should be padding your profit. Anytime I add people to the equation, the client is paying their fee, please a profit margin for me. More people don't cost me money, they make me more money.