How to Promote Yourself as a DJ

When you’ve spent enough time on practice and mastered your DJing skills, it’s high time to start promoting.
In this article, we will consider the basics of marketing for a DJ so that you can promote yourself more effectively and receive more performances. If you don’t follow the recommendations from this article, most likely, chances of getting performances will be too low.
Both newbies and experienced DJs willing to get to know several more tools for marketing will find this article helpful. We will cover such topics as:

• Creation and development of a DJ’s personal brand;
• Advertising and promotion;
• Search and formation of relationships.

Creation and development of a DJ’s personal brand

To create a stable and long-term DJ career, it’s worth working a lot on your brand. That is the most important and necessary part at the beginning of the artist’s promotion way.

What’s required to start is to:

• Come up with a DJ name and logo;
• Do a photo shoot;
• Create a good biography;
• Publish your mixes on popular platforms;
• Create and organize your profiles on social media the correct way;
• Create a website.

Treat yourself as a product in business. The best companies in the world have a well-recognized brand. And you should similarly work on your brand recognition, create a logotype, and corporate identity to be used in marketing materials.

Create the name of a DJ

If you still have no pseudonym, it’s the right time to choose it, and, preferably, it should characterize you, sound good, and be easy to remember, eventually helping to promote your brand. Take note of several tips on how to choose a nice name:

1. Use a real name. Your real name may sound pretty good, and you can use it as a DJ name. It also happens that an artist works in different projects and performs with various music styles; in this case, he chooses a different pseudonym, which characterizes this direction, for each separate project like that.
2. Use a pseudonym. We mentioned a little bit about this option above. Try to pick a pseudonym so that it characterizes you and your music style. It will contribute to your recognition as a DJ.
3. Use variations of your real name. At first, try to modify your name to make it more vivid in how it sounds.

To get inspiration in what name to choose, take a look at the lists of the best DJs and pay attention to their names. Take the principle of name formation as a basis and implement it to create your name.
After you’ve chosen the name, check it on Google to find out whether it is free. If it’s free, check the domain availability with the same name. It will be required for your future website. You can do that, for example, on GoDaddy. Simply enter the name and see the available options, preferably in the zone .com.

Develop a logo

If you understand how to create a logo for your brand of a DJ, it will help you to build your marketing strategy the correct way. This essential attribute will be present on posters, fliers, and banners as well as merch products, and consequently will play one of the key roles in promotion and recognition. Besides that, it looks really solid when a logotype characterizing you as an artist of a specific direction is mentioned instead of your name (as it may be quite a long one).

Do a professional photo shoot

You should necessarily create a set of professional photos to be used in the press, on a website, social media, on posters, and on banners. You will need to use such photos during all your way since almost any marketing tool requires photo content.
Depending on what style you work in, it may be reflected in your photos. Look at professional photos from DJs working in your genre and borrow several ideas.

Write a biography of a DJ

A biography also features its subtleties of writing. It has a structure, and you should answer a key question in it: where you were born, how your love of music arose, who were the artists you were impressed by in childhood, how you came to DJing, and where one can listen to your mixes. Again, read some biographies of famous DJs and make a structure analysis. After that, make a draft of your own one and start composing the biography.

Upload your mixes to the Internet

Your mixes must be freely available anytime. Everyone who wants to get acquainted with your creative work must easily access and listen to your mixes.
There are dozens of platforms, but there is no need to spend time on all of them. Focus on the most popular ones: SoundCloud, Mixcloud, YouTube, Spotify. That is also a good marketing tool: it’s pretty often that platforms themselves start ranking your mix higher if it’s popular and frequently played. In addition to that, you may get new fans through these platforms.

Create and organize your profiles on social media correctly

Social media are an important and free tool for the promotion of DJs allowing you to communicate with fans and promoters in a place where almost anyone may get to know you more. You’ll need a fan page on Facebook, Twitter, and surely, on Instagram and TikTok.
Pay attention to important things that should be taken into account when working with the DJ’s page on Facebook:

• Create a unique URL, for instance, com/yourdjname;
• Publish the DJ’s biography and some extra information;
• Upload your logo and a cover for the page;
• Publish links to resources with your mixes;
• Regularly publish new content and keep the fans informed about your news.

Create a website

Surely, social media and platforms for publishing mixes may be enough, but if you want to build a real brand of your name, you have to create a website.
You may unite all your marketing channels on your website and control them. And there won’t be any ban or deletion of your content, as it may happen on social media.
If you lack web design skills, you may use website builders like Wix, Readymag and create a website for yourself within several days. You may also hire a freelancer who will do the work instead of you on a more professional level. Since you want to create a personal brand, don’t you?

Advertising and promoting you as a DJ

When you’ve started developing your DJ brand, you will have to be engaged in self-promotion. Here are several tips and ideas for that:

• Learn how to sell yourself. You will need to come up with the USP (unique selling proposition), that is, something that distinguishes you from competitors. Besides that, you will have to master your negotiation skills to be able to sell you at a higher fee.
• Design a personal merch of the DJ. You may open a full-fledged online shop and sell items with your logo, or you may also give out your merch at performance to spread information about yourself.
• Launch an ad on social media. That is a super opportunity for a DJ to find new fans. You may, for instance, advertise an upcoming party to which you are invited, your new mix, or a track if you compose your music. By the way, if you don’t compose your own music yet, you may purchase ready-made tracks from ghost producers in our Ghost Production Shop, get full rights and release them under your name on a label. That is also a good marketing tool, so you can advertise a release of a new track and get new fans.
• Make use of e-mail marketing. Today, this tool still remains effective. This is a marketing channel that you fully control and may regularly improve its efficiency due to the detailed analytics available, which will always tell you where in the e-mail chain something works not as well as it’s supposed to. Several times a month, send out letters with information about your new mixes, performances, articles in the blog, interviews, links to your merch. Don’t forget about competitions and special offers. In short, engage your fans and strengthen your brand of the DJ.

Search and form relations

One of the most significant aspects of DJ marketing is networking and the formation of long-term relations that will help to boost your career.

What’s included in it?

• Communication with DJs, promoters, enterprise owners, fans, and business representatives;
• Attending events where you want to be a DJ;
• Support of other DJs on a local or niche musical scene;
• Activity on the musical scene you represent.

If you have what to offer, you will surely succeed in negotiating a personal performance. Even ordinary (non-business) communication at the early stage of your branding may lead you to performances. When it comes to large scenes, some more fundamental approach is required.
If you want to grow, become more popular, get more performances and earn more, you will definitely have to make use of marketing. Initially, you will have a lot of work, and there will be many things to deal with, which have nothing to do with creative work, but that is an investment into the future career. Be patient and get started. Famous DJs have individual specialists dealing with all that work while a DJ is focused on music. But it’s the next level available to many of those who are patient and passionate about their business. If that sounds like you, your success is yet to come!