How to start a DJ business

When a DJ thinks about turning his activity into a business, it may mean that he can no longer handle all the responsibilities that his career requires on his own. Now he needs assistants to help him and free up time for the artist to spend on concerts and working with music.

You got it right, now a DJ has to become a businessman, and this means creating a plan and hiring additional specialists in the fields of PR, marketing, design, and music. That’s why today we’re going to tell you what a DJ needs to turn their work as an artist into a full-fledged business with a high income. But first, let’s say a few words about the DJ career because it is the basis for further transformation into a business.

How to start a DJ career

We would like to talk separately and briefly about career development and why it is important for the further development of a DJ. If we start from the very beginning, a DJ needs to have basic skills in working with equipment, work continuously on distributing his mixes and information about himself, attend special events, and make new acquaintances. All of this will move you further up the career ladder. When you’re already well-known in the industry, you’ll have a reputation for recognition. Then, sooner or later, you will think about scaling your business to a full-fledged business. Let’s talk about this further.

First steps in building a business

To begin with, it’s worth understanding that business involves hiring other people to perform the duties that used to be the DJ’s responsibility. Accordingly, they now need to be paid a salary, as well as tasked with additional explanations of some processes and training, if necessary. This is one of the main points that distinguishes the work of a DJ and a business – it is a team.

Building a successful business requires management skills if the artist plans to run the business himself. Or he can hire a manager who will also do this work. But a highly skilled manager can be quite expensive, and it depends on the budget the artist has. But in this case, your business will be more efficient, so it’s a well-considered investment.

Also, DJs need to hire PR specialists, because media people have to work in this field today, and it’s a big job with high competition. This is one of the biggest sails on the ship called the music business.

Of course, you also need an accountant. After all, a business is an official structure that pays taxes, salaries, and other expenses. This is the job of a separate professional whom the artist must trust because many of us have heard cases where accountants have quietly taken part of the income of a DJ’s business through fraud. Therefore, you need to be careful and work only with accountants with a good reputation. You should not save on their work.

Although music selection is a part of the job that is usually done by the DJ himself, it takes up a significant part of his time. It can also be delegated to other people who have good taste and will select music for sets and radio shows. But the DJ has the final say, even though the bulk of the music has already been selected by a specialist.

Your on music. This is a separate issue and we will consider it in more detail. If music selection is not such a routine job, then production is a huge amount of work that requires a lot of time. But even so, a DJ can hire a separate producer and work with him or her. Together with the music producer, the artist discusses the idea and expectations, and the producer works in the studio and creates the track. But this is also a significant time and financial investment.

But there is a way to quickly get a ready-made and high-quality track without paying thousands of dollars for the producer’s hours of work. We’re talking about the ghost producers’ service. It’s simple: you browse the catalog with ready-made music that has already been created by producers and choose and buy a track that you feel meets your criteria and feelings. Now you can use it under your name in your artist career and business.

Therefore, if your business plan has a limited budget for producing your own tracks, use our service and buy ghost production tracks, because it saves resources with good music quality.

How to promote your DJ business

Marketing is the engine of your business because, without advertising and constant work on media content with your audience, interest in your business will decline. Therefore, you need to regularly pour new “fuel” into your “business machine”.

Business promotion involves several specialists, such as a marketer, an SMM manager, and specialists in advertising setup. Let’s take a closer look at the responsibilities of each of them.

Marketer. This is the person who will set the direction of the entire advertising campaign, create an overall strategy, evaluate compliance with business metrics, and work on the effectiveness of advertising.

The SMM manager is in charge of social media, where he regularly publishes entertaining, useful, and promotional materials prepared by him to warm up the audience and maintain their interest in the artist, as well as to encourage them to buy concert tickets, merchandise, and music.

Advertising specialists set up advertising campaigns on social media and contextual advertising in search engines: this helps to attract new fans and keep the regular ones interested. First of all, you should pay attention to advertising on Google and social networks Facebook and Instagram. And then scale and connect others.

Remember that the music business is only partly about music, the rest is about planning, management, efficiency, and brand. Therefore, high-quality teamwork is the second flank that will allow a DJ to build a business out of his or her favorite thing and create a brand that will help achieve new successes, including financial ones, and open up new opportunities, for example, to open another business in a related field.

Although this is a separate topic for another article, an ambitious DJ can eventually build an empire that will include businesses that create their own studio for clients, produce other DJs and artists, and create a record label and a marketing agency for artists. The list goes on and on, but now it’s time to focus on implementing your current plans, so write your own plan and start implementing it. Good luck to you!