Word of Mouth — PART 2

Statistics show us all of the time that many people shop online for their wedding vendors. People find DJs all the time by searching through Google, Yahoo, WeddingWire and the many other search outlets available. But rather than simply jumping onto the idea that you should be buying into programs and campaigns that will put you front and centre in those search results, do as Bill Hermann preaches and ask, WHY? Why are people searching online in the first place. Why?

The answer should be pretty obvious: they don’t have a DJ for their wedding. But why don’t they already have a DJ for their wedding? Why don’t they already know of a DJ they can call?  The average couple getting married has generally been to a few weddings right? The answer is hiding (painfully) in plain site.

As a guest at past weddings, the DJ wasn’t worth remembering (or if he was, it was probably for the wrong reasons). Friends who they have spoken with have never been impressed enough by a DJ to provide them with a recommendation. The wedding vendors they have already hired didn’t suggest someone. From within the community organizations, business groups and social circles they belong too, the name of a DJ that is perfect to do business with them hasn’t come up. Kind of sad, isn’t it?

Companies in the “lead generation” business (there is something cold and impersonal I dislike about that terminology) depend on you to NOT utilize the valuable asset of word of mouth to fill your calendar. If the success of every DJ business could rely completely on word of mouth promotion, then every company in the DJ marketing or lead generation business would fail. Because of that, they are required to make you feel insecure, that without them, you can and will never be successful. Please do not fall into this trap and do not believe that garbage.

A colleague recently shared with me that a marketing company wanting to do business with him said he could be the best DJ in the world, but if no one knew about him, being the best wouldn’t really matter. It is a slick sales line that I’m sure has been very, very successful for them. The truth of the matter is, the better and more talented you become, the more in demand you become without any “paid” advertising.  The more in demand you become, the more people talk about you.  The more people talk about you, the less you require 3rd party promotional services. If you were the best DJ in the world, chances are that so many people would be talking about you that you would laugh at such an idea.

The chasm that exists between how much word of mouth marketing might be doing for you now and how much it could be doing might be a lot larger then you realize. In my next post on this topic, I will share the many different methods that I use to leverage word of mouth in my favour so that I don’t need to depend on common advertising methods. I use many different avenues to increase the likelihood that someone will say, “Hey, you should call Dave.”  It is tried and true and has everything to do with how I handle inquiries for dates I am unavailable, to my load out process at the end of a wedding.

What methods do you employ in order to leverage better word of mouth for your company?

Click here to read PART 3.

~ Dave T.

 

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