A DJ’s customer is usually in a hurry. The 21st is in three weeks and the venue has just said they do not provide music. The office party is in December and the person organising it has never booked a DJ before. The couple want someone for the evening after the band. All of them search something like “DJ hire Dublin” or “wedding DJ near me”, and what they are looking for in websites for DJs in Dublin is the same: can we hear you, have you done our kind of night, what does it cost, and how fast can we get hold of you. The WhatsApp button answers the last one. The rest is the page.
We build it, put the mixes and the photos on it, sort the Google listing and send you the numbers monthly. You do the gig.
Different parties, different questions
The site should speak to each kind of night, because a Debs committee is not asking what a couple asks.
| Event | What they ask first | What to show |
|---|---|---|
| Wedding evening | Do you do the ceremony and drinks reception too, do you take the couple’s playlist | A full evening set in a hotel function room, lights on the floor |
| 21st, 30th, 40th | How long do you play, do you take requests, will you play what the parents want as well | A party mix with the range on show, a photo of a packed floor in a pub function room |
| Christmas party | Can you MC the raffle and the speeches, what do you need from the venue | A corporate night, the rig neat, the room dressed |
| Debs and school events | Is it clean, do you have insurance, how do you handle a hall with no stage | A hall gig, the set-up in daylight, the paperwork mentioned |
One page can hold all of that if it is laid out by event, with a from-price for each.
Let them hear you
A DJ site without sound is a menu without food. Mixes hosted on Mixcloud or SoundCloud play in place on the page, and they should match the events: a wedding mix that moves from the dinner to the floor, a party mix that covers forty years of birthdays, a Christmas party mix. Beside them, short phone videos from real gigs with the crowd in shot, and photos of the rig in actual venues rather than in your spare room. Lights on, floor full. That is what the person booking is imagining.
Your Instagram keeps doing what it does. The site is for the people who searched on Google instead, and there is more on how the two fit together in do you need a website if you have Instagram.
The questions that fill your WhatsApp
Do you take requests. Do you MC. Do you bring your own lights and PA. How long do you play and is there a break. Do you do the ceremony music. Do you do a band and DJ package. Are you insured, and is the gear PAT tested, because the hotel asked. Where do you travel and is there a charge. Every one of those goes on the page under its event, in your words, with a from-price per kind of night and what the extras cost: uplighting, a smoke machine, an extra hour, the drinks reception set.
The WhatsApp button sits at the top and bottom of the page, and the enquiry form asks for the date, the venue and the kind of night, so the message that arrives already tells you whether you can do it.
Debs, Christmas parties and the long summer of weddings
A DJ’s year has more peaks than a band’s. Weddings run April to October and are booked months ahead. Communion parties land in May. Debs season is late August and September, booked by committees in a hurry. Corporate Christmas parties start being organised in September and fill every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from late November to the week before Christmas. New Year’s Eve books itself if your page says you are available.
A line at the top of the site saying what you are booking now, updated from your phone, catches those waves. If you often work the same night as a wedding band, say how the handover works, because couples ask.
What we need from you
Two or three mixes, a few phone videos from gigs, photos of the rig in real venues, your packages by event with from-prices and extras, your insurance and PAT testing position as you want it stated, the areas you cover, your WhatsApp number and a short piece about how you read a room. Ten minutes on the phone covers the rest. We also set up your Google Business Profile as a service area business so your home address stays private; the guide to getting your business onto Google Maps explains how.
Plan and price
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month, and for most DJs it is the right start. Complete, at €1,499 and €100 a month, adds card deposits, the review request after each gig and the chat box, worth it once weddings are the bulk of the work. Both plans are on the pricing page.