Your Questions: How Do I Keep In Touch With Previous Clients?

Digital DJ Tips Platinum Facebook Group member, Dan asks: “Should I send out communication to people who’ve booked me or who I’ve DJed for in the past to stay on their radar, potentially for repeat business? What’s the best way to go about it?”

Digital DJ Tips says…

Yes, keeping in touch with past clients is something that all DJs should do, but especially if DJing is your business (part-time, full-time, doesn’t matter). You can’t lose anything by sending out an email every now and again to previous customers or promoters and it can become an increasingly lucrative part of your marketing as your list builds, but it’s how you do it that counts.

In order to do this, you have to make sure that you keep track of their contact details somewhere safe and that you’re reminded to contact them at the right time When you have an organised system in place, it makes it easier to look back at gigs you played and to set reminders to get back in touch. Luckily, you need look no further than Google – Google Calendar, Tasks and Gmail between them (Google Apps gives you a more professional email address with your own name in it rather than the generic “name@gmail.com”, by the way) has all you need to keep a list of clients, set reminders, and “remind your future self” of client-related tasks and actions. (Other online service are available, of course.)

How you actually approach this depends on the type of client and type of gig. If it’s something casual, then just a brief message asking if they have any free slots coming up will suffice. If you DJed Aunty Nora’s 60th birthday party, you could email your contact with a feedback questionnaire a few weeks after the event. This way, you are putting yourself back into their thoughts and you are getting valuable pointers on what you are doing well (or not so well). Ditto for 11 months later – after all, the 61st is coming up – right?

A great way to hit all past clients (it works especially well with wedding venues, party planners and the like) is to run time-limited promotions – where your service is the same but you offer a discount. this works well for seasonal stuff and “early bird” bookings. For example, an email in summer saying “Christmas parties booked before 1 September get 20% off”, or in December saying “20% off all bookings for next year until 31 Dec”. This is a great way of staying in touch with clients and also a good way of filling your gig calendar way ahead of time. It also makes you seem much more professional to boot.

Do you keep an organised record of previous clients’ contact details? Do you get back in touch with them every now and again? Have you got repeat business as a result? Let us know in the comments below…