Three business areas are described below that are suggested as the most important to worry about in order to achieve success as a wedding pianist. Looking after these areas should ensure that the gigs keep coming in.
Product
As with any area of business, you have to ensure that your product is up to scratch. With regards to playing the piano at weddings, this manifests itself in a number of ways.
Firstly, you've got to make sure that you have a varied repertoire and that you're highly polished: one slip during a performance can usually be laughed off with a roll of the eyes or a cheeky smile; two slips and it starts becoming embarrassing! I'm really clear when people call up asking for certain songs if they simply don't fit into my repertoire genre but if you don't know songs within your particular genre, you've got to be prepared to go and learn them. Remember the old adage "he who pays the piper calls the tune".
Secondly, make sure you have decent equipment. In my case, I try to play gigs where there is a lovely grand piano already at the venue but in many cases this simply isn't possible. I had a heart-rate raising situation recently where my power supply was dodgy and it only started to become really intermittent 5 minutes before I was due to start playing. Fortunately a generous electrician saved the day: needless to say, I now ensure I service my kit regularly. I'm also now saving up for my own PA system to ensure I'm totally self sufficient.
Thirdly, you need to remember that your on-the-day service is crucial to further bookings: many guests at weddings are often brides- and grooms-to-be and if they enjoy your provision of entertainment, there's a high chance you'll be invited to play at future weddings. Always ensure you're dressed appropriately, you show up on time (I always build in 30 minutes extra for journeys of an hour or more) and you're courteous to everyone you meet.
Finally, I'd strongly recommend you offer "extras". In my line of work, it means being open to take requests on the day but being polite if you simply don't know it. Quite often it's simply a "let me look into that and see if I can play it in a few songs time".
Website
I regularly get asked how I get the number of enquiries I do. It's simple: in the world of Google, it's about having a quality, natural-search optimised site that's easy to use once people are there. It's your shop window and in my line of work, much like bottles in the world of wine, people judge the quality of your product and how much they're prepared to pay for it by visual aesthetics.
Firstly, learn how to write HTML. Specifically HTML5. I was fortunate that a guy at school showed me the absolute basics about how you go about it but if you're totally new to it there are plenty of guides out there. As with anything, you'll probably need to set aside a couple of days to get your head round it.
Secondly, ensure your site is easy to navigate with good pictures and quality audio and video. Text that overlaps or looks messy just screams poor quality and (often wrongly) it's a reflection of your ability. It's not that difficult and just takes a little bit of time. I based my site colours and layout on the Audi site (although I notice this has just been updated): I figured people respect this brand so emulating some of the features they employed on their site and I wouldn't go too far wrong.
Thirdly, think really carefully about your text content. I try to keep everything as simple as possible and I keep my testimonials page up-to-date: you wouldn't buy any other product based on a recommendation that's 3 years out of date so why would you employ a musician who someone recommended years ago?! When it comes to talking about your price, think about how big brands do it: don't go shouting about how cheap you are in your meta tags or on the front page. This is someone's big day and they'll be prepared to pay for quality. Also, make sure you do your research here: charge too much and people don't respond to your quotes; charge too little and people won't take you seriously.
Finally, there are lots of ways you can ensure you get regular traffic through to your site. Perhaps register with relevant blog sites that allow you to write regular content with links through to your site. I've started my own blog that I try and update a few times each week and alongside this, I regularly post Facebook posts and Tweet links to my site. Quite often, when I play a gig, I'll check in on FourSquare at the venue then post a link so I'm almost embedded as a link to that venue. I'm sure there are other ways I haven't thought about yet!
Marketing
There are a number of ways you can market yourself. I've actually never paid a penny to do so (and it's become a personal obsession never to do so!) but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea. I just figured that I was blessed with time, not money, so I'd spend time marketing myself in all the free ways possible before resorting to spending money!
If you've got time, you'll probably want to pursue some of the following:
- Ensure you're regularly building internal and external links to your site. As I mentioned earlier, Google measures website relevancy on a number of things but particularly important are links. The more of these you can gather from a wide variety of sources the better. One particularly good way to do this is to offer to add a link to someone else's wedding business on your site in exchange for a link to your business on their's. You'll be surprised how quickly you can add links!
- Physically, you can lobby wedding planners with press kits and CDs, offer free entertainment at bridal shops and flyer venues that do receptions. They all take time, but if you have a "content plan" of the one little thing you're going to do to support your business each day, you'll be pleased with the way these small interactions lead to gigs.
If you're willing to spend money, you might try some of the following:
- Get an agent. Agents generally take upwards of 30% of your income for a gig (I'm realiably informed). If you're looking to get into the industry regularly, one of my best friends swears by a good agent and is rewarded with plenty of gigs.
- Put display and classified ads out. I had a free trial with Google AdWords and it increased traffic to my site by about 50%. I know from my work in advertising too that you can expect click through rates from carefully targeted display advertising of up to 1%, you just need to be really careful where you serve ads.
- Finally, you might try exhibiting at a wedding fayre. I looked into this once and I know that many people use them as their main source of business. If you wait until the last minute to agree, you can often negotiate the organisers of a regional fayre down do about 瞿50-瞿100 for a slot for the day and quite often you'll be guaranteed as the solus performer.
So theses are the areas that I worry about and care about the most when it comes to running my business and I try to ensure I update things regularly to ensure I'm not missing out on custom. In doing so, business success has been achieved in the last 3 years with 37 gigs completed to date.
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