mzonas
BANNED
- Feb 1, 2010
- 1,828
- 746
Hi all,
I know I know, here I am with another never-seen-before IM journey. I know that my previous CB journey failed ... horribly. To this day I still have $0 in commissions. This journey is different.
In this journey I will be combining offline activities (a lot) with some online marketing to make £5K/mo and I will be doing what I LOVE! Once I reach this, I will not be working, I will be living my dream ... that's £5K/mo is something that I will be putting down in my savings account ... OK, to understand this, I really need to tell you some things about my passions.
First of all, I am international swing DJ. I started lindy hop (swing dance) 5 years ago and started DJing in late 2015. My first international DJing gig happened last year in Hungary. Ever since then I DJed in Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Holland and all over the UK (London, Bristol, Brighton, Birmingham, Oxford, etc ...). I already have secured DJing gigs in Bulgaria, Israel and Serbia this year so I will be adding these countries to my list of countries I DJed in.
The downside of this is that I don't really make money from DJing. Sometimes I get paid but I am still working on getting my reputation out there. My travels also don't cost anything as in most cases my travels are covered by organisers. That, or I get to pay for flights or driving to place sometimes but usually it's covered. What really helps me in getting these gigs is that I blog about swing dancing for the past 4.5 years where I review swing camps, etc ... Since I blog and DJ, in most festivals I get to talk to organisers and teachers and people involved in making these festivals. Over time I realised that there is so much money to be made when you are organiser of the event ...
So this jouney's goal is this: organise my own events where I am the event host and DJ. My ultimate goal is running 3 mid-week events per week and travel 3-4 weekends a month for paid DJing gigs all over the Europe and beyond. Also, add some extra income through ads and email list.
Don't get me wrong, we do have events every day in London. I mean, there are 10 or more events every single day. However, what I noticed is that while those organisers are cool dancers and hosts, they are not very tech savvy. Their websites look like those from 1990s. They probably created them 25 years ago and never re-designed. Their sites' optmisation sucks big time and they aren't even responsive. I will not have hard time outranking their sites for various swing dancing related keywords.
Here's my income breakdown: £300-£350 per day from DJing (3 nights a week) = ~£1,000 per week. £50 per link per email (up to 5 sponsored links per email that goes out every Monday) = £250/week. My DJing price - from £400 per weekend (which includes DJing service (2-8 hours of DJing or whatever), free links on my email (under section where I tell my subscribers where I will be DJing - 3 months in advance, so if we are in March, they would know where I DJ in April, May and June), social media shoutouts, mentions and tags, etc ... this way, I make sure that my travelling does not cost me, the price covers travelling, accommodation and even food.
So I have already put down deposit for this venue. They normally charge £600 as a minimum bar spend. That means that if the bar sells alcohol and food that is worth £400, I will need to cover 50% of remainder, which, in this case, is £100. As a trial, they agreed to do 50% off, which means that the min bar spend is £300 on this occassion.
I also already purchase domain name and installed WP. Over the next week I will completely finish website, create Facebook event (which works best as I have a list of 800 dancers (friends) who live in London). I will be doing FB ads, etc ... The tickets cost £8 in advance or £10 on the door but if I manage to sell 120 tickets, the event will be sold out and I will not allow dancers buying tickets on the door. The event occurs on Thursday, 29 of March, 2018. This is a great date because Friday is Bank Holiday and people won't have to work so they will be out and about. The only problem is that a lot of people are not British and they might be flying home to see their families. But hey, they can fly out on Friday or Saturday, right?
I almost forgot to tell you how this is online marketing related. Well, I will be also building an email list of dancers. Not forced at all. However, my second event at that venue will be on 19th of April. The cost will be £10 in advance. Of course, I'll email coupons with £2 off so they can apply it and get tickets for £8 instead. This is someting that none of other organisers are doing, this will be weapon X I will be doing a lot of SEO, paid ads (Google AdWords, Facebook ads, Bing Ads), etc ... of course, while, at this time, I am only thinking to do social parties where I DJ, it can easily turn into something more.
Perhaps live band events every now and then. Of course, ticket price would probably double because hiring bands can cost anywhere from £300 to £2,000+ per single night. Also, perhaps, this can turn into a proper swing dance school where teachers are being employed and then I could expand into having dancing classes all over London in different areas ... like 50 weekly classes and stuff ... I would also love to organise a massive festival in London. Imagine organising the biggest festival in the UK where you get 500 dancers paying £180 for a weekend. That's almost £100K. Doing 2 such events per year would make me really rich. Of course, such festivals would have a lot of upfront costs.
Also, I could release my own book/ebook which teaches people how to organise events, how to markets, hell, I can even teach them how to do websites properly, optimise them, market them, etc ... I can open e-commerce store where I sell dancing gear such as shirts, shoes, accessories (a lot of swing dancers love vintage caps, ties, even glasses, etc ...). Open my own online swing dancing school where I charge a monthly fee and they get new videos every month ... from all kinds of internation teachers. I can even create social network for swing dancers and either charge monthly fee or cross-promote my other swing related projects. There are no limits here but first, I really want to get into DJing, running my own regular events, etc ...
So, in this thread I will be posting my progress, espcially, the progress of my first event ... ever.
Do you think I can do this? This is way different than my previous journey because this is what I love 1000%. All the travelling, dancing, DJing ...
Wish me luck.
I know I know, here I am with another never-seen-before IM journey. I know that my previous CB journey failed ... horribly. To this day I still have $0 in commissions. This journey is different.
In this journey I will be combining offline activities (a lot) with some online marketing to make £5K/mo and I will be doing what I LOVE! Once I reach this, I will not be working, I will be living my dream ... that's £5K/mo is something that I will be putting down in my savings account ... OK, to understand this, I really need to tell you some things about my passions.
First of all, I am international swing DJ. I started lindy hop (swing dance) 5 years ago and started DJing in late 2015. My first international DJing gig happened last year in Hungary. Ever since then I DJed in Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Holland and all over the UK (London, Bristol, Brighton, Birmingham, Oxford, etc ...). I already have secured DJing gigs in Bulgaria, Israel and Serbia this year so I will be adding these countries to my list of countries I DJed in.
The downside of this is that I don't really make money from DJing. Sometimes I get paid but I am still working on getting my reputation out there. My travels also don't cost anything as in most cases my travels are covered by organisers. That, or I get to pay for flights or driving to place sometimes but usually it's covered. What really helps me in getting these gigs is that I blog about swing dancing for the past 4.5 years where I review swing camps, etc ... Since I blog and DJ, in most festivals I get to talk to organisers and teachers and people involved in making these festivals. Over time I realised that there is so much money to be made when you are organiser of the event ...
So this jouney's goal is this: organise my own events where I am the event host and DJ. My ultimate goal is running 3 mid-week events per week and travel 3-4 weekends a month for paid DJing gigs all over the Europe and beyond. Also, add some extra income through ads and email list.
Don't get me wrong, we do have events every day in London. I mean, there are 10 or more events every single day. However, what I noticed is that while those organisers are cool dancers and hosts, they are not very tech savvy. Their websites look like those from 1990s. They probably created them 25 years ago and never re-designed. Their sites' optmisation sucks big time and they aren't even responsive. I will not have hard time outranking their sites for various swing dancing related keywords.
Here's my income breakdown: £300-£350 per day from DJing (3 nights a week) = ~£1,000 per week. £50 per link per email (up to 5 sponsored links per email that goes out every Monday) = £250/week. My DJing price - from £400 per weekend (which includes DJing service (2-8 hours of DJing or whatever), free links on my email (under section where I tell my subscribers where I will be DJing - 3 months in advance, so if we are in March, they would know where I DJ in April, May and June), social media shoutouts, mentions and tags, etc ... this way, I make sure that my travelling does not cost me, the price covers travelling, accommodation and even food.
So I have already put down deposit for this venue. They normally charge £600 as a minimum bar spend. That means that if the bar sells alcohol and food that is worth £400, I will need to cover 50% of remainder, which, in this case, is £100. As a trial, they agreed to do 50% off, which means that the min bar spend is £300 on this occassion.
I also already purchase domain name and installed WP. Over the next week I will completely finish website, create Facebook event (which works best as I have a list of 800 dancers (friends) who live in London). I will be doing FB ads, etc ... The tickets cost £8 in advance or £10 on the door but if I manage to sell 120 tickets, the event will be sold out and I will not allow dancers buying tickets on the door. The event occurs on Thursday, 29 of March, 2018. This is a great date because Friday is Bank Holiday and people won't have to work so they will be out and about. The only problem is that a lot of people are not British and they might be flying home to see their families. But hey, they can fly out on Friday or Saturday, right?
I almost forgot to tell you how this is online marketing related. Well, I will be also building an email list of dancers. Not forced at all. However, my second event at that venue will be on 19th of April. The cost will be £10 in advance. Of course, I'll email coupons with £2 off so they can apply it and get tickets for £8 instead. This is someting that none of other organisers are doing, this will be weapon X
I will be doing a lot of SEO, paid ads (Google AdWords, Facebook ads, Bing Ads), etc ... of course, while, at this time, I am only thinking to do social parties where I DJ, it can easily turn into something more. Perhaps live band events every now and then. Of course, ticket price would probably double because hiring bands can cost anywhere from £300 to £2,000+ per single night. Also, perhaps, this can turn into a proper swing dance school where teachers are being employed and then I could expand into having dancing classes all over London in different areas ... like 50 weekly classes and stuff ... I would also love to organise a massive festival in London. Imagine organising the biggest festival in the UK where you get 500 dancers paying £180 for a weekend. That's almost £100K. Doing 2 such events per year would make me really rich. Of course, such festivals would have a lot of upfront costs.
Also, I could release my own book/ebook which teaches people how to organise events, how to markets, hell, I can even teach them how to do websites properly, optimise them, market them, etc ... I can open e-commerce store where I sell dancing gear such as shirts, shoes, accessories (a lot of swing dancers love vintage caps, ties, even glasses, etc ...). Open my own online swing dancing school where I charge a monthly fee and they get new videos every month ... from all kinds of internation teachers. I can even create social network for swing dancers and either charge monthly fee or cross-promote my other swing related projects. There are no limits here but first, I really want to get into DJing, running my own regular events, etc ...
So, in this thread I will be posting my progress, espcially, the progress of my first event ... ever.
Do you think I can do this? This is way different than my previous journey because this is what I love 1000%. All the travelling, dancing, DJing ...
Wish me luck.