Tips To Become A Wedding Singer And Get More Gigs

Are you wondering how to become a wedding singer? It’s a good side hustle as more than 2.4 million weddings take place each year.

Plus on average, couples who hire a band to play at their wedding spend $3,800. Plus, you’re only required for an average of two hours.

What does this mean for your future career as a wedding singer?

Training up to become a wedding singer makes sense if you need to improve your cash flow, particularly if you’re on a fixed income. First, there is a booming market for you to target, and second, you can get paid well!

While pursuing a career in any field of music may be challenging and scary at times, it certainly is easier when you look at the numbers – lots of weddings and a healthy hourly rate!

So, if you fell in love with Adam Sandler’s famous movie, The Wedding Singer, and dreamt about becoming a wedding singer ever since then you’re in luck. It’s time to finally follow your dream and become a wedding singer in “At Last” Etta James style.

Whether you’re just starting out or find yourself the go-to wedding singer for your friend circle, you’re likely interested in knowing how to get more gigs and make singing at weddings your career.

Allow us to help you out!

Read on to learn how to become a successful wedding singer.

How to Become A Successful Wedding Singer

Being a wedding singer isn’t just about having the pipes. You’ll need to deliver and please your paying customers like any other business exchange. Explore the following tips to expand your wedding singer career and be successful.

1. Target Audience

You must utilize various marketing strategies to successfully market yourself and your business.

The good news is that you’ve already identified your target audience as getting married. If you genuinely want to create a marketing niche for your business, however, you’ll need to zero in even further on what types of couples you want to target.

Do you want to target young couples? Are you interested in advertising to teams within your state or only within your city?

To identify your ideal target audience within the wedding industry, consider the type of music you can and are willing to play. Based on the kind of music you play, your ideal target audience and branding strategy will also emerge based on who listens to this music. For example, if the genre of music you play is electronic, then it’s more likely that a younger couple would hire you for their entertainment.

Don’t feel you need to offer only a generic wedding singer experience. 40% of couples now choose unique musical choices to perform at their wedding, such as musicians who play the bagpipes.

There are many different genres of music played at weddings, including:

• Latin American – who doesn’t like a Salsa hit from Ricky Martin?
• Country Music – any track from Shania Twain or a line-dancing number from The Tractors
• Ballroom Music – if you’re really daring!
• Oldtime Music – Elvis Presley will please your older guests

Then there are the famous modern singers you can never go wrong with, including Taylor Swift. Love songs are always appropriate, and Alicia Keys, Sade, and Beyonce are worth including between your gig sessions.

2. Marketing Platforms

Once you identify your target audience, the next step is discovering where they frequent online and how they use social media.

Start by selecting a platform appropriate for your business and your target audience. For example, if you’ve decided that you want to tailor your wedding singer services to younger couples, then Facebook and Instagram pages for your business would be effective social media platforms to use. These platforms are also conducive for posting video content, which makes sense for your business.

When selecting social media platforms, focus on one to two platforms instead of maintaining a presence on all of them. While it’s tempting to want to be active on every social media platform, doing so will be time-consuming and less effective overall.

In addition to getting active on social media and engaging with your followers, it’s also a great idea to have your own website. Having your own website allows customers to further review your services, prices, and availability in a centralized location, making it much easier for your customer to navigate and decide whether or not they want to hire you. Remember, people planning a wedding have a lot on their plates, so your website needs to be easy to navigate, and your content needs to be completely accessible and transparent.

The simpler, the better! To simplify, your website has individual pages dedicated to your rates, previous work, services available, schedule, and contact information. This transparency will also reduce the work and communication required before securing a gig, leaving you more time to market your work and play gigs.

3. Marketing Strategies

Once you’ve selected your marketing platforms, it’s time to implement marketing strategies.

As a musician, you will need to post videos of you performing. You can upload these videos to YouTube, your social media, or your social media pages.

Your videos must be high quality so that the audio and visual components are clear and professional. To get the highest video quality hire a videographer and/or use a high-quality camera to film performances.

Next, it’s essential to connect with your followers and potential customers by posting content consistently. If you don’t have a video performance to upload, engage your followers by asking them questions about their weddings, favorite wedding songs, and their favorite wedding stories.

It’s also essential to engage with your potential customers in person. Since 52% of newlyweds have seen their DJ or live band perform before booking them, creating opportunities for potential customers to see you perform live is essential. After the performance, welcome people to a meet and greet so they can get to know you and your services better.

Post on your social media and create events when you are performing live. At live events, also have a business card to pass out to potential clients with your contact information and social media pages.

4. Practice and Improve

Practice your craft daily to improve. Be open to learning new songs, creating a demo disc, and exploring new techniques.

If you’re in a wedding band, then make sure to practice every week.

Take note of which marketing strategies work and don’t need so that you can also improve your business and marketing skills.

Your Career as a Wedding Singer

Becoming a wedding singer may start with a dream or financial necessity if you need more cash. To do well as a wedding singer you will need determination and some raw talent. Remember to train and practice for each wedding gig and know what you’re worth. If you’re turning down weddings, you need to charge more or if you’re struggling to get a gig, offer a discounted rate.

Don’t give up if you find yourself having a “Love Stinks” moment like Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer. Find a mentor, ask for help, and always believe in the power of your voice, your passion, and your love!

Use digital marketing and social media to connect you to a relevant audience.