Stand out and shine in the new year with low cost marketing at your dance studio.
Recently I hosted a free teleseminar event, “Beyond Bring a Friend: How to Get More Students with Effective Low Cost Marketing at Your Dance Studio.” If you missed it, not to worry you can sign up to get the free replay of the event here.
Consistently, studio owners who listened emailed and said that it helped them think about their low cost marketing in a new way. That’s terrific news! We ARE in a new economy, it’s time to break the mold of the old marketing mix.
John Jantsch’s 4 C’s of marketing from the Referral Engine are the jumping off point for this post. I’ve mapped them onto the dance studio business. Feel free to use any or all of it, and let me know how it goes!
![[image] A drop creates ripples in the water. [image]](https://danceadvantage.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/rippleeffect-300x169.jpg "Water Ripple")
Make your marketing relevant. Give it context.
You might think that your biggest competition is the dance studio down the street.
Your biggest competition is really the gymnastics, karate, music, ice skating, music and art studios that are all vying for the attention of your target market. Not to mention all the sports!
You are competing with the demands of other activities available for kids and adults today.
Rather than worrying about what time Sally’s studio down the street offers her tap and ballet combo class for four year olds, instead ask yourself:
- Why dance? Go further than your sprung floor and air conditioned studio. Why should people choose dance at your studio?
- How do you over deliver and wow your students and parents? What do you do to put people first? They are the ones talking about your studio at the pool, at the playground, and at the grocery store.
- Why would a parent want their child to experience dance education with your faculty and staff? You invested in well trained instructors, they stay current. Now, what difference does that make? Let your potential students know!
Make your marketing relevant for dancers at any age or ability.
Make your marketing useful. Provide good content.
People need more than a brochure or a visit to your website to make a decision.
Potential students are at various stages of the decision making process when it comes to dance. Some are just thinking about a class, some know exactly what day they have free, others have a specific style in mind.
In today’s economy, it helps to go beyond the old model of a static website or one-sided brochure.
- People want interaction and information. Assess your marketing strategy to make sure you’re educating, answering questions and sharing great information at each stage in the decision process along the way.
- People want details. Write informative class descriptions, give details on what happens during a class, share photos, offer a FAQ, post up to date schedules, clearly explain your policies and procedures.
Your content needn’t always be created by you.
There are so many great dance blogs to incorporate into your good content strategy! You can easily share posts with your current and potential students on social media, in newsletters, by email and in your waiting rooms. Just remember that according to copyright and common courtesy, it is proper to share excerpts with a link back to the original content. Someone took the time to create and provide that content, it’s only right that they receive full credit!
Position your expertise and share good content.
Make your marketing meaningful. Build your community.
WHERE do your current and potential students spend their time when they are not dancing?
People have the freedom and choice to come and go to whatever dance studio they prefer. Now is the time and opportunity to develop a strong sense of community, relatedness and interest around your dance studio business and brand.
- What makes being a part of what you’re creating special? Using social media and other low cost marketing methods, you can link to your local theater company, the small businesses of parents of your dancers, fundraising causes, concerts, and special events in your community.
- Go beyond your four walls. Acknowledge your dancers various interests and cross promote – it’s a win-win for everyone involved and it makes your marketing meaningful.
- What moments and memories do you create for your dancers? You can answer this through the rave reviews your current students share with you. Get at the emotions you invoke with your students. People want experiences that are positive and fun.
See yourself as the thread woven into your community.
Make your marketing memorable. Inspire a connection.
Sure, you can spend money on saturation mailings, door hangers, flyering cars, sending postcards, or buying a billboard ad. That might feel like the solution to getting more students.
I don’t know about you, but I sort my mail over the trash. On a good day, there might be two pieces of mail or papers that I receive that are worth saving or taking action on.
Is your marketing message memorable?
- Does it inspire a connection?
- Is there a call to action? Give people a reason to pick up the phone, send an email, visit your website, like you on Facebook, or come to your open house. Make it fun! It doesn’t always have to be a discount or free class, you can get creative with your marketing.
Give people a reason to make a connection.
Students will always be coming and going. Now is your opportunity to grow your dance studio business using relevant, useful, meaningful, and memorable marketing methods. You can make an impact with low cost marketing.
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If the above makes sense to you but you are still uncertain how to proceed…
Or, if you have been applying the 4Cs but want specific ways to get more students now, we at DanceStudioOwner.com just launched a guide to low-cost marketing to fill your classes all year long.
It’s an instant download, you can refer to it right from your computer or print it and take notes.
The information in this 75-page e-book is based on real world, applicable experience that you can take advantage of to make your dance studio business as successful as possible.
You can win a copy!
All you need to do is add your comment below. We want to know:
What low cost marketing strategy have you found to be most effective at your dance studio?
You have only until Wednesday (12/15) at midnight (EST) to give us your answer. A winner will be chosen randomly from commenters and contacted via e-mail on Friday.
Click here to learn more about the Get More Students Now! Guide or grab yours today.
Dance Advantage is proud to be a DanceStudioOwner.com affiliate, earning commissions from product sales.
Suzanne Blake Gerety is not only the very busy mom of two young children but is the owner and co-founder of DanceStudioOwner.com, and the Vice President of Kathy Blake Dance Studios. She is a regularly featured contributor in various pieces for Dance Teacher Magazine including, “Ask the Experts”, business articles, and has presented live workshops at Dance Media’s Dance Teacher Summit New York City.
Suzanne experiences the ups and downs of studio ownership too, which is what inspires her to help studio owners and teachers keep their passion for dance alive as they grow their business. You can connect with Suzanne on Twitter @SuzanneGerety and at DanceStudioOwner.com.
Suzanne, this is great and it’s nice to have a follow-up to the tele-conference in print! Since I work at a recreation center, I get to take advantage of all of the marketing resources that are targeting not just potential dance students, but kids in general. We find that once we get them in the door and invested in our community of families, that they are more loyal even if they don’t like that program. So they might try dance instead of soccer, or fencing instead of tumbling.
To target specifically dance students, in Chicago the market is fiercely competitive and we have about 5 dance studios in our neighborhood alone. What has been most effective is that I’m really diligent about customer service and follow-through with our families. I respond to calls and emails within a day, and follow-up with personal notes to families who’ve been working on an issue with me. Word of mouth is KEY, and FREE!
Hi Lauren, so glad to hear you enjoyed the follow up! Yes – customer service is something we are so passionate about, it truly does set you apart. Though you can’t bat 1000, or make everyone happy, most are so glad to refer you and your programs this way.
Keep up the great work that you do each day!
Great Article. Love the site (it is me, David from BalletforMen.com). I started a design company specifically for ballet studios and companies. I’ve found that really great t-shirts and sweatshirts can help unify a studio a bit. It is great to see dancers get really excited about their studio’s apparel and wear them all the time. And that really gets the studio’s name out there. It sounds like an expensive way to market, but really with pre-orders studios don’t put up any of their money, and turn a pretty decent profit, even while offering their dancers a good deal.
Great site Nichelle! I’m putting in my Ballet For Men best of 2010 application soon. If you ever want to talk about apparel marketing for studios, I’d be interested to chat.
David
Hi David, thanks for the comments. I couldn’t agree more!! Great apparel that studios and dancers can rally around truly help with marketing and branding. You said it best, “it really gets the studio’s name out there”. Absolutely money well spent: logo wear or neat/unique dancewear.
Thanks for all you do for dance!
We advertise in a newsletter that is sent to all public school students quarterly.
The main advertising that is bringing in most of my students is a simple lawn sign that says DANCE my low monthly tuition and my phone number :). Another is town fairs.
Signs are a great attention getter! Thanks for sharing what works for you.
A street sign that listed a few of our dance styles and our phone number in huge font, posted right at a stop light, has worked best for us!
I donate gift certificated for a free 6 week session to schools and pre schools in the area to be auctioned or raffled off at their fundraisers. I. Often hear that they are saught after items and bring the schools in a decent bit of money. Then I know that lots of moms are out there talking up my studio and that I have helped the schools too.
Hi Amy, this is a great one…I’ve been to silent auctions (my kid’s preschool has a big one each year) and the gift certificates for dance, gymnastics, etc always bring big responses. Great way to spread goodwill and get your name out there.
Love the informative articles and resources you provide! Thank you so much!
I’m currently in the process of starting up my studio, http://www.oneforalldance.com, and finding effective marketing strategies at low costs is our biggest dilemma. No one wants to spend thousands on ineffective marketing. In addition to our website and Facebook (free is really low cost, right?), we’re listed on several local blogs and are in the process of preparing for our upcoming Open House. Aside from the free listings and our site, flyers and door hangers are our marketing strategy. Hopefully, they’re effective.
I love all of the ideas that have been shared about different marketing strategies! One thing that has worked well for my studio is when a parent inquires about a type of class that we don’t currently carry, I tell them that we’d love to open one if we can get a minimimum number of students interested and then offer them a great referral discount as an incentive to go out and find enough students to open the new class. The parents are happy to do the work becuause they really want the class to carry for their child, plus they get discounts on their tuition for each new student they bring to start up the class. They go out into their neighborhoods and cirlce of friends to find new students. Opening a new class in the middle of the dance season also gets the rest of the studio parents “buzzing” and considering the new class in addition to the ones their child is already enrolled in. We have opened several new classes this way and have brought in many new students with this type of referral.
Suzanne (great name BTW!), this is a wonderful way to not only provide some great customer service but add new students in a way that creates excitement and urgency. Thanks for sharing!
I’d love to win this for the studio my daughter teaches/dances at, they are a smallish non profit arts center, reforming under new management. They’ve just leased new space with an awesome store front window set up. I think the windows are going to be a great marketing tool – everything from having kids do posing and performance art type stuff, to displays with costumes and all the trophies the teams have won at competitions, to student artwork, to seasonal displays. And of course, class offerings and materials.
I just read this article and I can’t wait to watch the video. My mother has owned a dance studio for 11 years and it still amazes me when people walk in asking if we’ve just recently opened up. She spends thousands of dollars a year in advertising. Winning this would be a plus, but if not I still wanted to write a comment and say thanks for the ideas.
I just wanted to publicly congratulate Jessica for winning the random drawing for Dance Studio Owner’s outstanding ebook. And, thank you to everyone for sharing your ideas and for taking a moment to comment!
Happy Holidays!
I sure would like to see actual ads that follow the above “rules”. Any possiblity of making a little “photo album” of successful ads?
I’m such a visual person that telling me to include relevant content gets a “yeah, great idea…what?” reaction from me. I’d love to see…
Hey Vivette! Suzanne can probably speak to this more than I but be careful of confusing marketing with advertising. Ads are part of marketing but in today’s culture they may not even be the most important part or the most effective in bringing students to your school.
Specifically, the content Suzanne is referring to may appear on your studio website, your Facebook page, or what you provide in a newsletter or as handouts at your studio during an open house or bring a friend day. What I provide here is content and simply sharing the articles you find appropriate and useful with your current or potential students can be part of your marketing strategy because it adds to the service you provide, it educates your parents (maybe… hopefully even saving you time from having to explain it later), they appreciate it and it makes you and your school appear more connected, in the know, or more of an authority. It sets you apart.
As for advertising, there are certain things you can include in your ad that will help make it more effective (Suzanne details these beautifully in her e-book, actually), but one school’s successful ad is not guaranteed to work for another. It’s why big companies spend a fortune having people research their unique target audience. Most dance schools obviously don’t have that at their disposal, but if studios focused on the above when creating their marketing strategy (and boy is a thought-out strategy a good idea), the need to spend money on expensive ads (that may or may not be effective) is likely go way down.
My 2 cents on the matter! Hope it helps and makes sense!
Oh, and I wanted to add that an ad itself is not likely to have room for much content. However, what about an ad that includes in its call to action – Visit our website to find out How Dancing Can Improve Academics. Or… 10 Reasons to Take a Dance Class. Or… 7 Secrets of Super Performers 🙂 Or…??
I just opened my Dance studio and am now considering a Grand Re-opening utilizing the information I am reading now!! Thank you for this information. Very valuable. I would love the ebook!!
Touche. Outstanding arguments. Keep up the good spirit.