|
Welcome to Dance800.com
How Email Marketing Solutions Helps Dance Studios
By: Robert Burko
With the current Latin and ballroom dance crazes hitting your studio, as an owner and operator you need to use email marketing solutions to hold on to clients that are coming in for lessons or are interested in dance. With email marketing solutions, you have the unique capability to make a potential client feel like a preferred client. All you have to do is collect the email addresses (and permission to email) of those people walking into your studio or phoning in to register for classes. You can use their email addresses to send out informative email newsletters, promotions, studio updates, class schedules, and much more!
To successfully take advantage of email marketing solutions, it is important to compile a list of customers who want to receive your promotions and email newsletters. In order to do this, a great method is to request that your "drop-ins" sign-up to your newsletter to receive promotion and information. Provide them with a sign-up sheet (can be professionally designed, but a note pad and pen also works). If they enjoy the classes you are offering, they will be interested in receiving email discount offers and studio updates.
Another successful method is to make a professional-looking sign that asks your walk-ins to leave a business card (including email address) to receive promotions and more information on your studio.
With this method, you will be able to stay in touch with your walk-in customers and encourage repeat business. Any high-end email marketing solutions software will provide you with hundreds of email design options to choose from. As a dance studio, it's a good idea to choose a design that includes a main article, along with some spaces for pictures, so that you can showcase your students in action.
One great thing that your can do with email marketing solutions is segment your customers by interest. For example, you can include in your email newsletter a list of all the classes offered at your studio. Include the title of the class, and the first few words of the description. Then, include a link directing readers to your website for more information. An example of this would be:
"Hip Hop: A high energy class featuring modern moves - Click Here to Learn More"
So, why should you tease your readers like that? Why not include the entire description within the email? Well, there are two reasons:
1. You don't want to overcrowd your email newsletter. People lead fast-paced lives, so they need little snippets of information, and a quick way to learn more about what they're specifically interested in.
2. By making readers click a link to read more about a class, you can use an email marketing Solutions to track exactly which readers are interested in which classes. When you log into your email marketing Solutions provider, you will see an instant report of everyone who clicked to "Learn More" about Hip Hop classes (and Ballet classes, Jazz classes, Tap classes, etc). You can then send-out a targeted Hip Hop-themed campaign to only the people who you know are interested in Hip Hop.
In your email newsletter, you should also include a side column with pertinent, at-a-glance information about your studio. Things like dance awards, student results, dinner functions and congratulations are all good at-a-glance information. Don't forget to also include your phone number in a highly visible place.
Email marketing solutions can radically improve your dance studio's repeat business. Adding potential and interested customers to the subscriber list for your email marketing Solutions will turn a lot more of your seldom drop-ins into regular customers. Now is the time to take advantage of email marketing Solutions software, as the Latin and ballroom dance craze flourishes. Don't miss the opportunity or you'll be way out of step!
Promotional Products for Dance Studios
By: Tina Rinaudo
One of the more difficult parts of being an independent teacher of dance is promoting your studio. Advertisements only go so far. Promotional products can help you put your studio and your dancers in the limelight consistently. Here are just a few of the ways that you can use promotional products as a professional dance teacher.
* Attract new students
* Upsell existing students
* Promote studio name recognition
* Motivate your dancers to excel
* Create a team spirit among your dancers
* Thank your students (and their parents) for their support
* Raise money for special events
There are many promotional products that are especially suited for each of these purposes. Take a look at some of the specific ways that your dance studio could be using promotional products to train the spotlight on the talent in your stable.
Attract New Students
Be sure to participate in youth fairs and festivals where parents will spot you. Arrange an attractive display of various promotional products - t-shirts, jackets and roll bags - at your table along with printed leaflets that show your dancers having fun together. You might offer a free kit bag with every new registration at the cost of about one week's lesson.
Upsell existing students
Want to motivate your students to take a second or third class? Offer studio jackets to those who take three or more classes a week. You can also offer the jackets for sale at a profit to those who take fewer classes.
Promote studio name recognition
Be sure to stock a studio store with promotional products emblazoned with the name and emblem of your studio. Your dancers will love showing their allegiance to their “team” by wearing t-shirts with your name on them, carrying your name on their kit bags - even carting about sports bottles and travel mugs with your name on them. Every t-shirt, sports mug and kit bag that's walking around town with your name on it makes your studio more visible to parents looking for a dance school for their children.
Motivate your dancers to excel
Give out monthly and annual awards to students in each of your age levels for the most improved student or to students who achieve special goals. T-shirts, studio mugs, kit bags and nearly any other item with the studio name on them make great achievement awards - and for those special awards, design a unique t-shirt that's only given to the "Dancer of the Month".
Foster Team Spirit
Nothing promotes team spirit quite so much as looking like a team. Studio t-shirts, team jackets and matching kit bags are especially attractive to pre-teen and teen girls that make up the bulk of any studio's clients. Play into their desire to be part of something special by offering a variety of promotional apparel through your studio store and as special awards.
Thank your students (and their parents)
One of the most common uses of promotional products is as business appreciation gifts. There are many types of promotional products that you can use this way, but one that will stand out in the minds of your students - as well as being used and seen every day - is a calendar with photos of your students for each month.
Raise money for special events
Why turn to chocolate bars or candles? There's a wide variety of promotional products that you can sell as fund-raisers for entry fees and travel expenses to competitions. Among them are car stickers, mugs, t-shirts and jackets. |
|
