Gleaming Presence-Online, Not Onstage!
During tough economic times, savvy marketing can be helpful, even for established studios with a marketing plan in place. Maybe it is time for you to consider advice from marketing professionals and take steps both to keep present clients happy and draw in new dancers to sustain growth. Perhaps you should add a website, reorganize, or update current materials.
Take first things first. Whether you decide to add a website or update print or online content, do some research and begin with a marketing plan that expresses your own vision. Then make a budget and move to collecting content aimed to convey your marketing message before you begin design and editing.
Dance media specialist Dan Graham grew up working, while still in high school, for his father who had founded an e-commerce company. He knew little about the field of dance when he founded his own company, Superior Media & Marketing at 18, but he learned quickly when he began marketing dance with one of his first clients, The United States Tournament of Dance. Through contacts made in his work with U.S.T.D., he has branched out to numerous other dance organizations, including Dancer Magazine.
Graham says studio owners make a mistake when they think of their marketing budget as one place to cut costs. Graham says a marketing plan is a critical part of growing a business, and he recommends going to a pro to avoid pitfalls often encountered. Graham is a big believer in online marketing and has been a part of the industry trend in the past few years to reach out with specialized information through the Web.
For the dance studio, information including classes offered, regulations, event calendar, registration materials, newsletters, promotional materials and competition results can all be produced as part of a studio website, an information source many dance studios choose because of the amount of information that can be sent out. A website can also market studio merchandise, host advertising, offer jumps to slide shows or video clips on networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, and send out useful one-click reminders of news updates to your studio mailing list.
Graham says costs to set up and maintain a website vary greatly, and the best way to find marketing professionals in your area is by word of mouth. Find another studio or friend who has worked successfully with a marketer's product before. “You don't always have to go with the most expensive place,” he says. “Prices can range from as little as $250 to thousands of dollars.”
But Graham cautions: “Before you go online, know what you are getting into, how much time it will take to maintain a website, and whether you have time to keep the information updated.” A professional can help you avoid costly mistakes. “If you need a dance floor, you wouldn't call your cousin. You need something from professionals to represent your studio,” he says. “You wouldn't want your storefront or your studio to have broken windows or be dirty on the outside or anything like that. Potential customers form that impression when they look at a website that isn't kept well.”
If your budget does not allow a marketing pro or you can do part of the work yourself, check with local printing and design services. Find a local college or high school with a graphic design/marketing department and contract with a group of students who will work for free. Every semester instructors look for projects for their students to show what they can do with marketing and design production projects. Whatever you do, Graham says, consider relying on your own students to help maintain and update the site once it is online—or have a plan for professional maintenance. It's true that you can do almost anything on a website, but a site isn't worth much if it is not current and doesn't function for the user.
If this is your first website, rather than taking on more than you can manage, Graham advises, begin with a website you know you can keep updated and working. “Very often, I get calls from someone who has a website that doesn't work properly,” Graham says. “Unfortunately, it is often easier to make over a faulty site than fix it.”
Tracy Bauer had a passion for dance from her first classes at the age of 7, but earned her business degree in marketing at Miami University in 1997 before working in marketing for several arts organizations in Cincinnati. Bauer says after a few years she knew she wanted to be more directly involved with dance again, so 10 years ago she completed the Dance Masters of America Teacher Training School and began working in marketing and teaching for the Franklin School for the Performing Arts in Franklin, MA. She also teaches for The Gold School in Brockton, MA. Through her work experiences, she has combined her passion for dance with marketing strategy she developed over the years.
Bauer advocates a variety of promotional materials and agrees with Graham that dance studios must look to the Web. “People can search for information at any time of day and contact you quickly and easily. You also get unlimited advertising space on a Web page to display a more convincing message.”
As a marketing specialist, Bauer offers both her marketing ideas to grow your dance program through “The Definitive Guide to Dance Studio Marketing” on her website tracybauer.com. In the competitive world of dance, she says that you have to find a way to set your studio apart from the competition through a good marketing plan with specialized content. She emphasizes that the studio that has trouble attracting students may be every bit as good as the one that attracts students with ease. The difference may be the ability to consistently communicate a message to attract new students and grow, instead of relying solely on word of mouth or referrals from existing students just to stay in business.
She suggests you begin a successful marketing plan by thinking about the vision you have for your school. “Then determine your target market and define their wants and needs so that you can address them with your marketing.” As you define your market, she says to remember that what you offer won't please everyone, so try to attract the students who would be the best match for your school's opportunities, policies and environment. “Understand your industry and your competition so that you can determine why your target market should choose you. Before you begin creating your marketing messages and determining your marketing media, it's really important to understand who you are and where you fit in so that you can attract the kind of students you want with a clear picture of what makes your studio the best choice for them. Then you can find the right headlines, photos, and other materials that best communicate your studio's image.”
When organizing content, Bauer says one common mistake is focusing on the vague concepts rather than on how studio features benefit the potential customer. “Gain confidence and poise in a non-competitive environment” is more compelling than “dance classes for all ages.” Another mistake is using baseless claims like “the best,” “family-owned” or “number one,” which really don't give people any compelling information. “Anyone can make those claims,” she says. Puffed up phrases don't teach your prospects what they really need to know about you to make an informed decision. Avoid using generic phrases that could just as easily describe your competitors so your message will be more believable.
“Another common pitfall is using photos and copy that don't really convey what the school is all about. If a school caters to young children, it would be a mistake to use a performance picture of a teen in a sexy costume with her leg held up to her ear. People should be honest in their advertising. Too often, schools use ad copy and photos that look like every other dance studio ad. It's important to be unique and to compel potential customers to act now and choose you.”
Bauer says she is happy to see a push toward more positive marketing messages rather than negatively bashing the competition. Part of her online marketing plan consists of an outline of potential mistakes dance studios should avoid as they plan their marketing strategy. She says promoting negative messages about competitors is another serious mistake. Instead, people respond better to information such as “simple payment plan, affordable costumes and family-friendly performances” than they do to “no hidden fees, expensive costumes or endless performances.”
Bauer says a successful marketing plan focuses on the reality of what makes your studio special and the experience people have when they study there. Too often, she says, parents have the impression that studios advertise to young children but cater to intensive dancers. “There are lots of families and potential dancers out there, and they all sign up for dance for different reasons. Choose your position in the market, deliver the vision you describe in your marketing materials, and the students that best support your vision will be the ones that join your studio and stay for years to come.”
Tune in next month for expert advice on design: how to create a compelling design concept, select photos, utilize video online and more!