How is your dance studio business? Are classes picking up or is enrollment slowing down? With a recession looming over us, it’s easy to panic. But now’s not the time to be afraid. Instead, think of these hard times as an opportunity to strengthen your business, try new marketing ideas and capitalize on your competitor’s slashing their marketing spending.
With the financial downturn not expected to end until early next year, here are a few things you can do to strengthen your business now:
1. Make Your Dancers Happier
A big part of customer attainment is customer retention. This concept is two-pronged because on one prong you have the old adage that it’s easier to sell to the customer you already have than the one you don’t and on the other prong you have the incredible referral sales potential that satisfied customers can provide.
What does that mean? Well, for every satisfied and happy student you have, you have a better chance of selling them more classes or encouraging them to refer a friend.
To keep your dancers (and parents) happy, show them that you care and appreciate their business. Put more effort into encouraging them, say thank you more often, create more teaching and showcasing opportunities, provide free services (like occasional free classes or complimentary audition preparation) and make an effort to know each and every student and parent personally.
To encourage referrals, offer an incentive program that’s based on either monetary discounts or free classes.
2. Amp Up Your Advertising
In the midst of an economic downturn, most of your competitors will start to hunker down and pull back their advertising. That means yours will stand out. And with the economy in a slump, so are ad sales, meaning you’re in the driver’s seat when it comes to ad prices and negotiations.
That’s right, you can negotiate on advertising costs. If you’re prepared to pay in advance and are strong enough to be firm on your negotiations, these hard times could translate to 50-70% off “card rates” on print advertising.
If you’re not ready to spend, try low-cost or free methods like bulletin board postings, presentations at parents’ groups, ads in the lessons & tutoring section of your local Craigslist.com or connecting via online social media like a dance group on Facebook.
3. Target a Niche Market
There a number of economic and community sectors that aren’t affected by the economic slump, like health care for example. By creating a special promotion for health care workers, you’re tapping into a niche market and one that still has money to burn.
You should also consider target niches that aren’t based on jobs and are perfect for dance studios, like young couples, single women, children with behavior problems, Mommy & Baby classes, pregnant dance classes or aerobic-dance combo classes.
Bottom line, do something smart but also new and different and you’ll get more people into your dance studio.
photo:clearly ambiguous
