More than likely, you wear a lot of hats as a dance studio owner – from business leader to teacher, financier, scheduler, and human resources expert. Another hat you most likely wear? Marketing pro! Effective marketing strategies are crucial to your studio’s success – they help expand your dance community, provide more revenue, and keep your dancers in the loop about what you have to offer.
If you feel like you’ve run out of bandwidth for marketing efforts or just don’t have any creative ideas, don’t fret. On The Stage (OTS) presents some fresh marketing strategies to streamline your efforts this fall and ensure your studio gets the publicity it deserves.
Unlike other art forms that require a backstory or some basic context, dance can grab a person’s attention from the first eight-count. Use this to your advantage by promoting your dancers and choreography on social media.
Most marketing strategies include some form of social media, and the same goes for that of dance studios. Look at some of the most viral content on these platforms today; so much of it is dance, whether it be intricate competitive hip-hop routines or easy-to-learn TikTok choreography. As a studio owner, you have all the tools you need to create this strong social media following right at your fingertips: talented and passionate dancers, a studio, and choreography!
Browse the internet for trending dances and use class time to teach it to your students. Additionally, post dance class content, competition content, or recital dances to your social media to get some buzz.
Additionally, consider appointing a dancer-led marketing team who can brainstorm content, film during classes, and create dances to showcase. All in all, you’re simply asking your students to do what they love – perform!
Pivoting away from social media, consider the power of word-of-mouth advertising and how it can work for your studio. A great way to incentivize this advertising is by offering referral discounts to your loyal students if they bring other dancers to your studio.
Referrals are incredibly powerful and beneficial for your studio – after all, people only take referrals from those they trust and respect. This means that you, in turn, are building brand loyalty by increasing your referral numbers.
Additionally, referrals allow you to enact a free marketing strategy – it costs you nothing to encourage your dancers and their families to spread the good word.
The right merchandise can stop potential new dancers in their tracks, so make sure you’re investing in quality items that best promote your studio’s brand.
Your merchandise should be:
Merchandise is excellent for marketing efforts, but don’t forget—it also protects your bottom line. You’re killing two birds with one stone here!
Creating accessibility in your community is crucial to attracting more dancers to your studio. You can do so by hosting open houses and other events free of charge or for a small fee.
Advertise your open house or other offering on as many free platforms as possible, then use the open house to network with potential new dancers, their parents, or community partners.
Additionally, consider having a Q&A at the open house to answer any pressing questions. You want dancers to leave your event educated about your studio and excited to join. Of course, your open house should also showcase the talents of your dancers, so prepare a piece for the event to entice new members, too.
Other event ideas include choreography workshops, dance showcases, family dance days, or a dance-centric fundraiser. In short, you want your studio to feel like a welcoming community hub, and hosting free or ticketed events is a great place to start that effort.
Many dancers looking for a community will visit the internet to find a studio near them. That said, ensure you’ve optimized your search engine optimization (SEO) – a digital marketing tactic businesses can use to improve their website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Perfecting your SEO is crucial because, in most cases, only ten organic results are listed on the first page of an internet search. Now, ask yourself the last time you scrolled to a second page when searching—it’s probably been a while, if ever. This means that you should want your studio on the first page.
Consider the keywords you need to use by thinking about how a dancer would search for you. ‘Dance studio [insert city here]’ is a great start. Don’t rule out sponsored ads on Google or other search engines to ensure your studio is on the first page and at the very top.
Only great things come from community partnerships and business sponsorships, so make an effort to get into your city and connect with people who can elevate your studio. Community partners and businesses allow you to broaden your reach in your community, get your studio’s logo on another business’s merchandise, and network with potential dancers and donors.
On the flip side of the coin, you can also look into options for sponsoring clubs, sports teams, nonprofits, charity events, and other activities in your area to promote your studio. Becoming a sponsor for these local businesses and events also opens the door to performance activities at games and other high-traffic events.
Sometimes, the best marketing you can enact is simply allowing dancers to come and experience your classes free of charge for a day.
Enacting promos for free classes is the ultimate way to market your offerings. Glowing reviews are great, but allowing potential students to step into your world and experience all you have to offer is a surefire way to increase your student numbers.
Once you’ve optimized your SEO offerings, your website will be on the first page of every internet search. But that effort will mean nothing if you have an outdated, boring website.
Take the time to elevate your dance studio’s site before promoting it on your merchandise and other marketing efforts. This means it should be a streamlined destination with plenty of eye-catching visual content alongside pertinent information your potential new dancers need.
Ensure the following elements are present:
Marketing efforts should be multifaceted, that much is clear. But it can get incredibly complicated incredibly fast if you don’t have the right software to streamline your strategies.
With that said, make sure you’re utilizing software that can automate and integrate marketing tasks alongside dance studio management software that can save you time and energy. By elevating your technology, you can focus on creating a safe and wonderful place for students to explore their love of dance.
If you’re looking for software to help streamline your marketing strategies, look no further: On The Stage (OTS) can support all your marketing and promotion needs with one robust platform.
With OTS’s marketing platform, you can:
Simply put, our consolidated platform has everything you need to market your dance studio successfully – and generate more revenue. If you’re ready to get started, book a personalized demo today.