Tips to Grow Your Dance Studio and Increase Student Enrollment

Dance studio owners are always coming up with new ways of growing their businesses and bringing new students to their studio. After all, what's the point of running a dance studio without anyone to dance with you?

Since running a successful dance studio requires you to be both a good dancer and a good business manager, you might struggle to keep up with your expenses if you don't make the right business decisions.

It doesn't have to be that way! Even if you're not the world's best CEO, there are numerous useful tips and tricks you can rely on to increase student enrollment and generate more profit. For instance, dance studio management software like Class Manager can help you streamline registration, maintain schedules, and manage payments.

Let's check out some of the principal strategies you can implement today.

How to grow your dance studio

Whether you've just opened your dance studio or simply looking to attract new students, these 12 tips will help you reach your goals and quickly grow your business.

Make an excellent first impression.

The first impression you make on your customers is everything. It can determine your entire future, not just with one student but, thanks to referrals, with many others. You need to ensure you and your entire team make an excellent first impression.

Think about what your potential customers see when they first enter the studio. Who greets them? What kind of a vibe do you send out? Are the newcomers receiving a much-needed warm welcome? These are all questions you need to think about carefully.

It’s best to establish a system all your employees follow once a new member visits the studio to make an excellent first impression. Inform other students that a new member will be joining their class and tidy up your studio. Prepare any promotional materials you could easily hand out to your visitors once the dance class finishes.

Communicate with your students.

Communication is the key to success in any industry, including dancing. Your students regularly coming to dance classes isn’t enough to build a strong bond, so you should keep open and honest communication between you throughout the entire year.

The conversations don’t have to be spectacular, and light chit-chat is more than enough to keep your students engaged. Small talk allows you to bond more with your students than having no conversations whatsoever, so always communicate with your clients.

If you’re struggling to start a conversation with your students, creating evaluation forms is a handy way to collect their feedback. You can insert questions about their experience at your dance studio and even allow them to share their ideas, opinions, and suggestions.

Ultimately, you’ll see how the community perceives your dance studio.

Also, students who know they’re valued and listened to are more likely to remain at the same spot even if there’s a closer or more affordable dance studio.

Confident fit ethnic woman training with other sportswomen to grow dance studio
The first impression you make on customers of your dance studio is everything. It can determine your entire future, not just with one student but, thanks to referrals, with many others.

Put dancing as your primary focus.

Running a dance studio can be exhausting, especially if you’re the CEO, manager, dancer, and teacher. However, if that is the occupation you've chosen, you mustn’t allow the numerous tasks to deteriorate your passion for dancing.

Because it’s easy to get lost in the sea of paperwork and obligations, dancers running their dance studios often lose passion and desire for dancing after several years. To avoid that, always remind yourself why you started this business and keep your love for dancing alive.

Launch a website.

Growing your dance studio business means attracting more dancers to your studio. However, it’s challenging to attract the right community if people can’t find you online. Nowadays, online presence is equally important as offline, so if you still don’t have a website for your dance studio, it’s high time you created one.

There are several helpful pointers for designing a high-quality site:

  • Make sure the website is intuitive and easy to use.
  • Include a mobile-friendly website version for all smartphone users.
  • Introduce the dance studio and people that are part of the collective.
  • Upload photos and videos from your dance studio.
  • Upload a schedule of dance classes you hold each week.
  • List all essential contact information, such as the location, phone number, email address, and social media profiles.
  • Regularly post new content to increase your SEO and search ranking.
  • Keep your website free of any mistakes and errors.

Enable online registrations.

Convenience is greatly appreciated in today's hectic world. Even people highly passionate about dancing find it challenging to take the time to physically visit the dance studio and sign up for a dance class. That’s why many people give up dancing before they even get started.

A simple solution is to ensure an easy online registration process for your students. Whether you’re just launching a web page or you already have one, introducing an online registration will significantly affect your growth.

The easier it is to join your classes, the more people will do it - it’s as simple as that. Once your students can sign up for classes from anywhere, the chances are much higher they’ll visit your studio and attend a session.

Woman And Man Dancing Under Light
Even people highly passionate about dancing find it challenging to take the time to physically visit the dance studio and sign up for a dance class.

Promote your dance studio.

There’s a good reason why advertising is one of the most booming industries worldwide. Whatever your company is about, it can significantly benefit from a quality marketing campaign.

You can choose from various marketing strategies and methods to promote your dance school or studio, including the following.

Flyers

Sharing flyers is the oldest marketing trick, but it does its job well. Flyers are a particularly effective strategy for newly-launched businesses looking to increase their brand visibility quickly and efficiently. You have to pick a busy local spot and hand out the flyers to passers-by. We guarantee you'll be amazed by the results.

Email marketing

Email marketing is another excellent marketing strategy to promote your dance studio remotely. By gathering email addresses from your target audience, you can easily reach just the people you need. Since most people use their email daily, you can quickly get your message across and engage people in your dance studio.

Open house

Like houses for sale, dance studios can also host an open house. Opening the doors to your studio and inviting everyone to visit is an authentic way to increase interest in dance classes and get new students. As you'll see, many local businesses decide to host an open house or a similar event when they get started.

Word-of-mouth advertising

Even though your visitors technically do word-of-mouth advertising, you can do a lot to influence what they say about your dance business. Your visitors will gladly recommend your dance studio to a family member or friend if they feel appreciated, valued, and have fun.

The best thing about word-of-mouth marketing strategy is that you don't have to pay a penny since delighted customers will do it for free.

Be active on social media platforms.

Today, no business can succeed without a solid social media presence. You can’t underestimate the power of social media platforms, so it’s crucial to be active on at least the most popular networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Use social media to get the word out once you start your business, talk to your students, share news, and keep up with the latest trends in the dancing world.

Facebook

Facebook is, without a doubt, one of the leading social media platforms. With Facebook Ads, you can promote your dance studio and maintain regular communication with your visitors and fans. Facebook allows you to share blog posts, announcements, post voting polls, etc.

Twitter

Twitter is a social media network where people post short and to-the-point tweets. The Twitter community is always searching for new events, ideas, and accounts, so building a presence on this social media platform can be suitable for sharing concise posts, inviting more people to join, or simply having fun with your clients.

Instagram

Instagram is a perfect choice for reaching a younger audience. Since it's a platform that heavily relies on visual content, it's an ideal place to support sharing photos and videos from your dance school classes. Thanks to its user-friendly design, this platform is also excellent for hosting giveaways and engaging with your followers.

YouTube

YouTube focuses on sharing longer videos. If you want to share what an entire dance session looks like at your studio, YouTube might be just the platform as it gives you enough time and space to go into more detail about the school, dancing styles, and the collective. Anyone interested in your work can subscribe and stay updated for free.

Three Female Dancers Dancing in Studio
Whatever your dance studio is about, it can significantly benefit from a quality marketing campaign

Consider hiring new staff.

Growing your company and finding more students on social media is excellent, but that also means extending your team. As more students and groups fill in your already busy schedule, you'll quickly realize you can't keep up with the high demand.

That's when it's time to hire another professional dancer and teacher. If you haven't done that already, staff limitations might be why your dance studio isn't progressing.

So, hire someone new and offer potential students updated schedule plans. We're sure you'll instantly have groups of people wanting to start dancing at your studio as soon as possible.

Introduce new dance groups or styles.

Sometimes, people can't find what they're looking for in a dance studio. While no one expects you to hold a dance class for every possible dance style in the world, some variety is greatly appreciated.

New dance style groups will attract more people, and you'll undoubtedly have more students wanting to sign up for the classes.

Nevertheless, introducing new dance styles might not be your cup of tea, and that's okay. You can always bring in the same dance classes for different groups. For example, consider introducing classes for kids or the entire family. Another excellent idea is to create dance classes for a group of friends.

Host giveaways and offer special deals.

Everyone loves to receive free stuff, so the best way to promote your dance company is to host giveaways and organize other special offers and events.

For instance, you can offer a gift, such as a free trial class, as a reward for answering a question correctly. You will motivate the community to participate, while the numerous entries will increase your organic traffic and drive your revenue.

Another excellent example is to offer special deals, including membership discounts, bonus classes, or even two months of membership at the cost of one. Again, the community will do everything they need to win these attractive prizes, so you can use the opportunity to improve student enrollment.

When it comes to hosting giveaways and similar events, social media platforms are always the best choice. You can share giveaways and special deals for free, knowing the offers will reach a broad audience.

Man wearing blue jeans doing a pirouette spin in dance studio
Growing your company and finding more students on social media is excellent, but that also means extending your team.

Implement class management software.

As your brand grows, you’ll realize keeping track of all information without any software is next to impossible.

Luckily, advanced technology allows you to automate most repetitive and monotonous tasks that don't require craft and imagination. So, implementing class management software might be just what you need to increase the number of students.

Namely, a class management program automates the majority of your processes. From the automation of digital registration and creating schedules to providing support, the benefits of these management tools are endless.

Class Manager is perfectly organized, easy to maintain, and simple to manage, thus being one of the best class management software solutions you can currently find on the market. Thanks to its impressive flexibility and reliability, you can quickly solve specific user requests.

Participate in dancing competitions.

Yet another fantastic way to increase your brand visibility and motivate more people to join your community is to participate in dancing competitions.

Dance organizations, studios, foundations, artists, and others regularly organize these events. Whether the entry is paid or free, being part of such an event can do wonders for the success of your studio.

Since many parents take their kids to watch dancing competitions, this event can drive older and younger crowds to your studio door.

Keep tabs on other dance studios.

If you want to succeed in any industry, keeping tabs on other businesses in the same branch is a must. Even if you don't enjoy following other dance studios and their activities, staying informed is the only way to progress and get ahead of your competitors.

So, search for other local dance businesses in your area and find out everything you can about the type of service they provide, the price of a dance class, and the events they host or attend.

While that may not be the preferable strategy for some dance company managers and owners, keeping tabs on your competitors is undoubtedly part of the job.

graceful ballet dancer resting on floor
While that may not be the preferable strategy for some dance company managers and owners, keeping tabs on your competitors is undoubtedly part of the job.

The bottom line

As a dance business manager or owner, your primary goal is to motivate as many people as possible to sign up for dance classes. To do that, you need to promote your dance studio. While the possibilities are almost endless, some strategies are more successful than others.

If you want to increase the number of students at your company, you should implement the tips and ideas mentioned above.

Some of the more important ones would be building a solid social media presence and investing in Class Manager or some other high-quality class management software. Don’t forget to post on social channels at least once a week, create a website, and communicate with your target audience.

Naturally, you'll experience better results by combining the powers of several different strategies. Therefore, don't be afraid to experiment and do what it takes to make your brand known to all passionate dancers in your area and beyond!


matt

Founder
Written Jul 14, 2022
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