This article was written by Sarah Gittins of ‘The Dance Den’. Sarah is an award-winning dance business coach with 24 years of experience as a dance school owner. After successfully running her multi-venue school in Wales, she transitioned to mentoring and coaching other dance, theatre, and music school owners to empower them to gain more time, money, and life balance. She specialises in helping them create efficient, financially solid schools that align with their personal definition of success.
For more, visit her website or Facebook.
Grab Sarah's 1 Hour to Plan 1 Year of Social Media Content FREE Webinar.
Many dance school owners struggle with their social media marketing efforts. When you are so busy with classes, events, and everything in between, marketing can often fall by the wayside. But it doesn’t have to be complicated, if you focus on two things; consistency and quality, you will have better results. A strong presence is crucial. You must keep reminding people who you are and why your dance school stands out from the rest. In this article, we’ll dive into some essential marketing principles and show you how to create a content strategy.
While word of mouth is still the biggest marketing tool at our disposal, there are numerous other methods you can apply to your dance school to build a loyal community, attract new students, and keep your customers engaged.
First, let’s look at what marketing encompasses:
- Offline:
Investing in print materials like leaflets, posters and signage can be a powerful way to attract local customers. However, you need to know that the money and time you put into delivering those equates the outcome. To effectively track the success of your offline campaigns, include an incentive or unique code. For example, offer a trial session at 50% off with a code that customers can use upon registration which will help you monitor where your customers are coming from and assess which methods are most effective. - Online:
Maintaining a strong online presence is essential. Utilise digital platforms like social media (e.g. TikTok, YouTube, Instagram), your website, and Search Engine Ad listings to reach your audience. - Customer Support:
The support you offer your customers, both before and after they buy from you. This includes pre-registration support, such as answering queries, and post-registration support, like offering guidance and addressing any issues. - Word of Mouth:
One of the most powerful forms of marketing, and is driven by the satisfaction of your existing customers. - PR:
PR (Public Relations) strategies can boost your dance schools visibility and credibility and could involve pitching stories about events to local media, or engaging with influencers who can help promote you. - Advertising:
Allows you to reach a wider audience through various channels including Google ads, social media ads, newspaper ads. Regularly reviewing the performance of your adverts will help to ensure you are getting a good return on investment. - Promotion:
Promotions include things like discounts and special offers that create a sense of urgency and can encourage customers to register at your dance school. - Collaboration:
Partnering with other businesses or influencers can open up new opportunities and expand your reach. This could involve co-hosting events or inviting outside dance instructors for special workshops.
When it comes to social media, think of it as a shop window. Your website, your listings, your social posting all needs consistency and accuracy. If when they arrive at your socials and your customers are finding an outdated timetable, seeing your last post was 6 months ago, they will wonder if you are still in business. If they only see sales ads or not understanding what it is you actually offer this can all turn off customers.
In this current climate, customers want instant information, they don’t necessarily want to email, they want the information there so they can make a quick decision and the faster they make that decision the more likely they are to choose you over a competitor. You want your customers getting all the information they need at the time they need it.
If your social media marketing is carefully curated and relevant, the customer is more likely to get excited about attending and you will have more students registering at your dance school.
The main thing to remember is that you want to move people from just browsing to committing. Utilise call to actions (e.g. book now button), and make it easy for people to register.
Content Strategy Guide
Content needs variety but variety takes time! Time is something that school owners lack. So how can we make this easier for you?
There are a couple of main points you need to remember:
- It does not have to be over complicated
- You can use the same posts again and again
- A strategy means a plan!
- You need to know what works!
- Use this as a chance to educate
Let’s dive into this
It does not have to be over complicated
Posting 4 times a week is enough most of the time as it will engage your audience and keep your dance school in people’s feeds. Remember, as reels are getting the most reach at the moment, this needs to be part of your strategy.
Sarah has an excellent free webinar that breaks down a year's worth of content in 1 hour. In the webinar she breaks down using simple maths, a way of scheduling an entire year of socials but without feeling overwhelmed. You can find it here
An overview of it is:
Starting with Maths:
4 posts a week x 52 weeks = 208 posts or reels
Break the posts down into three sections; Sales, Current, and Other.
By breaking these sections down into subsections including:
- Styles you teach
- Venues
- Pain Points
- Values
- Testimonials
- History
- Questions
We start to build up a bank of content, in fact you will find that you have more ideas than spaces for posts.
Let’s take the example of styles:
You can highlight the different styles you offer, tap, modern, jazz, ballet etc. But you can also go into details like within jazz do you do classic, musical theatre, street jazz so each of the styles can be broken down further.
If you have just 7 style posts, combined with all the other sections and subsections, that would be enough to last you the year. The great thing and crucial thing about these posts is that they are evergreen. Once you have created them, you re-use and repeat.
You can use the same posts again and again.
As mentioned above, rinse and repeat is a good thing. The audience start to get to know your brand and style. Also, social moves so fast that it is unlikely they will remember, the average is a 4 day lifespan of your post. So if you repeat a post from 4 months ago that is absolutely fine. There is a tendency to want to create new all the time, but as school owners we are time poor and the repeat strategy will save you so much time.
An example of easy posts to repeat are:
- Celebration days - Christmas, Easter, Anniversary, Halloween etc
- Testimonials - Social proof, case studies
- Teachers - Introductions, who are they, learn about them, their training
- History - The school achievements, historical performances, highlights
The above will never change, so these are the easiest to repeat.
A strategy means a plan!
Random posting is what leads to inconsistency. With a structured plan, knowing what is coming up in your school calendar, combined with the variation of posts. You will know when you school is closed or open, when the show is, the extra performance, a merchandise sale, the exams and so on.
With your calendar in front of you, plan out your month, using repeatable posts, variation of posts and including the current and important notifications too.
For example:
- Mon- Sales post (repeatable)
- Tues - Testimonial (Repeatable)
- Wed
- Thurs - Reminder classes are back
- Fri
- Sat - Meet the teacher (repeatable)
You need to know what works!
Look and study the statistics, you need to know how your posts are performing. When you get a good one, you know you can repeat it. If one hasn’t worked, then change 1 thing. The reason we change only 1 thing is because if we change everything and it now works, how do we know what action has resulted in it now working. The key is to tweak, test and repeat.
Use this as a chance to educate.
- What information do your future customers need?
- Where do you signpost them to get this information?
- What is it you do?
- How do they book a trial with you?
- What if they don’t want to do exams?
- Do you do shows?
- What are your values?
- What are the styles? (Not everyone knows what modern is or the difference between acro and gymnastics)
Use your socials as an opportunity to let your parents know what you are about and what is is you do, that way they are more informed to make a decision on if your school is right for them.
Ps - if you are signposting them to a link, make sure that link is correct.
Another excellent way to get the most out of your time and content is to repurpose. You can take one piece of content and turn it into ten. As an example, take a video of a correction and you can turn it into:
- A Fun Statement
- A Reel
- An explanation of what the correction is (long form content)
- A question to your audience - ‘What do you think is wrong?’
- An Animated Gif
- A Jigsaw (4 pictures fun quiz)
- Education on the history of why it’s called X
- A video of you talking it through
In the lead up to an event (Open Day/Summer Camp), you can design a 2 week marketing campaign to make noise in the online dance space and engage your audience.
- X Spaces Left
- Fun Engagement
- Testimonial from a previous event
- What’s involved - sell the experience
- Teachers involved
- Behind the Scenes
- Last Day
While managing social media marketing for your dance school can feel overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be. You can maintain a strong online presence that sets your school apart with a little planning. By implementing the strategies outlined in this guide, from utilising various marketing methods to repurposing social content, you can ensure your marketing efforts are both efficient and effective. The key is to create content that not only promotes your classes but also engages, educates, and inspires your audience.
Now that you have some tools remember to grab Sarah’s 1 hour to create 1 years worth of social media free webinar to help you. Let your creativity shine, and watch your dance school grow!
