How do I bring in more pupils to my dance school?

We’ve spoken to a team of experts to share with you their top tips that any dance school can do right now to bring in more pupils...

So you’ve probably tried Facebook adverts, you’ve stuck a card in the newsagent’s window, you might even have put an ad in the local paper.

But have you tried the one really obvious thing:

Get your pupils to do the work for you!

Who better to advertise your school than those who already love it?

Encourage your pupils to spread the word about your dance school.

Get them to tell their friends. Do a ‘bring a friend’ week. Get them to ‘check in’ on Facebook at your school each time they have a lesson.

Incentivise them.

Run a competition where the pupil who brings in the most people to a trial lesson each month gets a free hoodie.

While we’re on the subject, you do sell hoodies to your pupils don’t you?

Nice hoodies with your school name, logo and website on the back? I mean hoodies so nice that they will wear them whenever they are out?

We’d always advise dance schools to buy great hoodies. Hoodies that are really comfy to wear, look great on and are just a bit special. Not so special that people won’t wear them, but special enough that they stand out a bit.

Once they’ve found your perfect hoodies, most people get their logo printed on them. This is great, but what about your website? People won’t just find you just through your logo – make it easy for them – get your website address printed on there right under your logo in nice big letters!

Now sell them on to your pupils at cost.

Maybe even less.

Don’t worry about not making money on them. The important thing is to get as many of your pupils as possible wearing them as much as possible.

So now people are finding you, how do they go about actually becoming a customer?

Let’s take a scenario...

So you are out shopping for a dress. You want to try a shop that you’ve never been to before as someone told you they have great dresses.

But the shop won’t let you in!

They want you to fill in a form first giving all of your details and agreeing to loads of stuff.

Once you have filled in the form, they want you to pay some money before you can even step foot inside the shop.

Then they want you to commit to buying stuff from them for the next six weeks and you can only get out of it by giving them six weeks written notice.

Are you going to shop there?

No way!

You’re going to go to the place next door where the door is open, you can walk right in, take a look at the dress and try it on. The place that doesn’t ask for anything from you until you have decided you actually want to buy the dress.

Sounds obvious right?

But so many dance schools do just this: they put up massive barriers making it hard for people to join them.

Don’t be like them!

Make it really easy for people to try out your business.

Be up front with the costs. Your competition probably charge something similar to you, so why the big secret?

Give people a free lesson so they can see how great your lessons are. Hand out the registration form at the end of the lesson, not the beginning.

Make the registration form simple. Don’t ask for more than you need to and don’t fill it full of terms and conditions that they must agree to – it will just scare people away.

Don’t ask them to commit straight away.

Be confident in your school. If you give your pupils great lessons, they will come back each week and bring friends with them.

If you give them crap lessons they’ll leave.

If you give them crap lessons, do you really think a long notice period will stop them leaving?

Of course not.

Go for great lessons instead of a long notice period.

But these are just a few examples. Take a look at your business from a customer’s point of view.

Do you put up barriers?

Break them down!

How can you make it easier for people to become your customer?

The easier you make it for people to become your customer, the more customers you will attract.