Dancing by the Numbers

Do you really know how your business is performing?

Your turnover might be up, but do you know why?

Are you aware of which classes bring in the most profit? (Hint: It’s not always the ones with the most students.)

How much revenue do you generate per student? Which age group is the most profitable?

If you’re unsure of the answers, don’t worry — you’re not alone.

Many dance school owners lack a clear understanding of their business performance. It’s not due to a lack of care, nor is it from lack of effort. It’s because they don’t have access to the right data.

In a world where data drives decisions everywhere, dance schools often fall behind.

So, What Data Should You Be Tracking?

The simple answer: As much as possible.

The more data you collect, the deeper your insight into how your business operates.

A great way to begin is by asking key questions, then working backward to determine which data you need.

Let’s start with a basic example:

What percentage of trial lessons convert into paying customers?

To answer this, you only need two data points:

1. The number of people who sign up for a trial.

2. The number of people who become paying customers.

That’s simple enough. But what if you want to ask a more detailed question:

What percentage of trial students convert into paying customers who stay for at least a year?

Now, you’ll need to track customer behaviour over time: every payment, every class they join or leave, and when these actions occur.

But with this larger dataset, not only can you answer the original question, you can also explore others like: When do most people take trial lessons? What’s the most popular month to start a second class? How long does it typically take for a customer to make their first payment?

The Power of Data

At Costume Source our use of data and technology helps keep us really efficient, we don’t just track new bookings and financials — we dive much deeper.

Want to know how many customers added costumes to their existing bookings on September 5, 2024? It was 154. How many removed costumes that same day? 92.

We aim to ensure customers are adding more costumes than they’re removing, and we can only track this through data collection.

It goes even further. We use live dashboards to monitor how many costumes we expect to ship and receive each week. This helps us schedule our team and plan resources more efficiently.

We also record when, why and how customers contact us, using that data to help schedule our Customer Care team and also highlight potential issues early.

Each and every costume has a QR code, scanned at every step — from being picked and packed to laundry and repairs. This data gives us a comprehensive view of warehouse operations. By combining it with historical data, we can predict day-by-day movements in the warehouse and plan accordingly.

We gather vast amounts of data — currently feeding around a million metrics into our data warehouse every month. This data informs nearly every decision we make, from the costumes we stock and how we market, to optimising the user experience and even planning staff holiday.

Of course, as a dance school, you won’t need to collect data on this scale. But, like us, you can harness your data to make your business more efficient and profitable.

From insights to profits

Knowing which classes are your most profitable enables you to focus your marketing efforts on those specific classes. Understanding which marketing strategies deliver the best results lets you double down on what works, while cutting out time and money wasted on what doesn’t.

These small, data-driven adjustments can create significant improvements over time, which of course helps increase your profits!

In today’s competitive landscape, dance schools and dance school owners need to use every metric and insight at their disposal. Data isn’t just a tool; it’s the key to understanding and optimising your business.

Start tracking the right metrics, and watch your insights — and success — grow.