Dance Advertisement Ideas | Introduction
In this article you are going to learn the foundations of successful advertising, and 5 dance advertisement ideas to help you promote your dance studio!
As a dance studio owner, learning how to promote your dance studio is crucial for your dance studio’s success…
Once you master the art and science of advertising, you will be able to attract as many new students as you want!
Want us to help you get more students?
Book a free strategy call with us, and we’ll show you the best marketing strategies that are working today…
And we’ll show you how to implement those strategies in your dance studio so that you can attract and enroll more students!
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Dance Advertisement Ideas | Sailing And Advertising
Before diving into the different advertisement ideas...
I want to make an analogy here and compare advertising to sailing.
Let’s imagine this is your first time sailing, and you’ve never taken a sailing class...
You simply get your sailboat into the water, and get in.
You let the wind take you wherever it goes…
Then after a few hours you manage to get back, and you think to yourself…
“SAILING DOESN’T WORK!”
“I didn’t get where I wanted to go!”
Someone standing by asks you…
“Where did you want to go?”
You say: “I don’t know… BUT, I didn’t get anywhere, so IT DOESN’T WORK!”
Dance Advertisement Ideas | The Foundations Of Advertisement
Now, the analogy above might sound ridiculous to you, and exaggerated, but this is really what happens in advertising ALL THE TIME!
Studio owners who have no advertising plan whatsoever invest money into advertisement...
Then when they don’t see results, they start to claim that “ADVERTISING DOESN’T WORK!”
That’s why before I go into the 5 dance advertisement ideas, I’m going to share with you some foundational principles of advertisement.
These principles will allow you to be successful with advertising, and it’ll help you attract lots of students.
But, if you decide to ignore these principles, you’re going to end up wasting a lot of time, effort, and money on advertisements that won’t get you any results.
With that said, let’s go over some foundational principles first.
Dance Advertisement Ideas | Your Ideal Client
If we were to go back to the sailing analogy... The first thing you would need to decide is where you’re going, right?
So, we need to do the same thing here and decide WHO our advertisement is for…
Who is your ideal client?
Hint - The answer is NOT “everyone”.
You need to be specific!
For example, if you own a zumba dance studio, then the majority of your clientele is going to be women between the ages of 25 to 45.
So, that’s who your advertising should focus on.
On the other hand, if your dance studio focuses on kids between the ages of 4-12 year olds, then your advertisement should focus on mothers between the ages of 25-50…
This is important to know ahead of time because once you start coming up with your advertising message…
You’ll need to know how to communicate with your ideal client, so that you can persuade him/her to give your dance studio a try.
Dance Advertisement Ideas | Why Does Your Ideal Client Want To Learn How To Dance?
Once you’re clear on who you want to attract with your advertisement.
Then the next step is to consider the reasons why your ideal client would want to take dance lessons (or, would want their kids to take dance lessons).
For example, if you have a dance studio that offers expensive ballroom lessons...
Then your clientele might be higher income men and women between the ages of 45-65+.
Some reasons this group of people might be interested in taking dance lessons could be:
- To finally learn how to dance with their spouse
- Maybe they are trying to stay active and healthy.
- Might be widowed/divorced looking to meet a new person through a healthy hobby.
- They’ve always loved to dance, and now they’re finally retired and have extra time to start dance classes.
On the other hand, across the street there could be another dance studio who also focuses on partner dancing...
But they don’t compete with each other because this studio teaches salsa, and are focused on getting a totally different group of people: young professionals.
Young professionals are interested in dancing for completely different reasons…
- They want to do something fun after work to de-stress…
- Maybe they are looking to network
- Perhaps they want to meet someone
- Or they might be looking to learn how to dance so that they can feel more confident on the dance floor.
If you get these reasons right, your advertising message will have a WAY bigger chance of succeeding than if you didn’t know these reasons.
Also, taking the time to do this homework ahead of time is going to make the process of writing your advertising so much easier…
Tips For Getting This Information
If you’re already teaching students who are your ideal clients, ask them!
You can do this formally by giving everyone a survey.
If you do this, think of different questions that can help you determine why they STARTED taking dance lessons (NOT why they still take dance lessons)...
For example:
- What motivated them to come into the studio the first time?
- Did they have any fears around dance before coming? If yes, what were those fears?
- Why did you first start taking dance lessons?
- What were you hoping to get out of the dance lessons?
On the other hand, you can ask these same questions conversationally with your students.
Write down ALL the answers that they give you, and make sure you write it exactly using the language THEY used, NOT what you thought it meant.
Dance Advertisement Ideas | What’s your offer?
Now, for the last step, you need to decide on an offer that you’re going to include in your advertising message.
The reason an offer is needed is because people are lazy...
Which means that you need to have a way to incentivize them to come try out your dance classes.
The stronger the offer is, the better results that you’re going to see with your advertising.
Here are some proven offers that you might want to use:
- A free class
- 1 Week of unlimited classes
- 5 classes for $5
- 10 classes for $10
- Buy 3 months and get 3 months free
When it comes to offers, it’s best to keep them SIMPLE so that people understand it immediately.
What NOT to do:
- Get 1 free class when you buy 10 classes, then after one week we’ll give you a free pair of dance shoes, and 15% off your next package!
Offers that are complicated DO NOT work...
Personally, I like the free offers because it usually gets the most amount of people interested.
The only problem is that whenever you end up giving out something for free, you end up with a few tire kickers, who are not going to buy anything from you, and they are just there to take advantage of the free stuff…
Dance Advertisement Ideas | Let’s put it all together and write your advertising message
Now that you have an understanding of who your ideal client is, why they want to learn to dance, and you have an offer in mind that you can incentivize them with…
It’s time to put it all together and write an advertising message!
A simple way to do this is by using a copywriting formula:
Ideal client + Reasons why they want to learn how to dance + Offer + Reasons why they want to learn how to dance + Offer
Advertising Message Example:
Miami! Looking to do something fun to do after work?
Come try a FREE salsa class with us!
- Perfect for singles
- Great place to network
- Learn a few dance moves and gain more confidence on the dance floor!
Click the button below to get a free class!
Let’s break down this advertisement message:
Ideal client:
Miami!
Reasons why they want to learn how to dance:
Looking to do something fun to do after work?
Offer:
Come try a FREE salsa class with us!
Reasons why they want to learn how to dance:
- Perfect for singles
- Great place to network
- Learn a few dance moves and gain more confidence on the dance floor!
Offer:
Click the button below to get a free class!
That’s how you put everything together and write your advertisement message.
Notice, I didn’t talk about how great our studio is, or how amazing our classes and teachers are.
I didn’t mention anything about being a quality dance studio.
Why?
Because in order for the advertisement to be persuasive it has to be about your ideal client…
What do they get out of doing business with you?
How will they benefit?
Not about how great you are...
How To Write Facebook/Instagram Ads That Get You Lots Of Students!
If you want to dive in deeper into how to write advertising messages for your dance studio that will help you get lots of students…
Check out our blog post:
“Dance Studio Ad: Recipes For Writing Your Dance School Advertisement”
In that article we will show you different copywriting formulas that will help you write better ads, as a well as show you different examples that you can use to get inspiration!
The Do’s And Don’ts Of Advertising.
Before we move on and talk to you about the different advertisement ideas, I want to recap here what you learned about advertising by giving you some do’s and don’ts.
Dos:
- Figure out who your ideal client is that you want to attract to your dance studio.
- Make a list of reasons why your ideal client is interested in learning how to dance.
- Incentivize your ideal client to come try your studio by giving them an offer
- Write advertising messages that appeal to your ideal clients motivations for learning how to dance.
Don’ts:
- Spend any money on advertising without first having figured out who you want to target
- Talk about yourself or how great you are in your ads.
- Make your offer complicated.
5 Dance Advertisement Ideas
Alright, so now that you understand the principles of advertising, and you have written a simple advertising message…
You need to find places to share this message out into the world so that your ideal client can see it.
Let’s talk about platforms that you can use to share your advertising message with more people.
1. Google Advertising
Google ads work exactly the same like the search engine does…
Someone types in a few keywords on Google, and then google displays ads that are relevant to those keywords…
For example, if I type in “dance studios near me”, it’ll show me all the search results based on geographic location, as well as ads of dance studios who paid for Google ads around my area.
The greatest thing about Google ads, is the fact that you catch someone when they are “hot”!
“Hot” means that they are actively searching for a dance studio to attend, and they might be ready to join one in the next few days...
This is great because, if you can show up first on someone’s Google search, right when they are about to make a decision…
You have a high statistical chance to be the studio that person joins!
Google ads are great to keep the inflow of new students every month, and to replenish the students that leave every month…
The Problem With Google Ads
“Hot leads” are great because they are highly motivated since you caught them at the time when they WANTED to go to a dance studio!
The problem is that in every city, there are only so many of those “hot leads” per month…
There’s only so many people in any given month that are looking for a dance studio, or specific dance classes.
This is especially true if you’re promoting dance classes that are not so popular in your city…
If there is not much demand for the types of dance classes that you’re offering, then Google might not be the best way to go.
Which brings me to the next platform…
2. Facebook/Instagram advertising
Facebook/Instagram ads are tricky because what makes them great, also makes them difficult…
Let me explain:
When you advertise on Facebook/Instagram...
Your advertisements will show up randomly on people’s “news feeds” unexpectedly.
Essentially, you’re showing ads to a “cold audience”.
Which means that these people were not actively looking for you, so there are more hurdles for you to persuade them to come to your studio!
The great thing about it is that in any given city there are TONS of more people NOT actively looking for dance classes, than people looking to take dance lessons…
So, if you can get good at converting cold audiences into students, then you can essentially grow your studio as big as you want!
How Can You Turn Someone Who’s Not Looking For A Dance Studio Right Now, To Come In To Your Studio And Enroll In Your Classes?
This is the question that you need to be asking yourself if you want to make Facebook/Instagram ads work for your dance studio…
The answer is simple, you need to learn how to write great ads!
Earlier in this article we covered part of the elements that you’re going to need in order for you to write a great advertisement, but it goes deeper than that…
We have a few articles that will show you how to write ads, how to do video ads, as well as examples of actual ads that you can get inspiration from.
Start here:
“Dance Studio Ad: Recipes For Writing Your Dance School Advertisement”
3. Your Website
Most dance studio owners think that their website is just like a digital, fancy brochure…
Well, that’s not the truth at all.
While your website can look nice, represent your brand, and have tons of beautiful pictures of your students, and studio…
Your website should mainly serve 2 purposes:
Help you rank higher on the Google search results (SEO)
If you want Google to rank your website higher on the search results, so that everyone who’s looking for a dance studio in your city can find YOU first…
Then you need to tweak your website, and add the right keywords.
We have a series of articles on how to promote your dance studio using SEO…
Here it is, if you want to check it out:
“How To Promote a Dance Studio Using SEO – Part 1”
Get you new students!
The second goal your website should accomplish is to get you new students.
While this might sound obvious, lots of people don’t see it this way.
Most people think their website is just an online gallery of pictures.
In fact, if you google right now “dance studios near me”, and you look through 10 websites…
You’ll find that in most of them it is hard to find the phone number, and the address of the studio.
The two most important pieces of information about a dance studio are missing from most websites…
So, make sure that your website at the very least, helps people get to your studio, and get in contact with you!
If you want a free website audit, where we sit down with you and tell you how well your website is doing, and what changes could be made so that it helps you bring in more students….
Then, book a free strategy call!
4. Organic Social Media Posts
Promoting your dance studio through social media content can be very effective, but it requires a lot of work, time, and consistency.
You essentially have to be able to post content every day, at least 3 times a day…
Then you also have to get creative about how you plug your advertising message into each (or, most) of the posts, so that you can turn the people who follow your social media pages into students!
Here are 89 dance studio social media ideas that you can get inspiration from!
Here’s Another Social Media Strategy
Go to the “groups” tab on Facebook.
Then, find and join local groups where your ideal client will be located, for example:
If you own a dance studio for kids, then mom groups in your city would be something ideal!
Or, if you own a dance studio for women, then find local women’s groups.
Make sure that it is ok to post about your studio in the group, and then every day, or every week, you want to go into all of the groups and post your advertising message with your offer.
I’ve seen people get 20-40 students per month with this strategy alone, but I’ve also seen people NOT get anything from doing this…
The key is that you have to remain consistent to see results.
5. Flyers
This is old school, but I had a little success with it in the past.
You want to make flyers for your studio, and go to every local venue that your ideal client might go to, so that you can put up flyers there (if they let you)...
Use your advertising message on your flyer.
Make the text in the flyer short, easy to read, and you want to make sure that the offer is big and really easy to see.
Use an eye catching image in your flyer.
Make sure that your phone number is easy to see as well…
This strategy can get you 1-2 students every few months, so this shouldn’t be your main strategy for attracting new students.
Dance Advertisement Ideas | Conclusion
In this article, we covered the foundations of writing an advertising message.
We talked about how if you want to be successful with your advertising efforts, you need to know who your ideal client is.
Once you know who you are trying to attract with your ads, then you need to figure out the motivations for them to want to learn how to dance (or to take their kids to your studio).
Knowing these motivations will allow you to write ads that are persuasive to your ideal client.
We also talked about the importance of having an offer that incentivizes people to show up at your door…
Plus, I gave you a few proven offers that you can use.
Last, we covered 5 different places where you can show your advertising message so that you can attract more students to your studio.
Want Us To Help You Get More Students?
If you need help filling up your dance classes, and increasing enrollment…
Book a free strategy call with us, and we can help you out!
We’ll sit down with you and show you the different strategies for attracting more students, and we’ll show you how to implement them!