Fresh Material
New routines are sent out quarterly. We recommend that you always hype up days when you will be introducing new songs. It is not necessary (or recommended) that you introduce a new song every week. Instead we recommend that you introduce a new song about once a month, especially for new studios. Students love new material but they also love to repeat songs they know. If you do too many new routines it will just be confusing.
Every Dance Trance class should contain a new fresh song that you hear on the radio. This is very important for the new student. When they come in to try out class, they love hearing songs that they recognize. If you do a retro class full of oldies, just make sure it is announced as such.
Concentrate on Radio Play
Songs that you hear all the time on the radio are main stream. That means that these are the songs the general public is listening to and familiar with. When a student hears a song they know they get excited. It’s the one thing that they can be familiar with in class and it is actually easier for them to pick up the combinations when they know how the song changes. These are the songs you want to pick out for beginner’s class and for expos.
Another great idea is to just use a song that just “hit the airwaves” for a stretch or cool down at the end of class even if you don’t have a routine to it. We also play brand new releases for our “intro songs” as people are coming in the room.
Eclectic songs~ Eclectic and songs that may not be radio play can be some of your favorites. Just remember the new person will not be familiar with the music so save these for advanced classes or introduce them in a beginner’s class along with a song they might recognize.
Promotions Schedule
We really can’t talk about promotions too much. This is an area that we all can improve on. If you don’t have a schedule of what you are going to do over the year to promote your class, chances are you wont get much done.
Take time to schedule an instructor meeting and get a strategy down on paper. We suggest posting a few hundred flyers every single month. How can that be done? You will just need volunteers to post them or incentives for students to help you post. Instructors should help the program by posting flyers as needed. Without promotions, you will not have a class.
Tips:
Start up and Older programs need to concentrate on grass roots promotions. It’s the cheapest and most effective way to get the word out.
Face book and Twitter are good but limited. You should definitely post daily on these sites but you are speaking to a limited community. Paid ads can help you reach more people.
Set a goal of at least 2 expos per year. Start looking for face book venues where you think Dance Trance would be of interest. For example, we perform and give out cards every year at the Southern Women’s Show. Most shows will let you have booths for free. Don’t pay for booths if you do not have enough profit to cover it. There are plenty of free offers and corporate health fairs out there that would love to have you!
Printing
You can print all materials through our corporate office (link is on our homepage) or print materials yourself. We have paid for awesome artwork design that can be edited to your region. We recommend you use our services to save graphic artist and set up fees. If you need to save money and print from home, we just ask that you forward any materials containing our name or logo for approval. *This excludes t-shirts which must be ordered from Dance Trance Fitness.
Printing Services include:
Business Cards
Posters
Brochures
Student Handbooks
Free Passes
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Follow Up on Students
This is a basic concept but is probably the most underutilized. As an instructor it is a great idea to let your director know of any students you may not have seen in class for a while. These students should be contacted either by e-mail or phone and invited back to class. This small task can help keep your class full.
Those with Mindbody software can set Anniversary dates and Birth dates in the system that sends automatically out to all students. This is great because it reaches out to students that may not have been in for quite some time and is a nice reminder that you have been missing them. For those without the software, you can use a card service like Hallmark or American Greetings to do the same thing. Before we got our software system, I just did an excel search on my data base for all August Birthdays and put the emails in one by one. Yes, it is worth it! Always include a free class pass on your card to bring them back through your door!
If you see a student that has not been in class for quite some time, always remark that they have been missed. Its means a lot to them that you even noticed. Communicating and socializing with your students to make them feel like Dance Trance is a home away from home is important and can help your program become a huge success.