Community Exposure

By Rhee Gold

Worth Your While

Many school owners are not taking advantage of no-charge marketing opportunities.

For many small businesses, exposure to their product or service within their community is critical to their success. Dance school owners are no exception. Your product is your students. The more local performances and charity events they perform, the more you get product exposure to the local non-dance population. They are your market!

Although many school owners are actively participating in local performances, many are not taking advantage of the “no-charge” marketing opportunities. Some believe they are too busy or it isn’t professional enough to bother accepting the invitation to perform at the local fair, the shopping mall or the annual parade. 

Often those local performances have their pitfalls. A common one is small stages, if there’s one at all and other not-so-pleasant performance venues. I can remember dancing at a fair where we tapped in the mud!

But is it worth it? Absolutely!

Here’s a scenario: Your students have a chance to perform in two separate performances on the same day. The first option is to perform at the new Mayor’s inauguration at Town Hall. On the same day your students have the chance to perform 75 miles away at a theme park. You turn down the Mayor’s inaugural in favor of the out-of-town theme park performance.

At the theme park, did you expose your product to a single potential client? Or, do most of the attendees live too far away to consider registering at your school? Did you have the chance to hand out your brochure? Did you have the chance to include your recreational dancers in the performance or just your best students?

Let’s look at Option Two. Let’s say you did the performance for the new Mayor with a couple hundred town residents in attendance. The local cable station is recording the event to be aired on your local television for the following two weeks. Your town paper is there to do a story and a picture of your dancers lands in the Sunday paper. During the performance the M.C. is constantly announcing your school name. Some of your students’ parents are in the audience handing out your brochure or maybe a coupon for a free class.

To me it’s not a question of whether or not the local performances are worth it. The question becomes, how many community performances can I squeeze in?

Local performances should include all levels of students, especially younger children--always try to include a preschool class. If the children in the audience believe they can do what they see on stage and the parents believe their child can do it, then you’ve got it made. If all the performers are too advanced or performing a degree of difficulty way beyond the average non-dancer, the audience will still enjoy the performance, but the “I can do that factor” diminishes a bit. 

Goldrush Readers Weigh In

Following are some of the performance/marketing ideas offered by Goldrush readers.

I advertised with flyers, radio, newspaper, and we participated in local parades. It turns out the parades and the flyers brought in 90 percent of my students. The parades are free and the flyers at most cost 25 cents!

Kelly Frampton, Lakeside Dance, Conneaut Lake, PA

I outsource myself and another instructor to choreograph for schools in the area. The educators and directors of these programs will then promote our studio. I recently had a parent of a fifth grader come to me wanting to know if her child should start taking dance at the studio in preparation for ninth grade show with auditions which is a huge deal in my town. This summer I expect 30 to 40 kids to enroll in our summer program to prepare for upcoming auditions held at their schools. You will not get rich working for the school district, but you will get tons of promotion opportunities. I choreographed a high school production of "Footloose," and the studio flooded with calls after three sold-out performances. This spring I am working on "Guys 'N Dolls!"

Anne Bennett, Just Dancin', Arlington, TX

We produce at least two Nutcrackers in December, and a show/recital in June. Last year we did "Cinderella" and this year we're doing "Hooray for the USA" at a local theatre on July 2.  If this is successful, I may try a Halloween show there at the end of October. This could keep my students coming over the summer, as performing is their main motivation. Otherwise my summer drop-off rate is 70%.

Maria Jacobs, Valley Forge Dance School LLC, King of Prussia, PA

All of our students participate in an annual performance at an historic Vaudeville theatre in our downtown district. We present a story ballet or theme ballet so that every child feels that they are an integral part of the production. I often employ the talents of local actors to play character roles or provide necessary narration or M.C. roles. Ballet students may audition for our performing company which affords them an additional theatre production annually as well and the opportunity to dance for schools and community events.

Marianne Crawford Hale, Athens School of Ballet, Athens, GA

We produce a dance presentation at the end of the year in mid December. At that time of the year, we get a lot of free press and word of mouth. The phone rings off the wall in January and if the show is a success (which it always is) students sign up for more classes than the year before.

Sarita Zuniga, Sarita's Dance Studio, San Antonio, TX

A month after we begin classes all our students perform at a local festival held in our community. New students may not do much but we do not treat them any differently than we do returning students who perform their routines from our prior seasons show. Also we have our spring performance and everyone is also invited to perform at our local county fair.

N. Jeanine Baxter, Catch A Star Performing Arts Center, Seymout, IN 

All my students perform at our annual "Spaghetti for the Starz" dinner and show, "Dancin in the Park" another show we put on outside at a local park that has a stage, our annual recital, we also perform at talent shows and parades, PTO dinners and any other events that come up in the community. 

Jenny Welcher, The Dance Craze, Drexel, MO

We invite the community to our recitals, free of charge. Our performances are a great way not only to show off student talent, but also to get the word out about our studio.

Jenny Griffes, University City YMCA Dance, Charlotte NC

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