How to Reconnect and Re-Enrol Past Students

Want to know the EASIEST way to enrol a new student in your Dance Studio? It's by tapping into one of the most valuable resources that all dance studios have, but rarely use...our list of past students!

On today's podcast Amanda and Bec give their top tips for using that list to enrol loads of students back into your classes and boosting your profit!

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Show Transcription: 

Well, Hi, friends. Hi back. Happy Monday. It is so good to be back on the podcast. How are you my lovely friend? I am super amazing. And we had a great week last week with DPU. And it is week three term two, it's all happening. So exciting. Like I know we've said this for a while, but just to still be back in debt, to be able to do all the things is just so amazing. So so good. And you know, talking about that, I think sometimes we kind of get into that mid term situation. And we stopped enrolling as many people. And that's what we wanted to talk to you about on the podcast today is not being so complacent and thinking i It's week three, it's week four, it's week five, whatever week it is, it's not a good time to have new students in for sure, every week. So good time to have new students and new enrolled students all year round right back all year round. We actually set our goals last week for our term. And our goal is to get 100 new students this term. And we will take new students week 10 of the term without any problems at all. We've got we had trials in this morning for preschool, I think we have to just keep pushing and have to keep trying to get those new numbers in no matter what time it is. Yeah, for sure. So last week's podcast, you heard ash from ignition talk about Facebook ads and how she's getting lots of new inquiries around that was amazing, by the way back, and I both went on that call. But gosh, she gave so much value. But today we're actually talking about how to reconnect and actually reenroll some ex students because sometimes that's easier than getting those new students in the door. Yeah, exactly. And what I love about this is it's people who have already connected they know your brand, they've probably loved your brand before, and especially with COVID. And all the uncertainty that's happened, it's a perfect time to reach out to those people. And you know, let them know that you're still around for sure. And, you know, as you said, they already love your brand, like presuming that, you know, kids change they they leave for different reasons. It's not because you had a big falling out or anything like that, it quite often is, is because they wanted to start netball. The Times didn't suit them this year, perhaps they just forgot to re enroll, perhaps they started a new school or they're going through some changes in their family. It doesn't always have to be that they left for a negative reason people sometimes just forget to enroll in debt. So we know that. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, addressing that, to them realizing that people are busy realizing that people may be needed to settle back in after COVID and get used to real life again, because that's been a whole thing, right? So understanding their perspective of things and just not doubting your own brand that they would opt back into it. I think sometimes we think if someone's left, they could never ever come back to your brand again. But that's not true. We all go back to brands, we all leave brands and then we go drink. So I'll give that brand to go again be at retail or a gym or anything like that. So it's definitely worth reaching out to them. Yeah, for sure. I actually a funny story on this surprise myself, we give out 10 Year awards at our studio. And last year, we I was looking through the list of students that have been there for 10 years. And my team gave me a list and a little girl's name was on it. And I was like, she hasn't been here for 10 years for sure. That's not how that works. And I went through and had a look at her enrollment. And now look, this isn't a normal student. You know, obviously most students are normally very committed. But I had a look at her. And the reason that I had this funny feeling with her is she quite often didn't do term to a lot of the years of her 10 years, I can see that she's dropped off in term two term three, quite often, and has had half a year off. But she's basically been off and on for 10 years. And that's why she was you know, given to me as a list on this 10 Year award because she'd actually done 10 concerts. To me it looked like that she always came back because she loved the concerts. And I don't know what else was going on. And I'm sure my team right we delved into it a little bit, but we all have students like that, that are sort of in and out sometimes because they've got other things on whether that's a big commitment to another sporting or whatever it is. And it's great. Like, obviously I would have loved to have her for the whole 10 years that would have been preferable. But you know what, it's so great that she felt welcome and that she could come back in when it suited her and that's a great thing too.

Yeah, I love that. It sounds like a sport thing to me because that's often when you know sports are sort of on but even I know little athletics finished a few weeks ago. I know that because kids from my school had their little athletics finishing trophy Whatever. So even things like that, when you realize that they do probably opt into a sport, especially those more rec based kids, and that they probably would like to then find something to do for the rest of the year. So that's perfect. Yeah, for sure. So my first thing that I want to make sure and implore that everybody is doing is, you know, reconnecting with those ex students through, you know, just a generic, you know, mailing list and sending them just emails that are just periodically when you have something coming up. So we just have them all on a mailing list. Any ex students that have been with us, we also have a cold leads list for people that having quiet and never enrolled, but we have them separated in our system, so that we can send emails to these ex students, and tell them about upcoming things that we have things like open days, or a special for enrolling, or, you know, the concert, even to invite them to come along and watch the concert. And we just kind of send them you know, sometimes it's two emails a term, sometimes it's one, it changes depending on what's coming up in our business, do you do something similar back? Yeah, if you haven't done this before, it's never too late to start. And I think, you know, every single time a child leaves, my staff always reach out to them and say why, like, we just would like some feedback, please, of why you leave. So we have a spreadsheet with every single child, why they've left. And you know, what classes they were in, and all that sort of information, because a year later, you possibly won't remember that, or two years, or whatever it might be. So that person is always there. And we always know that info. And I think it's good for you to know as well, because sometimes kids leave and we have no idea why. And then we'll be like, Oh, they just weren't enjoying debts anymore. And then you can call that parent up and say, Hey, do you want to try drama or circus so you can always get them to, you know, try something else I always ask, I'm sure you do, as well, for sure. And it's so good. And having that list because like sending generic emails, like we're just talking about is great. But then if you can say something a little bit more personal, if you then want to jump into the more personal side of it, that can be even more powerful. Like Beck was saying, you know, at the end of netball season, or the end of little athletic season, if you have a spreadsheet with all the kids that have left the studio, because you know that their internet ball, sending an email saying congratulations, I heard the end of the Netball seasons just come up. You know, I hope you had an amazing time. If you're looking for a new sport, we'd love to invite you back to dance, you know, reply to this email for a free offer or whatever that is, and reaching out to them for something more personal can be so so powerful. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think sometimes we get overwhelmed with how many there are I know, you know, my staff can I love the idea of grouping it together like that, Amanda. But I also love the idea of just picking 10 and writing an individual email to those 10 saying, Hey, we really miss Sally, she was so great and circus class, you know, we've got a free trial week coming up, would you like to come along, getting a personal email like that for any parent would be so valuable. And if you've got that info there that Sally used to do circus, I think that's really important too. And even if you've got five trials coming in next week, out of those 10, it's worth spending the half hour it would take to write those 10 emails, for sure. So there's so many different ways you can do it, you can do the big generic one, you can do it kind of in small bolts, like you know, you know, like we were saying the Netball or perhaps starting kindergarten stuff, or getting really like granular and going into individual kids. And that is even more powerful. And it just basically depends on what you have the time and the capacity to do in your business. But we recently set a challenge to our tribe members to reach out to 10 students X students that day. And oh my gosh, we had some incredible results. So many people did it, they took the time to call email, text 10x students that hadn't returned, and some of them had seven of them coming back in that night or that week, I'm sorry. And you know, had great results. And it might have taken them half an hour, 40 minutes an hour to do. But to have seven students that are coming back that you know, a students that already love your brand that know everything about your studio. How powerful is that? Yeah, and I know Amanda, you're big on getting your teachers to actually video a message. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Well, I think there's so many different ways you can do this, you know, you can call like obviously a phone call goes such a long way. But it is time consuming. And we know so many parents don't pick up. I prefer texting or emailing because I feel like the you know, people respond and they read more text messages than they do emails.

So I love that as well. But you know, we've done other things that I think have become a bit more personal, which can be really great, like a video message, a video message from the teachers saying, you know, hi, especially if I also think going back on that sorry, before I get carried away with my selfie video that I'm holding in my hand currently is, you know, especially preschoolers and young students, they get very attached to their teachers. They love them so much and quite often and That was something we were talking about, in our last tribe call as well back that so many kids, you know, they love their teachers that they had as a preschooler, and then they don't even realize that they're teaching the afternoon classes. So reaching out to them and letting them know so we do you know, videos of the teacher go, Hi, It's Miss Amanda, I so love to having you in my preschool classes last year, but I miss you, I hope kindergarten is going great. I don't know if you know, but I also teach the after school classes, and I have an awesome classes that I teach on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I'd love for you to come in and have a try. Just give the studio a call or something along those lines. That can be so so powerful, and go straight to the child. And gosh, they feel special when they receive that. Yeah, it's such a simple idea. But like you said, so, so powerful. And that individualization is what's key. Because we do feel like a number often, you know, as a consumer, in anything really be at school, be it at swimming, be it wherever it might be, we do just feel like a number. And, you know, I'm all about that personal touch. I think it's, it's so imperative, especially to keep those lifelong clients. But as you said, people get generic emails all the time. And then we know it's generic. But if they actually got that video, like How amazing would that parent and child feel they, you know, that would be so special. Oh, for sure. And if you can give it a personal touch, like, you know, I used to love when little Susie would bring her toy Teddy to class every week, you know, something like that, that's super personal about them, then the value in that is absolute gold for that parent. So we've done that on text messages before, like just getting the teachers to record a few little videos and texting it from the studio phone. That works really well. We've also done like postcards that we send out I love postcards, because how special is it for little people to receive something in the mail, and we address it to the child as well. And that can be really, really great, because kids, you know, don't get things in the mail anymore. So we have like generic postcards done up, you know that we just get printed on Vistaprint. But then we'll write something Henry written on it and you know, like love their teachers and their teachers name or something like that as well. And usually have like a coupon offer with it as well. Yeah, I love that. And like you could even with your postcard have a QR code to that for them to go to that free trial link. I'm I'm all about flyers and postcards at the moment, because I think if we don't utilize this QR code as much as possible right now, when everyone's so used to using them were crazy. And like you said, everyone's getting so many emails, so many social media ads now that it's kind of becoming something that we're not paying attention to. But when you do get that thing in the mail, or you do get that special card, I think it's something that you would pay a lot more attention to, for sure. There's so many different ways you can do this. And you know, just picking up the phone can be great. It doesn't hurt, don't overcomplicate it, don't make it harder than it needs to be. But just reach out to some old students and invite them to come back for another trial in the class. And so that would be our challenge to you guys today. We would love to challenge you guys to reach out today. Do it today. Don't put it off till tomorrow because something will pop up. So do it today and reach out to 10x students and invite them back to a class and let us know we'd love to know hopefully you can be as successful some of our tribe members who got you know, some of them got three some got five some got seven kids coming back, which is absolutely incredible. Yeah. And I think it's incredible as well, like I said after COVID You know, don't doubt that you can get those people back in you definitely can. And that's what they found anyway. And I'm sure you guys will find the same for sure. And don't feel bad. That's my other last tip. Don't feel bad about you know, prioritizing your list, looking at your ex students and go Yeah, you know what I think she's most likely to return and probably not them. So choose your 10 People wisely. And I think like That's okay, I've had the question before, like, isn't that not fair to the kids that you know, just call the people that you think are going to come back? That's fine. Don't overthink it. Just do the ones that you have had a good connection with and you're hoping that they'll come back. So we'd love to set you that challenge. Please let us know how you go drop us a message on Instagram. And we'd love to know if you got some more students back in your studio for next week. Absolutely. Thanks so much, guys, and we'll talk to you soon.