Category: Dance Studio Branding
How to Choose an Effective Slogan for your Dance Studio

Do you have a dance studio slogan?

We’re all familiar with the slogans (otherwise known as taglines) that the big companies use. Slogans such as “Just Do It”, “The Good Hands People”, and “Got Milk?” have, like it or not, become a part of the American fabric.

But slogans are not just for large businesses. Smaller businesses, including dance schools, benefit greatly from the boost that a well-crafted tagline gives to a brand’s strength, visibility, and perceived value. A slogan done right will direct people to your dance studio and promise an experience that can’t be duplicated anywhere else.

Make Your Dance Studio's Tagline Shine!

Some say that a slogan is more important than a logo or even your company name – and it is often overlooked. So how do you choose an effective slogan? Take the cue from your studio itself.

For example, if you’re proud that your dance studio has been around longer than any other in your town, use something like “Sharing the gift of dance since 1987.” Then consider adding your slogan to your logo.

Use your slogan as a tagline on all of your brochures, advertisements and invoices. Repeat it over and over again. More prospects will call you because they know what you do and what you’re about.

The best slogans are brief, repeatable and memorable.

Spend a little time brainstorming to determine what you want to communicate with your dance studio’s slogan. You may decide on one that emphasizes:

  • Your greatest benefit:
    “Professional dance with a joyful attitude“,
  • The feelings you want to evoke in your customers:
    “Become the dancer of your imagination“, or
  • The action you are trying to generate from your customers:
    “Join the dance revolution!“

You can even use a slogan to signify a change in the direction of your studio. Danskin brand, for instance, has evolved from its dance heritage to providing active wear and casual wear for active everyday lifestyles. To reflect this change in concept, they’ve adopted the slogan – “Clothes for Living”. It may not be the catchiest slogan, but it does reposition the company into the mainstream clothing market.

After brainstorming, go through all of your ideas. Pull out those few you think have the best potential. Try to reduce longer ones to fewer words. Get input from as many people as possible.

Once you’ve made your decision, begin to think of your dance studio slogan as an extension of your business name, and a potential tool that will help your studio thrive. Update your studio website to incorporate it there, and begin referencing your slogan freely & often as you do business!

Best wishes,
Stacey

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Are you tired of your studio’s website? Ready for a website overhaul? Please take a look at our dance studio website design portfolio, and see whether we’re a good fit!

Is your Dance Studio’s Website Doing its Job?

We all have websites these days. We recognize them as non-negotiable for our businesses, but rarely use them to best effect. Sure, your website ‘pops’ visually and gives visitors good basic information about your dance studio and its offerings, but does it give people a true sense of your school and what it’s about? Does it reach out and grab prospects, making it clear that there is no better studio in the world for them and/or their children?

Getting clear on the purpose and goals of your dance studio’s website will hugely improve the experience of those visiting your site, and that can mean more new students coming through your doors. To that end, here are three exercises that will provide some clarity. Grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, and dig in!

Is your dance studio's website doing its job?

Exercise #1 – Your Audience(s):

Consider your audience(s) – who visits your website? Obvious things that come to mind to me are existing customers and prospective customers. Also, students themselves may visit your website as well as dance parents. And members of your community? Alumni?

Action: Take a few minutes to make a list of your audiences, either in a fresh text document or on a piece of paper.

Exercise #2 – Your Website’s Purpose:

You may have a fantastic dance studio website design – an easy-to-navigate showstopper with all the bells and whistles. But are you getting your message across? What do you want people to KNOW about you and your dance studio once they leave your website?

Take a few good minutes and identify the mission – the purpose – of your website. Does it differ depending on the audience? Possibilities include:
  • Intriguing prospects enough that they reach out and contact you
  • Describing your dance classes and programs to people considering dance studios in your area
  • Impressing upon your website visitors your status as the #1 dance studio in your area
  • Reducing help requests by providing all pertinent studio information on your site

Action: Write down your thoughts on your website’s purpose. If you had to choose only one main purpose, what would that be?

Exercise #3 – Visitor Goals:

People come to your website with a specific task in mind. If it isn’t easy to complete that task, they’ll leave. Identifying the most likely visitor goals for your studio’s site lets you gauge whether your website is serving them (and therefore you) well.

What are the top goals visitors want to complete on your website? For example, do they want to find out about class times? Figure out what their child should be wearing to ballet class? Register for classes?

If you’re not sure what the goals are, consider what questions dance parents and prospects ask most when they send you an email or call your studio. Ideally, you can talk to people in the different audience groups to determine what is important to them. I’m sure they’ll be happy to give you input.

Action: Write down your thoughts and findings, and then rank them. What is likely to be your visitors’ #1 top task or goal?

And now what do you do with your findings?

Now take the information from these exercises and take a look through your dance studio’s website.

Is the website a good match for your intended audience (or audiences)? Does is quickly and clearly convey your website’s purpose? Are the most likely goals of your visitors easy for them to execute?

If so, FANTASTIC… carry on. If not, consider how to modify your website to fix these issues.

Any thoughts on this topic? I’d love to hear! Please post any comments in the section below.

Best wishes,
Stacey

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In need of a new website for your dance studio? Take a look at our dance studio website design portfolio, and see whether we’re a good fit!
Dance Studio Branding – Set Your Studio Apart from the Rest

As individuals, we are marvelously unique. Unfortunately, even though dance studio owners are one-of-a-kind, it’s often difficult to differentiate one dance studio in a community from another. Not standing out from your competitors can be a huge problem, resulting in lower enrollment and less loyalty from existing students. Here’s what to do about it!

Set Your Studio Apart from the Rest:

What is your dance studio's unique selling point?What is the one important and compelling reason why someone should take classes from your studio and not your competitors’? In the advertising, sales and marketing worlds, the answer to this question is called your Unique Selling Proposition (or USP). It is, in essence, a sentence or phrase that sets your studio apart from your competitors. Your ability to attract and retain new dancers greatly increases with your understanding of what makes your studio unique.
So how do you come up with a Unique Selling Proposition for your dance studio? Start by taking a few moments to consider your studio from an outsider’s point of view. Be honest about what your studio’s strengths are. Perhaps it’s your own personal experience that brings students to your studio. Maybe it’s that you offer a wider range of classes or have instructors who are particularly well trained.

Is it difficult to step away from your studio and look at it with a fresh eye? Ask some of your current or past students’ parents and ask them why they chose your studio.

To get you started, here are some examples of Unique Selling Propositions. Your USP could be related to:

  • The fact that you’ve been in business longer than any other studio in the area – Arthur Murray’s USP, for example, is “Since 1912 we have been teaching the world to dance”. For Regency Dance Academy in Richmond, VA, it’s “Celebrating 25 Years of Dance Excellence!”.
  • The professional results your students have had after years of training at your studio – One studio, for example, features the fact that “Many former students have pursued performing careers appearing on Broadway and National Tours including Footloose, A Chorus Line, Cats, Smoky Joe’s Cafe, 42nd Street, Beauty and The Beast, David Copperfield World Tour, Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, and Saturday Night Fever.”
  • Your focus on childhood education – If arts education and the development of the “whole child” is especially important to you, you may choose a USP such as: “Providing quality dance education in a nurturing atmosphere and developing in students a sense of belonging and self esteem.”
  • Your having received an award or some special recognition – Have you been recognized for outstanding community leadership or a life-long dedication to preserving and promoting dance in your community? A USP based on this fact will increase the trust your customers and prospects have in your studio.
  • Your emphasis on a certain type or style of dance – Hop to the Beat Dance Studio provides a great example of this. First and foremost on their website they state, “We are based in the Boston, Massachusetts, USA area and specialize in Lindy Hop”. Their niche is obvious, and their customer prospects are clearly those who live in the Boston area and are interested in learning how to Lindy Hop.

Each studio has its own strengths, with potential for creating a powerful competitive edge. By focusing on and emphasizing what is unique about your studio, you give customers a reason to choose you over your competitors.

I’m interested… what’s your studio’s USP? Let me know in the comments below!

Best wishes!
Stacey

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In need of a new website for your dance studio? Take a look at our dance web design portfolio, and see whether we’re a good fit!

 

Why Should Newbies Choose Your Dance Studio?

Quick! Can you describe this very second what makes your studio unique from others in your area? What sets you apart from your competitors? If you know and stress your studio’s strengths, you’ll give dancers/dance parents a reason to initially choose your studio, even if it’s a longer drive, or even if your classes cost a little more than the studio that’s just around the corner from them. You’ll also give them a reason to stay with your studio for the long haul. A greater sense of loyalty emerges when a dancer understands and buys into a studio’s clearly defined philosophy.

For example, if a prospective student wants to someday compete and succeed at a high level of dance, and you proudly feature your competition team and their accomplishments in your brochure, on your website, and in your press releases, the newbie will feel more compelled to join your studio. And later, when talking to their friends at school, they’ll feel extra pride and enthusiasm when talking about their experiences. Pride and enthusiasm that may well encourage their friends to start dancing with you too!

If competition is an important part of your studio’s identity, but ISN’T given any special marketing emphasis, how will a new student (and/or their parents) see you as the obvious choice for them? The same, of course, goes for studios that are special for nurturing the needs of very young dancers, being on a professional track, or offering fun recreational dance classes for all ages.

Think about what makes your studio unique, and let it set you apart from the pack!

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