Today I’m going to share with you a 5-point checklist to help you makeover your marketing. This is the list you’ve been waiting for, and I can’t wait to dive into this topic with you.
We know that studio owners so would love the opportunity just to have someone to bounce their ad off and say, “Can you tell me is this headline OK or is this quote action OK?” That’s one of the inclusions of our beautiful program, Studio Evolution, are weekly marketing makeovers for our clients.
Literally what happens is our Evolution members submit a piece of their marketing – whether it’s a poster or a Facebook ad or a flyer. Then the next day, we give them a video showing them, “Tweak the headline to be like this, or this would be a stronger call-to-action.” They make the changes, and then they’re off and running with their very powerful, high-converting studio marketing.
So I thought I’d share with you this easy 5-point checklist to make your marketing shine.
#1: The call-to-action.
So often, marketing will fail this test – whether it’s on social media or in posters. And that is, there is not strong explicit, clear, direct instruction of what to do next.
Yes, you might put your website at the bottom, but there’s no imperative instruction saying, “Here is what to do.”
You have to make it so simple for people. Imagine that they’re 3 years old. And just like you would give very specific instructions to a 3-year-old, you literally want to do the same in your marketing. You need to be so explicitly direct as to say, “Click here and enroll now” or “Click here and download the information pack now.”
Too often we leave things off in the hope that they’re just going to go to the website and or take action on their own without the specific instruction, “Just do this.” A strong call-to-action will save you every time.
#2: Consistency of branding.
If I look at your Facebook post or if I look at the poster about your studio, could I then be able to go to your website and see, “Oh yeah, they’re connected. That’s from the same brand.”?
So with this, we’re looking to see if the same colors used on the website are used in the marketing. Are you using the same or similar fonts, and maybe the same design elements?
How are you linking every single bit of your marketing so that it looks like a cohesive whole, so it looks structured and consistent?
So one of the best tools that I can encourage you to use is Canva. There’s a free version of Canva, but if you use the Canva for work, you can have all of your brand colors and fonts consistently across everything you create.
Your marketing always looks professional. It always has the same look and feel. That is one of the most defining features of what takes your studio brand from looking okay to looking amazing.
#3: Highly emotive language.
This is the difference between saying something like, “Join our fun, friendly lessons where students will do dance, ballet, tap, hip-hop, jazz, and contemporary.”
Instead, with rich and evocative descriptions, you paint the picture of the experience they will have. For example, “Watch your child twirl into the room beaming with joy as she looks at her teachers who are nurturing her progress and encouraging her talent,” – something along the lines of that.
The way you describe the experience in a very evocative way is by bringing in verbs, adjectives, and colorful language. This takes the description from blah to vibrant and engaging, and just like that, the parent is saying, “Oh, that is exactly what I want for my child.”
Describe the experience, not the actual things they’re going to be doing. The more evocative you can make your language, the more your marketing will pop.
#4: Keep your marketing messages short and sweet.
Most studio owners I know try and include everything in the kitchen sink in their marketing. They put in every detail. If they have a 3-page brochure, they will have it in the smallest possible font because they’re trying to fit in every tiny detail.
The biggest thing I can remind you of is that each piece of advertising is a new one step in the journey.
For example, the intention of the brochure is just to get them to go to your website where you can walk them through a much greater detail. You don’t have to tell them everything upfront. Focus on those early connection steps and simply describe the experience in a way that is going to engage them. Details come later.
#5: Remember this one little mantra: one ad, one purpose.
Many studio owners are trying to do too much with one single piece of marketing. They try to get people to go here, then look at this, then read our FAQs, and then look at the expanded program here.
Each piece of marketing is meant to do just one thing. All you need to do is reiterate the one thing you want them to do.
And the same thing goes for your emails. One email, one purpose, one intention.
If you keep it very clear, very systematic, very simple, you’re going to get the best results with your marketing and enroll more students, which is what we all want.
Our Studio Evolution members love having their marketing reviewed every single week and being able to have someone from Team Expansion say, “Well, this would be a more powerful headline,” or “What if you said this to describe the experience,” or “Here is how I change the design.” That kind of expert feedback is invaluable, and it was one of the most adored elements of our Evolution program.
