Create your studio website (Free)

Ensuring your webpage works hard for you Whether you have taken advantage of a free PracticeSpot studio webpage, or have created one of your own, simply having the webpage is not enough. You need to make sure it gets noticed by prospective students in the first place. Otherwise it’s just another webpage amongst hundreds of millions of others on the internet. So how do you do this? Simple really—your webpage’s job is to promote your studio. Which means you need to take some steps to promote your webpage. Voicemail message As the first impression of your teaching studio, your voicemail message is probably already more than just a "Hi—leave your message". Now you can also include your web address in that outgoing message, so that even if the prospective student wasn’t able to catch you on the phone straight away, they can go and get more information about your studio anyway. So the message might be something like: Hi, this is Alison Smith, and the number for Smith Flute Studios. If this is an enquiry about music lessons, please leave a message, or visit my webpage at www.alisonsmith.practicespot.com" From the webpage, they can probably find out the answer to their questions, and can also email you to arrange an interview.   Annex to Yellow Pages or newspaper ads Yellow Pages or Newspaper ads can be tremendously effective, but the limitation of ads like these is always one of space—there’s only so much you can squeeze into the inches you are paying for. However carefully you word the message, there will always be the feeling that there’s plenty you had to leave out. This is where your studio website comes to the rescue. Put a few attention grabbing points in the conventional print ad, and then make sure your web address is featured prominently. Once the ad has created curiosity for the prospective parent, your website can sell them on the rest. (Again, the very fact that you even have a studio website will impress prospective parents) The end result? You can make thousands of words of information available to your reader, without having to resort to an enormous and prohibitively expensive advertisement. You just need to state "For more information, go to the studio website at (your address here)" Your website takes over from there, providing a wealth of information about your studio that a printed ad never could.   Letterbox Drops Your desktop publishing program and color printer can help produce impressive brochures for local letter box drops, and because the targets are all in your neighborhood, you have the instant advantage of being perceived as "nearby" for any parents who are looking for music lessons. The only disadvantage is that plenty of other music teachers in your area will also be doing letter box drops—because it’s cheap and easy for them too. You can help yours stand out from the crowd, because yours is going to feature a link to a website: We’re just around the corner, and you can get more information about the studio 24 hours a day at (your address here)" The end result? Your competitors do their letterbox drop, and the only thing parents will know about their studio is what is contained in the brochure. Your letterbox drop provides access to much more information—together with the sense that your studio must be a little more established (it must be to have its own website, is how the thinking goes). It’s a little thing. But it’s often a little thing that will help the readers call you instead of someone else.   Online discussions, newsgroups and email Google or Yahoo newsgroups have plenty of thriving communities devoted to music lessons. You can take part in discussions—and help prospective students find you—by including your studio website address in your signoff for each message. (As long as you are genuinely contributing to the discussion at hand, this shouldn’t be perceived as spam) Be generous in your willingness to provides answers to questions from students and parents. You’ll be surprised at how often those answers will come back in the form of enquiries. Similarly, you can set up your email client (usually Eudora or Outlook) to automatically sign off your emails with your name and web address—all helping to create an awareness that your site exists.   Online music teacher registries There are several websites on the net that are extensive directories of music teachers. The student types in the area they live in, the instrument they want to learn, and the directory will provide the contact details of teachers who match. There are plenty of such directories to choose from (and PracticeSpot will be creating its own in the not-too-distant-future), but two you might like to try in the meantime are: • www.teachlist.com • www.musicstaff.com How does this help? There will be a space where you can enter your studio website address. Most teachers leave this blank, because they don’t have a studio website—giving you an immediate edge over the other "matched" teachers.   On your letterhead Instead of simply displaying name, address and email, your letterhead can also now include your web address. Don’t just use it for your studio correspondence though. Use it for all your non-personal mail—it’s not guaranteed to bring thousands of students stampeding to your door, but it just may be that the person who received your mail notices the letterhead, and has a kid who is thinking of starting lessons. Like all lotteries, you can’t win unless you buy a ticket—and this ticket is free, and takes seconds to add to your letterhead template. Telephone Enquiries When potential students call, it’s not about what you do tell them. It’s about what you couldn’t. Most enquiries only take a couple of minutes, making it tough to communicate everything that is great about your studio. Once you have your own studio website, instead of just ending the call with "goodbye", the last thing they can hear from you is "Listen, if you have any more questions about all of this, you can find out just about everything you need to know at the studio website at..." The very fact that you have a studio website in the first place will impress. (How many other music teachers can boast their own website?) And the information there just might help trigger an interview. Your local music stores They’re a great place to advertise. Not because other music teachers go there, but because music students—and their parents—have to go there too. (They have to get their music, metronomes and exercise books from somewhere!). A well placed advertisement with some tear-off strips featuring your webpage address will attract the attention of parents while they shop, and if the time should ever come for a change of teacher, it will help ensure that your name leaps to mind. Submit to Search Engines Successfully placing your website high on search engine searches is an art in itself, but one thing is sure—for the index based search engines such as "Yahoo", unless you submit your site, you won’t be listed at all. Take some time to visit the most popular search engines and discover whether or not it’s possible to submit your site—if you can, you should.   Found this helpful? It's just a start - the PracticeSpot Guide to Promoting your Teaching Studio is the largest collection of studio promotion techniques ever assembled. Over 240 pages of ideas, inspiration and analysis from Philip Johnston, founder of PracticeSpot, and author of The Practice Revolution. Free shipping to all destinations - this is the ultimate guide for teachers who are serious about growing their studios.

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