Thread: Spin-off - Marketing Your Classes

Taking off from Lauren's excellent suggestions for marketing in the "Thinking of Closing Shop" thread. I have taken her advice to heart (thanks, Lauren!) and I am doing more to market my classes.

Has anyone heard of Teachstreet.com? Who uses their website and is it worth paying $3 per listing? I had never heard of them until they sent me a notice that they were listing me as a teacher, and the information was so wrong that I went in and corrected it. They said I was teaching Goddess Belly Dance. I have NO IDEA where they got that information, it was rather strange as I have never said that anywhere in print, on line or off line, LOL. They have listed my classes for free for several months now they want $3 per listing. I find their system a little confusing to use, too with the Sessions and the Listings, I'm not quite sure what the difference is.

Anyhoo, in addition to Lauren's other ideas, I am planning to do a feedback survey with all my students in the next couple of weeks. I want to hear from them what is working and what is not working, as I am still new to teaching on-going classes. I both love it and find it a challenge.

What other marketing tips do Bhuzzers use?

I know some dancers do a regular monthly newsletter to their supporters, I'm toying with that idea. I do send out an email to colleagues, students and former students whenever a new session is starting up.

I fell for Teachstreet. I think they just have a generic content ("Goddess dance" "Ethnic dance" ) & pluck out people from online info (my website). I couldn't edit some of it, so it is a mess, also they list an 800 number on everything that I think is some sort of Teachstreet itself promo line. [I didn't call it myself]. Now they want money, or it will all just go away. Good.
Some folks may have a difference experience than I have with them. Most people find me online by typing in Bellydance and my area. I list in every reputable online free listing that I find, such as Shira's.

Word of mouth in my upstate NY small city (but close to Montreal) area, by market studies, is the #1 form of advertising success.
Mostly, I spend "myself" on advertising, I basically am selling ME ("me" not "MiddleEastern") - my best feature is being a good salesperson.
I sometimes do paid ads just so my name appears in local ads, but not much, the expense has little return really. List myself on every free thing I can find time to pursue.
A sample of dances on a DVD is a huge asset. Short clips only for approx. 10 min. total. showing wide repetoire of styles & costuming. I give these to people, I don't expect them back. They are homemade, the blank DVDs are maybe $.50 ea.
My experience is that promo materials (flyers, cards, dvds, etc) do not have to be super glossy & high level professional (but if you can that, so much the better), but important to be clear and to the point. I do the best I can with limited resources.
Get all the free help you can to help with promotion. Family, friends, students, pick their brains & use their talents. Barter with free classes, coaching, something handmade, or just the goodness of their hearts in being helpful.
I just had a college student contact me to use me as her publishing class project! She's going to make promo stuff for me.
Getting your services out there in a favorable way to the public eye is the point.
Pretend you have never thought of hiring a Bellydancer for your venue, role play. What would attract YOU on a flyer or statment?

Everywhere I go, I take cards, flyers. I like to think I am pleasant but not pushy. I chat with beauty shop folks, fabric stores, schools, etc etc. I make deals with people, barter, offer discounts to first time stuff, etc.

I do a lot of benefit performing, work with schools, institutions. I don't do free auditions for audiences at venues, nor undercut nor undercharge. I tailor shows & private parties to clients' needs. I have different formats & rates that I offer.
Now that I am older, I do less as I have less energy for constant self-promotion. I am constantly thinking up ideas...but don't have the time to put into action is my prob.
I look upon it both as business and spreading goodwill and positive energy.
So this is just me...g.:
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I wrote a blog post about what I am doing for marketing.

Thus far I've been teaching through the community centres, who market my classes in their newsletters and leisure guide. I also have a shared brochure with another teacher (we do a lot of work together and send students to each other) that we distribute mostly to our students but also at events; sometimes we have a booth at local fairs and such. I have an e-newsletter sign-up sheet at my classes and I send out an email before a new session starts. Like LeisaB., I've found word of mouth is the most effective. I often get groups of friends signing up together.

I also do promotion through my facebook group (though I am very careful not to spam people - I send messages before a new session same as with email) and through my facebook status updates and I've gotten some new students that way as well.

I'm about to start a new session of classes that I've rented a studio for and am running on my own, so I'm going to be watching this thread with interest. I will need to promote harder without the added advertising of the community centre brochures.

Good ideas, ScarletDancer, thanks!

Keep 'em coming.

One tip I got from Saqra was to rotate the focus of my Beginning Classes, so that one session is on veils and shimmies, the next session on zills and fast moves, etc. That may get some beginners to sign up for two sessions, at least. I have a lot of beginners who don't return after one session, but it has been better since I started doing this.

We had a fairly long thread on Teachstreet here: http://www.bhuz.com/forum/belly-danc...achstreet.html

O don't do teach street now that they charge, not worth it. People may contact you and you pay, that doesn't mean they come.

Faaria I already came to the same conclusion, not worth paying for, especially as it's not clear to me that anyone who would be trying to find local classes even knows about TeachStreet.

Am I losing my mind, are there two threads with this title? There was a post from Razia, and now I don't see it, I'm so confused.

Gaaa, there ARE two identical threads, I have no idea how I did that. I am deleting the other one as there are more replies here.

It's been a weird couple of days, this is just more weirdness I guess.

Yes I put classes up when it was free, I gues that was just a marketing hook but ahh well.

Ixnay on Teachstreet.

Our part of the USA is not an easy place to be a belly dance studio. BD is offered at some YMCAs and community centers as an exotic form of exercise (Interested in "shakin' it like a belly dancer"? Curious about wearing a hip scarf with coins?) but it is not mainstream enough to be recognized as an dance art to be pursued for the long term.

Flyers, ads, etc are all good tools in some places, but not for us. Our main focus is to know what we are selling and make that information easily available on the Internet. Since we've now been in business for five years, half of our business comes from word-of-mouth, but the other half comes from people who choose us after comparing their options via the Internet. Our website is very clear about what we offer, we have lots of videos, and we aim to give people enough info to decide Yes or No. We do not want to convince everyone, or even most of them, that we are the studio for them. We just want the students who are going to enjoy our format very much.

Teachstreet is kind of silly, surely it's easier to google what you're looking for in the first place!? But I did a listing since it was there, why not -

I know I'm not a teacher (far from it ..l;,) anyways i saw this on bellydance forum & thought it was a brilliant marketing idea though it would take work.
Where will I Dance This Week

Maybe more than 'kind of silly' and definately brilliant marketing ... for Teach street! Earlier this week we got an email telling us that our account was being extended for another 30 days for free. Huh? Even if we didn't have our own publicity model and our own way of paying online, we wouldn't join after hearing that Teachstreet.com farmed Shira's site. We never joined Teach street (TS). Nevertheless, we became a member last year in August along with many others, I guess!

So I went out to check our 'listing.' OMG, TS has bestowed their OWN flipping phone number on our 'listing' as the contact number and, oh great, we are favorited by a fellow drinking a can of beer who turns out to be a member of their development team. When I called the number, I heard THEIR response (with the phrase 'Ruric-Amari' inserted by a human voice who sounds like a 75-year-old smoker who is pronouncing it wrong, what a great help!) with an offer to 'leave a message' or 'connect directly with <ruuurhk hamari>. If I try to 'connect directly' something rings a few times (doubt it is Ruric's phone!) and then I get, not Ruric's business message, but '<RurickHamari> is not available, please leave a message for <RurickHamari>.' I left a message, just to see what the next stage would be. Two minutes later an email came into Ruric's business email oox with my phone number (hm, wonder who they'll be selling my phone number to! ) and a 3-second audio message embedded in it... the audio message turned out to have no words in it, just the sound of a phone hanging up! Way to go, TS!!

This has got to be some kind of illegal. At no time in the whole process did any message inform me that I was connected with TS's voice mail, not with Ruric's . I had to google for a way to cancel the listing (cannot find it from within Help on their own website), reset the password (because we never had one, duh!) and cancel the account. I'll monitor this situation for the next week or so.

Bottom line: They are not simply selling services; they are trying to insert themselves between us and our customers without our permission. We don't need no-value-added middlemen. I don't want their unprofessional phone messages, generic listings and pictures representing us to customers; I don't want potential customers on marketing call lists because they were suckered into using TS; and I don't like the idea of having to monitor these people in order to keep them from pulling this again. This feels like blackmail. "Pay us $3/month or we'll try to take over your public interface.' Yuk.

Oh, Maruazebra, glad I read that. Just checked and I'm listed the same way.

I read about their 'call tracker' feature, they think it's a 'service' LOL. I left my free listing up and turned 'call tracker' off under 'settings.'

It won't display my actual number or contact info unless I pay them. But now it just tells people I exist and teach yoga and bellydance, so they can google me for further info. I decided to leave the listing up, it's not hurting me ANY MORE.

That phone number thing was a monstrosity.

Wow! I'm so glad I stumbled upon this thread. I was just contemplating the TeachStreet thingy. They had sent me an email too, and it has been plaguing me "should I /shouldn't I??" and I'm relieved to hear that it is something not worth spending my precious resources---time and fundage--on. Thanks ladies! mwah!

I don't know what was said in the other thread and I don't want to go looking for it, so excuse me if this has been discussed...

Have you tried Craig's List? I tend to post announcments there thinking that there are probably quite a few people who would be more likely to browse CL without doing a google search.

Our community papers also have free listings for such things and they often get posted online too.

Advertising on your own for classes can be hard. It takes patience and redundancy.

I have tended to avoid Craig's List because while browsing there I have come across so much off-the-wall, negative and crazy sh** on the discussion forums. But it might be worth a try, maybe the listings are read by nicer people. I do need to cast a wider net, so to speak. There are a LOT of good belly dance teachers in my town, so competition is pretty stiff. Fortunately, though, teacher relations have been great, most of us belong to the local Guild and perform together regularly.

Originally Posted by dunyah

. There are a LOT of good belly dance teachers in my town, so competition is pretty stiff. Fortunately, though, teacher relations have been great, most of us belong to the local Guild and perform together regularly.

That is so nice to hear! I bet you have all worked hard to keep it that way - it CAN work!