Today’s episode is all about the importance of first impressions. First impressions are formed when people engage in new experiences with your music school.
The moment they make that first call. The first time they step into a lesson. The first time they utilize your kitchenette. The first time they step foot in your space. These instances all contribute to forming initial impressions.
Marketing Vs Branding
Another way to approach this topic is to consider it through the lens of marketing versus branding. Everybody gets marketing. Everybody knows what that is. Marketing is your efforts to attract new students. Branding, however, is a little more elusive.
Jeff Bezos provides an insightful take on branding, stating, “Branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Your brand is what people think and feel about you. It’s people’s impression of you.
You Are a Living and Breathing Brand
As an individual, you also have your own unique brand. People hold opinions about you.
Some might describe you as kind, generous, empathetic, or an attentive listener. This constitutes your personal brand. While you can’t dictate people’s perceptions, you can exert an influence.
If you want people to perceive you as a generous person, partaking in acts of generosity achieves that. However, this doesn’t guarantee a particular perception.
While you can control your marketing messages, you can’t predict how everyone will respond. Your brand, though uncontrollable, can still be steered.
First Impressions Are Formed in Seconds
You can think of your branding on a more macro level. Think about the colors and the messaging that you use on your website. These elements can influence or persuade people’s feelings about you.
However, in this episode, let’s dive deeper and focus on the initial impressions people form. Imagine preparing for a job interview. Your attire for the interview matters—it influences that initial impression, one formed within seconds.
Certainly, other things are going to happen in a job interview, gradually shaping that impression. Yet, you always want to lead with a powerful initial impact.
– – – EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS – – –
First Impressions: A One-Time Opportunity
We all know the phrase, “You only have one chance to make a first impression.” However, there’s another twist I came across in a headline today: “You’ll never have a second chance to make a first impression.” What does this mean for your music school?
Did you realize that your music school creates multiple first impressions? Prospective clients or students start forming impressions from the moment they hear about you, extending all the way to the first recital or performance.
The journey from brand awareness to performance is filled with instances where customers shape their initial perceptions of your business. These can also influence their first impressions of specific aspects of your business.
All new clients enter your music school with a level of uncertainty. It’s going to take time for that uncertainty to develop into confidence. Confidence in your ability to live up to who you say your are.
Moments That Make For a First Impression
1. Attractive Claims from a Friend
Say someone hears about your music school from a friend. That friend’s just gushing over how amazing your school is! From that point on, they’re already starting to form an impression. That friend’s credibility and the amount of trust that they have for their friend form their first impressions of your music school.
Strong Impressions are Formed Based on Trust
Imagine this friend who’s consistent in making referrals on just about anything, like movies to watch or restaurants to dine at. If they have a high regard for this friend’s taste, they’re that much more likely to form a strong impression about you. They’re that much more likely to assume that everything their friend says about you is true.
Referrals Can Help Ease Your Marketing Efforts
These types of people are great new customers to have because they make it easy to promote your business, and you really don’t have to do much work. Your friend and this prospective client have done all the hard work for you.
The ultimate goal is for your clients to become brand evangelists. A brand evangelists loves your music school and how it’s helped their child, so much that they feel compelled to tell their friends about it.
2. Infectious Word-of-Mouth
We all know that word-of-mouth is the most persuasive and the most powerful form of marketing out there. I got a feeling that most of your students came to your music school as a result of word of mouth. These people come into your music school all pumped and hyped.
How Owning the Experience Can Develop Impressions Further
From the moment they interact with your music school, they now shift from their friend’s credibility to their own experience. Now, it’s their own experience that influences and taints their perspective. It’s their experience that forms their impression of your music school.
3. Your Ranking on Google Sends a Message of Authority
Sometimes, people can find you through a Google search. The fact that you’re listed number one or two on Google’s results page might be the beginning of them forming their first impression of you. They might think, “Oh, they’re listed at the top. They must be a music school worth checking out.” Then, they land on your website. Your website is really where people’s first impression begins to come into focus.
When people look at your website you want it to amplify whatever level of interest, curiosity, or excitement they had prior to visiting it.
Click-Worthy Elements Attract Visitors to Your Website
Think of your website as your digital storefront to the world. Imagine you’re walking down the street in New York City and you decide that you want to grab a bite to eat. There are restaurants all around you all up and down the street. How are you going to choose which one to go to?
It’s like when people Google “music lessons near me”. They’re walking down the digital street of Google, and there’s your music school and all these other music schools listed. How do they choose which one to go to?
Quite often, what makes one music school better than another? Better in terms of the eyes, of its community, and of its market? It isn’t the music lesson. It’s everything else that’s happening around the music lesson.
Walking In Your Prospect’s Shoes: 12 Ways First Impressions Impact Your Music School
1. Your Website is Your Digital Storefront
So you’re walking on the street in Manhattan and you walk up to a restaurant. What would impact your decision whether to eat there or not? You first see the front of the restaurant. Upon seeing the signage, your very first impression began to form. The restaurant’s storefront created an impact and influenced your impression.
2. Align Your Expectations With What You Claim to Be
You look at the menu. Glancing at it, you see some of the dishes. Perhaps some of the items they offer are consistent with the type of restaurant they are. If it’s an Italian restaurant, there are certain dishes that you expect to see on the menu.
3. People Scan Your Website to Form an Opinion
You glance at the prices to kind of give you a sense of what you’re getting into. Then, you lean up against the window and look inside to get a glimpse of their interior. Within seconds, you’re forming a first impression. All right. You check Google and see some reviews. They all look great! You decided you’re going in there to eat.
Your music school’s whole decor and interior—and the first time a new student interacts with it—they’re forming that first impression.
4. Impressions Are Weaved as You Navigate Experience
Now you’re going to have an experience. It’s your first meal, and your first impression is going to form and develop even more.
5. Hire a Professional
The same goes for your music school. People land on your website and form an impression. This could be on the colors and the design that you use. Also, on whether you built your website yourself or hired a professional. These factors are likely to impact people’s first impression of your music school, and you certainly want it to be a positive one.
Maybe you’re patting yourself on the back for creating your website, but there’s a good chance that it’s going to negatively impact people’s first impression of your music school if you build it yourself.
6. Why No One Reads Your Website
People interact with your website in a very similar way that you’re going to interact with this Italian restaurant in Manhattan. You’re just looking at a few things. Just trying to get a feel for what this restaurant is about.
Similarly, people aren’t reading all your sales copy on your website. They’re just trying to get a sense of what you’re about.
7. Each Element on a Website Makes an Impression
Your website of course should have a sales copy in it. It’s okay that people aren’t reading everything. The sales copy is there for those who really want to dig in and read. You don’t want to neglect that first impression that they’re forming as they come into contact with your website.
8. Clean, Clear and Simple Winds The Day
Hands down, one of the biggest issues I see with music schools is that they neglect their website.
I’ve seen fabulously successful music schools with terrible-looking websites. Even so, I’m confident that they could get better results with a website that’s going to make a positive impression on people.
9. The Value of a Trustworthy Recommendation
Look. A friend tells you about this fabulous restaurant that you’ve got to try. You go to their website, and it looks dumpy. You might then form a negative impression, or this might not going to positively impact you. Still and all, you’re going to kind of go and say, “Okay. Well, my friend told me this restaurant’s amazing. The website looks dumpy, but I’m going to override any doubt that I have because of what my friend said about this restaurant.”
10. A Website Can Spark Your Level of Interest
Your friend certainly doesn’t want people to look at your website and go, “Oh, wow. This doesn’t look too impressive.” That’s maybe an extreme reaction. Perhaps they don’t think or feel anything from it, which is a missed opportunity.
You want people to look at your website, and you want to amplify whatever level of interest, curiosity, or excitement they currently have. You want them to look at your website and think, “Yeah. My friend told me this is an amazing music school. And you know what? This website’s really got me even that much more excited.”
11. You Can Get The Sale Yet Miss the Mark
You might get the sale anyway, with the less-than-impressive website, but it’s a missed opportunity. As I said, the customer goes on this journey from that first impression of seeing your website for the first time to that recital. All along the way, there are these little steps (we call them touch points), where your clients’ impressions and feelings about you are being formulated.
It’s an expectation you better deliver good music lessons, but the key to having an amazing music school that creates a brand evangelist is to focus on those first impressions.
12. Your Brand Culture Can Turn Your Prospects Into Passionate Clients
The end goal is for your clients to become evangelists. This means they love your music school so much they want to tell everybody about it. You’re probably a brand evangelist for certain restaurants or certain products.
Maybe you would only play a Steinway, a Fender Strat, or a Gibson Les Paul. You’re a brand evangelist of those brands. You want the ultimate goal for everyone in your school to be a brand evangelist. It takes time, but it all begins with that first impression.
The key to building a culture of brand evangelism is obsessing about your customers’ happiness. It is by looking for every little touch point in your music school. Identify at what point or moments are your customers likely to form an impression about your business.
Influence Your Customers’ First Impressions By Addressing All Touch Points
1. Make Customer Experience a Priority
Okay. So someone that you know sees your website and has got them pumped, like “Wow. This is great.” It’s either they sign up or they contact the school.
They’re forming their first impression. It’s beginning to form in terms of what the customer service and customer experience are like.
Customer service and customer experience are very different. Customer service is an expectation that people have. Customer experience is how your clients feel as they’re interacting or as your customer service is playing out.
2. Establish Trust During a Sales Phone Call
They click your “Enroll Today” button on your website, you get the email, and you call them. They’re having a conversation with you on the phone. Now, there’s that new touch point. They’re talking to a human, and their first impression is beginning to form or develop even more.
How do you want that client to feel when they get off the phone with you? Wouldn’t it be amazing if that new client thought to themselves, “Wow. I really liked what that person said about music lessons. I never really thought about it quite like that way before. Yeah, it really does make sense that learning instruments can help my kid in these areas that I hadn’t thought about.” Now they like you more, they trust you more, and they’re even that much more excited to sign up.
3. Use Automatic Check-ins
Now your administrative machine goes into action. You email them a follow-up. There’s some automated text reminder that goes to them the day before the lesson.
All of these interactions influence the person’s impression of the professionalism of your music school. All new students enter your music school. All new clients enter your music school with a level of uncertainty. It’s going to take time for that uncertainty to develop into confidence, but it all begins with that initial phone call.
4. Get Creative In Welcoming New Students
This new client shows up with their child to the first music lesson. What happens prior to the start of the lesson is an opportunity full of touch points. Perhaps the student’s name is up on this big LED sign. It says “Welcome, Jordan, to your first guitar lesson.” Maybe you have some sort of welcome folder that you give to the parent. When they walk into the school for the first time, you say, “You must be Jordan.” They would think, “They were waiting for us. What a surprise.” Perhaps you’re exceeding their expectations of what they expected.
5. Foster a Friendly Environment
The teacher comes out to introduce themselves to the parent and the child. Does the teacher look the parent in the eye and reach out and say, “Hey, I’m Brad. I’m going to be Jordan’s teacher.” They have a smile on their face. All these things are first-time experiences, and these are all touch points. All these opportunities help in exciting the new client. Be there. These are all little first impressions that the kid leads for their lesson.
6. Make Little Surprises
Three days later, a postcard shows up to Jordan from the teacher saying, “Hey, it was great to meet you.” Wow. You exceeded the client’s expectations. Again, they didn’t expect that because it was a surprise.
7. Provide a Comfortable Ambiance to Both Parent and Child
Let’s say they come back next week, and mom needs to use the restroom. She walks into the restroom and notices the cool decor. It’s a new first impression. She’s forming an impression of your bathroom.
A bathroom says a lot about any business. It’s an expression of how much you care about the families in your school. Your music school’s whole decor and interior—and the first time a new student interacts with it—they’re forming that first impression.
When Do First Impressions Cease to Take Shape
By the time your students play at their first recital, and the parents are there, it completes the cycle. All first impressions have now been made by their first recital.
The kid has been in your school for four months now, and the parents had a pretty strong sense of what you’re about. They’re not forming impressions anymore. It’s all been made.
Recitals are a Chance to Elevate Your Customers’ Experience
The recital is a huge opportunity for multiple first impressions. What’s it like when people enter the space? Are they greeted? What’s that like? Perhaps the person greeting them is dressed in a recital-themed costume. Maybe you’re doing a show for your rock bands, and the person greeting people at the door is dressed up like a member of Kiss. You could do little trivia questions between performances and you hand out prizes. You’re exceeding their expectations. You just elevated the recital experience.
How to Build a Culture of Brand Evangelism
The key to building a culture of brand evangelism is obsessing about your customers’ happiness. It is by looking for every little touch point in your music school. Identify at what point or moments are your customers likely to form an impression about your business.
Good music lessons are important. It’s an expectation you better deliver good music lessons, but the key to having an amazing music school that creates a brand evangelist is to focus on those first impressions.
Familiarity Poses a Challenge for Every Music School Owner
It could be hard to do because you live in your music school. It is your space. It’s hard to see those opportunities. Sometimes, a lot of kids probably just walk into your school and they’re like, “Wow, look at this.” There are instruments everywhere. There’s music filling the air.
That’s a novel experience for them, but it’s not for you. That’s been your world for your whole life for the most part, but for a kid or a parent, it’s exciting. It’s new. Walking into your space in of itself can be an exciting experience for people who walk in it for the first time.
So how can you say this to yourself? “How can we take this now and elevate it and amplify it?” Quite often, what makes one music school better than another? Better in terms of the eyes, of its community, and of its market? It isn’t the music lesson. It’s everything else that’s happening around the music lesson.
