WHAT CUSTOMERS REALLY THINK ABOUT YOUR MUSIC TEACHING BUSINESS
What do your customers appreciate most about you and your music teaching business? Is it customer service? Is it the quality of the music lesson? Is it the musical standards your studio upholds? Los Rios Rock School asked their customers “What do you like most about LRRS?” and recorded their answers in a 2-minute video. The parents at LRRS give us all a little insight into how parents think and what hopes they have for their children. Their answers to this question will provide you the language you can use in your marketing
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WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS APPRECIATE ABOUT YOUR MUSIC TEaching business
Ask your customers what they appreciate most about you and your music lessons or music studio. You might be surprised by what they say. Would they talk about;
· How good the lessons are?
· How qualified your teachers are?
· How much their child has learned at your studio?
· How rigorous the lesson is?
Your customers’ answer to this question will indicate what they hope for and how well you make those hopes become a reality. They aren’t going to talk about things that are just expectations that they have. If your customers expect that you’re going to provide excellent customer service and you do deliver excellent customer service, they’re not really going to talk about that.
WHAT CUSTOMERS EXPECT FROM YOUR MUSIC TEACHING BUSINESS
An expectation is not hope. Your customers expect that your office will be well run and that your staff is going to be very professional. It’s an expectation. If your customers assume that your lessons will be of high quality, they’re not going to talk about that either. They expect that there’s a difference between expectations and hopes.
“I hope my child will enjoy his piano lessons”
“Not only does my child enjoy them, but he loves his piano lessons”
That’s what they’ll talk about because that’s what they care about. So what is it that your customers care about? It’s important to unveil that it’s important to discover that, and the only way to do that is to ask them point-blank.
LET YOUR CUSTOMERS WRITE YOUR MUSIC STUDIO’S SALES COPY
If your customers say that “these guys are the best, and their lessons are high caliber” or “their teachers are all skilled, highly trained, and educated” they’re telling you what your messaging should be.
Parents answering that question are little windows into how parents generally dream about their child’s development. Their answers can be used as a guide for your business.
I think it’s safe to say that parents worldwide share these hopes and dreams for their children. This is what they want, and when you succeed at meeting their hope and even go beyond that, that will get them excited. It will turn them into loyal customers and fans of your music teaching business.
WHAT PARENTS HOPE FOR WHEN IT COMES TO MUSIC LESSONS
Music School, Los Rios Rock School asked their customers point-blank “what do you appreciate most about LRRS?” They recorded their responses and turned it into a promotional video. We all can learn a lot from these customer responses.
Just for a little context. Los Rios Rock School makes a lot of effort to create a sense of community and belonging for their students. Not all music schools focus on community and culture. It’s something to consider, considering how many parents and kids like the idea of a music school being, as one parent in the interview said, “a second home”
According to the LRRS survey, there are five different themes customers hope for when it comes to music lessons.
1. Personal growth
2. Culture and community
3. Social growth
4. Gained confidence through performance
5. A quality music lesson
PERSONAL GROWTH
Personal growth was hands down, the number one value that parents placed on their experience. One day I talked about how a son used to be scared to play on stage, and now he’s eager to get up on stage, there’s transformation. That’s a message about self-discovery, a powerful message, and you could build some marketing language around this. A parent said that the school helped their child grow as an individual and then grow within a group. All parents want their child to discover their thing, so personal growth was number one.
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
A mom talked about the guidance and the mentorship that her child’s instructors provided. She said that kids come first and then music. That’s a very curious statement. That sounds like a part of a mission statement. Do you have a mission statement for your music teaching business? Do you have a purpose statement for your music studio? Do you have a statement that defines what it is that you’re trying to accomplish? If you don’t have one, you need one because your business is rudderless without a mission statement.
Do your employees and music instructors know your mission statement, and what are they doing to make that mission statement become a reality? Also, your customers should know your mission statement. Not that you would necessarily teach it to them, but your marketing should reflect your mission statement.
If you asked a person who is a fan of Starbucks, they would probably come pretty close to knowing its mission statement. They would probably talk about the sense of community and how nice are their staff. They probably talk about how when they step into Starbucks, they feel like they’re stepping into a little cafe in Italy. The Starbucks mission is self-evident; your mission statement should be self-evident also.
When you make a statement in your marketing, you have to focus on how we make this a reality? You sit down with your staff, so what can we do? Let’s brainstorm. What can we do in our lessons to make kids feel that way? It’s important to ask yourself, what are you doing in your studio to create culture?
SOCIAL GROWTH
Number three in the list was social growth of status not in terms of wealth, but status in terms of where you fit in within the social order, how the group perceives you or how you feel the group perceives you. If you feel you’re a part of a group and you feel welcomed by the group, you will feel a sense of increased status.
You need to know what changes you can make in your studio to create that sense of community and culture. You have to create that environment where kids can make friends and experience that they’re excited about and talk about, like playing at some well-known venue in your community.
Gained Confidence Through Performance
Number four in the list is the value of performance. One boy talked about how it’s fun on stage, and his dad talked about how he overcame his fears and is now eager to do more. So not only did he conquered fear, he became excited through the process of conquering his fears by performing. That’s also alluded to personal growth and transformation.
A Quality Music Lesson
Number five on the list was the quality of the music lesson. Look at your website. Your website is attractive; it has a nice message that’s appealing. The parent starts to make assumptions, your music school looks like a well-run operation, and your message resonates with them. They are going to assume that their lessons are probably good and of a certain quality. When your lessons are good and are of a certain quality, they will value them.
These parents are telling you why they’d sign their kids up for music lessons so that they can experience personal growth. They probably aren’t expecting that there’s going to be a culture in a community. They can be a part of it, maybe they hope for it. But when you provide that, you’re now potentially giving them something more than what they had hoped for.
How Your Customers Can Help Market Your Music Teaching Business
Customers will be writing sales copy for you, and they’re telling us. They’re telling you what they care about, what they care most about. You can use this information to guide your ship, especially if you want to be a customer-centric business. You have to understand what your customers want and then say, how can we make that come to reality? How can our business pivot and really focus on what it is that our customers want?
The music studio, which obsesses on their customers’ wants in desires and obsesses on trying to understand what they are and then trying to make those come true, is the music studio that will succeed.
If you focus on your own vision and your own musical agenda and don’t actively inquire, and try to understand their customer is a music studio that’s just going to have more challenges. They’re going to be driving in the dark.
How to Best Understand Your Customers
I encourage you to ask five or ten parents in your studio and ask them what you appreciate most about us? What do you like most about taking lessons here? I wouldn’t do it over email; I prefer to do it over the phone, get a dialogue going. I’m sure you know five or ten families in your studio that you really connect with, that you enjoy talking with, that you look at as your ideal customers.
We all have those families that we think, Oh if only all my customers were like them, I’d be so much better off talk to those families and ask them that question. What do you appreciate most about us? Their answers will indicate not only what they appreciate most about you, but what they hoped for before they started taking lessons and how well you fulfill their dream.
