To Run or Not To Run Virtual Summer Camp
Do you wonder what your customers are thinking right now? Do you wonder what their thoughts are about online learning, what their thoughts are about virtual summer camp?
One of the worst things that you can do is to try to guess where your customer’s heads are at. I heard someone in one of the Facebook groups say the other day, “I don’t think my customers would like a virtual summer camp.” I’ve heard people say, “I don’t think my customers are going to like online music lessons.”
Trying to guess what your customers are thinking is risky business.
The Truth About Virtual Summer Camp
You might not love the idea of a virtual summer camp, but your customers might be okay with it. Perhaps you’ve been surprised as to how your customers have to respond to Zoom lessons.
Your Customers Have Changed. Have You?
Your customer on March 10th had a set of concerns of desires, hopes, dreams, and fears, and those are all gone. They now have a new set of desires and fears. COVID-19 has changed our priorities, our priorities for ourselves, and for our kids.
Back in March, your customer most likely was looking for an experience that was going to provide enrichment for their child, was going to help their child be a happier and better person. That very same customer, two months later, is looking for something completely different. The only way to find out what that is is by asking them.
What Moms Want
Perhaps now they’re more interested in finding or establishing some consistency in their child’s life, trying to find social opportunities for their child to connect. Perhaps they’re concerned about their child’s emotional health and feeling isolated.
Perhaps in March they really enjoyed the status that their child obtained by being able to identify as a musician. Perhaps your customer in March enjoyed the status that they obtained by being able to say, “my child is a musician”. Those thoughts and those issues have been set to the side; For now.
The best way to get your marketing message and to get your programming right is by asking your customers.
Ask Your Customers What They Want
- What is your biggest struggle with your kids at home?
- What was your perception of online learning prior to this crisis?
- Has your perception of online learning changed?
- What are your greatest concerns about summer programming?
- If in-person camps opened would you send your child?
- What are your feelings towards virtual summer camp?
Don’t guess. If you guess you run the risk of guessing wrong, everything has changed so quickly and you have to change. You have to pivot, but let your customer guide that process and the only way to do it is to literally get on the phone with them and talk with them.
Have a few set questions that you want to ask them. We all have those few customers and our studios that we just have really feels comfortable talking to them. You have a really good rapport with them. Email them and say, “Hey, could I call you today at two o’clock? I just want to ask you a few questions. I just need 15 minutes of your time.” They’ll gladly, help you out.
Survey Your Customers
Ask 5- 10 customers and start looking for patterns. Start looking for reoccurring messages, reoccurring words, language, reoccurring emotions. Those patterns will be telling you exactly where you need to be directing your business.
Typically summer’s a time that we brace for a drop off in enrollment. I’ve had some conversations with parents about summer plans and camp and I’ve heard quite a few of the moms in my community grappling with what they’re going to do for the summer.
Mom’s Need Your Help
Moms don’t have time to sit around and wait for the governor, they don’t have time for these camps to figure it out. They need a plan and they’re not happy about the fact that they can’t really formulate a plan. How can you as a music studio help the moms in your community?
Listen to the moms, ask them questions, listen for patterns, and then ask yourself, what can you do in your business to help them? Now’s the time to get your business right.
If you’re anything like me, you started your music studio because you love music, you love teaching and you know, I just kind of started doing my thing, teaching my way, teaching what I thought was important to kids and over time I realized what I want or what I think kids and what parents want is often different from what they want and what they’re looking for.
I encourage you to think of this time as a rebirth in your music studio.
It’s an opportunity to start from scratch because you kind of have to, even though you have customers still, your mission statement, your purpose for existence right now is different.
What’s Your Music Studio’s Mission?
Your mission perhaps used to be to help kids become better people through music and now your mission could be to help kids feel connected and to have a purpose in their lives through music, children’s identity, a child’s identity has been stripped away. Their identity was that they are a student. They go to school every day. That’s been taken away from them.
They’re kids on this endless summer break that’s been going on since March. And there’s no structure in their lives. And parents are trying to create that structure for them.
There’s a whole new set of dynamics at play and in your market. Now is your chance to step up to the plate and help them.
