How To Market Birthday Parties

So you want to offer dance birthday parties? But you are not sure about where to start? Or you are already running them but would love to have more?

Here’s our Top Tips on getting stuck in:

 

• Tell People

Bit of an obvious one but you’d be surprised at how little people know what you actually do if you don’t tell them.  This could be a conversation in passing with friends, or you could email all your friends and tell them and even ask them to let their friends know.

 

 

• Feature on your website

If you have a website, feature the fact you offer parties – choose your keywords carefully and incorporate them into the text. Don’t forget to feature keywords behind images too ;)  Ensure you have a “call to action” or a “book here” button – paypal buttons are very easy to implement and there are tons of payment options out there.

• Social Media

Tweet, Post, Pin etc. with links to the feature on your website.  Again, think about your keywords when tweeting or posting about your parties.

 

 

• Write Articles

Write articles or blogs about parties.  Share these on social media, with local publications, family magazines, that kind of thing – how about writing something on the Top Ten Things To Look For When Booking A Birthday Party.  Local magazines are always looking for interesting and useful stories.

 

 

• Make a leaflet

This can be a simple, professional leaflet (places like moo.com are fab at this for little money) and you can either use the artwork on your website, email to people and ask them to email on, feature in facebook groups, and you can get them printed for little money and then simply distribute in places like coffee shops, schools, nurseries, door drops, have in your classes etc.

 

 

 

 

• Run a Competition

This works really well, especially if you are just starting out – run a competition – you can do this with the local family magazine as well as online – something like “Complete our short survey on birthday parties and you could win a Popdance Kids party of your very own” – just set up 10 or less questions via software such as SurveyMonkey (basic package which is free to use) and set up your questions, i.e. Name, child’s name, date of birth, area you live in, what do you look for in a birthday party? What would make a birthday party even more special for you? etc. This is also brilliant for market research – ask the questions you’ve always wanted to know the answers to ;)  Set a competition deadline date and then simply pick a random winner.

You might also like to have in your T’s and C’s for the competition, that you will be taking photos/video of the winning party for use on your website and in promotions.  You would need to get consent for this from parents of all children attending the party.

This gives you a brilliant database which you can continue to build upon and contact parents say 2 months before their child’s birthday to let them know what you offer.

 

 

• Run a Birthday Club

How about a feature on your website/facebook page encouraging people to join your birthday club. Something like “Join our birthday club and get 10% off a Popdance Kids party”, or “Join our birthday club and receive a free Popdance bag” – mailchimp is a great way to capture this date and you can set up autoresponders too :)

 

 

 

 

• Speak to your local leisure centre

Are they offering dance parties? If not, why don’t they add dance parties to their list of party services and when a parent books one, you go in and deliver it – simples!  It costs the leisure centre nothing to add you to their offer, they simply pay you when someone books a party :)

 

 

• Online Listings

List your party offer everywhere online that you can.  From NetMums to MumsNet, facebook forums to parent websites. There are tons available (we have a long list of these websites in POP if you are a Popdance Member).  Don’t be salesy – but work on the benefits of your parties to parents and kids – what are your parties going to give them – i.e. “If your child loves pop music, then they are going to love having a Popdance Kids party”

 

• Try online advertising

Google, facebook and twitter ads can be extremely effective and low cost – simply set a budget and target your ad to the relevant audience – you can target parents age ranges, within a specific radius of the area you want to offer parties to, there are tons of other criteria you can set – and all very measurable.

 

 

 

• Run a free session

Why not run a free dance session – invite your target audience along to see what “Popdance” or whatever dance you are offering, is all about.  They get to try it.  Don’t forget to take a register either at the door or online and include asking for dates of birth so that you can contact them when it’s near to their birthdays. Perhaps ask your local primary school if you can run a session there, or the local community centre.

These are just a few tips to get you started – there are tons more you can do.

Did you enjoy this article? We would love your feedback – please email us at [email protected] or if you have any tips you would like to share, please email us

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Enjoy!

 

If you would like to find out more about working with Popdance – please get in touch via email – [email protected] – or find out more here

If you are already a Popdance Teacher and would like help with promoting your Popdance Parties – give us a shout at [email protected]