ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack by socialpandora

PREMIUM MARKETING PACK

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ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack

INTRODUCTION In this Premium Marketing Pack put together by ClassForKids, you’ll get insider knowledge on how to make your brand stand out from a busy crowd! We’ll be breaking down the following topics below for you to explore and learn from. Good luck and we hope you get the full benefits of this Premium Marketing Pack. Here are the topics found in this pack:

STRENGTHEN YOUR BRAND

SOCIAL MEDIA LIKE A PRO

SIMPLIFY YOUR CUSTOMER JOURNEY

• Discover the fundamental elements of marketing and how you should apply them to your club!

• Learn how to make the most of your Facebook followers (and how to encourage new ones!)

• Find out from industry experts how to efficiently design the best user experience for your customers.

• See a case study of a club who is confident in their identity and has an incredible brand and online presence to match.

• Discover the basics of Facebook advertising and how to create your very own ad campaign.

• Learn how to simplify the process of booking classes from your website.

• Discover new ways to attract new customers and explore new revenue opportunities, whichever you’re trying to achieve.

• Get access to our Facebook Ad Spend calculator to find out how much you need to budget for maximum return.

• Find out how to direct parents to book classes straight from your Facebook Business page.

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Strengthen Your Brand

STRENGTHEN YOUR BRAND What is ‘brand’? A brand is you, your staff and how you position yourself. It’s your voice, identity, values, reputation and awareness among the customers and parents that you’re trying to connect with. You might currently be looking to elevate things with a nice bold logo, a shiny new website, maybe even some new merchandise designs, but you should first have a great foundation to build on.

“Your brand or name is simply your reputation”

Purpose What is the heart & soul of your brand? Why does it exist?

Name What’s your brand called?

Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group

If you’ve been avoiding revising your brand because you think it’s too intimidating to tackle or too expensive, there’s no need to worry. There are a variety of affordable and creative ways that we’ll share with you to convey your club’s brand without breaking the bank. All you need to do is invest time and you’ll soon see the benefits! The things to consider when thinking about your brand, whether you’re just starting out or already established: 1

Personality What characteristics does your brand have?

Tone of voice How does the brand talk & communicate?

Conduct research, and lots of it!

Having a good understanding of your market is essential, particularly within a competitive environment like gymnastics, so research is key. There are many different areas of your club that you have to develop like its position within your industry, prices and people. These are incorporated in the ‘7P’s of marketing’, a combination of seven elements that are required to be understood to maximise your marketing potential.

Style How does your brand look?

Information source: MadeBrave

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Strengthen Your Brand

These are the classes that you deliver.

PRODUCT

7P’S OF MARKETING

• Are they suitable for your market? • Could you offer more services? • Can you do anything to make your classes more superior?

This is how your customer is persuaded to book your classes.

PROMOTION This is how much your customers pay for your classes. Trust your business and its worth.

PRICE

• What are your customers prepared to pay? • Are you competitive? • Are you making a profit? • Price vs. quality analysis - Continually re-evaluate to make sure they’re market appropriate.

This is you and the people behind your business; your staff. Remember they’re a reflection of your club and brand. • Have you invested in the right training? • Are they representing your club in the right way? • Do you have the right people working for you?

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

• Is your branding the way you want? • How do you present yourselves? • Does your brand inspire confidence?

• Consider if you’re in the best location, and if not, how you can change it. • Remember first impressions matter• Is the location clean and safe? • Is your brand noticeable in a public venue? • Is it clear where parents have to go?

This is how you deliver the same standard of service to your customers.

PROCESS This is everything your customers see when interacting with your club.

Do you have an introductory offer? Do you run competitions? Do you encourage word of mouth? Do you share leaflets, flyers in the surrounding areas?

This is where your classes take place.

PLACE

PEOPLE

• • • •

• Are you easy to do business with and do you continually think of ways to increase efficiency? • Is your classes easy to book? • Do you make your classes better by asking for feedback? • Are you consistent in your communication with parents?

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Strengthen Your Brand

You should also conduct competitor analysis to see what other clubs are up to and how they’re achieving their successes. This allows you to implement the parts that are working well for other businesses and avoid the bad. Don’t just look at their website and prices, check their social media engagement, content, reviews and even ask your own customers about their experiences with them and what their opinions are. This step is crucial for staying ahead of the game and getting potential customers coming to you over anyone else. 2

Find your Unique Selling Point!

What makes your club unique? The research you’ve done will help you establish your own unique selling point, providing your club with that extra ‘something’ that your competitors don’t have. Your USP could be related to the type of activity you provide, your club’s visual appearance, your promotional techniques and any other aspects that make you stand out. This should be a memorable aspect that customers think of and associate with your brand, backed up by the research carried out on your market and your competitors. Once you have developed your USP, it should be reinforced through your marketing strategies like advertising and communications. Well-branded clubs are visually eye-catching, they express a clear purpose and will invoke inspiration in the customer. One club doing this really well is Simon Says Dance. They know who they are, their branding stands out, their customer booking journey is easy and they have all the right information in all the right places.

This is Simon of Simon Says Dance

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Strengthen Your Brand

“With there being little to no opportunities available for kids in this very much new and emerging style of dance at that time, I decided to launch Commercial dance within the activityprovider industry in Edinburgh.” SIMON

Owner of Simon Say Dance

Social media. Consistent and clear to convey messages. Customers are reassured by professionalism.

Logo. Personal touch by bringing his name into it and clever use of the identifiable game “Simon says”, makes a more memorable name!

Website. Clear call to action and focus on upcoming classes that they want to fill.

Facebook page. Strong cover photo and “book now” button to encourage parents to take that action.

Simon Says Dance aims to stand out, look confident and be professional. Their approach to branding ticks all of those boxes and makes it the place where children want to be!

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Strengthen Your Brand

Use word of mouth to drive brand awareness!

Have you heard of this amazing club? I take my kids there twice a week!

Even if your brand is strong and established, it still needs a little push to gain the attention of new people. It’s important to understand that more expensive methods like paid advertising may not always be the right solution for your club. In fact, organic methods to spread awareness may actually be more effective! People trust and respect the opinions of others, so word of mouth is important when trying to increase your brand awareness. When looking for the right club to send their kids to, parents tend to liaise with other parents or look online for specific recommendations and reviews. It’s essential that you remember this powerful aspect of marketing when encouraging word of mouth and spreading brand awareness through your campaigns, particularly on social media.

They seem really good!

I’ll check it out!

Wow!

PRO TIP: Social media users LOVE to tag their friends and share posts that are relatable. So, why not create a campaign that will encourage your users to like, share and tag their friends within their network? Cool!

You have the power of engagement right at your fingertips! Take advantage of this and get parents to be advocates for your club. Get them talking about you!

Nice!

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Strengthen Your Brand

LOOKING TO ATTRACT NEW CUSTOMERS? Open Days Hold open days where your club can target prospective parents and members. Give parents an insight into how the club and classes are run, and give new children a chance to participate. Encourage Referrals Incentivise and encourage people to come along to the club; for example giving potentially new customers a small seasonal discount for joining a new term. It’s a great way to attract new customers while rewarding loyal ones. Club Displays Putting on displays at shows and other events will give your club exposure to a wider audience within your local community. You probably participate in displays already but don’t forget that it’s a great marketing opportunity too. Social Media Having a great presence on social media is a pivotal method of targeting and attracting new members. You can think about running a LIKE/SHARE competition to give your club an extra boost. Posters / Leaflets This is a relatively low cost method of promoting your club and can be distributed in the local area. Why not partner with a local business or two with a joint promotion strategy. Take advantage of all opportunities! Free Trial Sessions Offering free sessions to new audiences in your local area may give your numbers a boost. Try targeting new-build housing estates for families new to your area.

“Bring Along A Friend For Free!” Don’t forget how many children participate in playdates and sleepovers during the school holidays! Instead of experiencing ‘no shows’, try encouraging current members to bring their friends along for free. It will open up the club to a new audience and could encourage them to sign up long term.

LOOKING TO EXPLORE NEW REVENUE STREAMS? Identify New Opportunities Meet the needs of potential members by offering new classes that will grow your club. Does your club offer classes for all varieties of gymnastic disciplines? Identify new markets, classes or coaching methods. Gym For Him (or something similar) Create a specific male-related promotion to encourage more boys to participate in your club. For example, a specific “boys night” may help encourage more boys to join a gymnastics club which is predominantly more popular amongst girls. With this strategy, you can easily apply this logic to any part of your business that you’re looking to grow! New Merchandise Your committed customers love attending your club and having branded items will make them feel even more a part of it all. Having personalised t-shirts, gym bags, water bottles (you name it!) is a great way for your club to generate more income. You can keep the appeal running longer by offering limited merchandise at certain times of the year. They would make the ideal Christmas gifts!

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

SOCIAL MEDIA LIKE A PRO It’s common for most club owners to use Facebook to create posts, update information and share your favourite pictures from class, but is it something that you want to do more of or improve on? You’ll be glad to know that all it takes to master social media is a combination of consistency and a routine, with a great template to follow. Whether it’s keeping up with content or wanting to run a Facebook Ad on a realistic budget, this section should help your gymnastics club achieve all its social media aims! 1

Take advantage of all your Facebook Likes!

Organic Engagement If a follower engages with your post by liking, commenting or sharing, this post will reappear on the timeline of their Facebook friends. This is great, because they’re likely to be in the same demographic as your customers- parents with children who you want to target and attract. Remember to take into consideration the types of posts that you want to shared and how they can gain organic engagement and traffic to your social media posts and page. Does your audience like candid shots? Do they like photos from competitions? Go ahead and experiment to see what works best to attract more engagement!

Hamilton Gymnastics is a gymnastics club using ClassForKids. We are using them as a case study for great ‘organic engagement’.

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

Inviting Likes to your Business Page Did you know that if one of your followers’ friends likes your original post, you can invite them to follow you or like your page - giving you even more people to market to. It’s a simple and effective way of inviting people to like your business page. Try it! You can choose audiences that you’ve already created to make Lookalike Audiences

Click the ‘like’ icon on your post and start inviting people who have engaged with it to like you page!

Lookalike Audiences A ‘lookalike audience’ is another method for reaching people that most likely are interested in your business because they share similar interests to your existing audience. Facebook allows you to use your existing followers/ page likes to create ‘lookalike audiences’ (more about this in section 3) for advertisements - hence you can find and target people who are just like your current loyal customers and parents!

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

Case study: ETKO Sports Let’s use one of our clients as an example. ETKO runs gymnastics and sporting classes to children of all ages and abilities with over 1,000 children attending their classes. You can check them out here: https://www.facebook.com/etkosports/ What do they do well? Simply put, they: • Post a mix of entertaining, useful and engaging photos and videos regularly (For ETKO this is daily, for you this may be every few days) • Give shout-outs on a range of individual achievements • Upload offers which will benefit their followers • List upcoming events • Encourage reviews • Run fun competitions • Connect with their community All of this means they understand who they’re talking to. In other words, they know their audience. Understanding what is important to their followers has allowed them to grow their page likes to 4000+ and crucially gives them the opportunity to continue to market to their top fans, parents and their Facebook friends too!

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

To summarise: • If you haven’t already, set up a Facebook page for your business. (You can even link this to your own personal facebook page) • Encouraging more followers organically can get your brand out there with minimal outlay! • Invite existing customers and parents to follow you/like the page. • Make regular relevant posts - remember how ETKO have done it or follow this template we have put together which will guarantee increased engagement! • Invite those who have liked a post to like your page, which will help to continuously grow your audience. • Use that audience to find more parents just like the ones you currently engage with and build a ‘Lookalike’ audience. 2

Structure and Build an Effective Ad

You’ve spent time building your audience on Facebook, inviting people who have liked your posts; you’ve uploaded loads of fabulous pictures and videos and have generally started to develop your profile and brand. So .... now what? It’s time to start to build an Ad and target potential customers. Similar to organic posts, a Facebook user is only going to like, click or share an Ad if it grabs their attention. This makes it essential to have a title and image that brings everything into sharp focus. It can be helpful to create three or more different versions of an Ad in a document or spreadsheet before jumping into Facebook.

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

Firstly, stop and think about what business objectives you want to achieve. Do you want to fill classes, advertise new services or even announce new merchandise? Once you have your answer, you can begin to create Ad content which will take into consideration three core things:

VISUAL, TEXT (COPY) & ‘CALL-TO-ACTION’

TEXT (COPY)

Example of a scenario You want to let more people know that you’re running birthday parties. Visual Focus your creative around fun shots of children enjoying themselves and find three different images that are relevant to what you want to say.

VISUAL

PRO TIP: Images with smiles are more memorable!

Text (known as copy) Vary what you want to say. Try one title that poses a question and problem, one that is very clear about the ad’s purpose and solution, and one that is inline with the image attached to it. Add in social proof from the parents for a personal touch - “Charlotte had the best birthday party at Tumbling Tots. The staff were amazing and everyone had a fun time!” PRO TIP: Don’t forget your tone of voice. Every business has a specific style they use to convey a message. Is it more casual? More friendly? Whatever it is, remember to keep it consistent and conversational.

CALL-TO-ACTION

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

Call-to-Action A ‘call-to-action’ is the mechanism that invites your audience to perform an intentional action. With this in mind, ask yourself, what do you want your audience to do? Do you want them to visit your website? Download some information? Give you their details so that you can call them later? Work all the above out before you start to build your ad. Once you’ve defined your objectives and the action you want your audience to take, you’re ready to go into the Facebook Ads Manager and create ads! PRO TIP: Facebook has a lot of tools that can influence an action such as ‘Book Now’ and ‘Learn More’ buttons. Have a thorough look through the options that they offer! It can help you come up with ideas on what your ads could be.

To Summarise: • • • • •

What is your objective? Generate variations on your creative Generate variations on your main text (copy) Build up in Ads Manager Read more on ads from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

A word about Audience types

When it comes to building your ads on Facebook, you have the ability to target a range of different audiences. You may find that these are particularly useful and cost effective: • Custom Audiences (directed specifically to your current customers about a new class or an offer) • Lookalike Audiences (directed to an audience similar to the ‘Custom Audience’ to get more customers on board and spread brand awareness) • Saved Audiences (directed to a specific area/location) Custom Audiences Facebook ‘Custom Audiences’ would be your most high-value target audience because this allows you to target past website visitors and people who have previously engaged with your social media content. You can even include past customers of your club on the list and hope for a return! This audience have warmed up to your messaging and will most likely return to engage with your content and even take the initiative to send their child to your club.

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

Lookalike Audiences Facebook ‘Lookalike Audiences’ lets you reach the people who are similar to your existing customer database, making them highly likely to convert and warm up to your messaging too. Here are the 3 easy steps to creating a ‘Lookalike Audience’:

Step 1 You first need to create a Custom Audience to tell Facebook what type of users you want to reach.

Step 2 Select the “Lookalike Audience” from the audience creation menu

Step 3 Select a target country and a percentage (1%-10%) of the targeted country’s Facebook users (the percentage signifies the people most similar to your selected Custom Audience). And you’re done!

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

Saved audience Facebook ‘Saved Audiences’ are the audiences that you can define by choosing peoples’ interests, location, age, gender, used devices, income level, etc. You can create ‘Saved Audiences’ both in the campaign setup phase or in the Audience Manager. For example, if you are based in Greater Manchester you may select parents of children aged 5-12 within a 10 mile radius of your location. Your ad will be shown to this group only.

PRO TIP from Facebook Expert, Lee-Ann:

“If you’re looking to promote a specific class, you don’t have to put a lot of budget behind the ad. There’s no need for this to be targeted widely because you would be reaching people that are too far away to attend the class. Saved audiences would work best for you, and you can instead ‘boost’ a general post to people in a 30 mile radius.”

Lee-Anne is a Facebook Expert who specialises in Facebook Advertising and Digital Marketing

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Social Media like a Pro

The “B” word (Budgeting!)

Planning out a budget for a marketing campaign can be pretty scary and sometimes complex - how do you know how much to spend on Facebook Ads? Unfortunately there isn’t an easy way to answer this question as your Ad spend will vary depending on a lot of variables, including how many new leads you need, what your conversion rates are from new leads to customers, how enticing your offer/message is and even how ‘thumb-stopping’ your ad images are. For example, you can have an Ad that looks great, gets lots of clicks and leads but if the follow-up process isn’t on-the-ball, these leads are won’t convert. However, let’s assume you have followed our advice. You have a great Ad ready to go, your audience targeting couldn’t be any tighter and - bonus - you also have a streamlined follow-up process (call-to-action) in, how much should you budget then? We have pulled together this handy Ad Spend Calculator (please note that if you’d like to change any of the metrics, you’ll have to create a new Google sheet, copy the example that we’ve provided and paste it into your new sheet) which should hopefully help! Just input your info and let the calculator work its magic. If you have already run Facebook Ads, just add in your metrics from there. If you haven’t, we have added some industry stats to help you on your way. You now have our top tips and tools to get going with your own Facebook campaign. Give it a whirl and let us know how you get on!

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Simplify Your Customers Journey

SIMPLIFY YOUR CUSTOMER JOURNEY It’s not over yet! You have a strong brand, you’ve attracted potential new customers, so how do they book your classes? It’s a common mistake to disregard the importance of that last step in the process, but it’s crucial not to fall at the last hurdle. Don’t let your hard efforts go to waste by giving potential customers a reason to drop off. In fact, there’s a ‘three-click rule’ that our own Expert Growth Hacker, Angie, swears by:

“The three-click rule means that users will typically abandon a website if they’re unable to complete their task within three clicks. We see time and time again clubs that have great looking websites, but it’s a task just trying to find where to book to classes. It makes users frustrated and they’ll naturally look for a similar service elsewhere that does it better. Convenience is everything.”

Angela is a Growth Hacker speciliasing in web growth within digital marketing

Take note that you always want potential customers to achieve something with every click through your website. It’s always about them being successful at finding what they’re looking for as clearly and efficiently as possible. Remember, if they get lost, they will give up and abandon the task. With that in mind, also consider payment behaviours in today’s society. Your potential customers are using smartphones, they’re used to fast, online services like Amazon and they pay using Apple/Google pay.

CLICK 1

CLICK

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Simplify Your Customers Journey

Bringing yourself up to this standard is simple. Ask yourself this: Does your website make it clear to parents how to book and is the process a simple one? If the answer is no, a few quick changes will improve this. It’s imperative to review your website from the eyes of a prospective customer because you could potentially be missing out on custom due to a messy user journey. When using an online system like ClassForKids, you can embed your class schedule straight onto your website. Not only does this make the booking process seamless for parents, it also allows you to “get them while they’re hot.” Whether you add an iFrame code* or have a ‘Book Now’ Button, these small changes will make a huge positive impact to your customer’s experience. What is an iFrame*? An iFrame (or Inline Frame) is simply a HTML code that is used to insert content from a different source to an existing web page. So, when we say ‘add your iFrame code’, what we mean is to embed your existing class schedule from a different source (like your ClassForKids URL) to your actual existing website using iFrame. So what do you need to do? Simply add your iFrame code to the website. This can be done by your developer or if you run your own website, there’s plenty of help guides out there! Here’s an example of an iFrame code is: <iframe src=” insert public booking link here “width=”100%” height=”500”> </iframe>. Have a look at Tumble Tots website. Parents have access to all information, and it’s clear where to book a class with minimal effort. The visual prompt is also more likely to encourage them to book! The schedule you see here was added onto their website using an iFrame code.

ClassForKids Premium Marketing Pack | Simplify Your Customers Journey

‘Book Now’ Button Do you not have a website and would rather use Facebook more often? That’s ok! Social media platforms like Facebook exist to simplify the experience and communication between you; the business owner, and your trusted and loyal customers. This is your opportunity to utilise all the functionalities that the platform has to offer. One of the simplest and most effective tools that you should take advantage of for your gymnastics club is the “Book Now” button on your Business Facebook Page. This is a button or ‘call-to-action’ that allows your existing and potential customers to book classes from your Facebook page. It’s that easy! Here is a simple Step-by-Step guide on How to add the “Book Now” button to your Facebook Business page: Step 1 Navigate to your Facebook Business Page.

Step 2 Look for the ‘+Add Button’ button under your cover page and click on it. This is what your ‘Book Now’ button should look like on your Facebook Business Page

Step 3 A pop-up will appear asking you to select an action. Choose ‘Book Now’.

Step 4 You’ll then have to add a location to your ‘Book Now’ button. This is where you direct your customers to your club’s class schedule where they can easily make an online booking. Make sure the URL link is correct!

Step 5 Click save. You’re done!

You can also find a tutorial on our ClassForKids Youtube page:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGw21KhyOis

ClassForKids is the No.1 Admin Solution for clubs within the kids activity industry. We work with hundreds of Gymnastics clubs across the UK to help streamline their registers and payments, allowing them to get 10+ hours back every week! WE GET YOUR BUSINESS. For more information, visit our website and request a callback from one of our Gymnastics Business Coaches to get a Free Guided Tour of the system.

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Best business decision we ever made! Frees up so much admin time and makes running the club, collecting fees and holding accurate data so easy!

clubs.classforkids.co.uk

Nottingham Gymnastics

/class4kids

@classforkidsuk

ClassForKids