In order to help Melody gain a clearer picture of her studio I performed an Online Studio Analysis. Because we are all so connected to our studios, the verbiage we use, and our content, it is hard for us to be able to step back and view things as our potential students will view them. It becomes easy to miss small details and overlook aspects of the way that we market ourselves online that can take away from our main objectives.

This comprehensive analysis is a way to help. The actual Online Studio Analysis (OSA) is over 20 pages long and packed with individualized tips about every aspect of her studio's online persona. No generic tips here. Just page after page of me looking at how you present your studio online and giving advice for how to make it better so you can reach your goals and connect to your target audience. 

I looked at all of the major online areas for most of our studios and included a few other helpful hints and tricks along the way:

1. Caveman Test
2. Website
3. Studio Facebook Page
4. Google Rankings
5. Social Media
6. Local Competition Analysis
7. Facebook Groups
8. Online Directories and Listings

Here are just a few of the tips and suggestions..
(UPDATE: She has already started making improvements too! So some of these have already been corrected.)

​Website:
1. Pictures of smiling, happy kids is always a win. 
2. The navigation menu is overcrowded and needs simplification. 
3. Buy the domain to get rid of .weebly (she is now pianodiscoverymusic.com instead of pianodiscovery.weebly.com)
4. There were a few pages that had no content or generic content supplied by Weebly. Those have since been removed. 
5. Call to Action. EVERY page should have a Call To Action button that tells the reader what you want to do: Sign up for Lessons! Schedule a Tour! Contact us for more info!

Google Rankings:
I searched 10 keyword combinations for her area to assess how she ranked on Google searches. She was unranked with the exception of her "About Me" page that ranked between 15 and 38 on a few searches. Keywords are important and putting relevant combinations of keywords like your location and 'piano lessons' through the pages on your site will greatly enhance your google rankings thus increasing the chance for students to find you. ​

Want an Online Studio Analysis for YOUR studio?

You have two options:
1. I will pick a new teacher each month for our REfresh feature that will receive a FREE Online Studio Analysis in addition to extra support from our entire group as we focus and hone in on your studio for the month. 

2. I will be offering Online Studio Analysis service to all studios and teachers soon. Stay tuned!

I am SUPER excited about this new feature to The Studio Challenge. This group, more than any other that I have been part of, has been encouraging and helping people to solve problems and move forward with their business. What we are going to do now is take all of that energy and focus it on ONE person each month. Imagine how much more we can achieve and how much faster those results can happen if we are all spending a little time and brainstorming power to help one teacher each month. 

Niche: 7-12 year old kids. Includes board games in every lesson to make learning fun. Offers group lessons 4-6 times each year in place of private lessons to build community. Fairly traditional lessons but includes improv, composing, and lead sheets. Most students are overscheduled and in it for fun. 

Recently moved to the other side of town near Utica, MI but hasn't advertised there yet. Several schools are nearby but hasn't reached out yet. 

Current Methods of Advertising: business cards, car magnet, take home flyers to kids in private school where she teaches. Posts in local FB community groups but there are only 5 local groups in the area. 

Specific Areas where she requests help: Creating a Facebook Ad that points back to a landing page on her website. Using Facebook Pixels to collect and use information from people that visit website. 

​To reach her goal of 23 students would mean that Melody could breathe a sigh of relief and not have to worry about taking on a second job to provide for her toddler daughter. 

Our goal, as The Studio Challenge community, is to help her to reach her goal. Some of us are strong in certain areas like graphics while others excel in SEO. You are doing something awesome in your studio that you can share with Melody and the rest of our group. 

Remember that as we help her we'll be helping other members that face similar problems. Maybe YOU struggle with how to reach out to schools, Facebook ads, or improving your online presence. As we help her studio to grow, we should all be trying to implement the parts of advice that would work best for our studios too. 

All of our suggestions and comments need to follow a simple style:
WE ARE NOT HERE TO TELL HER WHAT TO DO
BUT SHOW HER HOW TO DO IT. 

Most of us are in the same spot. We know that we should advertise on Facebook, reach out to schools, something about Facebook pixels and SEO...but it's overwhelming and sometimes just the terminology can throw us off if it's new to us. Simply saying, "You should do Facebook Ads!" isn't very helpful. What kind of Facebook ad should she do? How long should she run it? Should she boost a post or run an ad campaign? Should the post have a picture, text, video, or graphic? What kind of graphic or picture should it have? What should the budget be? What demographics should she target?

You can see why people get frozen into inaction. Obviously, what works in one studio may not work in the next but let's try to give actionable advice that is as specific as possible. 

Be prepared to spend a few extra minutes to really help to lay out an actionable plan for your suggestions. What seems obvious to you, isn't obvious to other teachers. That's what makes this group so strong and unique. 

Most of our suggestions should be FREE. Obviously, if all of us has a $10,000 advertising budget we could make huge steps towards our goal but most of us aren't there. 

I have prepared an Online Studio Analysis for Piano Discovery that I will be sharing parts of in a new blog. It is a comprehensive analysis of the online presence for her studio with actionable tips to improve. But that isn't enough. As a group, we are stronger than me. You will notice things that I did not and have suggestions and examples that I didn't even consider. 

We will focus on Melody and Piano Discovery for the next two weeks until the end of February and select a new teacher for REfresh that will start on the 15th of March. 

If you want to familiarize yourself with Melody and her studio you can check out her website and studio Facebook page. You can also search her name in our group to see what she has been trying and where she has been asking for help. 

She only needs 13 more students to reach her goal. We can do this!

- shane

I am excited about unveiling this new feature on The Studio Challenge. We have some amazing teachers in our little group and I wanted to take some time to highlight a few of them. What I love about this group is not only the encouragement, but the openness and honesty. In short, this group is real. Here is a little peak into the real life of one of our members. 
​
Does anyone have a more common Facebook notification than this: "Emily Quiles posted in The Studio Challenge"? Yeah, I didn't think so..

Emily has been with The Studio Challenge from Day One and is actually the one that gave me the push to start our little Facebook group. She runs an amazing piano studio in Kansas and has seen her private studio grow from around 50 students last summer to almost 100 students in early 2017. She is eager to learn, not afraid to ask questions, and quick to share knowledge and experience with others. 

​
You seem to have really exploded in the past few months. What happened? What changed?
Several things changed! I quit traveling for lessons, I changed method books, and I started working more on giving back to my studio families. By ending traveling lessons, I was able to open more time slots for in-studio lessons. Changing to a method book series that kids enjoyed increased retention as did giving back to my studio families.

What is your six month goal for you studio?
My six month goal is to retain the number of students I currently have.

What is your one year goal for your studio?
My one year goal would be to expand the studio in a physical way. I’d like to still have an in-home studio because I love that atmosphere but I would like to have it a little bit more separate from my home life. See “issues with work and home life balance” above.

What is your 10 year goal for your studio?
Hmm, how old will I be in 10 years? (That’s terrifying!) I can’t even think that far ahead even though it is important for business owners to do so. I would like to expand the studio and add additional teachers so that I could run the business side of thing and teach a little bit less.

Most of us wear a few hats: musician, teacher, business owner. You own a hat shop. Helicopter pilot, Therapy Dogs...did I read something about motocross? What DON’T you do?
Yes, I did race motocross back in highschool. (My poor mother.) All of these hats have one thing in common: the challenge. I LOVE to be challenged. The world is a big and exciting place. I like that I can bring all that life experience into my lessons to make it more fun. When teaching beginners how to use the pedal (especially the boys) it’s great to be able to tell them that being able to multitask like that will help them throughout life. When they realize that pedalling a piano is like shifting a dirt bike or changing the direction of a helicopter, the whole lesson experience changes and we are having a BLAST!

What is your #1 tip for advertising and marketing?
I’m a huge fan of community based marketing. It’s great to help the community and it shows your current and perspective studio families that you are a genuine person who cares about the community. In addition to that, a marketing plan and consistency are key!

How are you using Facebook to attract new students?
I built my studio by advertising in Facebook community groups. I used it for probably the first year and a half of my business and it didn’t cost me a penny. Since then, I’ve started using sponsored Facebook ads more but I still rely heavily on those community groups. I also use my business page to help keep current families in the loop and to show prospective families why their children should be in lessons here.

What about retention? What do you do to keep your students in your studio?
The big thing I just started this year is using a Piano Points system. Students can earn points for things like practicing, performing, and completing books. Parents can earn points for their children by writing reviews, referring friends, and checking in on Facebook. Points are used to buy fun items from small things like pencils and stress balls to Minecraft games and $20 gift cards. It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve retained students because they are motivated to practice!

What is your niche? What sets you apart from every other studio?
These are “not yo’ mama’s piano lessons”! Because of technology, music education is totally different than when I took lessons. Kids these days love technology and video games. Why not use that to your advantage? I use technology in lessons more than I probably should! I love using Minecraft to help teach students composing, playing by ear, and note values.

Having the only music therapy dog in the United States helps too. :P

What is your favorite band or artist?
Is it bad that this was the hardest question for me to answer? There are SO many. Many of my students would be shocked to read that Miss Emily likes to rock out to some good ole Credence Clearwater Revival, Aerosmith, and Avenged Sevenfold.

Let’s say I’m just starting out as a teacher. Give me one piece of advice you wish you would have known when you started.
Create the policy you want for your business in 5 years, NOW. Most of us start of with pretty flexible policies because we are trying to build our studios. If you create the policy you really want and start using it immediately, you will save yourself from being angry, upset, and stressed out.

Let’s say I’ve been teaching for a few years and I’m just feeling burned out. How can I add some life into my studio?
Take a week off and come back with a bold new idea. The first year I did this I came back from vacation and completely revamped my studio. I made it more “official” like with credit card processing and automated scheduling. Last year, I came back from vacation with the points system to reward students. That time off gives you time to reenergize and to realize where you are unhappy in your studio. Once you realize what’s making you feel burned out, you can fix it!

We’ve all had that one student that just drives us crazy. What do you do with that kid?
The student never bothers me. Whatever issues there might be are not the child’s fault. It’s the parent’s fault. Realizing that makes it so much easier to work with the child. Having a serious face-to-face conversation with the parent about whatever issues helps too.

What is your craziest idea? What is something you would love to do if money, time, and space weren’t an issue?
I don’t know how it would work but somehow being able to tie actual helicopters into piano lessons would be INSANE!!!

If you weren’t a studio owner, what else would you do with your life?
I would be flying air support for a law enforcement agency. ​

Thanks to Emily for providing some insight and, hopefully, some new ideas for your studio. Have some questions for her? Feel free to ask. 

Check out her studio FACEBOOK PAGE, her WEBSITE, and her INSTAGRAM. 

Bonus points, she even has a FACEBOOK PAGE for her studio dogs!