"The Space Between"

So it is only day 6 or so of this daily blogging thing, and I failed!  I came home last night fairly exhausted from my first night back at the studio and I just crashed.  Epic failure!  So today, 2 shorter blogs to make up for my lack of deep thinking yesterday.

Last night we had a silent Yoga class and we played the Dave Matthews Band CD, that was so old it was skipping, but regardless, AMAZING!

I guess I stirred up a bit of interest with my last blog about dance studio marketing, which for better or worse is still interest!  Then last night I had another quick thought about it...

I was scanning through an old issue of Dance Canada Quarterly, which is a Canadian produced dance magazine that gets distributed 4 times a year... in case the name wasn't clear!  I do subscribe to several American Dance Magazines as well, but this one is all about things close to home for me so I always renew with them.

Now this magazine isn't functionally geared towards one group or another, like our American friends have the luxury of.  They have Dance Teacher Magazine, and then separate ones for dancers and teachers a like.  Dance Canada Quarterly really doesn't gear towards one side of the dance spectrum, which makes is accessible to everyone I guess.

The majority of dance magazines are filled with advertising, for competitions, costume companies, teacher's seminars and so on, but I noticed that this issue had a lot of advertising for dance studios in it.  I was very perplexed at first as it didn't make sense to me.  Why are they advertising for their studio when I'm a teacher with my own studio?  Do they think I'll be so overwhelmed with how great their ad was in the magazine I'd shut my studio down?

I know there are probably more dancers than studio owners who subscribe to the magazine, but I had never thought of marketing in there as a way to get new clients.  One of the bigger ads was actually for a studio right down the street from mine.  They have recently opened a new "state-of-the-art" facility and felt the need to push this as their marketing campaign.  The ad talked about how big and fabulous their new studio was and they now had massage therapists on hand for parents waiting, and a snack bar to boot.

I stared at the ad for a long time before realizing that as a parent I might be very intrigued by this studio.  But then as a dance educator I laughed out loud!  No where on the entire full page ad did they mention anything about their teaching staff and the quality of training they give their students.  But the parents could get a massage!

This studio just proved my exact point about dance studio marketing and what is effective for what you want to attract in terms of clients.  Maybe if you look a little closer at that studio, you'd realize that their just not advertising about their teachers/classes because it's not the highest selling point of their studio.  The $7.00 cafe lattes in the lobby are!

I creased the magazine permanently open to this page and put it back in our lounge magazine rack, hoping that someone would pick it up and read it.  But no such luck... my parents were too busy enjoying watching their kid's classes on our television circuit!