I kind of have a thing for print advertising. Every time I create a new ad or article for our music school, I feel like an artist sitting down at an easel. For me, advertising is as much about building brand awareness, as it is about actually signing up new piano students.
Will every piano ad trigger that magic button that makes your phone ring off the hook? Of course not! But rest assured if you design a piano ad that could hang in the halls of the Louvre, you are shedding some seriously positive light on your piano teaching business.
Advertising Piano Lessons – The Print Ad
Check out the image below from our music school’s Christmas advertising campaign (keep in mind I have altered the logo and slogans to represent TeachPianoToday.com). This simple print ad has been hugely successful. I’ll explain why below.
Here are 5 helpful tips to remember when designing a piano lesson ad…
1. Your piano advertising needs an image AND that image must convey a positive message to the reader.
2. Always include a “call to action”. Readers of your piano ad need to be explicitly told what to do. This can be as simple as “Sign Up Now”. Of course if you want to get more creative, by all means, do so.
3. Clearly state your COMPELLING offer. Too many piano teachers compose ads that simply advertise piano lessons… there is no real offer. When advertising piano lessons, always include an offer or incentive for people to give piano lessons a try.
4. Display multiple avenues for getting in touch with your piano studio. In this day and age, a phone number just won’t cut it. Let potential piano students sign up online, over email, or by phone.
5. Brand your piano studio. If you do not yet have a logo for your piano studio, go get one designed. Every piece of advertising that you display needs a logo and slogan so that potential piano students can clearly identify with you.
Go ahead and start designing your new and improved advertising. And if you ever are lost for inspiration or simply want another set of eyes to assess your print ads, send them along… like I said, I kind of have a thing for print advertising 🙂
You offer some great tips for advertising. I would love to suggest that:
1.Advertising should have the same logo and contact information every time. To create that “brand” so people recognize your advertising each time.
2.Consider a real live photo graph of a happy student at your studio! Real pictures speak louder than clip art.
Hi Robyn,
Thanks for commenting! You left some great suggestions – we touch on branding in another blog post we wrote earlier as well. It’s very true!
Happy teaching 🙂
Hi. I’ve just discovered your site and am interested in your ideas. Because I moved recently, advertising is a huge issue for me just now and I’m open to all suggestions. I quite like the ad you show here.
But if you do six weeks of lessons, what do you use for teaching materials? It will be less appealing to potential clients if there’s another $15-20 for a book whose first few pages are the only ones they’ll use in that six weeks. Of course, your hope is that they will continue so that book is a valuable investment for them, but I don’t know how to convince them of that at the start.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Hi Mary Lou,
Thanks for visiting the site! We have never had an issue with people in the 6 week lessons not wanting to purchase the book. I don’t have them buy all of the supplementary books that go along with the lesson book for the first 6 lessons (for example, in the Piano Adventures series I don’t have them purchase the Performance Book, Theory Book, Technique and Artistry Book etc. etc.) Where we are, the cost is under $12 for the lesson book we use and no one has ever batted an eye! Usually these gift certificates were purchased for them as a gift – so they themselves haven’t paid for anything (if they are an adult student) and if they aren’t an adult student, parents seem to be used to paying for resources for their children’s activities. I think it’s a given if they sign up for lessons that they expect to pay for a book. This kind of advertising has been very successful at our studio – we very carefully plan these 6 lessons to really “hook” the student and we have a registration rate of over 85% from these “trial” lessons. The best time to send these out is right now – I’d suggest giving it a try 🙂 Best of luck!