Reaching a New Demographic

Since the very beginning, my studio’s target population has been school-aged children and teens. We offer voice, piano, and guitar lessons as well as music therapy, and have been very fortunate to fill every available time slot and maintain a sizable waiting list.

But as I’ve mentioned before, I always like to set challenges for myself and for my business. I have found that summer is a good time to try new things, so this month my studio launched two early childhood music classes.

It’s always a bit scary to go out on a limb, especially when that means marketing to a brand new demographic — babies and toddlers. We kept our marketing plan quite simple, advertising via social media and email only (no print ads or fliers).

Word of mouth has always been the most successful form of referral for us, and that ended up holding true for these new classes. Existing clients, friends and family members shared our social media posts and forwarded our emails on to people they knew, which resulted in two full classes.

I have to admit, there is a certain thrill that comes along with setting a goal and then reaching it with some success. Filling up the classes was an important first step, but providing a fun and meaningful experience for this new group of students is what really matters.

The work doesn’t stop after the registrations start pouring in. Most of our time was devoted to putting together a quality curriculum based on appropriate musical goals and objectives for babies and toddlers. We’re looking forward to honing our skills by offering and leading these classes on a regular basis, especially now that we know there is a market for them.