“I need more students” is almost never entirely true. Most centres don’t have a problem attracting people: they have leaks.
Places lost to friction, people who came once and never came back, waiting lists that live in someone’s head. Before you spend a euro on advertising, plug the leaks. This is the order that works.
1. The people who already came are your first campaign
Getting someone new through the door is the expensive part; getting someone who already came to come back is the cheap part. There are three levers for that.
Offer the class pass right as the first class ends (it’s the moment of peak enthusiasm). Tell your former students when you open a new course, before anyone else.
And when someone finishes a course or uses the last session on their class pass, give them the invitation to the next one along with it.
2. The waiting list is a selling machine
A full course is measured demand. Write down everyone who misses out, with a system and not from memory, and you’ll have half the next course sold before you announce it.
When a place frees up, the offer should go out to the list by itself; if it depends on you remembering, the place goes cold and is lost.
3. Gift vouchers work for you
A class, a treatment or a pass for several sessions makes a good present: original, local and to be enjoyed in person.
Have the voucher available to buy online all year round, not only in December, and let it say who it’s from.
Every voucher is a new student who arrives with the excitement of a present, not the doubts of a purchase.
4. Companies and groups: a whole session in one go
A hen or stag do, a birthday or a company team fills in one go what takes weeks to fill a place at a time. Have a page or a message ready with what’s included and the starting price.
Reply with a formal quote, because in a group the decision is taken by several people and a proper document beats a WhatsApp voice note.
5. Your website has one job
To make sure whoever arrives sees the real places and can book them by paying there and then. Every extra step (“message us to check availability”) loses people along the way.
Your Instagram account attracts; your website converts. If your “website” is a link to your DMs, every visit outside the hours when you answer messages goes cold.
6. Reviews are requested at the happy moment
A Google listing with recent reviews is the shop window most businesses neglect.
No campaign needed: ask for the review when the customer leaves happy or finishes the course, with the direct link in the same message.
One request at the right moment is worth more than ten “leave us 5 stars” signs.
What doesn’t work
A permanent discount doesn’t fill classes: it teaches your customers not to pay the price.
Cutting prices “until it takes off” attracts bargain hunters who leave with the bargain. If you need to get a new group going, a one-off open class with a date beats a permanently low price.
And all of the above works twice as well when it doesn’t depend on your memory.
That means the class pass at the right time, the list that notifies people by itself, the voucher people can buy and the website with real places. That’s why we built Aforo.