Ep. 175 - Are You Maximizing Your Enrollment? : Ways to Attract New Customers and Re-engage Old Ones

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Show Notes:

In today’s episode of Learning to Thrive we walk through how to re-engage old customers with ease: build low-commitment drop-in events, make them genuinely great, and use them as a bridge back to classes. Then we dig into email marketing and social media that actually gets opened and remembered, because it’s built around value. Think helpful newsletters, community highlights, curated child development resources, and consistent touchpoints that keep your gym top of mind when a parent asks a friend, “Where should we go?”

On the new customer side, we focus on two questions: how you physically show up in the community and how your brand shows up when you’re not there. Events like school fun nights, 5Ks, parades, park meet ups, simple swag like magnets, shirts, and water bottles, and recognizable visuals all compound into brand recognition. We also talk about turning birthday parties and rentals into lead engines, capturing emails the right way, and why front desk customer service is a make-or-break revenue driver.

If you want more enrollments without feeling salesy, press play. Subscribe, share this with another kids business owner, and leave a review so more gyms can build communities that grow.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to Learning to Thrive. I'm Courtney. And I'm Michaela. And we are in April.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Which means we have a new theme of the month. Yes, the theme of the month is finances. Woop whoop. Talking money.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Yeah. That's what we that's what April is, right? April 15th, the whole country's talking money. Oh yeah. Who owes? Who's getting money back? Yep. But no, spring is a really good time to talk money because you are still have enough time in the year to make changes and make action, take action that would make an impact to both your bottom line and your top line, really. And it's also you're far enough into the year that you like the year's off to a start, right? So whether it's a good start, a bad start, a medium start, whatever it is, you at least have enough data from the first quarter, which is the end of the first quarter, is the end of March, that we can look at the first quarter, look at your goals, kind of plot it out, but also kind of get feedback from first quarter to say, okay, yeah, it's working. No, it's not working. The goals that we probably set in November and December, if you did a budget or if you were doing um, you know, preparation for 2026. So a sweet spot, so to speak, for looking at the financial pieces of the business, looking at enrollment, looking at, you know, how do you want to be creating new revenue, how do you want to be pricing? Like we have there's so many financial levers to pull that it can be really impactful. And also if you're gonna pull levers, having data, real numbers, tracking, real information. You don't have to have it, but it's helpful. But it helps be accurate, yes. Yeah. So um, so today's topic. So we're starting with maximizing enrollment. So we're looking at that top line, right? So gross revenue is the money that you bring in total, right? Before you pay expenses, payroll, any of that. You have your top line, which is your gross revenue. And so we are looking this week at maximizing that gross revenue through enrollment. Specifically, how do you attract new customers and how do you re-engage old customers, right? Because many of our businesses, unless you're starting out brand new, we all have lists already of customers that we have served in the past. We also have maybe we've served them in the past and now they have a new sibling. Maybe they we have they have friends in the area. So maybe they're not using us, but staying top of mind with them helps them to refer us for friends. And then where are we finding new ones, right? The the children's sports industry relies on the fact that people keep having children, right? So, like, how are we making sure that those new parents know about us so that when their child is old enough, they're able to engage and we're the first place that they stop. So, getting into all of that today.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So we're gonna start

Re-engaging Old Customers

SPEAKER_01 3:00

with re-engaging old customers. So these are people, like Courtney said, they've been with you at some capacity before. They are in your system somehow. Yeah. You know, maybe it was a birthday party, maybe it was a summer camp, maybe it was classes. But somehow, someway, they're familiar with you. So we've got a couple different ideas of things that we can do to kind of loop those people back in, you know, pull them back in. For us at Thrive, it's like, you know, come come be a part of our community once again. So for us, that looks like a couple different things. One thing we love to do is drop-in events. So having whether they are skills clinics, whether they are no school camp days, uh, open gyms, or we do story times, things like that. So events that there's it's low commitment. It's like come pop by, hang out with us for a little bit, re-engage with us, and then you know, the hope is that either they pick up a couple of those drop-in sort of events, or they're like, oh man, yeah, we we did the skills clinic for cartwheels, and she just she loved it so much. So we're gonna re-sign up for classes.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, and even if they're they so I think I think the piece of the community is you're always a part of Thrive, right? So if you can't commit to once a week, that's okay. Or let's say you were on team before and you you're you don't want to do team anymore. You can always engage with us at any level. And the drop-in events are a great revenue source. They are you're able to put them on your calendar as your staff is able. So different than a than a recurring class or something like that, you you can put those in when you, let's say you have the you know, spring break and your college staff is home. Like, so they're revenue generating in the sense that they're drop-in events, one-time events, they do pay. And also they're a way to get your people back in the door. And once they're back in the door, sometimes it's the child that maybe quit classes and came back because they wanted to learn the cartwheel for dance, or the kid that you know forgot how much they love being in class, that then that reignites. But they could also just stay engaged as drop-in people, right? Or camp people, or um, whatever it happens to be. But it's providing that low commitment, like Michaela said, and making sure that there's a touch point every now and again so that when they are on the playground or when they're at the bus stop or when they're, you know, sitting there with their friends and somebody's like, Oh, I want to do gymnastics, where's a good place? You're top of mind. Right. And make those drop-in events good. Like, don't just don't phone them in because you really are engaging. I mean, some of your class kids will come to those drop-in events, but like you really are that is a chance to engage with your with customers. And so giving the wow factor at those, making sure they leave with more value than they expected to leave with can be really impactful.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, second thing that we can do is to try and consistently be adding value to the community throughout the year. So, again, this looks like a couple different things for us. We do our monthly newsletters that includes, you know, a little bit more of like an educational piece, as well as like a what are we doing in classes, as well as what's going on, you know, around the gym, highlights and things like that. So someone who maybe is no longer enrolled in classes with us, but is still on our email list, they're again, they're staying in the loop of what's going on with Thrive. We're staying awesome of mind. Yep. Yep. They see our name pop up twice a month. They see what we're doing in the community beyond just, you know, gymnastics or ninja for us. And it it keeps them involved without necessarily being enrolled in a class. But then when, like you said, time runs around where they're like, oh, maybe we do want to get back enrolled in class or oh, summer camp is coming up. What are we gonna do for summer this year? Or a drop-in event or something like that, Thrive stays top of mind for your gym.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

And I think when you're adding value versus sending a marketing newsletter, A, people are more likely to open it. And B, people are more likely to be like, oh, they care.

unknown 7:06

Right?

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Or oh, at least that's interesting. It's when you open the newsletter and it's four or five ads about what you what venture offering, and you're like, well, who's who is this for? This is for the business. Right. Right? The newsletters that we're trying to create, they are for the customer. What is the customer experiencing right now? So a good blog, you know, you could do a blog, you could do a, you could even go find a child development article and just link the article. Maybe you didn't even write it. You know what I mean? But curate something for the your your community that you feel like for that time of year, for that particular month, they would find helpful, or you something that would connect what they what you do in the building or in your program to something that's important to them reading skills, social skills, uh, classroom, you know, classroom management skills, like something that will add value to them because I think that I think that's where we are as a society right now. People will tune out the just because you had an event marketing, but they will really check a box when it's the oh, they care about me kind of thing. So yeah, yeah. And I think that's how with our social media too. You know what I mean? I think I think that is where we also are not selling a lot on our social media. We are sharing, we are turning the walls inside out. Like, yeah, but we are not saying this is, you know, we do, you know, hey, I think we do sometimes like here's open play or whatever, but like most of our social media posts are meant to be value ads for the customer. Look at what's happening in our pre-K stations. Look at what's, you know, it's national, it's women's, you know, leadership day or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

You know, um we typically for social media, it's we almost always do highlights of events after the fact.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

It's not the advertising of the event. Like sign up. Very, very rarely do we do any sort of like sign up for this event. It's it's almost always a recap of thanks for everyone who swung by the gym to do X, Y, and Z or you know, whatever the case may be. It's but like you said, it's it's value add, it's not advertisement.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah. And can I can I say one thing? This can I just this is my pet peeve slash something that just when I see it, I'm just cringe. When you are doing your social and when you're doing your newsletter, okay. A couple of things. Number one, let's make sure that the content of the newsletter is actually still relevant with the dates. So, like you had something in from last month, you forgot to swap it out. Or you just keep leaving it in for multiple months. Okay. So make sure that what you got in there actually is upcoming and not in the past, unless you're doing a recap of it. Number two, stop yelling at customers on social media to join now. Yeah. Like, you know, it just when it's like you need to enroll, and you know, the, you know, you're gonna like I just I feel like we're past that point of marketing being effective. Yes. Appeal to their emotions, but like stop threatening them that they're you know, like, not that they're gonna miss out, but that like they need to do this now.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, yeah. I don't that I don't love. I also this this is totally a side tangent on social media, but I also don't love when things are just so outdated on a company's like social media. So for example, like little things, like we had to close the gym not too long ago because there was this crazy weather event thing in Maryland, right? Fake crazy weather. Fake fake crazy. Yeah, it was supposed to be horrible and then nothing happened, but that's Maryland. Um anyway, so everyone, you know, like a lot of people were closing their businesses just to be to err on the side of caution and you know, to be safe. So that, you know, you put up a post of like, we're closed be due to weather or whatever. And then it never gets deleted afterward. And it's like if you're scrolling through someone's social media to get a sense of what they do or what they're all about, and it's like, why am I looking at a closure update from two months ago? Right, press delete. Either delete, post it, and then delete it, or just put it on your story so it disappears after 24 hours, you know. Yeah, yes, yeah. So being intentional on top of it, um, and for the love Canada and stop using clip art.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, like use the actual images of like graphics. Please use graphics. So, yeah, there you go. There's our there's our pet peeves on um communication. Yes. And then our last tip is a we miss you email campaign. And this can be done on a regular basis, or this can be done just when you're noticing that enrollment is dipping, or in the type the times of year where enrollment is likely to dip. So let's say getting ready for summer. Let's say coming back from summer, sending, looking at your kids that used to be enrolled around that same time of year, right? So if I had kids enrolled in summer last year, they are not currently enrolled in summer this year, then I'm gonna go ahead and send them an email that just says, Hey, the summer's coming up. We hope you spend it with us again this year. We hope you're doing well, you know. And it's a it's a typed email. It's not just it's not a mass email. It is going into their account and truly typing a personal email. Or maybe you get their coach if you can. I mean, that's it takes a system and that takes a little bit more, but like just send a personal email. Goes a long, long way. It's it breaks through the noise of marketing and it's an actual human connection. You can, if you want to go a step further, you can make phone calls. I know people don't like phone calls, but leaving a message that says we missed you can also go a long way, should people be checking their voicemail. Yeah. I don't really like to check my voicemail, but I do appreciate the people that leave them. So we miss you email campaign. You're just basically looking for who was using us this time last year. What's the contact point I want to use? Email or phone or text, maybe even. And what do I want them to do? I want them to enroll. I want, I want to know how they're doing. Like, I just want a checkpoint. I want them to actually, you know, come to an open gym. Here's a free open gym, you know, code on me. Like whatever it is that you happen to want to offer, but just like a reason to come back and an acknowledgement that, hey, we know that you're not here and you're still part of our community. Yep. All right, that's old customers.

Engaging New Customers

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yes, new customers. So for new customers, engaging new customers, yep. We have two questions that you can ask yourself. Okay, so the first is how is your company physically showing up in your community? Great question. So this could be things like community community events in and out of the gym. So again, in the gym, something like a story time, which it's open to everybody. You don't have to be enrolled. It's just, hey, fun thing we do, come pop in. We do free story time, yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Or yeah, one. And you can go to the library and do story times too. So it doesn't necessarily have to be in your facility.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Um, or community events outside of the gym. So are you showing up to elementary school family fun nights or recreation nights? 5k season, everyone. Get out to the school's 5K, help them raise money. Yep. If you are showing up at an elementary school, let's say, that signals to the parents that one, you're engaged with the community and specifically with what their kid is doing beyond just what you have to sell them. You're in, you know, if you're showing up at their school, then that kind of, you know, we're so big on like the whole child sort of approach. So, yes, we're showing up as a gymnastics and ninja and field sports company at your kids' school, but like we're coming to their school. Like the school is important, the education piece is important, like we want to be a part of it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

And if you want to feel like a celebrity, yeah. Go to one of your local elementary school events where the kids recognize you and are so excited to see you because when they know, and then they got their group of friends there, and they're like, Oh yeah, I like we just we just recently did a uh uh family night, I think it was. And so we brought Matt's out, we set up an obstacle course, and I ran into one of the kids that I teach there, and she was so proud to show off like her gym to her friends and like show her skills and like you know, that kind of thing. It was really, it was really meaningful because it was like we were in her house, but she was so excited to have us there.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

So yeah. Parades are coming up in the summer.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Yeah, you got fourth of July parades, you've got and and think about those under fives too that don't necessarily have an elementary school. They do have preschools. They do, they're at the parks. There was a time, there was a time where we would go to the parks with a bin that had, oh gosh, this was this was 10 years ago, maybe. We'd bring a bin of water bottles, like like plastic water bottles not filled up because you can't really be careful giving out food and stuff. We'd go with a bin of water bottles to give away and the parachute and then a couple of hula hoops and maybe a random something else. And we would just go to the side of the playground and like get it out in the yard, and like the kids would come over and play, and we would play with them, and then we'd talk to the parents and oh, who is this? This is Thrive Gym. Like it was just it was just to get ourselves in front of new under-fives because those parents aren't yet in a community usually, like the elementary school. So, like elementary school people refer each other with the under-fives. You can be on an island under five and not know where to go if it's your first kid. So, so yeah, get out in the community physically. Yes, physically with your toys, yeah. Yes, and share them with other people, and then bring a swag. We have beach balls that we blow up that have our logo on them. There's nothing better than looking around a school and seeing a bunch of beach balls flying that had the logo. We have water bottles, we have easy, cheap stuff that the kids really love.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Right. Which kind of leads into our second question that you can ask yourself. Yep. And that is how is your brand showing up in the community? So things like the merch, like you were saying, or the swag, um, magnets on cars. I love when I pull into a grocery store and I see like three different Thrive magnets, and I'm like, oh, my people.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah, you can tell how long they've been here by the by the style of magnet magnet that it's.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, we've gone through through a few uh iterations of it. Yeah. Your logo, your brand, your, you know, the name of your company, or if you have a little emblem, how is that showing up? My example of this, the reason I put this on our notes for today was I was at the doctor's office and I have a team water bottle that doesn't say thrive on it. It just has our little, we have a little swoopy guy that kind of goes in front of the word thrive. It says Coach Michaela on one side, and then it's got our little our logo, but not Thrive. Doesn't say Thrive gym anywhere on it. It's just the little swoopy guy. And the nurse comes in, she sees my water bottle and she goes, Do you work at Thrive? She's like, That's a Thrive water bottle, isn't it? I was like, Yes, it is. Yes, it is. That's awesome. So but she recognized it, right? Not the name, not anything, just the little logo. But I think we do a very good job of keeping our branding and our logo and everything like that consistent over time. And then with those freebies and stuff like that, so that way it does become more, it's very recognizable.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yeah, it's simple, right? We don't do it, we don't, we don't change it a ton. We don't do a ton of like create, we we try to keep it consistent. And that's our sweatshirts, t-shirts and stuff too. Like when those are out in the community, when your magnets and your sweatshirts and your t-shirts are out in the community and people see them on a regular, yeah, the brand recognition is there. And then they put it together with the community involvement, right? Because they went to the 5K with their friend and their friend's gymnastics coach was there handing out water bottles. That's how we got this water, right? And then then they go to the park, and oh, look, they're over at the park too. And then they're, you know, they're over here, you know, at a you know, helping out at a community service event, right? It's all it's all building community and showing up in the community with your community makes people want to be a part of your community.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Does that make sense? Like Yeah, I think you said community probably five times.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

I did. But that's and I'm good at it. But yes, I'm trying to drive home a point. Yes. Looking at this as marketing versus looking at this at building as building a community. Right. You're gonna have two different energies that go with that. You're gonna have two different styles that go with that. And marketing is a transaction, right? But community is a relationship, right? Which means that I am a part of something. There is nothing right now that people want to be more than being a part of something. And if you can make it part of something good, something cool, something excellent, then yes, go after that all day long and leave your marketing, like that will take care of your marketing. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, build the community for the people in the document. Um, and and also make sure that you're giving like giving the stuff away, like t-shirts, sweatshirts, water bottles, that kind of thing. Yes, it feels like you're spending money and you don't know if it'll get a return, but again, it pops up in the community. So then people see it, and it's just that's almost free marketing. Tiny little billboards walking around their elementary school in a Thrive t-shirt makes me so, so happy.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

I don't know if we're allowed to refer to children as billboards, but you know, but they wear it with pride, so they do, they do. And the car, the car magnets, I can't like I can't talk about the car magnets.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, the car magnets are great and people are proud of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Just know that if you have a car magnet on your car for your gym. Well, we love you. But also, if like for me, right? If I'm driving around with a thrive magnet. Yeah. I gotta drive. Drive well. Like I gotta drive well. I can't be out here cutting people off with a thrive magnet on the back of my car.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

And I would say, can I can I go one more with the new customers? Don't forget that when they are there for your birthday parties, you've got 20 potential new customers now that you've welcomed into your house. Oh yeah. Right. So that is also in that engaging new customers, those birthday parties, if you're running birthday parties, or those like for our sports side, our team rentals, right? They are 20 people that are not yet customers necessarily, but they are getting to experience our facility. So make sure that you're making contact with them. You have a way to capture their email. So waivers can be a good way to do that. Um sign-in sheets, like that kind of thing, and use that and then add them to your newsletter list. Invite the that's a low risk way for them to get to know what your organization is about. And also if you're doing the value ads in the newsletters, then you're at then they're learning something from you. And then you become an expert. So that when they do have that need, they're gonna be looking to you as their first thought versus somebody else who they have in their inbox that is just sending them events.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

So it all ties together.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Yeah. And whoever's working your birthday party, so my gosh, yeah. Interacting with your team, things like that, they need to be, you know, phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Your people answering your phones and at your front desk should always be considered revenue generating employees because our class instructors are, you know, they're teaching the class, but the first line of, you know, connection is those front desk people. And me calling and getting an easy answer with a cheerful voice versus me calling and getting somebody who I'm interrupting and it feels like this is a chore to schedule this makeup, goes a long way in my experience as a parent. So that customer service piece is critical. Do not go cheap on that. Yeah. Or else everything else you're doing is kind of a waste of time.

unknown 23:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

So all right. Off our soapbox. All right, everybody. So we are spending April talking finances. This episode was maximizing your enrollment, adding to your gross, gross revenue essentially. And we want you to be attracting new customers and re-engaging old ones and doing that through We Miss You campaigns, drop-in events, value add, e-marketing. We want you to be aware of how you're physically showing up in your community. I would say digitally, right? Going back to the, you know, the newsletters and stuff. And then how is your brand showing up?

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Are you conscious of it? And are you really maximizing it? Yeah. And have fun with it. Try new things. Try new events. Yeah. Some will work, some will not. We did, I think, did we ever do a movie night? I feel like we did one movie night.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

We did. We did a movie night partnered with Chick-fil-A.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yeah. Yeah, that was good. That was a fun one. Yeah. We've done a lot of we did mom's club events. We do some mom's club events, both in the in the gym and outside the gym.

unknown 24:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

5Ks. Pretty much anything. Anything anybody asks, we'll at least try it once.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah, I feel like we have, yeah, we've tried tried pretty much everything at least once. Olympic watch parties. Yeah, that was fun. We'll do that again.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

That was fun.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah. Yeah. Try it, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

If it fails, at least you've tried.

unknown 25:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Failed it. And it's won. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Have a good day and keep on thriving.