Generating Income, Growth

How to grow your drama school with The Playing Space

By Lily Clow
August 9, 2024

Are you looking for ways to grow your drama school?

We recently spoke to Gabi Maddocks from The Playing Space about just that. From how she boosted her school’s revenue by an impressive 39% since 2019 to how she has streamlined her operations, plus more. You can access the full webinar for free here.

Keep reading to discover three simple actions you can try to unlock business growth below.

Tip 1 – Word of mouth

Getting good word of mouth can be a difficult nut to crack. But it’s highly effective if you can make it work – research even backs that up. A report by Nielson found that 92% of consumers believe their friends and family over any kind of advertising.

Try encouraging word of mouth by creating a referral scheme for your customers. Why not offer a discount or a free class to sweeten the deal? Parents / customers then get the reward if the person they recommend contacts you.

Tip 2 – Say yes!

Opening yourself up to new audiences can increase brand awareness and lead to so much more.

Gabi says, “If the phone rings and someone asks me to do something, I generally say yes, unless I have a really good reason not to”. This has led to some great business opportunities that’ve helped The Playing Space grow. For example, an Italian holiday camp approached her to see if she could teach drama to the students. Gabi said yes. They ended up contacting her again, this time asking to book in for three weeks instead of one.

Click the video below to play the relevant section:

Saying yes has come with a mindset change. Gabi says. “You think, well, if this group of people or this person wants this activity or this product then the chances are there are lots of other people out there who would also like it, but they just haven’t happened to find me on a Google search”

Abi, Director of Marketing & Growth added, “It’s the smallest conversations and interactions you have that lead to the biggest opportunities. Taking a particular thing and turning it into something that’s scalable and repeatable is a great way to unlock new revenue”.

Click the video below to play the relevant section:

If you’d like some simple tips to reach schools and nurseries, click here.

Tip 3 – Increase efficiency

Nothing can be accomplished if you don’t have time, so how do you create more of it?

There are steps you can take to easily free it up.

Start by doing a review of your current operations. Establish what’s working well and what isn’t. Are there any bottlenecks you’re struggling with?

There are actions you can take to make sure you understand your organisation in detail:

Review your organisation with a data focused perspective. For example, you can look at what classes are doing well, are oversubscribed, and which are underperforming
Ask your customers! Surveys are the best way to do this. This will mean you’re not guessing the current efficiency of your business or what changes customers want

What you need to do to take back control of your time will be unique to your organisation. For example, Gabi noticed she was spending a lot of time doing admin tasks like chasing payments and emailing back and forth with customers. To combat this, she gave her admin assistants more responsibilities, which reduced the amount of time she had to focus on admin. She also invested in a drama school management software to simplify operations.

With this system in place, Gabi could automatically receive payments and understand financial matters with in-depth reports. She was also no longer manually chasing parents for payment because the system was doing this for her.

Automated comms that customers engaged with was another positive outcome for Gabi. She could send welcome emails, class updates and more, all customised to match The Playing Space branding.

This is a massive benefit that’s available with updated versions of drama school management software. Michael, Consultant, says, “The options are a lot more powerful now. Especially with the addition of emailing. A lot of legacy systems are text heavy. In the new systems you can send links, images, attachments, videos. But also, the key to any system is that it’s mobile first. Sending your content right through to their phones and include text, picture and even video content. So, you’ve got much more in the way of content related engagement tools”.

Abi also weighed in, “We did some research towards the end of last year with parents, and being kept in the loop was something that they were generally very aligned and insistent on across the board. So, even if they don’t open the first, second or fifth email you send, they have that expectation, they want to know what’s going on with people that are attending.”

She added: “It’s a really important way to stand out and build that trust, so that people come back”.