You don’t need to have them professionally designed and printed. If you have a copy of Word on your computer, you can use this template to get started and then customize it with your own text and copy:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC010427661033.aspx

To add pictures or eye catching graphics, try a free photo archive site like the following and grab a few photographs:

http://www.morguefile.com/

If you want to modify the photo or add text to it, try using this incredibly easy to use free online program:

http://www.blibs.com/editor/index.php?action=add-font

Once you’re happy with your flyer, I would recommend printing it out on brightly colored paper like the following to catch people’s eyes as they pass by the flyer. Bright yellow seems to work for me as red can be a little hard to read, but this example is in red:

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/708258/Xerox-Brights-Color-Cover-Stock-Red/

If you have a printer at home, you can save some expense and print it out in black against the brightly colored paper. Another option, if you want to save some money, is to print out one black and white copy on white paper and buy a ream of the paper I referenced above. Take it to your local copier place, swap out the white paper in the machine with the bright paper, and just xerox the original copy onto the colored paper. Instant, cheap color flyers.

Then just take a pair of scissors to the tabs on the bottom and split them apart for easy tearing.

Buy a box of thumbtacks, the old school kind with the big flat heads on them. Use them to hang your flyers on bulletin boards instead of staples or tape. The harder it is to remove your flyer, the better chance you have of having it stay on the board longer than someone that uses easy-to-tear-off tape. Thumbtacks are sturdy and hard to remove without pulling a nail off, so odds are that someone who wants to tear your flyer down and replace it with theirs will give up and leave it where it is.

Good places to hang them are grocery store bulletin boards on Fridays before the masses do their grocery shopping on the weekends, laundromats, coffee shops, and anywhere that your target market goes on a day to day basis. I bet you can come up with a list of at least twenty places without really thinking about it.

You should be able to do this campaign for about $50 total cost, enough to put flyers up once a week for a few months. If you get even one student from it, two lessons at $25 per will pay for the entire campaign and the rest is money in your pocket. All it takes it time and effort.

Hope this helped. If you have any successful techniques or related experiences please share them. Have a safe and happy new year!

In areas with populations that large, there are usually several music stores/lesson studios that serve the area. They may not be located right next to each other but they are in the same general area.

When I first opened my business I felt threatened by all of them – particularly because I was doing advertising on some of the free bulletin boards out there on the Internet so the other ads would be listed right next to mine. Anyone that taught guitar was the competition and needed to be kept at bay and outwitted!

But as I was driving to the grocery store one day a realization hit me. Much like a grocery store, my lesson studio services my immediate area. Even though there are 75,000 people in my suburb, they aren’t all located in close proximity to where I’m at. That’s an important distinction to make.

I don’t drive 20 miles for groceries. There are two major stores within 5 miles of where I live and they get my business because a) I’m usually very time strapped and don’t have the time to explore other options b) they serve my needs so I don’t need to look anywhere else and c) even if a place across town had groceries that cost slightly less than what I was buying, the cost in gas money and time would wipe out any advantage I would get by shopping there.

The same applies to your lesson studio. Parents are busy, often working full time and juggling a full schedule of shlepping their children around to after school activities, day care, everyday errands (like the grocery store!) and if we’re fortunate, music lessons. If they have the choice of going to your lesson studio, conveniently located 5 minutes away from home, or receiving world class instruction from a renowed pianist 20 miles across town – odds are, as long as you provide good service and a decent value, they are your customer. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to do otherwise (unless you’re in a remote area and there are no other options)

Think in terms of a five to ten mile radius around your location in a larger market. If you’re in a small town, think in terms of your “end” of the town. Odds are that if you were to convert even a percentage of those residents located within a file mile radius into music students, you would have more business than you could possibly handle (which would be a great problem to have!)

Before I opened my business I made an effort to contact other guitar instructors and music stores that were located at least 25-30 miles away from where I was at and ask for advice or tips on opening a business. Most thought I was crazy and more than a few said they were not about to give that away to the the “competition”.

When was the last time you drove 30 miles for music lessons in a major metropolitan area on a weekly basis? It doesn’t happen very often. So are you really in competition with the other stores located that far away from you?

Odds are, probably not.

So the real competition for your lessons in the 5-10 mile radius around your store must be something else. Namely, video games, cable TV, the Internet, after school sports programs, etc.

If we all keep this idea in mind – that other instructors located outside our immediate area aren’t competition but potential sources of info and members of our team – how could that affect and inspire our business? Could we help each other out? Pass along valuable tips on marketing and building our businesses?

In 2009, let’s keep that idea in mind and see how we can help others who do what we do and in turn, help ourselves in the process and feel good about it.

Why not start now, right here? To anyone reading this – list the most valuable marketing method that worked for you in 2008 and why it worked so well. Let’s see if we can get a nice long list going.

Catchy headline, no? It also happens to be the title of a marketing book written by Mark Joyner that I found to be invaluable when it comes to designing your marketing materials.

You’re probably having the same skeptical reaction I did when I initially saw the headline.  Three seconds? Who are you kidding? That’s barely enough time to say “Hi i’m….” before the window of opportunity snaps shut.

The reference to 3 seconds is the average amount of time someone will spend scanning your mailing piece before it hits the circular file. That puts everything in a new perspective, doesn’t it? Not to mention the other pieces of mail crowding their mailbox at the same time with bright colors, interesting shapes, and screaming headlines that are also competing for their attention.

It’s similar to someone standing in the TV department at Best Buy with each TV tuned to a different channel and blaring at full volume. The overload can be deafening. Which TV would you turn to and watch?

Probably the one that had a re-run of King Of Queens on (your favorite show) or one that was showing your favorite Olympic event (bobsledding) or something that appealed to your personal interests.

Duh, you’re probably saying. Of course people are interested only in what appeals to their personal interests.

But it’s surprising how many mailing pieces don’t appeal to the interests of the reader. They are designed to talk about the person sending the piece more than the person reading it. And the person sifting through their mail can identify that self-interest in 3 seconds or less.

Thunk! goes the mail piece in the garbage.

This book throws an interesting concept at you. The Irresistible Offer. This isn’t a book jam packed with ideas that will take you months to sift through and one that you will use as a reference for years to come. It’s basically built on one idea and it can be read in an afternoon. But the one idea it presents is worth the money (or the trip to the library).

In a nutshell, you absolutely must appeal to the self interests of the reader and then present them with an offer that, to paraphrase the Godfather, they cannot refuse. To the point that they will put the rest of the mail down on the spot and take your mailing piece to the internet or telephone and act on it immediately.

The book goes into detail on making that offer better than I can, but in a nutshell, you have to make an offer that makes you shift in your seat uncomfortably and sweat a little bit. Not the Take 10% Off When Spend $100!! kind of offer. Something that, if everyone responded to it, might hurt you a little.

The rationale is that not everyone will respond, not enough to hurt you, and even if they did – if you take the long term customer value into account (what is this customer worth to me financially over one year? two? three?) vs. the offer that makes you sweat, you’re still ahead of the game.

I put this into practice and sent out a mailing to 2000 people from a list I bought from a list broker using criteria that would identify them as being in the general demographic of someone that might take guitar lessons. Then I made an offer of a giveaway for an electric guitar and 4 free guitar lessons. No strings attached, no sales offer, no spam. Just the offer. They had to go to my website and put their information in and wait for the deadline (which I made only 4-6 weeks away so they were motivated to act quickly).

I received a near 2% response rate on that mailing. That sounds like a weak response to someone that doesn’t do any marketing but direct mail marketing statistics state that anything under 1% is weak and needs fine tuning, 1-1.5% is a successful mailing, and 2% is a home run.

So 2000 people I mailed to times 2% is 20 potential students that are highly qualified prospects and basically raised their hand to tell you that they are open to taking guitar lessons. If you can convert fifteen of them (you can expect a few that just wanted a free guitar and won’t respond) you’re talking $375 a week at $25 per lesson per student. $19,500 a year extra from a mailing that cost roughly $400 for postage, postcards, and a mailing list.

Would you pay $400 if you could get $19,500 back in return? You just might. What if the students stay on with you for two years? $39,000 from a one time $400 expense. Not bad.

The guitar offer made me sweat. What if people just wanted the guitar and never intended to take lessons from me? Sure, there will be a few. What if only two people respond and I have to give away a guitar and a month of lessons without getting any new prospects? Could happen. But it didn’t.

The key is making an offer that they can’t refuse. This book can help you do so. I tried it out and it worked for me. Give it a try!

It wasn’t quite that easy. Not by a long shot. The suite I signed a lease on was off-street and had no visible signage or street presence. As a result, I learned some very important lessons on marketing (many the hard way). I thought I’d share a few of them here in hopes that others may get a laugh or a new idea from my experiences.

1) OUR EXISTENCE ALONE WILL NOT GUARANTEE A FULL ROSTER OF STUDENTS

Not only do we have to exist but people have to KNOW we exist before they will pay us for our services. While it would be ideal if our teaching skills were so revolutionary and cutting edge that word would spread across the community like wildfire and people would bang down our door just to witness the majesty…odds are that won’t happen quickly enough to pay our rent on a consistent basis. So we have to let people know we exist…and more importantly…

2) PEOPLE WON’T CARE THAT WE EXIST UNLESS WE GIVE THEM A REASON TO DO SO

Buying an ad in the paper just to announce our existence doesn’t explain to people WHY they should care or what it means to them. “I Give Guitar Lessons” Ok…..so what? What does that mean to me? Worse, “since 1980″ Why do I care how long you’ve been in business? (Hint: are we trying to communicate the fact that we have decades of experience and that will help them become a better player in half the time? Is that best expressed by “since 1980″ or are we leaving it up to the reader to make that connection? Will they?)

Let’s use the example of guitar lessons. Think about what we’re really selling when we advertise guitar lessons. People typically see guitars in the hands of their favorite rock stars on TV and in magazines. Rock stars are cool and cutting edge. People buy guitars because they want to be cool and cutting edge also. Can we adjust our marketing approach to tap into that? Would “Play Like A Rock Star!” have a better pull than “Guitar Lessons Since 1980″?

What about instruments that may not have the sex appeal of guitar, like oboe? Perhaps people have conducted studies on the benefits of musical education that can be tapped into – something about higher SAT scores, public performance skills translating into increased confidence in all aspects of life, etc? Would a parent considering oboe lessons for their child connect with that approach on a personal level? Perhaps those benefits may make them feel like a better parent? How could that be expressed in our marketing approach?

3) MARKETING IS LIKE A SHARK THAT STOPS MOVING – STOP MARKETING AND WE DIE

Any benefits we receive from our marketing are more than likely the results of the marketing we did several months ago. People don’t always respond in a timely fashion. In fact, studies have shown that it can take 5-6 instances of exposure to our marketing before they are even aware that we exist. Even if they are aware of our marketing efforts, they may take months to respond to it.

Think of marketing as planting seeds. It may be months before we see the flowers. That’s why it’s important to plan ahead.

If we get more students than we ever imagined possible as a result of our prior marketing and decide to put our current marketing on hold…..four months from now when the inevitable student dropouts occur and the phone stops ringing we will wish that we hadn’t. Sharks die when they stop moving. So will our business. We can’t assume that the phone will ring four months from now unless we do something now to make that happen. We can never assume anything.

4) STUDENTS WILL DROP OUT. THEY MUST BE REPLACED.

Inevitably, students will realize that learning to play takes practice and effort, students will get laid off from their jobs, they will move, etc. And when that happens, they will no longer take lessons. Marketing guarantees that someone will be there to replace them. If not, our income will decrease and our overhead will not. If this keeps occuring and compounds over time, it could put us out of business. Marketing is insurance against that scenario.

5) “I’M A MUSICIAN, NOT A SUIT.”

As soon as we accept payment for our services, we’re a business – regardless of whether we work out of our car, our home, or the homes of our students. If we accept payment for our services, we’re a business. Businesses need customers. Marketing creates customers.

Hopefully this article highlights why marketing is so important to a successful business. In future articles we’ll roll up our shirt sleeves and get down and dirty with the specifics. We’ll also review some important books that can help us along the way. I look forward to exchanging ideas with all of you and making 2009 our most successful year yet!