Business quiet? Struggling to get more leads and convert them into sales for your baby & toddler classes? Fear not!
Children’s Activity Business Expert Krissy Monaghan, Founder of Mess Around Ltd and now the Children’s Activity Business Club, is here to help. She has a proven track-record of turning even the most reluctant class provider into a super saleswoman! But don’t take our word for it – read on below…
1. Always keep in mind your Sales Funnel
For any children’s activity provider wanting to generate new leads and increase sales, it’s really important to be constantly thinking about your Sales Funnel:
Attract (people into our business)
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Educate
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Nurture
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Consideration (of buying)
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Convert (into sales)
To explain the top two stages in more detail:
- Attract: First we need to bring people in. Remember: we can’t make sales unless we have leads! Leads are anyone that can be contacted to convert them into sales.
Try measuring yourself from 1-10: how visible are you – posting on socials, messaging people, getting discovered etc? Be honest! There are loads of ways to be visible (e.g. SEO, blog content, your website, posters, listing with sites like Happity, paid ads), but most of us rely heavily on social media for this.There are 4 core ways to tell people about your services:
- Warm outreach (people you know who you could ask to recommend you)
- Cold outreach (people you don’t know e.g. posting in an FB group, contacting a nursery, etc)
- Posting free content
- Paid ads
Message friends and family and ask if they can help you find more leads (not enough class providers leverage their existing networks). Try using questions or prompts on your socials, e.g. I’m looking for parents of babies under 6 months old,’ etc. Or why not host a competition or collaboration?
- Educate: Once we’ve got people at the top of the funnel – we’ve attracted them in, they’re following us on socials, etc – next we want them to know who we are, what we do, and how we can help them.For that, we need to build our personal brand. Even if you’re part of a franchise and have a well-known brand to stand behind, your customers are still buying from an individual, not a faceless business. Putting yourself out there might seem daunting, BUT it’s proven that people buy from people that they know, like and trust. It helps build credibility and makes you stand out from the crowd.Again, score yourself from 1-10: do people know exactly what you do? Could they recommend you to others?
2. Market like a pop star
As I always tell my clients, ‘market like a pop star!’ As children’s activity providers, we have to be visible even when we don’t want to be, get our messaging and storytelling right, use our experience and credibility, engage and perform.
Ask yourself: What’s your superpower?! How are you different from all the other hundreds of baby & toddler class providers out there? That’s the message you want to be putting out on your socials.
(And that’s what gets us onto the Consider stage – when customers are considering buying from you.)
3. Focus your efforts
Think of one product you want to sell right now (e.g. your weekly classes, birthday parties or special courses) and focus your sales efforts on that.
Constantly keep checking in and reviewing your marketing to make sure it’s on track. I recommend making a list with 3 columns:
- what’s working (do more of it!)
- what’s not working (now)
- what have I not tried before (e.g. TikTok – that’s great for lead generation!).
Always consider if it’s bringing you leads, and track where they come in from.
4. Show up every day (yes, every day!)
I always tell my clients they need to show up for their clients and potential clients in 7 different places each day (this could be on email, Whatsapp, Linkedin, Instagram, your website, on posters and in ads, for example).
This is the nurture stage: people are taking longer to buy these days and need more nurturing and engagement before they commit. Data shows that it takes on average 11 different touchpoints for someone to decide to buy from you.
5. Convert your leads into sales
Use a spreadsheet to track your leads and if (and how many times) you’ve followed up with them. Think about when you last reached out personally to all the leads you’ve had in the past 6 months (include anyone who’s commented / engaged with you on socials, replied to emails, etc).
Make a sales plan, set yourself a target (be bold!), then carve out 30 minutes every day for sales & marketing activity.
Create irresistible offers that customers just can’t say no to! Make them compelling and time-bound. Don’t worry about annoying your existing client base – we’re in business here!
Remember: people are busy and most will need multiple reminders. Follow up like your life depends on it! You will get ghosted; don’t take it personally.
And keep reviewing your pricing: cheap isn’t necessarily best (people buy on value, not price) – a lot of class providers don’t charge enough.
Conclusion
The beauty of having a leads list / sales funnel is that you can go back and revisit it. When your next term’s coming up, simply go back to the top, see who is and isn’t engaging and try to get them back into your sales process.
I always advise going all out with your sales & marketing activity for 7 days (to avoid fatigue!); then review what worked and learn for your next campaign.
All the above is a lot of effort, but it works. You just need the staying power to keep going!
Become a Happity Member to watch Krissy’s webinar on this subject, as well as our upcoming monthly expert webinars for class providers.
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With thanks to our guest expert, Krissy Monaghan. Krissy founded Mess Around Ltd in 2012 and grew it into one of the UK’s leading messy play providers for under 5s, before stepping back from it in 2021. She now runs The Children’s Activity Business Club, an award-winning consultancy supporting children’s activity providers to market, grow and thrive. Over the past 3 years she has helped thousands of class providers make more sales.
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If you liked this, you may also like:
5 ideas to supercharge your social media as a class provider
10 Free Marketing Tools For Your Baby & Toddler Classes (that we’ve used ourselves!)
