A registration reminder form can be the difference between winning a family as lifelong clients or losing them to a competitor. Here’s how I learned that the hard way:
It was late October, and I wanted to register my eldest child for a dance lesson. I visited the dance studio’s website ready to purchase, but registrations hadn’t started yet.
A few days go by and I completely forget to register my son. When I remembered, I had missed the first few weeks and didn’t bother to sign him up.
I ended up choosing a competitor’s studio in the winter session, and my son loved it. Because of this, the original studio lost my whole family (3 kids) to their competitor.
All the dance studio needed to do was open registrations much earlier to turn us into clients. As an operator, I know it’s not that simple.
I can already hear the excuses popping in your head:
“But I haven’t confirmed the location yet.”
“I’m not sure if I’ll have the staff.”
“No one will register that early.”
“My business is unique, and this would never work in our industry.”
Ok… so say I accept your (somewhat lame) excuses.
I can still help you avoid losing clients for simply not having registrations up early enough. With one simple fix.
A reminder form:
As a busy dad with 3 young kids, I love this. It’s one less thing to think about.
But as a kids’ sports business owner, I love it even more.
Here’s why:
We recently had over 112 people complete a reminder form before registration for a program with only 42 spots.
This allowed us to review our class offering. We tweaked the age groups and added more classes. When registrations opened, classes filled up within a few hours (some even within minutes).
Every participant who registers early acts as an ambassador for your program or camp. People will start talking to friends and family, letting them know they registered for this or that program.
They’ll sell your classes or camps for you at a time when people might not yet be able to sign up with a competitor (unless they’re also reading this article).
This provides an early kick-start to organic word-of-mouth, which has a snowball effect as more people register. It also trains your clients to register early to secure a spot. As people get used to this, they’ll start registering a bit earlier every session. You’ll get early data regarding popular classes/time/day and how to staff them accordingly.
Earlier registrations allow you to pivot and make strategic changes to your offering, optimizing efficiency and profits.
Parents are already primed for this. Search “why you should register early for summer camp,” and you’ll find dozens of parenting blogs telling them to do exactly that. You need to make sure you’re prepared for when they show up ready.
So make sure your activities (or at least a reminder form) are ready for parents and participants when they visit your site. And do it much earlier than you think.
