On and off I get people asking me: “Are you still running your music school?”
“How much time do you put into growing it?”
My answer?
Yes, I’m still running it, but with very minimal work required on my part.
Why?
Because I have already built up systems and processes to automate it.
And I have a group of instructors teaching my workshops.
If you ask me how much time I need to launch a workshop now with this system, my answer would probably be 1 hour.
I get my ad creatives ready, update my workshop dates, and just turn on my ad campaign.
This system is perfect for any businesses in enrichment, tuition or training.
Read on to find out how I automate it through the wonders of digital marketing.
Here’s the flow of my whole music workshop sales process:
Ads -> landing page -> payment page -> email follow-ups
What makes the whole thing fully automated is:
- My landing page that sells for me 24/7. It answers all the doubts and questions people have about my music workshops.
- My scheduling software where students select the dates of the workshop and pay for it. This software sends reminders as well a few days before the class starts.
- My email system where I follow up with leads who were interested but have yet to make payment.
I used to run several workshops per month, especially during the pre-pandemic period.
Right now as I plan to scale up the workshops, the process remains the same.
All I need to do is to turn on my ad campaigns and everything runs.
If your business doesn’t rely on ads (which is good for you), this works as well.
Here are some important pointers I have gathered along the way while building up the system.
Hopefully it gives you a better idea if you want to also automate certain sales processes in your business.
The importance of the headline (on your landing page)
After years of writing my own copy, I’ve developed a structure of writing my landing pages.
It’s hard to dive into the full structure of my landing page this letter.
But if you’re keen, I wrote everything about it in this PDF called Sales Page Secrets which you can download here.
On your landing page, the most important thing is your headline as it determines whether people will keep reading on.
My headlines aren’t too complex. It usually follows this formula:
Get (desired outcome) in (timeframe)
Learn Piano In 2 Hour
Describe how your method works (or why it’s unique) on your landing page
A huge part of my landing page is where I explain how my method works.
In short, why I’m different and why they should join my workshops versus other music schools.
You must have FAQ (frequently asked questions) on your landing page
Over the years, I noticed the same few questions prospective students always ask.
So I put them in an FAQ section to clear their doubts.
Opt in (to your email list) to register interest
In the past, my landing page was a button for them to click and make payment directly.
Now, I get interested people to register their interest by entering their email address.
After they opt in, they can make payment on the thank you page.
Why do I do it this way?
Because once they opt in but in the event where they don’t make payment, I can send automated emails to remind them about making payment.
Even if my automated follow up emails fail to get people to pay, it’s fine.
The reason they even opt in is because they were keen in the first place.
Perhaps for some reason they can’t join my class.
But now that they are in my list, I can keep them posted on future workshop dates.
Collect payment on the thank you page
Once someone opts in to the landing page, they can make payment to register for the workshop.
To fully automate my sales process, I had to start collecting payments online via Stripe & Paypal.
Some of my clients are still collecting payments manually (via PayNow), which is fine if you’re okay with checking for payments manually.
For me, the sales process I’m building should be so automated that once I turn on my ads, the next thing I should see is people coming to my workshops.
Everything in between should be automated.
Online scheduling software
In the past, I did everything manually.
From collecting payments to typing out the name list per workshop.
It was so easy to mess things up and I had people coming for classes but I could not find their payment records (when they already paid for it).
I solved this by using this scheduling software that’s been a gamechanger for my business.
It’s called acuity scheduling.
It allows me to display all my class timings and people can make payment based on the dates they can make it.
And even if they can’t make it after making payment, they can reschedule on their own to the next available date.
Today, I don’t make such scheduling mistakes again, all thanks to this automated scheduling software.
Automated email system
When someone opts in to my landing page, but did not make payment on the thank you page, I will send an automated email to remind him/her to make payment 1 day later.
2 days later, when that lead doesn’t pay, another reminder email will be sent.
Sometimes, these people are genuinely interested to join my classes but perhaps due to unsuitable dates, they aren’t able to.
So they continue to stay in my email list where I’ll share with them the next set of workshop dates.
That’s how I maximise my lead value, by constantly nurturing them through my emails.
This is how my automated sales system looks like in a big overview:
I love this system because it does all the heavy lifting for me.
While I personally believe this can benefit many education businesses, some businesses still prefer certain processes to be manual.
Especially when following up with leads.
Because the “human touch” is something that is hard to replace.
As I always say, there are no hard and fast rules to follow when building your own business systems.
What’s important is to build one that suits your business, your lifestyle, while giving you the desired outcome you want.
In my case, a fully automated system that works with very little input of my time required.
