How to Start a Virtual Dance School and Attract Students?

So, you have decided to turn your passion into a profitable business venture! Starting your virtual dance school allows you to share your expertise with the world and be your own boss.

But converting your dream into reality demands a clear strategy!

In this blog, we guide on how to start a virtual dance school. From choosing your dance style to creating a business plan and marketing your business, we have got you covered! So, tune in to the right steps and strategies to take an entrepreneurial leap!

Here’s what you’ll learn in this blog:

• How a virtual dance school works

• How to create your online dance school

• Practical tips to manage your dance school

• Popular dance schools 

Why Transition to Virtual Dance School?

To begin with, you might be a seasoned dance instructor or choreographer with a well-established business. However, expanding your business beyond the conventional brick-and-mortar presence is becoming increasingly significant.

Let’s explore the key reasons for starting a virtual dance school!

Passive Income

Starting an online dance school is a great way to supplement your income as a dance instructor. With increased flexibility, more and more people find online classes convenient. Hence, this is a lucrative opportunity to scale your business.

Expand Audience Reach

A virtual dance school creates a more inclusive learning environment—there are no geographical barriers, diverse backgrounds, or tailored needs. This offers scope to share your expertise with a global audience.

Accessibility

When you have an online website or studio, the information is available 24/7, and students can easily find your services.

Marketing & Branding

Building a bespoke brand easily resonates with your audience! A virtual dance school is a significant step towards establishing a strong online presence.

Lower Cost

A virtual dance school eliminates rent and overhead costs, such as traveling expenses and other utilities, needed for traditional brick-and-mortar spaces.

Community Building

It’s a great way to connect and collaborate with other niche instructors. Moreover, you build a resounding community that motivates aspiring artists to hone their craft and achieve great heights.

How a Virtual Dance School Works?

A virtual dance school offers a digital platform for connecting dance instructors and students. Aspiring learners can access pre-recorded classes, instructor-led live classes, or membership programs. While the dynamics of a dance school depend on the business model or pricing structure, here’s the basic workflow!

Registration/Sign Up

Students need to sign up with the platform to access any kind of service. This might provide essential details like basic information, dance style, expertise, preferred schedule, etc.

Class or Course Selection 

Next, students can search an extensive library of classes to pick one that aligns with their interests and schedule. Some platforms even offer short trials to get into the groove. Students pay for individual classes, course bundles or membership, depending on what they opted for. 

Join Live Classes or Start Courses

Once students log in, they can connect with their instructors through Zoom live sessions. The teacher demonstrates the steps or warm-up exercises, and students can practice along with them.

Review and Feedback

Feedback is an inevitable part of learning! You can ask questions, express concerns, and get personalized feedback from your instructors. Some platforms even allow students to upload their dance videos and get feedback to improve their craft!  

How to Create Your Online Dance School: 8 Easy Steps

The online dance learning industry market size is expected to reach $5.3 billion by 2030 from $1.4 billion. So, if you have the expertise and passion, it’s the best time to start your online dance school! Sounds good?

So, let’s navigate through the detailed roadmap on how to start a virtual dance school!

Step 1: Define Your Style, Expertise, and Target Audience 

Now, you have made up your mind to start a dance school! But, when you say, “I am starting a dance school,” it’s quite a generic statement. Dancing is a pretty extensive field; you can’t typically teach all kinds of dance to your students. 

Hence, you also need to decide whom you’re teaching: kids, teens, couples, people with special needs or seniors. Decide whether you’re taking beginner or advanced classes.

Here are the different dance styles you can start teaching:

• Ballet
• Hip-hop
• Tap Dancing
• Jazz
• Contemporary
• Bollywood Style or Bhangra
• Irish dance
• Ballroom
• Modern Dance

And the list goes on…

You can also teach multiple dance styles if you can’t settle on one. But it’s better to start with one style and expand later. 

Step 2: Gain Teaching Experience

You need sufficient teaching experience before starting your virtual dance school. This experience provides the essential skills to instruct students, understand student needs, manage the classroom environment, and reduce the risk of injury for students.

It also helps to plan your curriculum effectively and decide what lessons to begin with. Having a background as a dance teacher or a certification offers enough credibility.

Step 3: Create a Business Plan 

Before you start your lucrative tutoring business, you need a clear business strategy.

Here’s what your business plan must look like:

• Market Research: Identify the key players, their strengths and weaknesses, market trends and existing demand for your offerings. Research your target audience’s needs, expectations, profession, behavior, etc.

• Business Model: Decide the format for your dance classes. Are you offering pay-per-class membership, subscriptions, pre-recorded classes, or live-streaming sessions? Also, decide whether you’re offering personalized or group classes. 

• Pricing Structure: While charging low prices might seem attractive, choose competitive pricing that’s affordable and followed across the industry. 
• Financial Projections: Create detailed financial plans, including startup costs, operating costs, revenue projections, etc.

Step 4: Decide the Key Features for Your Virtual Dance School

Before you start your virtual dance school, decide on the essential features of your tutoring website. You need to create a user-friendly and easy-to-navigate website. 

Aim for an aesthetically attractive website. Your brand speaks volumes—add excellent imagery, fonts, and typography. Your website should offer a great vibe about your dance style!

Now, let’s decide the crucial elements for creating your website:

• Login & Registration
• Contact Forms
• Multimedia- photos & videos
• Calendars for booking 
• Social Media Links & Contact
• About Us Page
• Testimonials and Social Proof
• Informative Blogs

Step 5: Build Your Online Website 

Now that you have the design for your dance school, it’s time to integrate everything and set up your website. 

There are three essential aspects of a full-fledged dance school:

• Video Streaming Platforms: You can choose from video streaming platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, or OBS Studio. For broadcasting live classes on social platforms, Instagram Live and YouTube Live are popular choices.
• Payment Gateways: PayPal or Stripe are popular payment gateways for accepting payments for subscriptions and online courses.
• LMS: Integrate an excellent learning management system for tracking progress and delivering resources and instructional materials.

Step 6: Prepare the Equipment 

Next, let’s discuss the essential equipment for online dance classes! While you might not need all of it, you can get the basics and add on later!

Camera: High-quality video is essential; even it could be your brand’s USP. You can use a professional camera like a DSLR or webcam, or you can use your smartphone’s camera as a beginner. For stability, you can fix an adjustable tripod.

Lighting: Ring lights provide basic lighting. Additionally, softbox and  LEDs offer professional lighting. 

Audio: Use a microphone to record instructions for students. You can use a lapel microphone to record your voice even while dancing. A Bluetooth speaker ensures your audio is audible. 

Dance Space: Your personal dance space should be roomy enough to accommodate all your dance movements without congestion.

Additional Tools for Different Dance Forms: Non-slip floor rolls, hula hoops, mountable mirrors, or other tools specific to dance.

Step 7: Plan Your Dance Lessons 

Planning your lessons is crucial whether you’re offering live classes or pre-recorded courses. This ensures a seamless learning experience and avoids last-minute glitches!

For example, you can start with warm-up exercises, then move on to skill-building and finally end with cooldowns. Decide on your lessons based on dance style, expertise level, and target audience. While designing a specific dance lesson, lay out objectives and goals for your students. Decide on your session length and extra time for review or feedback sessions. 

Admit it or not, routine is boring! To break the monotony, include fun activities like student-choreographed sessions, game sessions and awards. 

Supplement your course with pre-recorded classes, dance videos, or other resources. Additionally, offer workshops, camps, or special classes for different audiences. Adjust your curriculum based on your target audience and skill level. 

End classes with feedback for improving your dance techniques, teaching strategies, or engagement levels. This ensures you retain your existing students. 

Step 8: Market Your Dance School 

Now, it’s time to spread the word about your dance school! Promoting your dance school helps you connect with your vibrant community and build strong relationships. One of the most challenging parts is finding the right platform for your audience.

Listed below are practical strategies to find new students for your dance school:

• Word-of-Mouth & Referrals

Trust recommendations are one of the strongest marketing pillars! Word-of-mouth marketing pretty much works on trust. Your existing students, friends, family and relatives form your first network. When your students share their experiences about learning and fun elements with peers, isn’t it a spot-on marketing? 

• Social Media

Well, it’s a no-brainer that social media is a powerful tool for brand promotion and attracting new clients. With the majority of the audience belonging to millennials and GenX, you can’t miss out on social media! 

Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Facebook are popular social media platforms. Create engaging social media posts, including videos and photos about your dance school. Participate in viral challenges and host giveaways on your social channel.

• Paid Advertising

Choose a PPC model to bid on relevant target keywords and rank high on SERPs. This is a great way to advertise your tutoring services. when a user puts forth a search query, your dance school would appear in the top searches.

• Email

Email marketing is still a goldmine for growing your tutoring business! You could curate newsletters, special announcements, discounts and offers, or subscription bundles through emails. This is a great way to forge deeper connections with your students for a long time.

• SEO

Find relevant keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMRush. Integrate short-tail and geo-targeted keywords in your website, blog headings, or paid ads to rank higher in search results.

• Influencer Marketing

Collaborate with potential micro-influencers popular in your niche to promote your dance school.

• Blog Posts

Create informative blogs regarding different dance styles, how-to guides, exercises, and movements to attract learners.

Step 9: Measure Your Dance School’s Growth

Lastly, mastering the number game is essential for the long-term growth of your business! Track the crucial KPIs to stay ahead of your competitors!

Here are some important KPIs to focus on while scaling your business:

• Enrollment
• Churn Rate
• Class Attendance
• Lifetime Value
• Profit
• Customer Growth

Pull these figures from spreadsheets and presentations to make better-informed decisions! Lastly, you can scale your dance school with new offerings. For example, you can add group classes or pre-recorded classes along with one-to-one live sessions. Provide a space for dance auditions, jobs, or casting calls to connect dance companies with aspiring artists. 

Tips to Manage Virtual Dance School

Despite the upsides of starting a virtual dance school, it comes with unique challenges. Here’s some practical wisdom on how to start a virtual dance school and create a thriving business!

Offer a Mix of Live and On-Demand Content

While live dance sessions simulate a face-to-face learning experience, kicking in the real-time interactivity. Pre-recorded content ensures your students don’t miss a beat and catch up on their missed live sessions. Well, you can’t virtually please everyone! From hip-hop to K-pop, tapping into the on-demand content keeps you in the race! 

Make Learning a Fun and Exciting Experience

Remember that your dance school is a testament to your passion and skill! To add an element of fun, incorporate fun activities like themed classes, freeze games, and freestyle competitions!

Integrate in the Right Technology

Managing your online dance studio could be overwhelming. You need to handle everything, from attendance management and new bookings to recent sign-ups.

An all-in-one tutoring software like Pinlearn makes it easier to manage your day-to-day operations. It offers class and student management tools, calendar management, live classes, selling courses, and more. 

Moreover, you can avail of all these premium features at a non-premium price and a one-off payment. This ensures you have everything organized to “T” and offers an amazing learning experience!

Offer Flexibility & Accessibility

Provide different schedules and dance styles to cater to diverse student needs. Ensure your platform is mobile-friendly for a seamless learning experience from anywhere!

Stay Updated with Trends and Skills

To attract students, stay abreast with the hottest dancing trends and techniques worldwide by taking advanced certifications, seminars, or workshops.

Popular Virtual Dance Schools

The online dance industry is expanding continuously. Over the years, many online dance schools have disrupted the industry and are equally appealing to all kinds of audiences.

We have covered a few bigwigs storming the space to drive some entrepreneurial inspiration!

Steezy Dance Studio

If you thought live-streaming classes were essential to breaking into the dance industry, Steezy proves you wrong. With 1,500 comprehensive pre-recorded classes, Steezy has carved an unparalleled reputation in this space. Instead, the platform focuses on offering detailed breakdowns of moves and features like switch views, loop moves, mirror video, etc.

From classical ballets to progressive krumping, the popular dance studio offers a whole new world to explore for dancers. It categorizes its classes for brand new, beginners, intermediate and advanced learners. Plus, it features an amazing community and resources to keep updated with the latest trends.

Dance Masterclass 

With professional-quality dance lessons, Dance Masterclass has earned its coveted tag as the #1 dance education and training platform. The platform provides classes on ballet, jazz, contemporary, and workouts from celebrated performers and artists. It features over 1,000 classes for beginners and experts, even earning a certification for selected courses. Learners can start subscriptions and master their dance techniques at their own pace. 

DancePlug

Danceplug is another go-to hub that attracts dance enthusiasts with its versatile dance styles and levels. From contemporary to ballet, the platform connects learners with experts through easy-to-follow tutorials. 

Learners can join the membership (monthly, annual, or 4-month access) and enjoy access to over 1,000 tutorials covering different styles. Additionally, weekly dance auditions and resources like how-to guides and blogs are perks of the membership.  

Conclusion

There is significant demand for virtual dance classes. Starting an online business builds a powerful brand and strong online presence, giving an edge over competitors. From one-to-one classes through cohort sessions and pre-recorded courses, you can earn from different revenue streams! 

This blog provides valuable insights on how to start a virtual dance school and practical tips to kickstart your journey. So, definitely, it’s never too late to supercharge your dance school business! Discuss your business idea with our expert team, and we’ll show you how to transform it into a profitable dance school! 

We promise not to miss a beat and get you into the groove!👍💰

FAQ-Related to How to Start a Virtual Dance School

1. Are virtual dance schools profitable?

Yes, starting a virtual dance school is a profitable business. Your profitability depends on the monetization streams, such as subscriptions, one-to-one classes, group classes, and merchandise you integrate into your platform. According to Exactitude Consultancy, the virtual dance school market size is projected to reach $5.33 billion by 2030.

2. How to start a virtual dance school?

To start a virtual dance school business:

• Identify your niche
• Perform market research
• Determine your business model
• Decide on the key features for your website
• Build your online platform
• Get equipment for filming your dance lessons
• Create a dance lesson plan
• Promote your online dance school
• Monitor your dance school performance

3. How do you attract clients to your dance school?

Leverage word-of-mouth marketing, create social media posts, advertise with paid ads, promote exciting discounts through emails, or collaborate with popular influencers to attract new clients to your platform.

4. What equipment is needed to start a virtual dance school?

You need a basic camera, ring lights, microphone and additional equipment specific to dance style.