A Quick Guide for Clubs on How to Encourage Parents to Participate in Your Online Lessons.
With many kids activity clubs now operating online for the foreseeable future, it’s important that parents understand why continuing lessons online is beneficial to their children. You may be finding that some parents are less amenable to online class and struggle to understand how they offer the same service as physical classes. Whilst there are definitely differences between the two, it’s important for you to tell parents why online classes are the right choice. You may not have all of your customers on board, but by educating them, you’ll certainly help the majority to understand online lessons better. In this blog, we'll be outlining 5 ways for you to encourage parents to sign up for online lessons.
Connection
At a time where we are requested to stay indoors and social distance, it’s hardly surprising that many of us are feeling isolated. Used to their routines of school, chatting with friends, playing outdoors and attending their favourite club, children are feeling the impact of social distancing too. Like you, kids will be missing partaking in their favourite activities and seeing their friends at their activity clubs. It’s important for you to remember this and highlight it to parents.
Online classes may not be your customers favourite choice but they do provide stability, routine and connection at a difficult time. Having online classes will allow children to help keep in touch with their community, their friends and their teachers - providing joy which your club has always brought. You could also highlight to parents that online lessons provide a chance for families to connect and have fun together. If you find communication around this topic with customers can be difficult, read our guide on how to keep conversations with your customers positive.
Health
As societies, worldwide, we are now more aware about the importance of our mental health and general well-being than ever before. We are all too familiar with our physical health and exercise playing a big role in how we feel mentally. This is definitely a subject worth discussing with parents but it is important that you are sensitive to the situation.
Many of your customers will be feeling under pressure whilst adapting to a new situation, so show empathy and understanding. However, you should be highlighting the benefits of participating in online lessons will have for children and families. Not only will it provide physical exercise and routine but it also provides the all-important connection we discussed above.
You may also consider including free resources with your online classes with additional exercises, routines and techniques children can be doing as well as creating challenges to be partaking in. The more well rounded and packaged together your online lessons are, the better conversations you can have with parents.
Adaptable
Whilst the circumstances we find ourselves in is the opposite situation any club wants to be in, you can still find opportunity if you look hard enough. This will undoubtedly be one of the hardest periods you will face but it is also a great chance to display just how adaptable your club is. Adaptability can be taken in my forms and it’s up to you to decide what works best for your club.
Online lessons may be one way to adapt to this situation but you may also consider adapting your payment methods. If you are currently on a pay as you go scheme, you may find that charging subscriptions will work best for you and your customers. You can read about one club’s experience of switching to subscriptions and how it has helped them in our latest blog post.
Other things you may consider adapting are the content you are focusing on, altering schedules to better suit your customers or focusing on providing private lessons.
Progress
This is a great time for your club to show children how to be adaptable towards progression when it comes to focusing on an activity that brings them great joy. Whether you move lessons online via live streaming or pre-recorded content, you are enabling young people to continue progressing in their skills.
As a club owner, coach or teacher, you’ll understand how important it is to retain skills but you’ll also understand the role ongoing education plays in this. Tell your customers why progression is key and how your adaptability makes this possible. If you are working towards a competition or recital, highlight this to parents and centre your content around this. Take this time to use the skills and knowledge you’ve built up to tell parents why progress is important.
Support
Encouraging your customers to partake in online lessons is a great mechanism of support for both your club and local community. Express to parents the importance of supporting your club so it can be there when things return to normal. In one of our latest blog posts, we reminded clubs that not every customer will recognise why online classes are important or how they can continue to educate children during this time. Consider having a conversation around why online classes are crucial for your club and their children by using our template below.
“We appreciate online classes may not be your first choice but children will still learn during this time with our online classes as our content is still relevant. Not only this but it will also help our club survive this challenging time and return to our physical space in the months to come. We are doing our best to accommodate our customers and ensure the club survives this period. We appreciate your support during this time.”
We hope this 5 step process will help you understand the ways in which you can encourage parents to sign up for online classes. Take a positive approach and try not to over complicate things for yourself before having discussions with customers as to why this is important for their children and your club during this time. We have lots of tips and hints to help you during this time which you can find by visiting our resources page.