As a children’s activity business owner, you might wonder, “How can I make sure my classes are full? How can I make the most out of slow times? How can I encourage more customers to book activities with me?”

The answer: Diversification! If you diversify your offerings, you can increase your revenue and customer base. Customers get more options and opportunities to enjoy your wonderful activities and you get more adoring fans. It’s a win-win!

In this guide, we’ll outline our top tips for diversifying and expanding your revenue. Luckily, with a children’s activity registration and management software like Sawyer, all of these ideas can be implemented simply and easily within the platform. 

How to diversify revenue for children’s activity businesses

• Add drop-in spots to fill semester classes
• Offer free trials and nurture those customers
• Make the most out of your space with parties and more
• Offer gift cards 
• Run camps when school is closed

Add drop-in spots to fill semester classes

Many after school programs, school break and summer camps, and even weekend activities run as semesters. Semesters are great and come with a lot of positives.

Benefits of semesters for providers

• Upfront payment from customers
• The ability to build lesson plans off of previous classes
• Opportunities for bigger projects, class trips, and more 

Benefits of semesters for customers

• One purchase for many activities
• Students can build on previous classes, form relationships with instructors and other children, and advance to new levels
• More exciting activities!

But, what happens if you publish a semester program and it doesn’t fill up as the start date approaches? Should you just leave those seats empty? 

No! Instead, as you get closer to the start of your semester or right as the semester begins, we suggest opening drop-in spots in your class. Let students test out the program and then incentivize them to join the semester.

When adding drop-ins to semester classes

• Price drop-ins higher than the price per day cost for the full semester
• Provide incentives for drop-in participants to commit to the full semester some text
  • For example, if a customer signs up for the rest of the semester on the day of drop-in, you’ll refund the difference from the drop-in price
• Offer sibling discounts, free trials, and other entry points for these drop-ins

Adding these drop-in classes give you a revenue bonus after your costs, like rent, staff, supplies, etc are already sunk. Plus, you give interested but unsure families a chance to try before they buy the whole semester. 

Offer free trials and nurture those customers

Like drop-ins, free trials are a great way to get customers in the door. You might think it is counterintuitive to talk about free trials when trying to increase your revenue, but we promise, it works! We analyzed 8.9 million bookings made on Sawyer in 2023 and found that 30% of customers who booked a free trial class on Sawyer converted to a paid booking within 30 days.

When you offer free trials to your customers, they get the chance to explore your activities before they commit. Free trials are a great opportunity to increase your customer base and spread the word about your wonderful activities! 

When you offer free trials, make sure you nurture those customers to encourage them to make a paid booking. With Sawyer, a follow up email is automatically sent to free trial customers after the class finishes. Continue nurturing these relationships to bring them into the fold!

Make the most out of your space with parties and more

Most children’s activity businesses experience downtime or slower times throughout the week or year. Maybe you primarily focus on after school programming and your weekends are quieter or vice versa. Similarly, if you run summer camps, your school year is generally freer. 

These slower times can be great opportunities for parties, field trips, and private events! Since you already have the space, supplies, and maybe even staff on hand, you can make your space work for you. 

When you have these events, put out a sign-in sheet and collect names and email addresses for your attendees. After the event, send them a follow up email and try to encourage them to sign up for one of your upcoming activities. Continue to nurture these connections through email marketing and you will see them come through the door again!

Offer gift cards

Another great opportunity to diversify and increase your revenue is with gift cards. Offering gift cards can help boost your revenue during slower times. In fact, Sawyer providers that offer gift cards have 2.6x higher sales than those that don’t. 

Did you know that 61% of consumers spend more than a gift card’s value when redeeming it? It’s true! Capital One Shopping did a study and found that people who have a gift card spend more because they view it as “free money”. 

Gift cards are also a great option for grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends during birthdays and the holiday season. Make sure to send an email letting your customers know that you have gift cards available when it gets close to those times. 

Run camps when school is closed

School holidays and breaks are ideal times for children’s activity businesses to run special activities and camps. Working parents often do not have the same days off as their school aged children, so they still need childcare on days when school is out. That’s where you come in!

Publish full day and half day camps on school breaks and days off to give options to parents who need childcare. Try to make connections with schools to see if they will send information to parents about your camps when school is closed. You can also place flyers around town to advertise for your programs.

These school break and holiday camps are a great opportunity to expand your customer base. Consider adding discounts for siblings, referrals, and new students in order to make these sales. Then, you can show off your wonderful programming, beautiful space, and professional teachers and your students will come back for your regular activities and classes!

We hope this article has provided you with inspiration and ideas to diversify and expand your revenue this year. The best part? With Sawyer, you can easily implement these suggestions with a few clicks.

Learn more about how Sawyer can help your business succeed by scheduling a demo of our software or signing up for a free trial.