Jacqui Verellen is the Academy Director and Co-Owner of Verellen Music Academy. She is passionate about making music fun for her students and believes an interactive and engaging experience is more conducive to learning than a strict, one-size-fits-all approach.
When Verellen opened her music academy during the COVID-19 pandemic, she had to figure out how to translate her approach to music for online learning. She soon realized that she had her work cut out for her. “The hardest part was for the very young ones, making sure there’s enough movement because if there wasn’t enough movement within the musical activities, they would lose interest,” says Verellen. With some trial and error, the academy found its footing with online learning by incorporating movement and interactive components, such as video, into its class structure.
Next, it was time to get the word out to parents and this was proving to be another challenge for Verellen. About six months into running her business, Verellen learned about Digital Main Street’s Digital Transformation Grant (DTG) program from Myrtle Donnipad, the Youth Entrepreneurship Advisor at WindsorEssex Small Business Centre. The program provides brick-and-mortar small businesses with a digital assessment, online training, and a $2,500 grant to implement their Digital Transformation Plan. It was just what the music academy needed. “There [were] a lot of good insights about how to [market] yourself and that was really helpful for us. Some of the material jogged our memory on areas of marketing that we needed more work put into. Other parts of the training gave us fresh and exciting ideas.’” says Verellen.
During her online training with Digital Main Street, Verellen learned about Facebook advertising as a way of promoting her business through social media. She was excited to invest a portion of her DTG funds into this channel to see what it could do for her business. Verellen was uniquely interested in Facebook over other social media platforms because of the demographic of its users. “I think a lot of parents and grandparents are on Facebook,” she says. And with fewer people leaving home as a result of the pandemic, she knew that digital channels would provide a definite boost to reaching her target audience, in addition to her physical signage.
Her investment in digital marketing paid off big time thanks to careful monitoring of the performance of the business’s ads. “We could […] decipher […] with the analytics, what is working, what are people most interested in, and then we would narrow down to the best ads,” she shared. One key insight that emerged for Verellen was that original photography performed far better than stock photography. “People want to see those real faces, they want to know that they’re invited into a real community. […] It just, I don’t know, it just tugs at the heart more to see real people interacting,” says Verellen.
With this key insight in mind, Verellen invested the remainder of her grant funds into creating more original content for the music academy’s paid and organic digital marketing channels. She hired a photographer to capture recitals and classes and generate a photography bank for the business. She used this photography to create Facebook ads that promoted her most successful lead magnet: a free class. Once parents and their children had a chance to experience the engaging and interactive online learning activities Verellen had created for her students, most of them converted and decided to enroll.
The original content is also being shared on the academy’s various social media profiles. Sharing this behind-the-scenes look at the student experience has helped Verellen foster a sense of community with her existing families, in addition to showcasing her business to prospective parents.
Today, Verellen estimates that about 90% of her leads are generated through Facebook ads. She is now meeting her online learning students in real life for the first time as the business shifts its model back to in-person learning, and Verellen says the experience has been incredibly rewarding. “I’m very grateful that the [province] gives out the grants that they do to allow people to not only […] live their passion, but to include others in it. Because I definitely feel like the community that we’re building […] really needed music in their [life].”
