How to get more members in your kids’ club

If your classes aren’t full, it’s very rarely because nobody wants what you do. Every street near you has families with children they want to grow in confidence, make friends and be good at something.

When a club stays small, it’s nearly always one of three things:

Everything below fixes one of those three.

1. Make the first step free

Asking a parent to commit to a monthly fee for a class their child has never tried is a big ask. Asking them to come and try it for free is an easy yes.

A free trial takes away the risk. The child gets to see the room and meet the coach, and the parent gets to see their child enjoying it. That’s what sells the membership, not anything you could write on a poster.

Then make sure the trial actually happens. We wrote a whole guide on getting more trials to turn up.

2. Give every new member a free month for a friend

This sounds generous, and it is. It’s also one of the cheapest ways there is to grow.

At our club, every new paying member can invite one friend in their first 30 days. The friend comes to class with them for 30 days, free. At the end, the friend either joins or simply stops coming. There’s nothing to cancel and no awkward conversation.

The timing is what makes it work. A new child is at their most nervous in their first few weeks, and bringing a friend they already know makes those weeks easier. By the end of the month they’ve made other friends in the class too, so they’re far more likely to stay, whether or not their friend does.

And the friend arrives already knowing someone, so they skip the nerves most trials start with.

That’s how we run it, and it’s only one way. Some clubs prefer a sibling offer, a discount for the member who brings someone, or nothing at all. Whatever suits your club is the right scheme.

Here’s what it actually costs you. The friend takes a space in a class that would have been empty anyway. You were already paying for the hall and the coach. If they join at the end of the month, you’ve gained a member for the price of a space you couldn’t sell.

3. Tell parents who don’t know you exist

Word of mouth is brilliant, and it’s slow. It only reaches people who already know someone at your club.

Local Facebook and Instagram ads reach parents within a few miles who have children the right age and have never heard of you. Done well, they don’t cost much. Our first four weeks of ads cost £145 and brought in 24 trial bookings. We’ve written up exactly what we spent and what it made.

Two rules make ads work for a club. Advertise a free trial, not your club in general. And only advertise classes that have space, so you never pay to find families you can’t take.

4. Be easy to find on Google and AI search

Lots of parents start with a search: “dance classes for 5 year olds near me”. More and more of them ask ChatGPT or Google’s AI answers instead.

• Have a website with a page for each class, with the ages, days, times and area written out plainly.
• Set up your Google Business Profile and keep your hours and photos up to date.
• Ask every happy family for a Google review. The best moment is just after a great trial.

Our own club gets trial bookings from Google and AI search, not just from ads.

5. Make joining take one tap

A parent has just watched their child love a class. That’s the moment to join. If joining means filling in a paper form, finding the bank details and setting up a standing order, a lot of them will mean to do it later and never quite get round to it.

Send the link to join the same day, and make it take a minute: choose the class, pay by card or Apple Pay, done.

6. Follow up within a day

After a trial, send a message the same evening or the next morning: how did they find it, and here’s the link to keep their place. Most families who don’t join aren’t saying no. They just haven’t been asked at the right time.

How many trials go on to join is your conversion rate, and following up quickly is one of the easiest ways to raise it.

7. Keep the members you already have

Growing is much easier when you aren’t losing people out of the back door.

• Keep parents in the loop: news, photos, show dates and holiday closures, all in one place.
• Let them pause instead of cancel when they have a busy month or a holiday.
• Make paying effortless, and chase failed payments for them, kindly and automatically.

Put together

None of these are complicated. The hard part is doing all of them, every week, while also running classes. A club that does all seven usually fills up.

Questions