Music School Apps: Why Mobile Apps Work for Music Teachers & Students

Music School Apps: An Introduction

Music school apps are taking the industry by storm. Let’s talk about why they’re so popular and why your music school should have one.

Today, “going to school” can mean a lot of things. And, as is the case with much of society, education has advanced to include online classes taught via YouTube, online universities and colleges, applications found on a phone or a tablet, and of course the traditional teacher and student scenario that you might have built your music school around. However, mobile applications have completely transformed the way that we learn outside of the classroom and within it. That’s why music school apps are more than the wave of the future; they are of the here and now.

Technology has changed the education system and made it far more exciting than what it was because the possibilities are now endless.

What does that mean for your music school? It means that it’s up to you to use the right tools that empower you to market your business professionally and effectively. It means that you have to know what direction your business is going in and market accordingly. But, before we get into how to market your music school, let’s talk about mobile apps and why they are a huge benefit to your music school…

Music Apps: What Are They Good For?

Technology has changed the education system and made it far more exciting than what it was because the possibilities are now endless. Mobile apps can be used for scheduling, payments, and even education. You might be wondering what the difference is between apps that are used to learn music and apps that are used to grow and manage music schools. There are three major kinds of apps that every music school should be aware of:

1. Learning apps.

Learning apps are mobile applications that are built for teachers and students: a learning application might have music sheets and guitar tabs, teachers notes or points of reference for the student. There are music apps for learning to play the piano, the guitar, vocal studies, the drums, and much more. Some great apps for learning music are Riffstation for guitar, Simply Piano for the piano, Vanido for vocals, and Tenuto to advance your knowledge of music theory. Having a working knowledge of what apps are popular equips music school owners and music teachers with the tools to make recommendations to digitally-inclined students who want extra practice outside of class.

2. Staff apps.

Staff applications are mobile applications that are built to help music teachers manage their busy schedules. Whether it is attending staff meetings, meeting with students, making appointments, rescheduling appointments, or even tracking and taking payments — staff apps help music teachers and music school owners stay organized. Some staff apps, like Elevate, even help management keep track of which staff are keeping up with their appointments and which staff need that extra push to be reliable.

3. Client apps.

Client apps are applications built for customer experience. These music school apps help clients to book appointments with teachers, make payments, and even receive push notifications for lessons, reminding them to show up on time. Client apps like Achieve give students ease of access to music schools and offer music school owners easy marketing opportunities and increased brand visibility.

The Benefits Of Using Mobile Apps

If you’re an old-school kind of teacher, and you like to write on a white erase board, hand out sheet music to your students, and keep your schedule in your notebook, then you might be reading this and wondering why in the world should you even consider using a mobile app at your studio when you’ve been using the same paper and log system for decades and you think it’s alright.

The benefits to using mobile apps at your music school will get you excited about making the transition from old-school to new-school.

Well, keep reading: there are several benefits to using mobile apps at your music school, and they should get you excited about making the transition from old-school to new-school:

1. Join forces with teachers, students, & parents.
2. Increase student engagement.
3. Increase staff engagement.
4. Boost visibility.
5. Market directly to your customer.

1. Join forces with teachers, students, & parents.

Mobile apps are changing the way teachers, students, and their parents communicate with each other about music studies outside of the classroom: there are mobile applications that track student attendance, student progress and success. Knowing all that information really does help to determine the next steps in your students’ music education. And, of course, when this kind of information is so easily attained, the student’s parents will have easy access too.

Keep your schedule up-to-date and organized with the Elevate staff app.

2. Increase staff engagement.

Teachers, who may feel overwhelmed trying to remember their appointments when they’re on-the-go because their schedule is always changing with reschedules and cancellations, may benefit from using WellnessLiving’s Elevate Staff App. With the Elevate Staff App, your staff can easily check their appointments, reschedule them, and book new clients while on the go. A lot of your staff may have part-time or full-time jobs elsewhere, perhaps performing as part of a band or maybe working in a completely different field. Either way, working at your music school is a commitment that they made to your school, and it’s obviously important to you that they keep their commitments. This app helps your staff aware of where they need to be, and it also helps you know whether your teachers keep their appointments, and how often an appointment is rescheduled. This kind of information is the key to providing your clients with the best musical education experience out there.

With the Elevate Staff App, your staff can easily check their appointments, reschedule them, and book new clients while on the go.

But don’t just take our word for it: Paul Brandenburg, of The Orlando School of Music, recently spoke to WellnessLiving CEO and co-founder, Len Fridman about WellnessLiving’s cutting-edge music school apps “We recently switched over to WellnessLiving June 1st,” Paul told Len. “Getting acclimated to WellnessLiving came fairly quickly. The layout is great. It’s very easy to use. A lot of built-in reporting networks as well. Adding staff members and scheduling for teachers is easy.”

WellnessLiving’s all-in-one management software is designed for business owners: it was created by entrepreneurs who have an understanding of what kind of management software business owners need to be successful. Although there are other software companies on the market, WellnessLiving’s software was created for business owners who need a solution that is easy to use and gives them the best results.

Paul of The Orlando School of Music also enjoys using WellnessLiving to manage payroll: “With WellnessLiving’s check-in feature, it allows us to very easily run a report at the end of the month which we send to the teachers for them to review and then they invoice us for their pay with their direct deposit.”

3. Increase student engagement.

Maybe you’re looking for an application that will allow you to continue to do what you love, for your students, in a more organized and cohesive way. The Achieve Client app, in short, is a booking and rewards app for your clients that can be customized to fit the feel and look of your personal music studio.

If you’re a music school who wants to get students excited about coming to learn with you, and you want to encourage them to keep coming, then the Achieve app is perfect for your music school. Students are rewarded for booking and attending classes with you, rather than with anyone else, and you become a school who is actively a part of the twenty-first century.

The Achieve app actually gives your clients the ability to book and pay for appointments on the app and it rewards them for doing so with loyalty points.

What does that mean? It means that if you’re an old-school music school, and you feel like you’re walking into the twenty-first-century kicking and screaming, then you can design your music school app to have the look and feel of an old an established music studio that is still cool because it’s rolling with the times. The Achieve app actually gives your clients the ability to book and pay for appointments on the app and it rewards them for doing so with loyalty points. The Achieve app makes it easy for you to do business and for your clients to do business with you.

“First of all, the [Achieve] interface is way nicer than any other software that I’ve seen,” says Jessica Schatz, the owner of Expressions Music Academy and one of our customers. “I really like the idea of the student app, and we had not been able to offer anything like that before. The online enrollment…we get online enrollments – people who never called never texted or anything they just enrolled online, and all of a sudden in our inbox comes a notification that we have a new student. And we did no work! It looks really nice on our website, the enrollment page.”

The Achieve app makes it easy for you to do business and for your clients to do business with you.

Achieve has allowed Jessica to integrate an efficient and effective make-up class system into her school. “We do this make up system. And the way this make up system works is where a student cancels and when they cancel their spot becomes open for a make up. “We have a growing list of students who wanted us to track when make-ups were available and contact them when they were. And it became more trouble than it was worth. So we were like, wow, what if we had a system where when we opened a new make up class everyone was just automatically notified. A group of subscribed people…and [WellnessLiving] built that for us! I would honestly say that it saved our make-up system. It is amazing.

4. Boost visibility.

As of 2017, studies showed that the average American spends at least almost three hours on their phone every day or eight six hours a month! So, with all that time spent scrolling through the web and using applications on their phone, you want those people to spend time using your phone app and engaging with your business, right? Of course, you do!  So don’t miss the opportunity be one of the apps your client spends their time looking at and scrolling through.

5. Market directly to your customer.

Of course, when a client signs up to use your app and they’re playing around with it, they will, in turn, share some information about themselves. This is your opportunity to study their likes, dislikes, and to market to that customer accordingly. All the information that you’d like to share with your customer, regarding sales and promotions at your music school, can be sent directly to their phone, and that makes them more likely to want to do more business with you. Remember, you want to give your clients a personal experience, and this is your opportunity to do just that.

People use their phones and their tablets for everything, so being a part of the times is a good way of showing your customers that you are engaged and aware of what they need today.

So What Are You Waiting For?

Ultimately, if you don’t have a mobile app available to you and your customer, you are seriously missing out on a mainstream opportunity that has become the norm. People use their phones and their tablets for everything, so being a part of the times is a good way of showing your customers that you are engaged and aware of what they need today. It also shows that you are running in line with the competition who may very well have their own music school app. Know that almost every business has a website but having an app is what gives you an edge. With an app, your music school can grow from a small business to something bigger and better. And just like that, you’re running neck-in-neck with the competition.

When it comes to marketing, it’s important to get engaged and stay engaged with your customer, wherever you find them. Most people are on their phones today, and it’s how they search for businesses, reviews, phone numbers, addresses, and it’s how they get to your door. Creating a user-friendly and exciting online experience is how you draw in and retain clients at your music school.

You started your music school to teach people the beauty of music, and now, it’s time for us to help you help your music school be all that it’s capable of being, with WellnessLiving’s all-in-one-management software.