They’re Back (Almost)…

Promos are nice, but relationships reap the rewards.

The brief back-to-school season represents a one-time chance to secure a year’s worth of business in what some call the music products industry’s most stable market segment. Just how important is the period of late summer promotions for school music retailers and suppliers? “Critical,” says Lori Supinie of Senseney Music in Kansas, NAMM’s 2011 Dealer of the Year.

More than half of Senseney Music’s revenue comes from the school market, and Supinie credits the store’s success in this area to a comprehensive approach to building buzz for the back-to-school rush. To get the word out, her team utilizes a wide array of tactics, including a traditional brochure, online rentals, billboard advertising, local media webpage takeovers, Google Adwords, and Facebook ads. “We kind of throw a big bag of tricks at it,” she explains.

A flexible rental program is the centerpiece of Senseny Music’s back-to-school business. “We offer starter packs that have all of the supplies that beginning music students will need,” says Supinie. “Whether they are visiting the store, online, or at a rental night, we try to make it a one-stop-shop. We build that starter pack into our rental program, so that makes it very easy for parents to get their kids started in band or orchestra.” The best way to know just what to include in those starter packs is to build strong ties with area school band and orchestra directors – i.e., getting to know your customers and doing market research.

Kevin Cranley of Willis Music, a retail outfit with five stores across Kentucky and Ohio and generates a little more than a quarter of its revenue from the school market, calls consistency a key part of his process in planning back to school events. “We have a formula that we’ve been using for a number of years. We’ve been growing consistently, so we’re not changing up that formula too much every summer. It’s all about the relationships. A whole lot of work goes into it before the back-to-school season even starts.”

Those labors can lead to big dividends, when done properly. “I cannot overstate the importance of what we like to call our ‘harvest,’” says Supinie.

The “harvest” analogy makes perfect sense considering the months and months of planning and countless hours of research that go into making this brief flurry of activity successful. Indeed, the school rental market can be a full-time, yearlong activity. Cranley describes it with the phrase “46 and 6,” a concept that he attributes to industry legend George Quinlan of Quinlan & Fabish Music Company: it takes a full 46 weeks to prepare for the six-week back-to-school rental period.

So what do those preparations entail? The first step involves developing relationships and building trust with music educators, administrators and parents. To accomplish this, retailers need to demonstrate that they are interested in more than just pushing product.

Building Relationships

“We’ve planted the seeds all year with our road service, building relationships with band and orchestra directors, and this is the time to reap, to bring the crop in,” says Lori Supinie. “There’s only one shot at this, for us and the directors – we are all trying to get kids to start band and orchestra. We very much feel like it’s a combined effort between us and the directors.”

The symbiotic connection between dealers and directors runs deep. To keep it healthy, many music dealers support their local school programs through advocacy, outreach and other activities. This can prove invaluable in being seen as a resource rather than simply a retailer. It also helps build credibility among educators and parents if you can talk the talk.

“We really try to be mentors, advisors, shoulders to cry on, and to have their back as much as we can,” says Supinie, who notes that all Senseney Music road reps and most staff are former music educators. When school music directors ask for advice, her staff is able to offer it, along with helping educators navigate some of the finer points of the business side of music, literature selection, unusual instrumentation, and even classroom management. “That’s really the cornerstone of our relationship – our road reps have all been in the band and orchestra directors’ shoes, so we can build credibility from that.”

Another invaluable trait in relationship building is integrity. “So many times in life, people commit things to you, but then they don’t follow through,” says Kevin Cranley. “A band director just won’t take that for very long. All of our people know that the most important thing is that we do exactly what we say we’re going to do and always communicate. So if they’re looking for something unusual and we’re having trouble locating it, we have to get back to them and let them know what’s going on.”

Cranley attributes the strengthening of relationships between Willis Music staff and area music directors to the trust that has been built between them over the past five years. That, in turn has had a dramatic impact on the business side of things. “The school music market is one of the strongest parts of our industry,” he says. “Band and orchestra has been great for us. We continue to grow.”

In terms of specific activities, music retailers can nurture relationships with educators throughout the year by offering clinicians to school programs and supporting music education association clinics, workshops, and reading sessions.

One particularly challenging area facing directors is recruitment – the more students they can bring in, the stronger their program will be. Retailers can assist by spending time trying to help directors become better recruiters, and pointing them towards tools and resources that educators can use to demonstrate the value of music education.

“It’s not just an alternative to playing basketball or running track; it has to be a part of every student’s education,” says Cranley, who cites NAMM’s Music Achievement Council and SupportMusic. com as two treasure troves of usable material. Cranley, who is himself a NAMM past chairman, often attends school or district gatherings involving people in the music and the arts. His goal at those events is to educate people on the efforts that industry groups have undertaken on behalf of school music initiatives, such as the annual NAMM advocacy fly-in in Washington DC. “They don’t all realize that there are groups fighting for them and that they can speak up for themselves,” he continues. “We can’t just sit back and say, ‘Well, if you want to rent an instrument, we have it here.’ We have to really go out and make people realize how important music is.”

“We just try to let them know that the industry is in their corner when it comes to advocacy and advocating for music education,” agrees Supinie. While these activities can take up a lot of time, they are essential to maintaining a healthy partnership with school music programs. “It’s just all part and parcel with the services that we provide. We just very much try to live support for music education in how we interact with the community and the activities and organizations that we support in our local and regional community. We make it part of who we are.”

Even for retailers who aren’t heavily involved in the school market, nurturing these relationships can be pay off long-term. While the Santa Fe Public School District in New Mexico purchases instruments for its students from out of state, Santa Fe music store The Candyman Strings & Things still gets involved in some of the back-to-school events.

“We host the public school music department’s new school year kickoff meeting and training, and give all the teachers a gift card to our store to help with school room supplies,” says co-owner Cindy Cook. “We also give them a nice food and beverage reception at our store after hours, so they can mix and mingle after their training.” In addition to being supportive of local school programs, these events position The Candyman Strings & Things as a go-to spot for students in need of accessories and music all year long.

Back to School Prep

While it’s easy enough to say that back to school events are a full-year endeavor, different retailers take different approaches as to when they start their planning and when they begin taking action.

The folks at Willis Music begin their preparations in December. Cranley says that’s when his team has an annual planning meeting where they lay out the steps. The objective is to make sure that when July 1 rolls around, everything is ready – from product to road crew to the stores. They pore through the history of what’s worked and what hasn’t from a sales perspective, and they also spend a lot time going over each of the area districts and the schools, looking for opportunities and areas that might need some bolstering. “We bring in our road reps, who have all been with us a while, and we lay out what our goals are for the year,” he says. “We try to identify where we can help grow programs and where we can get into new programs. We have it all spelled out.”

At Senseney Music, Lori Supinie takes more of a rolling approach to planning, keeping notes throughout the year about what has worked and what they want to change. The action, she says, starts in late spring. “In May, we get serious about anything we want to change or tweak with our program, rental rates, and so on, and then we start getting the brochure and agreements printed. Everything needs to be ready to go by the middle of July.”

Trends in the School Market

All retailers need to stay current with the latest tools for marketing to, learning about, and communicating with their customers. In the school music segment, that also means keeping an eye on the latest technologies that band and orchestra directors are using to manage their programs, including teaching tools.

“Band directors are always very interested in new technology and new ways of teaching,” Supinie says. “Recording their groups is big, as are teaching through apps and that sort of thing. We’ve had clinics on apps for band directors at our band director workshops.”

Beyond new ways of teaching, educators, like everyone else, are also constantly utilizing new tools in how they communicate. “Communications methods have changed so dramatically,” says Cranley. “It’s important to stay up to date on that. We’ve really upped our game on the technology side of online rentals.” Willis Music converted to the AIMsi system several years ago, and Cranley says that that has been a great tool for communicating with the customer. “However,” he cautions, “with directors, you communicate with them however they like, whenever they want. You can’t force your preferred method on anyone.” The other game changer for Cranley and his team is social media, which has blown open the doors for how retailers can share information with and hear back from consumers.

No examination of trends in the school music market would be complete without mentioning school budgets. “I don’t think they’re going to return any time soon to where they were before the recession,” says Supinie. “We just have to adjust inventory and work with the educators as best we can to have quality products, affordable services, and help them make their budget dollars go as far as we can.”

While budgetary pressures in education vary state by state, the biggest concern for Joel Menchey of Menchey Music Services, which has seven stores in Pennsylvania and Maryland, is not so much about the cuts impacting school purchases, but the potential weakening of programs. “A teacher might retire from a system, and then not be replaced,” Menchey says. “That spreads the workload over fewer teachers. We have had several strong programs that have learned to live with two or three fewer bodies on the teaching staff, and it’s a major concern because while those programs might not go away, the kids aren’t getting the same learning time that they would have gotten with more teachers on staff.”

However, when program cuts are on the table, there is a crucial opportunity for local music stores to step in and offer assistance. “We always try to get involved and be good advocates” when we hear about that happening, says Menchey. “We have helped several schools weather those storms successfully. We’ve acted as a liaison in getting the parents involved, so they can voice their opinion on the value of music education.”

Whether a retail outfit is fully invested in the school rental market with full-service repair, road reps and a slew of customizable offerings or is simply trying to tap into a young customer base for accessories and literature, there is ample opportunity, as long as you keep in mind that you get what you give. Educators are looking for support first – prove your mettle and the business will follow. It’s with this in mind that Willis Music employs a full-time music education specialist. As Kevin Cranley puts it, “We can’t give up teaching people the joy of playing music. And we can’t just be selling product.”