Happy Friday Five! Welcome back to your monthly recap of industry-related news, tips, or feature updates that are sure to help you and your gym, swim school, dance studio, or music school.
With the recent release of our 2022 Industry Benchmark Report, there’s no better topic to discuss than the five key findings found when analyzing three years’ worth of data from over 8,000 youth activity centers from around the world.
5 key findings from Jackrabbit’s 2022 Industry Benchmark Report
1. Increase in enrollment
It’s no surprise that average enrollment across industries took a dip in 2020 but when looking at the data, enrollment increased in 2021 and surpassed pre-pandemic levels. Not only was it impressive to see enrollment meet or surpass the benchmark from 2019, classes with waitlists increased by over 4,000%. If that doesn’t show growth, I don’t know what does!
Kudos to all of you for pushing through the hard times and making the best out of a situation that none of us could control.
2. Additional revenue streams
With class size and availability being limited for the majority of 2020 and into last year, we saw all of our industries add tools to make sure customers stayed engaged with their facility.
Communication is a staple at every gym, swim school, dance studio and music school. And it’s not necessarily a secret that parents have a hard time keeping up with emails. That’s why a lot of Jackrabbit clients chose to engage with customers through push notifications by upgrading to Jackrabbit Plus. Along the way, they noticed communication open rates were 7 times higher than that of email. When you can promote new class offerings, special events and retail promotions via push notifications that are being opened, you’re opening your business up to additional revenue.
Another interesting way youth activity centers created additional revenue streams was through the addition of live-streaming classes. At a time when being in the building to watch their child in class wasn’t always possible, Spot TV helped over 3,000 family members stay connected each month to programs in our industries. That’s not only incredible but those moments you gave families are absolutely priceless.
(—> Learn more about Jackrabbit’s ecosystem of integration partners here)
3. New program offerings
Whether it’s a special event or extending the option to make up a class, our industries stepped up to the plate with new program offerings ready for families to take advantage of.
Believe it or not, 2020 and 2021 saw more events created in Jackrabbit, despite the setback seen in regularly scheduled classes. That means owners like yourself were creative in supplementing classes and ensuring the bottom line didn’t drop too low.
Makeup classes aren’t for every youth activity center but sometimes giving parents the option is just the kind of goodwill that will keep families coming back year after year. From the data we looked at across Jackrabbit clients, 64% of absences had a corresponding makeup class scheduled. Seeing that parents like the benefit of making up a class when they can’t attend show that they find value in your program.
Looking for class management software to help you offer new programs and benefits to keep families connected and happy? Look no further – Jackrabbit is ready to partner alongside you!
4. Rise in tuition fees
Raising prices is usually one of the least favorite topics. Balancing the need to cover your experience and realize a profit while also keeping customers happy can feel impossible at times. At the end of the day, parents are more understanding of price increases than we expect.
Over the last two years, tuition rates on average were raised by 13%. With added benefits to classes we mentioned earlier, it’s much easier to justify the need to raise prices and stay competitive in the market, while covering expenses and making a profit. Discover the average price per class for your size business by downloading the report!
5. Empowering staff
Empowering and enabling staff has definitely been a theme over the last couple of years as staff were required to wear more hats and take on new responsibilities. Making it easy for staff to show initiative and step up also allowed clients to take advantage of the power of the staff time clock in Jackrabbit. Departments with different pay rates made it easy to compensate staff based on the hours worked and the responsibility they carried.
As more staff came on board to cover any scheduling issues, managing staff and payroll was much easier for owners because they were able to empower their team members more than before.
When analyzing the data to get to the key findings above, we certainly saw our clients set a high standard for the industry and how it’s evolved. The 2022 Industry Benchmark Report includes more details on these key findings, as well as trends and insight you’re sure to get inspiration from.
Download your copy today
