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Arthur Murray Las Vegas

Constant Contact Customer Since: 2003
List size: 660+
Open rate: 39%
Favorite feature: Reporting
Website: www.arthurmurraylasvegas.com

The Arthur Murray Dance Studio of Las Vegas has been teaching Las Vegans to Cha Cha and Tango for 22 years. Three years ago, franchise owner, Greg Darrough, and his wife and studio manager, Alisa McAffee, decided that it was time for their studio to have a presence on the web. Alisa, who handles marketing the business, invested time and energy into website creation and search optimization. During that time she and her husband also started shopping for an email marketing tool that would help them to communicate with their customers.

"We did our research. We considered investing in software, but found that it didn't have as many features. We also wondered if our mail would be delivered. We realized it was really more of a headache for us to deal with those issues on our own."

Alisa's timing was important. "When we first went online, we had just opened a second location. We were at a rocky point with the business. I honestly didn't know if we were going to make it through. The turning point was getting an online presence. That, combined with the email announcements, really helped to turn things around. We saw our revenue increase by 25% in the next quarter."

Alisa's 60-70% open rates show that her approach to email marketing is a smart one. "We used one of Constant Contact's tips to set up an interest group that was service-oriented. Instead of a newsletter that is just about our classes, we send one out about various dance events in Las Vegas. This way our current students feel that we are taking care of them, and the non-students are more likely to come to us when they do choose to sign up for lessons. This has really proven to be a fabulous strategy."

Alisa started her list three years ago with under 50 contacts and now has over 500. In the beginning she built it with the addresses of students and potential students. Now, thanks to forwarded newsletters and her website sign-up button, 75% of her list is non-students. "In the beginning we were only getting a few sign-ups a month and now, as more people are finding out about our dance events newsletter, we get five or six a week."

The current ballroom dance craze is keeping Alisa and Greg on their toes. They are experiencing an almost unmanageable number of inquiries. With Constant Contact, they have a great tool in place to communicate with all of those budding ballroom dancers!