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Music lessons guru Pete Gamber and Hal Leonard’s Dave Cywinski teamed up at The NAMM Show to illustrate the power of marrying music lessons with sales. They shared valuable retail and music publisher insights that got retailers thinking about the easy link between lessons and print music sales. So how do you create profitable sales with your lesson program and print music? Here are a few key tips: Sell print music with your lessons. “You’re so happy to have students coming in to take lessons, you often don’t sell them anything,“ Gamber said. Tell your students exactly what books t

Sure, there are marketing resources out there for businesses like yours, but you don’t know where to start and what exactly to do. Plus, people are still worrying about the economy and things haven't really gotten that much better it seems. Join Jeff Mozingo as he delivers some thought-provoking marketing ideas and talks about what he and his staff have done to bring people to his store and create awareness in their market about what they do. Jeff will touch on questions you may want to consider—is your store appealing, what's the vibe and mood of your store, and a hot button to a

Middle C Music’s Myrna Sislen, who received NAMM’s 2014 Top 100 Dealer for Best Special Event, knows a thing or two about making her store the local mecca for students of all ages. During this session at The NAMM Show, she shared her experiences with adult music lesson students—and her first-time foray into Groupon. (Note: Groupon is a deal-of-the-day website that features discounted gift certificates to local and national companies for services and products.) The upsurge of adult lesson students. Although Sislen didn’t set out with a marketing plan to bring in adult students, she

Frank Alkyer, Publisher, Music Inc., This session’s panelists included: • Gayle Beacock, co-owner, Beacock Music, Vancouver, Wash. • Victor Salazar, owner, Vic’s Drum Shop, Chicago • Stephen Fortner, editor, Keyboard Magazine, San Bruno, Calif. • Tim Pratt, co-owner, Dietze Music, with four locations in Nebraska • Jonathan Lipp, owner, Full Compass, Madison, Wis. • Chris Basile, owner, South Jersey Music, Sewell, N.J., and vice president of Independent Music Store Owners From a bird’s eye view, the NAMM Show is both spectacular and overwhelming—thousands of products displayed by

Marketing tools and technologies are constantly emerging and changing. This session shows you where to invest, what to test and when to let-it-rest when it comes to marketing to your customers. Learn the best ways to spend your time and money—and recognize the new technologies that are less likely to pay off. Learn how to use tools like social media, search marketing, mobile devices and marketing locally on the Internet—and how not to invest where you won’t get results. Get savvier and make your marketing efforts count by attending this session and taking away today’s most effecti

David Meerman Scott, Marketing Strategist and Bestselling Author of "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" and "Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead" Wake up—it’s revolution time! Gone are the days when you could plan out your marketing and public relations programs well in advance and release them on your timetable. It’s a real-time world now, and if you’re not engaged, then you’re on your way to marketplace irrelevance. Real-time means news breaks over minutes, not days. It means ideas percolate, then suddenly and unpredictably go viral to a global audience. It's when companies

Donovan Bankhead is back with his brilliant session from Nashville that got rave reviews from attendees! His organization methods are a must-try, especially in our music products industry, where it’s no surprise that many of us fall into a creative category. As easy as it is to categorize ourselves, the same can’t always be said for our files. If your organizational system involves neatly stacked piles of paperwork all over your desk, then this session is for you. Getting Things Done (GTD) is a simple and effective system that anyone can utilize and learn. Gone are the days where

Is your store over-inventoried with too much of last year’s “hot product”? Do you know what emerging trends will determine this year’s “must-have” products? How can you forecast the “new best sellers” and also know when hot products start to cool down-before you place your next Purchase Order? Learn to watch for emerging trends “from the Bottom Up!” Engage your customers and listen to what they are saying. What bands are your customers listening to? What videos are your customers watching on YouTube? What are your customers talking about? This is “bottom up trending”—and if you pa

Marketing 101 says the best customer is the one you already have. Every fall, a gush of new customers tumble right into our laps during rental season. And, every fall, we provide them with their instruments and supplies—and that’s it. Other than a few reeds or bottles of valve oil during the year, we may not see these customers again until June, if they return their instrument. But, with even the slightest marketing effort, these customers can become your most profitable customers. Join Liz Reisman as she shares how to make a new customer a good customer and a customer for life! L

Before starting their store in the mid-1960s, Lauren Haas Amanfoh's grandfather went to his childhood music store and asked the owners how they survived the Great Depression. With their advice, he set up the business model that Royalton Music Center still uses today—through good times and tough times, Royalton has survived and thrived. More recently, it has adjusted to today's economy and boosted lessons, rentals and sales—at a time when many retailers are closing their doors. Lauren discusses several factors she attributes to her company's recent success: proven methods to bring

Want to attract more customers to your store? Want the customers who do visit your store to purchase more products? Want to accomplish this without spending money? Learn how to effectively merchandise your store to attract your customer’s attention, interest and desire to own the products that you offer. Tracy Leenman will demonstrate how to improve your SAF (syle, arts, fashion) quotient to improve your cross-selling and add-on sales opportunities. By making your store more appealing to your core customers, you’ll encourage them to spend more money with you on each visit.

Want to attract more customers to your store? Want the customers who do visit your store to purchase more products? Want to accomplish this without spending money? Learn how to effectively merchandise your store to attract your customer’s attention, interest and desire to own the products that you offer. Tracy Leenman will demonstrate how to improve your SAF (syle, arts, fashion) quotient to improve your cross-selling and add-on sales opportunities. By making your store more appealing to your core customers, you’ll encourage them to spend more money with you on each visit.