On the back of a surge in youngsters wanting to learn ballet in South Wales, one well-established ballet school in Swansea has invested in a bespoke web platform that has allowed it to roll-out its brand as a franchise to keep pace with rapid growth.
Tiny Toes Ballet, was established in 2011 by Emma Morgan, a professionally trained classical ballet dancer, who wanted to help babies and toddlers from as young as 6-months’ old enjoy the captivating world of music and educational movement offered by ballet. The programme is integrated with the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum.
But the growth of the business has exceeded Emma’s expectations and already grown beyond her personal ability to manage the demand for classes. Her solution was to trial the roll out of three franchises, which currently cover Abergavenny & East Newport, Neath and Llanelli.
This was made possible with the help of Swansea-based Copper Bay Creative, a full service agency offering a wide spectrum of creative services including graphic design, website development and design, printing, promotional products, social media, online marketing as well as web and mobile based applications.
Copper Bay Creative helped Tiny Toes Ballet on many fronts but, most importantly, developed an interactive and highly flexible booking and payment system that can be easily adapted and rolled out for franchisees.
Emma Morgan, founder and director of Tiny Toes, said:
I have been thrilled with the growth of the business and this new franchise system will allow us to grow and take things to the next level very quickly now. But I knew that for this to work smoothly, I needed the right solution when it came to the online side.
I had spoken to several companies across the UK to help with digitizing all of the bookings and the online management system, but I chose Ben from Copper Bay Creative, because they are a local company with a good reputation. The team has made it so much easier for us at Tiny Toes with the online booking and management system they built.
We pride ourselves on being personable and spending quality face-to-face time with people, which the old systems and reams of paperwork were obstructing. Now everything is online. I can access the details for all of our 700+ pupils, send texts, and emails to people at the click of a button.
Many businesses would say that rapidly growing your company and creating an online booking system would make you less personable. However our online booking and management system has ensured that, instead of spending many more countless hours sorting out payments and booking forms as the company has grown, our personal approach has been maintained. It has been complimentary to what we do here.
Ben Wheeler, director of Copper Bay Creative, said:
It is really good to hear that the new online booking form for Tiny Toes is working, and making things a lot easier for Emma and the team. All too often, businesses stick to hard copies when booking business, and it takes up a lot of time that could be spent with clients.
The booking system we built for Tiny Toes allows them to spend quality time with the children, and it makes it easier to manage the vast amount of pupils that attend classes there. It has been great working with Emma, and I hope we can continue to work together in the future.”
Tiny toes franchises are now available across the UK, which Copper Bay Creative have created the digital brochures for. BBC 2 will also start filming with the school in September to showcase how it integrates Classical Ballet with the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum.
