The Harpenden based musical education centre, Musicale, utilized the Dor-2-Dor marketing system to ensure it became fully established. Gill Johnston, Founder of Musicale described the centre saying, “Our aim is to infuse children to enjoy music making, and provide musical experiences and enjoyment for anyone from 3 months to 90 years old. Babies and Toddlers go to Monkey Music. We also provide one to one music lessons for individuals of all ages, and more recently we started Musicale Holidays around the country and summer music courses for five to eighteen year olds.”
With the help of Dor-2-Dor, Musicale marketed to around 16,000 households in the areas of Harpenden, Wheathampstead and Redbourn. They also had some other distributions to towns where they were hosting the Musicale Holidays. Each campaign was to approximately 20,000 dwellings. The delivery took place over a 2/3 week period and they have a fairly flexible arrangement. Johnston describes her marketing materials as a range of varying sizes and colours, all of which have proven to be successful. “Now we tend to use the simpler two colour A5 leaflet which offers a free introductory session .We raise awareness of Monkey Music twice a year and Musicale Holidays as and when we need to.”
When interviewed, Gill Johnston explained how Musicale came to be a reality, stating, “In 1976 I started working as a private music teacher, teaching woodwind instruments in my front room to five budding young musicians. When my pupil number grew to 22, I hired a room at the local Methodist Church and from there it snowballed. The father of one of my young stars in the making funded me to apply for the Business Expansion Scheme and following this we grew to 1,000 pupils during the 1980s. In 1986 we rented the Bourne Concert Hall and when the lease came up for renewal in 1991, we were bought out. With the money we had Homecroft built, which is a centre dedicated to musical achievement.”
After seeking the involvement of Dor-2-Dor on their marketing campaigns, Musicale was more than impressed with the results. Gill Johnston told us, “We receive so many ‘phone calls after one of Jeff’s leaflet campaigns. Monkey Music is now well established and running at near full capacity. There are always fresh intakes as new babies are born. This year Jeff has been promoting our summer music courses. The service is absolutely brilliant and very efficient, and now it is the only marketing we do, other than directly with schools.”
The future for Musicale is still to be defined, but Johnston has a clear idea of where she would like to take the company. “We want to increase numbers for our summer music courses, and market our one-to-one tuition to a more varied audience. We have now started to promote ‘lets make a musical’ courses across the country for summer, and I very much hope DOR-2-DOR can be instrumental in helping us to achieve a good take up.”
