The Summer of 2011 has quickly passed. The Kansas City Vocal Institute underwent a brief internet marketing change with Google, and since has grown its internet base. With the new school year underway and with the tough economic conditions, the Institute has experienced slow membership growth. To combat this, we have integrated some easy access abilities with our website. First, one may be able to enroll or contact us using any wifi or portable/cell phone device. Second, a "click to find a teacher" button has been added to the main structure of the site. This will enable potential students to quickly and easily find a teacher or to see what teachers are available at the current moment. Once someone selects the button and sends us a quick message using the form, they will receive a response within 24 hours. Already, it has proven very useful in an ever more difficult and competitive environment.
Our internet presence is still large, now linking to over 12.7 million internet sites, but we have suffered from the recent marketing change. This has led to a loss of over 3 million links. However, as of today, we have relaunched our Google Places advertising and will be a growing presence on the search engine, and hopefully will regain our previous stature. Therefore, we will continue our internet presence campaign as well as a marketing plan that includes telephone operations among other technologies - all of which has been created without spending one penny.
Our main objective for this fall will be to restart our celebrity auction again scheduled for this December. Last year we were able to start several scholarship funds from the donations we received and through auction results. These scholarships include the Maya Angelou Music Scholarship, William Bolcom Music Scholarship, Betty Buckley Music Scholarship, David Cook Music Scholarship, Tenzin Gyatso Music Scholarship, Melissa Etheridge Music Scholarship, Stephen Flaherty Music Scholarship, Marilyn Horne Music Scholarship, James Horner Music Scholarship, Angelina Jolie Music Scholarship, Beth Krommes Music Scholarship, Morten Lauridsen Music Scholarship, Yo-Yo Ma Music Scholarship, Emily McCully Music Scholarship, Zubin Mehta Music Scholarship, Phyllis Naylor Music Scholarship, Randy Newman Music Scholarship, Stephen Sondheim Music Scholarship, Rebecca Stead Music Scholarship, Eric Whitacre Music Scholarship, Daryl Waters Music Scholarship, Tom Watson Music Scholarship, and John Williams Music Scholarship.
Again, we hope to receive more donations, further strengthen these scholarship funds, and to expand our base of donors and celebrity donors. This helps to bring recognition to the Institute as well as increasing the willingness for donors to bid on auction items, with the proceeds going toward a child's music education. If you have people or celebrities in mind that you would like the Institute to approach about their involvement with our auction, please let us know by emailing us at info@kcvocalinstitute.com.
