School of Rock Partners With Yext to Engage Local Customers and Increase Search Visibility

An education and entertainment company with over 200 franchise locations worldwide, School of Rock offers a unique performance-based approach to music instruction. Its students get to perform live at true rock shows in authentic and legendary music venues, as well as at popular music festivals such as Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits. School of Rock runs 2,500 shows each year and employs 3,000 musicians as teachers and music directors in its schools. "We are a significant employer of artists in the United States," says Dzana Homan, CEO. As an international brand, School of Rock leverages Yext to keep its people and parts connected and harmonized. "Whether it's our parents, or families, or artist-teachers, everybody in our network is hyper-astute when it comes to technology – they are constantly aware, plugged in, and active," explains Homan.

"As an entertainment company, we are dedicated to our local, regional, national, and international communities. We engage with them to create incredible events with kids and artists," says Homan. While School of Rock owns the brand, its franchisees make the brand successful. "As a franchise company spanning 32 states and 9 countries, technology really is the backbone that is critical in helping us stay connected, communicate effectively, and remain true to our mission," explains Homan. She notes, "67% of our site visitors are using a mobile device. It is no longer a PC world, so we seek out platforms that are mobile-ready. "One of the reasons we partnered with Yext is its savvy and focus on mobile search and how that plays into today's uber-connected world."

School of Rock uses Yext to manage the public facts about its brand. Yext enables brands like School of Rock to update and maintain important details across their websites, mobile apps, internal systems, and the entire Publisher Network — more than 150 maps, apps, search engines, GPS systems, and social networks including Google, Apple, Facebook, Bing, and Yahoo.

"A brand's discoverability in local search has a huge impact on its SEO rankings, and therefore, its visibility," notes Homan. For a music-education company that offers students the rare and exciting opportunity to perform live at authentic venues, achieving high visibility in both branded and unbranded local searches is imperative to ensuring its unique offering stands out and attracts new customers.

Homan has embedded Yext into School of Rock's marketing approach not just at the corporate level but also at the local franchisee level. School of Rock prides itself on an ethos of local franchisee empowerment, granting each franchise business a significant amount of control over the management and success of its individual school location. Yext allows for flexibility and deep customization of access controls. "We empower every single franchisee with a login and then training on Yext," says Homan.

Significant increases in online engagement and inbound leads are among the impressive results Homan and her team have seen since launching with Yext. "When you think of our year over year growth, which is ~20%, and there is a 30% growth of internet-related leads to School of Rock since using the platform, the power of Yext is clear," says Homan. "That sort of company growth and that amount of increased leads is driven by a great, creative, and superior platform. We are seeing substantial impact on the bottom line since making Yext part of our systematic approach to being visible and present online, and then taking that visibility to the next level to enhance our local engagement and grow our business." Homan sums up, "Yext provides the proper infrastructure for us to be visible — and for leads to flow through our system."

Homan values Yext for more than clicks and leads, though. "Yext is visionary with technology," she says. "I am dedicated to organizations that see the future. Beyond having powerful technology, Yext has the vision and values to grow with School of Rock's expanding business, which makes our partnership with Yext something of a no-brainer. How Yext works with its customers is important to me as a CEO. Business is about relationships, people, and values — and Yext has exceeded my expectations on all three fronts." Homan also lauds her dedicated Yext team's perseverance and commitment to doing whatever it takes to meet School of Rock's needs. "We had some serious deadlines, brutal deadlines, and we asked a lot from Yext. And they always delivered. I really respect partners that have that sort of commitment." I never got a 'No' when pushing the envelope with new things we wanted to try with Yext. Rather I got an, 'Okay, let's see what we can do for you."