Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

The first time I gave out a guest pass for free karate lessons at my school, you would have thought I was giving away my firstborn child. At that time, I couldn’t see the economic value of giving away one week of lessons in exchange for possibly gaining a new student.

Well, my view on that issue has changed over the years and now I gladly give out free passes all the time. Why? Well, let’s do the math: Read the rest of this entry »

The biggest challenge new and established school owners face is getting new students. The thing most martial arts instructors fail to realize is that, once they open their doors, they are no longer just in the business of teaching martial arts. Now that they’ve decided to open a studio, they have an added responsibility to keep their doors open by attracting new business.

Although many instructors fail miserably in their marketing efforts, it’s often more due to a lack of planning than a pure lack of marketing know-how. Instead of going over the basics of marketing (you can read that by picking up any good marketing book), instead I am going to tell you how to plan your efforts so you get the most from your hard work and money. Here’s how: Read the rest of this entry »

Although most of the martial arts school owners and instructors I have coached don’t want to have a huge mega-studio, many of us would like to earn a comfortable living teaching between 150 and 200 students. While for some that may seem like an easy goal, for many others reaching 150 students seems near impossible.

The biggest hurdle to most school owners in hitting their enrollment goals is that they tend to look at different aspects of their business in isolated terms. Over here we have “curriculum”, here we have “advertising”, here we have “retention”, here is “billing”, then there’s “scheduling”, “pricing”, etc.

The problem with this is that it leads to a skewed sort of thinking – that is to say, you start to think that one part of your operations won’t affect the whole. And that can be hazardous to achieving your goal of having a small, profitable studio.

Let me explain… Read the rest of this entry »

For many martial arts instructors, teaching children is just not something that they care to do. For whatever reason, they would prefer to spend their time teaching adults, and would rather avoid opening their classes to kids.

Well, despite what you may have been told, making a living running an “all-adult” martial arts school is very do-able; in fact, I know of one martial arts studio in a small town near me that has over 300 adult students.

Another long-time school owner I know decided that he enjoyed teaching adults more than kids, even though his main market had been children for 15 years. So, he developed a marketing approach that was geared specifically for adults, and went from less than ten adults to nearly 40 adult students in a few months time.

His style? Traditional tae kwon do. I think that proves you don’t have to teach MMA or military hand-to-hand to attract adults; you just have to know how to find the adults that want what you teach.

But how are you going to attract that type of adult into your classes? By offering them what they want!

Generally speaking, adults enter martial arts classes for two main reasons:

1. To lose weight and get in shape
2. And to learn realistic self-defense skills

The key is in attracting adults who have disposable income and the time to devote to martial arts training. The schools I mentioned have been very successful in this because their ads focus on giving adults what they want.

As you might guess, in order to attract the adult market you have to get the word out that your classes can provide those benefits.

Here’s a “mini-course” in marketing that explains exactly how to attract adult students to your classes: Read the rest of this entry »

One of the hardest things about starting a new studio is finding ways to market before you are making any profit. It’s a real catch-22; you know you need to market to attract students, but you don’t have much money to spend to do it. So what do you do?

Actually, there are a number of low-cost and moderate-cost methods you can use to attract new students. The first thing I would suggest is to Read the rest of this entry »

You know, it’s funny how martial artists think so differently from the majority of the people we meet, yet we’re rarely ever conscious of it. I’m reminded of how several years after we had been married, my wife told me that when we first met she thought martial arts instructors were for the most part a bunch of arrogant, self-centered yahoos (no wonder she didn’t want to talk to me the first night we met!) Seriously though, she was only half-joking when she said it. In fact, she went on to explain that when we met she Read the rest of this entry »

After operating various martial arts schools and programs for over fifteen years, one thing that I have learned is that my students are my best advertisement.

What I mean to say by that is, I get more people that call or stop by to join classes who say they heard about us from “a friend” than I generally get from paid advertisements.

That tells me that my students say positive things about the school (which really makes me happy). And, if you are offering a quality program and treating your students right, you’ll likely get quite a bit of new students from referrals as well.

In fact, referrals can end up being your number one source of new students. And once you start getting them, you don’t want them to stop!

So, in order to encourage referrals, it’s a very good idea to offer a referral incentive program in your studio. We’ve used one for years that has worked very well for us.

Here’s how it works: Read the rest of this entry »

Back when I used to get “canned” ads from various consultation companies and industry associations, before I would ever run an ad I would always modify it to maximize my response rates. After a while I decided “enough was enough” and just started creating my own ads.

By creating my own ads, I was able to focus my ad on my local market, and personalize it so that after a while people immediately knew my ads on sight. (Incidentally, it sucks when you accidentally run the same ad as your competitor – that’s why I prefer to create my own ads.)

Here are some tips to either modify your ready-made ads or to create your own ads from scratch: Read the rest of this entry »

Lead boxes are a good means of getting new students – if you work them right. Here are the pros and cons of using lead boxes, and some suggestions on how to use them effectively:

Cons – Read the rest of this entry »

As a martial arts school owner, you have a million things on your mind. Student recruitment, testing, curriculum, overhead – the list goes on and on. The last thing you’re probably worried about is your website. However, more and more consumers are going online every day to research products and services before they buy. And, many of these consumers are doing their buying research after hours, when you aren’t open. For such consumers the internet is the primary way they research their buying decisions. Consider the fact that over 200 million searches are done Read the rest of this entry »