Posts Tagged ‘referral marketing’

The Prize is for The Person Who Does Things All the Way

In previous articles I discussed the importance of taking the “marketing base” approach to executing your monthly marketing plan. If we apply Pareto’s principle (the so-called “80/20 Rule”) to our marketing, we can assume that 80% of our results will come from 20% of our effort and activities.

Now, all we have to figure out is where to invest that first 20% of our time, money, and effort.

Fortunately for you, I’ve already done all the trial and error for you. So, you don’t need to waste months on end and thousands of dollars to figure out which marketing methods work best. For the present-day business environment, your highest-ROI (return on investment) marketing activities are: Read the rest of this entry »

When small business owners think about low-cost martial arts marketing ideas, they usually picture themselves running around a Wal-Mart parking lot placing fliers on cars (actually, sticky notes work better and are faster, but that’s for another article…), or perhaps walking up and down the side of the road in a gorilla suit with a sandwich sign over their shoulders (I actually saw a local martial arts school that did this – and yes, the gorilla was wearing a uniform).

However, as a martial arts instructor, your best low-cost form of advertisement is word-of-mouth. The thing is, sometimes you need to encourage your students to talk about your school. Guest pass programs are one way to do this; another method that has worked quite well for me in the past is to host Bring-A-Buddy nights a couple of times a year – during back-to-school time, in January, and right before school lets out for summer.

Basically, here’s how it works: 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 »