Posts Tagged ‘Self Defense’

Marketing Martial Arts to Adults

This month's member ads can be found in the member's download area.

Most martial art school owners do a horrible job of marketing to adults… even the ones who offer programs geared toward the adult market.

The fact is, children’s martial arts has dominated the industry for so long, most of the industry has forgotten what it’s like to have a floor full of adults.

This, in turn, has led to instructors being out of touch with what the adult market wants. Further, even those school owners who focus on adult martial arts programs often get it wrong.

That’s because they are also out of touch with what the market wants, but for different reasons. These instructors are often so focused on what their needs and desires are, they forget or completely miss what the vast majority of people are looking for in a martial arts program.

So, the purpose of this month’s marketing tip is to review the basics of marketing martial arts to adults… read on and you might very well find you’ve been missing the mark in your own marketing efforts.

The Basics of Marketing Martial Arts to Adults

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Classes Getting Stale? Here’s How To Shake Your Classes Up And Boost Your Retention…

This is the last thing you want to see when you look out on your training floor...

One of the most damaging things that can happen to your retention is for your classes to get stale and boring. Once students start to feel like they:

• Aren’t being challenged…
• Are doing the same things, over and over again…
• Are spending more time helping newer students than learning new techniques…

They’ll be headed for the door and canceling their memberships when their time is up – I guarantee it.

And, be advised – the holidays are right around the corner, making this a prime time of the year for people to cancel memberships and drop out. For one, they start looking for ways to cut expenses this time of year so they can afford to buy gifts and travel; second, when those credit card bills come due in January, they have even more incentive to cut out luxury expenses.

Remember, it’s your job as an instructor to keep your students motivated and your classes exciting. Keep them happy, and they won’t even consider quitting to save a few bucks.

Here’s how you can make sure your students stay motivated, challenged, and excited about coming to class:
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Easy Ways To Implement An Added-Value Membership Program

Weapons training is an excellent training theme for a black belt club program.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, upgrade programs fill a vital need in the program offerings in most successful martial arts schools.

For students, they provide increased training opportunities they would not normally get in regular classes. And, for school owners they represent an opportunity for increased income and improved customer service.

Whether you call your membership upgrade a “black belt club”, an “elite membership”, a “gold level membership”, or some other nomenclature, the fact remains that having one available is a benefit for your students and your school as well.

If you’ve struggled with the concept of creating an added-value membership, I’m here to tell you that implementing one is as simple as offering “more” and charging a bit more for it.

So, here are 10 super-simple ideas for how to start a black belt club in your school: Read the rest of this entry »

Wanna’ Crush Your Competition?

Many times, the best way to crush your competition is to be as different as possible.

Crushing your competition right out of the gate is a hard thing to do…

Especially if you’re opening your school in a tough market with lots of competitors.

Even so, there is only one nearly surefire way I know of to crush your competitors…

And that’s to compete on a totally different playing field than the ones they are running their businesses on…

Here’s how you can do exactly that, and secure your school’s financial future by carving out a niche in your market that is uniquely yours and yours alone. 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 »

When most martial arts school owners think of special events, they probably envision Ninja Nights, sleepovers, and other lock-in type events for children. Rarely, however, do such school owners consider hosting special events for their adult students. The school owner may believe that their adult students are too busy or too broke to attend such an event, or that they have to bring in a “big-name” martial artist to teach in order to get anyone to come. And, we all know how much those “name” martial artists charge for their services (and rightly so; they have bills Read the rest of this entry »